Life has been compared to a race, but the allusion improves by observing, that the most swift are usually the least manageable and the most likely to stray from the course. Great abilities have always been less serviceable to the possessors than moderate ones.
Careless their merits or their faults to scan, His pity gave ere charity began. Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, And even his failings lean'd to Virtue's side.
Unequal combinations are always disadvantageous to the weaker side.
When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray, what charm can soothe her melancholy, what art can wash her guilt away?
Turn, gentle Hermit of the Dale, And guide my lonely way To where yon taper cheers the vale With hospitable ray.
Whatever be the motives which induce men to write,--whether avarice or fame,--the country becomes more wise and happy in which they most serve for instructors.
The person whose clothes are extremely fine I am too apt to consider as not being possessed of any superiority of fortune, but resembling those Indians who are found to wear all the gold they have in the world in a bob at the nose.
I fancy the character of a poet is in every country the same,--fond of enjoying the present, careless of the future; his conversation that of a man of sense, his actions those of a fool.
Popular glory is a perfect coquette; her lovers must toil, feel every inquietude, indulge every caprice, and perhaps at last be jilted into the bargain. True glory, on the other hand, resembles a woman of sense; her admirers must play no tricks. They feel no great anxiety, for they are sure in the end of being rewarded in proportion to their merit.
There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher.
The heart of every man lies open to the shafts of correction if the archer can take proper aim.
The nakedness of the indigent world may be clothed from the trimmings of the vain.
Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, And the puff a dunce, he mistook it for fame; Till his relish grown callous, almost to displease, Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please.
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay. Princes and lords may flourish or may fade,- A breath can make them, as a breath has made; But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroy'd, can never be supplied.
Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, I see the lords of humankind pass by.
Let observation with observant view, Observe mankind from China to Peru.
There is probably no country so barbarous that would not disclose all it knew, if it received equivalent information; and I am apt to think that a person who was ready to give more knowledge than he received would be welcome wherever he came.
Though very poor, may still be very blest.
Want of prudence is too frequently the want of virtue.
Men may be very learned, and yet very miserable; it is easy to be a deep geometrician, or a sublime astronomer, but very difficult to be a good man. I esteem, therefore, the traveller who instructs the heart, but despise him who only indulges the imagination. A man who leaves home to mend himself and others, is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is only a vagabond.
Those who place their affections at first on trifles for amusement, will find these trifles become at last their most serious concerns.
In a polite age almost every person becomes a reader, and receives more instruction from the Press than the Pulpit.
Wit generally succeeds more from being happily addressed than from its native poignancy. A jest, calculated to spread at a gaming-table, may be received with, perfect indifference should it happen to drop in a mackerel-boat.
How blest is he who crowns in shades like these A youth of labour with an age of ease!
Titles and mottoes to books are like escutcheons and dignities in the hands of a king. The wise sometimes condescend to accept of them; but none but a fool would imagine them of any real importance. We ought to depend upon intrinsic merit, and not the slender helps of the title.
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