I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel – a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept.
He was persuaded he could know no happiness but in the society of one with whom he could for ever indulge the melancholy that had taken possession of his soul.
When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles.
Cunning is neither the consequence of sense, nor does it give sense. A proof that it is not sense, is that cunning people never imagine that others can see through them. It is the consequence of weakness.
The sure way of judging whether our first thoughts are judicious, is to sleep on them. If they appear of the same force the next morning as they did over night, and if good nature ratifies what good sense approves, we may be pretty sure we are in the right.
I sit with my toes in a brook, And if any one axes forwhy? I hits them a rap with my crook, For ’tis sentiment does it, says I.
Virtue knows to a farthing what it has lost by not having been vice.
One’s mind suffers only when one is young and while one is ignorant of the world. When one has lived for some time, one learns that the young think too little and the old too much, and one grows careless about both.
Old friends are the great blessings of one’s later years. Half a word conveys one’s meaning. They have a memory of the same events, have the same mode of thinking. I have young relations that may grow upon me, for my nature is affectionate, but can they grow To Be old friends?
History is a romance that is believed; romance, a history that is not believed.
Oh that I were seated as high as my ambition, I’d place my naked foot on the necks of monarchs.
The Methodists love your big sinners, as proper subjects to work upon.
I am persuaded that foolish writers and foolish readers are created for each other; and that fortune provides readers as she does mates for ugly women.
It amazes me when I hear any person prefer blindness to deafness. Such a person must have a terrible dread of being alone. Blindness makes one totally dependent on others, and deprives us of every satisfaction that results from light.
The curse of modern times is, that almost everything does create controversy.
It is difficult to divest one’s self of vanity; because impossible to divest one’s self of self-love.
Oh, we are ridiculous animals; and if the angels have any fun in them, how we must divert them!
This world is a comedy, not Life.
Without grace no book can live, and with it the poorest may have its life prolonged.
Art is the filigrain of a little mind, and is twisted and involved and curled, but would reach farther if laid out in a straight line.