Blest be those feasts, with simple plenty crowned, Where all the ruddy family around Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale.
Fine declamation does not consist in flowery periods, delicate allusions of musical cadences, but in a plain, open, loose style, where the periods are long and obvious, where the same thought is often exhibited in several points of view.
This is that eloquence the ancients represented as lightning, bearing down every opposer; this the power which has turned whole assemblies into astonishment, admiration and awe- – that is described by the torrent, the flame, and every other instance of irresistible impetuosity.
I hate the French because they are all slaves and wear wooden shoes.
Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.
What if in Scotland’s wilds we viel’d our head, Where tempests whistle round the sordid bed; Where the rug’s two-fold use we might display, By night a blanket, and a plaid by day.
In arguing one should meet serious pleading with humor, and humor with serious pleading.
I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too. No, sir, these, I protest you, are too hard for me.
There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher. Fontenelle says he would undertake to persuade the whole public of readers to believe that the sun was neither the cause of light or heat, if he could only get six philosophers on his side.
The jests of the rich are ever successful.
True genius walks along a line, and, perhaps, our greatest pleasure is in seeing it so often near falling, without being ever actually down.
If we do not find happiness in the present moment, in what shall we find it?
That virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarce worth the sentinel.
Hope, like the gleaming taper.
Logicians have but ill defined As rational the human mind; Reason, they say, belongs to man, But let them prove it if they can.
I always get the better when I argue alone.
They please, are pleas’d, they give to get esteem Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.
Thus ’tis with all; their chief and constant care Is to seem everything but what they are.
Amid thy desert-walks the lapwing flies, And tires their echoes with unvaried cries.
The volume of Nature is the book of knowledge.