Life is a continued struggle to be what we are not, and to do what we cannot.
An orator can hardly get beyond commonplaces: if he does he gets beyond his hearers.
Human life may be regarded as a succession of frontispieces. The way to be satisfied is never to look back.
It is only necessary to raise a bugbear before the English imagination in order to govern it at will. Whatever they hate or fear, they implicitly believe in, merely from the scope it gives to these passions.
Belief is with them mechanical, voluntary: they believe what they are paid for – they swear to that which turns to account. Do you suppose, that after years spent in this manner, they have any feeling left answering to the difference between truth and falsehood?
He will never have true friends who is afraid of making enemies.
The truly proud man knows neither superiors or inferiors. The first he does not admit of – the last he does not concern himself about.
There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man.
There is no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice.
Reflection makes men cowards.
The art of pleasing consists in being pleased.
The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be constantly wound up.
A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one – they show one another off to the best advantage.
Hope is the best possession. None are completely wretched but those who are without hope. Few are reduced so low as that.
No one ever approaches perfection except by stealth, and unknown to themselves.
That which is not, shall never be; that which is, shall never cease to be. To the wise, these truths are self-evident.
Good temper is one of the greatest preservers of the features.
A scholar is like a book written in a dead language. It is not every one that can read in it.
Those who speak ill of the spiritual life, although they come and go by day, are like the smith’s bellows: they take breath but are not alive.
Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people’s weaknesses.