“Hung it on each side with curious organs of sense, given it airs and graces that cannot be described, and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light.”

There is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol.

There are infinite reveries, numberless extravagances, and a perpetual train of vanities which pass through both.

That aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her And imitates her actions where she is not: It is not to be sported with.

Honour’s a sacred tie, the law of kings, The noble mind’s distinguishing perfection

Honor’s a fine imaginary notion, that draws in raw and unexperienced men to real mischiefs.

Our delight in any particular study, art, or science rises and improves in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercise becomes at length an entertainment.

This not in mortals to command success, but we’ll do more, Sempronius, we’ll deserve it.

One of the most important but one of the most difficult things for a powerful mind is to be its own master.

In private conversation between intimate friends, the wisest men very often talk like the weakest : for indeed the talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud.

Music, the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have hear below.

Silence is sometimes more significant and sublime than the most noble and most expressive eloquence, and is on many occasions the indication of a great mind.

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life’s pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.

There is not a more pleasing exercise of the mind than gratitude. It is accompanied with such an inward satisfaction that the duty is sufficiently rewarded by the performance

it would generally be found that he had suffered more from the apprehension of such evils as never happened to him than from those evils which had really befallen him.

I never knew an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his earnings and strictly honest, who complained of hard luck.

It is difficult to speak adequately or justly of London. It is not a pleasant place; it is not agreeable, or cheerful, or easy, or exempt from reproach. It is only magnificent.

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.

A sadder but wiser man is a thousand times more agreeable to meet than the feller that never makes a mistake.

I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable.

Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty – his excessive freedom.

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.

Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route.

The reason why so few people are agreeable in conversation is that each is thinking more about what he intends to say than others are saying.