“If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.”

When I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves,

Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.

Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

Let freedom never perish in your hands.

The great difference is, that the first knows how to pick and cull his thoughts for conversation, by suppressing some, and communicating others; whereas the other lets them all indifferently fly out in words.

A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.

The voice of reason is more to be regarded than the bent of any present inclination; since inclination will at length come over to reason, though we can never force reason to comply with inclination.

The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas.

Were a man’s sorrows and disquietudes summed up at the end of his life.

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the human soul.

Content thyself to be obscurely good.

The utmost extent of man’s knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.

The most skillful flattery is to let a person talk on, and be a listener.

Nothing that isn’t a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency.

Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.

We need, men so possessed by the Spirit of God that God can think His thoughts through our minds.

Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort.

What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.

It’s as though either you accept [religious] doctrine and then you can have all the nice stuff, or you reject the doctrine and you’re living in some kind of spiritual wasteland under the guidance of CNN and Walmart.

Every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually possess.

A highly learned man has two sources of happiness: either he abandons all earthly interests, or else he possesses much which could be abandoned.

This is your court and you possess the force to celebrate the trial and convict me on the basis of your lists of accusations.

But I too possess a will obtained from the justice of our cause and the determination of our people to reject any decision from this ‘kangaroo court’.