“I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind.”

Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.

When all thy mercies, O my God, My rising soul surveys, Transported with the view I’m lost, in wonder, love and praise.

Nature in her whole drama never drew such a part; she has sometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of a man’s own making.

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.

When I wake up, I wake to something worse. It’s the astonishment of being myself.

Making it up? said Marvin, swivelling his head in a parody of astonishment, Why should I want to make anything up? Life’s bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it.

She is the crescendo, the final, astonishing work of God. Woman. In one last flourish creation comes to a finish with Eve. She is the Master’s finishing touch.

First move me, astonish me, break my heart, let me tremble, weep, stare, be enraged-only then regale my eyes.

It is astonishing how much more people are interested in lengthening life than improving it.

Since governments take the right of death over their people, it is not astonishing if the people should sometimes take the right of death over governments.

With an apple I will astonish Paris.

At the back of our brains is a blaze of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and spiritual life is to dig for this sunrise of wonder.