“The two most precious things this side of the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other.”

True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.

Cruel men are the greatest lovers of Mercy, avaricious men of generosity, and proud men of humility; that is to say, in other, not in themselves.

Pure truth, like pure gold, has been found unfit for circulation because men have discovered that it is far more convenient to adulterate the truth than to refine themselves.

That which we acquire with the most difficulty we retain the longest; as those who have earned a fortune are usually more careful of it than those who have inherited one.

Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.

Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.

We are sure to be losers when we quarrel with ourselves; it is civil war.

He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool.

To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it: the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary.

It is curious that some learned dunces, because they can write nonsense in languages that are dead, should despise those that talk sense in languages that are living.

If you cannot inspire a woman with love of you, fill her above the brim with love of herself; all that runs over will be yours.

I have somewhere seen it observed that we should make the same use of a book that the bee does of a flower: she steals sweets from it, but does not injure it.

Butler compared the tongues of these eternal talkers to race-horses, which go the faster the less weight they carry.

There are three modes of bearing the ills of life; by indifference, which is the most common; by philosophy, which is the most ostentatious; and by religion, which is the most effectual.

Fortune, like other females, prefers a lover to a master, and submits with impatience to control; but he that wooes her with opportunity and importunity will seldom court her in vain.

The French have a saying that whatever excellence a man may exhibit in a public station he is very apt to be ridiculous in a private one.

‎The party that leans upon the workers but serves the bourgeoisie, in the period of the greatest sharpening of the class struggle, cannot but sense the smells wafted from the waiting grave.

Life was a funny thing that happened to me on the way to the grave.

Having been an actor and a writer for so long – 20 years or so – I felt that it would be daft to go to one’s grave without having directed. It’s a natural extension of writing and acting, and so I knew it would happen one day.

But only a brief moment is granted to the brave one breath or two, whose wage is the long nights of the grave.

Tombs are the clothes of the dead and a grave is a plain suit; while an expensive monument is one with embroidery.

History says, ‘Don’t hope on this side of the grave.’

One keeps forgetting old age up to the very brink of the grave.

Perhaps the only misplaced curiosity is that which persists in trying to find out here, on this side of death, what lies beyond the grave.