“Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.”

Law and equity are two things which God has joined, but which man has put asunder.

Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live.

There are both dull correctness and piquant carelessness; it is needless to say which will command the most readers and have the most influence.

He that is gone so far as to cut the claws of the lion, will not feel himself quite secure, until he has also drawn his teeth.

As that gallant can best affect a pretended passion for one woman who has no true love for another, so he that has no real esteem for any of the virtues can best assume the appearance of them all.

The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.

He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place.

Our minds are as different as our faces. We are all traveling to one destination: happiness, but few are going by the same road.

Discretion has been termed the better part of valour, and it is more certain, that diffidence is the better part of knowledge.

A society composed of none but the wicked could not exist; it contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction, and without a flood, would be swept away from the earth by the deluge of its own iniquity.

Wealth after all is a relative thing since he that has little and wants less is richer than he that has much and wants more.

To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet.

Great men, like comets, are eccentric in their courses, and formed to do extensive good by modes unintelligible to vulgar minds.

Deliberate with caution, but act with decision and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.

No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us. Our integrity is never worth so much as when we have parted with our all to keep it.

Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one, on which we must first erase.

Tis the perception of the beautiful, A fine extension of the faculties, Platonic, universal, wonderful, Drawn from the stars, and filtered through the skies, Without which life would be extremely dull

I think a man needs to be a man. To hold a woman the way she wants to be held. Just do whatever your woman wants, and you’ll be fine.

To establish in fine a relation with the criticized thing and to make it one’s own.

I have no idea where I want to go musically, but I’m fine that way. I don’t need to be faithful to any concept, you know.

I think it’s fine for girls to ask boys out. I actually prefer it.

Fine, large, meaningless, general terms like romance and business can always be related. They take the place of thinking, and are highly useful to optimists and lecturers.

I don’t think a lot of people are calling me to play doctors and lawyers, which is fine with me. I can put a suit on, but I don’t really like to.

It is a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test.