Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
Samuel Johnson
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.
Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.
Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.
One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.
No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.
The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.
Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
Language is the dress of thought.
Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.
Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
Worth seeing? Yes; but not worth going to see.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.
The true art of memory is the art of attention.
If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.
He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.
Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.
A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.
Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.
It is better to live rich than to die rich.
No man was ever great by imitation.
Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.
There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.
Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.
He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.
Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.
The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.
Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.
Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own.
By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.
Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.
