The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.
Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.
Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon; of loud noise, but little danger.
The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.
You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.
Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own.
To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.
Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.
Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.
Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.
Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.
There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.
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.
Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it; for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.
I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.
I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.
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.
I am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice.
The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.
So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.
It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.
Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.
A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
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.
Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and... the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.
To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.
There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.
When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live.
