He that will not permit his wealth to do any good for others ... cuts himself off from the truest pleasure here and the highest happiness later.
That cowardice is incorrigible which the love of power cannot overcome.
Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.
Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by others.
The man of pleasure by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be is often more miserable than most men.
Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.
To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author.
The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces, nor slander us behind our backs, nor intrude upon our privacy, nor quit their shelves until...
Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.
Men spend their lives in anticipation in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other-it is our own.... We may lay in a s...
True friendship is like sound health the value of it is seldom known until it be lost.
Physical courage which despises all danger will make a man brave in one way and moral courage which despises all opinion will make a man brave in another. The former would seem most necessary for...
Men will wrangle for religion write for it fight for it die for it anything but live for it.