Every man has a right to utter what he thinks is truth and every other man has a right to knock him down for it.
We are convinced that happiness is never to be found and each believes it possessed by others to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.
Friendship is seldom lasting but between equals or where the superiority on one side is reduced by some equivalent advantage on the other.
No man is much pleased with a companion who does not increase in some respect his fondness of himself.
The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
Adversity leads us to think properly of our state and so is most beneficial to us.
Adversity has ever been considered as the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself being free from flatterers.
There is no problem the mind of man can set that the mind of man cannot solve.
Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire...
The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.
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.
All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.
It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.
Your manuscript is both good and original but the parts that are good are not original and the parts that are original are not good.
Read over your compositions and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine strike it out.
No mind is much employed upon the present recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments.
The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.
If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand no doubt we should pity the state of his mind but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him d...
The joy of life is variety the tenderest love requires to be renewed by intervals of absence.