There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.
The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.
Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.
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.
Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.
He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.
Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
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.
Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.
The future is purchased by the present.
I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him.
To love one that is great, is almost to be great one's self.
In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife he is always proud of himself as the source of it.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.
Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.
Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.
It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
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.
All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.
Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.
All theory is against freedom of the will all experience for it.
Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.
It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.
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.
Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.
Exercise is labor without weariness.
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.
No man was ever great by imitation.
Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.
A am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice.
The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.
The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef love, like being enlivened with champagne.
A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.
The true art of memory is the art of attention.
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.
To keep your secret is wisdom but to expect others to keep it is folly.
Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
The world is seldom what it seems to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.
The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.
You can't be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who's for you and who's against you.
Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich.