Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law.
— Oliver Goldsmith
A man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is a vagabond.
Honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
I was ever of the opinion, that the honest man who married and brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single, and only talked of population.
Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse.
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting, 'Twas only when he was off, he was acting.
Ceremonies are different in every country, but true politeness is everywhere the same.
The best way to make your audience laugh is to start laughing yourself.
Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall.
Man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long.
You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.
Let schoolmasters puzzle their brain, With grammar, and nonsense, and learning, Good liquor, I stoutly maintain, Gives genius a better discerning.
Hope is such a bait, it covers any hook.
Life is a journey that must be traveled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.
As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent; whence must necessarily arise a desire of attaining knowledge with the greatest possible ease.
A great source of calamity lies in regret and anticipation; therefore a person is wise who thinks of the present alone, regardless of the past or future.
Girls like to be played with, and rumpled a little too, sometimes.
When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray, what charm can soothe her melancholy, what art can wash her guilt away?
All that a husband or wife really wants is to be pitied a little, praised a little, and appreciated a little.
I love everything that's old, - old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.
Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better.
If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.
Tenderness is a virtue.
Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.
Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.
People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.
The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.
Romance and novel paint beauty in colors more charming than nature, and describe a happiness that humans never taste. How deceptive and destructive are those pictures of consummate bliss!
The jests of the rich are ever successful.
Could a man live by it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a poet.
There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.
With disadvantages enough to bring him to humility, a Scotsman is one of the proudest things alive.
The company of fools may first make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy.
I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.
Pity and friendship are two passions incompatible with each other.
They say women and music should never be dated.
Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler virtues.
Surely the best way to meet the enemy is head on in the field and not wait till they plunder our very homes.
Be not affronted at a joke. If one throw salt at thee, thou wilt receive no harm, unless thou art raw.
Where wealth accumulates, men decay.
