For knowledge itself is power.
God almighty first planted a garden: and, indeed, it is the purest of human pleasure.
There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man’s self.
The serpent if it wants to become the dragon must eat itself.
Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
They that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.
Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.
Nothing does more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best, and scorns a guide.
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.
This ain’t fun. But you watch me, I’ll get it done.
Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.
The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a general effect of pleasing impression.
What we call education and culture is for the most part nothing but the substitution of reading for experience, of literature for life, of the obsolete fictitious for the contemporary real.
I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls.
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
I heartily accept the motto,That government is best which governs least; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.
Sense shines with a double luster when it is set in humility. An able yet humble man is a jewel worth a kingdom.
Necessity is the mother of taking chances.
A vow is a snare for sin.
Excessive literary production is a social offense.
