Quotes to inspire and reflect

Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.

It might as well be said ‘Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.’

If a man were to go by chance at the same time with Burke under a shed, to shun a shower, he would say—‘this is an extraordinary man.’

When I observed he was a fine cat, saying,

The black dog I hope always to resist, and in time to drive, though I am deprived of almost all those that used to help me.

There is a wicked inclination in most people to suppose an old man decayed in his intellects. If a young or middle-aged man, when leaving a company, does not recollect where he laid his hat, it is nothing; but if the same inattention is discovered in an old man, people will shrug up their shoulders, and say, ‘His memory is going.’

Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

How few of his friends’ houses would a man choose to be at when he is sick.

Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.

We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich, beyond the dreams of avarice.

No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.

They are forced plants, raised in a hot-bed; and they are poor plants; they are but cucumbers after all.

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.

Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see.

Claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men; but he who aspires to be a hero (smiling) must drink brandy.

Were it not for imagination, Sir, a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a Duchess.

Sir, the insolence of wealth will creep out.

So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

Johnson had said that he could repeat a complete chapter of ‘The Natural History of Iceland’, from the Danish of Horrebow, the whole of which was exactly thus:—‘ CHAP. Lxxii. Concerning snakes. There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island.’

A country governed by a despot is an inverted cone.

Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.

All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.

Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.

If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.

BOSWELL : Sir, what is poetry?

There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.

A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see.

In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.

Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Fleet-street has a very animated appearance; but I think the full tide of human existence is at Charing-Cross.

A man will turn over half a library to make one book.

He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him great.

There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.

Every man has a lurking wish to appear considerable in his native place.

ELPHINSTON : What, have you not read it through?

The triumph of hope over experience.

That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.

Most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

Don’t, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.

I refute it thus.