If we wish to know the force of human genius, we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning, we may study his commentators.

He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others.

We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.

Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted.

The art of pleasing consists in being pleased.

Some one is generally sure to be the sufferer by a joke.

To be remembered after we are dead, is but poor recompense for being treated with contempt while we are living.

There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.

If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago.

The way to get on in the world is to be neither more nor less wise, neither better nor worse than your neighbours.

The most insignificant people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals. And have no hope of rising in their own self esteem but by lowering their neighbors.

To be happy, we must be true to nature and carry our age along with us.

As is our confidence, so is our capacity.

We are very much what others think of us. The reception our observations meet with gives us courage to proceed, or damps our efforts.

Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.

I like a friend the better for having faults that one can talk about.

Satirists gain the applause of others through fear, not through love.

Gracefulness has been defined to be the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul.

The dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.

Almost every sect of Christianity is a perversion of its essence, to accommodate it to the prejudices of the world.

A grave blockhead should always go about with a lively one - they show one another off to the best advantage.

Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity.

To get others to come into our ways of thinking, we must go over to theirs; and it is necessary to follow, in order to lead.

We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it.

It is not fit that every man should travel; it makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.

A nickname is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. It is a bugbear to the imagination, and, though we do not believe in it, it still haunts our apprehensions.

There are few things in which we deceive ourselves more than in the esteem we profess to entertain for our firends. It is little better than a piece of quackery. The truth is, we think of them as we please, that is, as they please or displease us.

Anyone who has passed though the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.

Zeal will do more than knowledge.

To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind.

Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, how little security have we when we trust our happiness in the hands of others!

The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature.

Those who speak ill of the spiritual life, although they come and go by day, are like the smith's bellows: they take breath but are not alive.

The seat of knowledge is in the head; of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do not feel right.

Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.

Good temper is one of the greatest preservers of the features.

Reflection makes men cowards.

To give a reason for anything is to breed a doubt of it.

Dandyism is a variety of genius.

The truly proud man knows neither superiors or inferiors. The first he does not admit of - the last he does not concern himself about.

The mind of man is like a clock that is always running down, and requires to be constantly wound up.

We do not see nature with our eyes, but with our understandings and our hearts.

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves.

Rules and models destroy genius and art.

There is no prejudice so strong as that which arises from a fancied exemption from all prejudice.

Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty and your animal spirits.

No young man ever thinks he shall die.

The more we do, the more we can do.