C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Clarendon
Anger is an affected madness, compounded of pride and folly, and an intention to do commonly more mischief than it can bring to pass; and, without doubt, of all passions which actually disturb the mind of man, it is most in our power to extinguish, at least, to suppress and correct, our anger.
Anger is the most impotent passion that accompanies the mind of man; it effects nothing it goes about; and hurts the man who is possessed by it more than any other against whom it is directed.
Angry and choleric men are as ungrateful and unsociable as thunder and lightning, being in themselves all storm and tempest; but quiet and easy natures are like fair weather, welcome to all.
Counsel and conversation is a good second education, that improves all the virtue and corrects all the vice of the former, and of nature itself.
Dissimulation was his masterpiece; in which he so much excelled that men were not ashamed of being deceived but twice by him.
Envy is a weed that grows in all soils and climates, and is no less luxuriant in the country than in the court; is not confined to any rank of men or extent of fortune, but rages in the breasts of all degrees.
Friendship hath the skill and observation of the best physician, the diligence and vigilance of the best nurse, and the tenderness and patience of the best mother.
He who loves not books before he comes thirty years of age will hardly love them enough afterwards to understand them.
If envy, like anger, did not burn itself in its own fire, and consume and destroy those persons it possesses, before it can destroy those it wishes worst to, it would set the whole world on fire, and leave the most excellent persons the most miserable.
If our credit be so well built, so firm, that it is not easy to be shaken by calumny or insinuation, envy then commends us, and extols us beyond reason to those upon whom we depend, till they grow jealous, and so blow us up when they cannot throw us down.
If we did not take great pains, and were not at great expense to corrupt our nature, our nature would never corrupt us.
It is not the quantity of the meat, but the cheerfulness of the guests, which makes the feast; at the feast of the Centaurs they ate with one hand, and had their drawn swords in the other; where there is no peace, there can be no feast.
It was a very proper answer to him who asked why any man should be delighted with beauty, that it was a question that none but a blind man could ask; since any beautiful object doth so much attract the sight of all men, that it is in no man’s power not to be pleased with it.
Men very rarely put off the trappings of pride till they who are about them put on their winding-sheet.
No man is so insignificant as to be sure his example can do no hurt.
Promises,—the ready money that was first coined and made current by the law of nature, to support that society and commerce that was necessary for the comfort and security of mankind.
Repentance is a magistrate that exacts the strictest duty and humility.
That men should kill one another for want of somewhat else to do, which is the case of all volunteers in war, seems to be so horrible to humanity that there needs no divinity to control it.
The disesteem and contempt of others is inseparable from pride. It is hardly possible to overvalue ourselves but by undervaluing our neighbors.
The seat of pride is in the heart, and only there; and if it be not there, it is neither in the look nor in the clothes.
There is no art or science that is too difficult for industry to attain to; it is the gift of tongues, and makes a man understood and valued in all countries and by all nations; it is the philosopher’s stone, that turns all metals, and even stones, into gold, and suffers not want to break into its dwelling; it is the northwest passage, that brings the merchant’s ship as soon to him as he can desire. In a word, it conquers all enemies and makes fortune itself pay contribution.
They who are most weary of life, and yet are most unwilling to die, are such who have lived to no purpose,—who have rather breathed than lived.