Vanity and rudeness are seldom seen together.
A gift--its kind, its value and appearance; the silence or the pomp that attends it; the style in which it reaches you--may decide the dignity or vulgarity of the giver.
Superstition always inspires littleness, religion grandeur of mind; the superstitious raises beings inferior to himself to deities.
To realize that you were mistaken, is just the acknowledgement , that you are wiser today than you were yesterday.
Avoid connecting yourself with characters whose good and bad sides are unmixed and have not fermented together; they resemble vials of vinegar and oil; or palletts set with colors; they are either excellent at home and insufferable abroad, or intolerable within doors and excellent in public; they are unfit for friendship, merely because their stamina, their ingredients of character are too single, too much apart; let them be finely ground up with each other, and they are incomparable.
Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed; nature never pretends.
The cruelty of the effeminate is more dreadful than that or the hardy.
Venerate four characters: the sanguine who has checked volatility and the rage for pleasure; the choleric who has subdued passion and pride; the phlegmatic emerged from indolence; and the melancholy who has dismissed avarice, suspicion and asperity.
He who always prefaces his tale with laughter, is poised between impertinence and folly.
He who, in questions of right, virtue, or duty, sets himself above all ridicule, is truly great, and shall laugh in the end with truer mirth than ever he was laughed at.
And still, laughter is akin to weeping.
True worth is as inevitably discovered by the facial expression, as its opposite is sure to be clearly represented there. The human face is nature's tablet, the truth is certainly written thereon.
Learn the value of a man's words and expressions, and you know him. Each man has a measure of his own for everything; this he offers you inadvertently in his words. He who has a superlative for everything wants a measure for the great or small.
He who seldom speaks, and with one calm well-timed word can strike dumb the loquacious, is a genius or a hero.
The conscience is more wise than science.
The more uniform a man's voice, step, manner of conversation, handwriting--the more quiet, uniform, settled, his actions, his character.
Trust him not with your secrets, who, when left alone in your room, turns over your papers.
Whenever a man undergoes a considerable change, in consequence of being observed by others, whenever he assumes another gait, another language, than what he had before he thought himself observed, be advised to guard yourself against him.
Three things characterize man: person, fate, merit--the harmony of these constitutes real grandeur.
True love, like the eye, can bear no flaw.
The countenance is more eloquent than the tongue.
Who, under pressing temptations to lie, adheres to truth, nor to the profane betrays aught of a sacred trust, is near the summit of wisdom and virtue.
Wisdom is the repose of the mind.
The acquisition of will, for one thing exclusively, presupposes entire acquaintance with many others.
In the society of ladies, want of sense is not so unpardonable as want of manners.
Who has a daring eye tell downright truths and downright lies.
The humblest star twinkles most in the darkest night.
The proportion of genius to the vulgar is like one to a million.
Know in the first place, that mankind agree in essence, as they do in limbs and senses.
He, who cannot forgive a trespass of malice to his enemy, has never yet tasted the most sublime enjoyment of love.
Airs of importance are the credentials of impotence.
The most stormy ebullitions of passion, from blasphemy to murder, are less terrific than one single act of cool villainy.
He whose pride oppresses the humble may perhaps be humbled, but will never be humble.
The horse-laugh indicates brutality of character.
Malice is poisoned by her own venom.
Mistrust the man who finds everything good, the man who finds everything evil and still more the man who is indifferent to everything.
The manner of giving shows the character of the giver, more than the gift itself.
He who attempts to make others believe in means which he himself despises is a puffer; he who makes use of more means than he knows to be necessary is a quack; and he who ascribes to those means a greater efficacy than his own experience warrants is an impostor.
Every man has his devilish minutes.
Calmness of will is a sign of grandeur.
What do I owe to my times, to my country, to my neighbors, to my friends? Such are the questions which a virtuous man ought often to ask himself.
Who is open without levity; generous without waste; secret without craft; humble without meanness; bold without insolence; cautious without anxiety; regular, yet not formal; mild, yet not timid; firm, yet not tyrannical - is made to pass the ordeal of honour, friendship, virtue.
Him, who incessantly laughs in the street, you may commonly hear grumbling in his closet.
Who, in the midst of just provocation to anger, instantly finds the fit word which settles all around him in silence is more than wise or just; he is, were he a beggar, of more than royal blood, he is of celestial descent.
The loss of taste for what is right is loss of all right taste.
It is a poor wit who lives by borrowing the words, decisions, mien, inventions and actions of others.
To know yourself you have only to set down a true statement of those that ever loved or hated you.
Faces are as legible as books, only with these circumstances to recommend them to our perusal, that they are read in much less time, and are much less likely to deceive us.
The prudent see only the difficulties, the bold only the advantages, of a great enterprise; the hero sees both; diminishes the former and makes the latter preponderate, and so conquers.
Thousands are hated, while none are loved without a real cause
There is a manner of forgiveness so divine that you are ready to embrace the offender for having called it forth.
Man is forever the same; the same under every form, in all situations and relations that admit of free and unrestrained exertion. The same regard which you have for yourself, you have for others, for nature, for the invisible ... which you call God.
Where pride begins, love ceases.
Defeat serves to enlighten us.
He who can conceal his joys, is greater than he who can hide his griefs
There are three classes of men; the retrograde, the stationary and the progressive.
Avoid him who from mere curiosity asks three questions running about a thing that cannot interest Him.
Conscience is wiser than science.
As man's love or hatred, so he. Love and hatred exist only personified.
Who cuts is easily wounded. The readier you are to offend the sooner you are offended.
Say not you know another entirely till you have divided an inheritance with him.
Be certain that he who has betrayed thee once will betray thee again.
He also has energy who cannot be deprived of it.
Neatness begets order; but from order to taste there is the same difference as from taste to genius, or from love to friendship.
I am prejudiced in favor of him who, without impudence, can ask boldly. He has faith in humanity, and faith in himself. No one who is not accustomed to giving grandly can ask nobly and with boldness.
Who begins with severity, in judging of another, ends commonly with falsehood.
Let none turn over books, or roam the stars in quest of God, who sees him not in man.
Many very intelligent agreeable persons have warts on the forehead, not brown, nor very large, between the eyebrows, which have nothing in them offensive or disgusting. - But a large brown wart on the upper lip, especially when it is bristly, will be found in no person who is not defective in something essential, or at least remarkable for some conspicuous failing.
Women are proverbially credulous.
You may depend upon it that he is a good man whose intimate friends are all good, and whose enemies are decidedly bad.
Copiousness and simplicity, variety and unity, constitute real greatness of character.
It is one of my favorite thoughts that God manifests Himself to men in all the wise, good, humble, generous, great, and magnanimous men.
All belief that does not make us more happy, more free, more loving, more active, more calm, is, I fear, a mistaken and superstitious belief.
Who makes quick use of the moment is a genius of prudence.
Depend on no man, on no friend but him who can depend on himself. He only who acts conscientiously toward himself, will act so toward others.
Who values gold above all, considers all else as trifling.
Sensibility is the power of woman.
What knowledge is there of which man is capable that is not founded on the exterior,--the relation that exists between visible and invisible, the perceptible and the imperceptible?
He who can at all times sacrifice pleasure to duty approaches sublimity.
Softness of smile indicates softness of character.
Who despises all that is despicable is made to be impressed with all that is grand.
A great passion has no partner.
Man without religion is a diseased creature, who would persuade himself he is well and needs not a physician; but woman without religion is raging and monstrous.
Avoid the eye that discovers with rapidity the bad, and is slow to see the good.
Vociferation and calmness of character seldom meet in the same person.
Three days of uninterrupted company in a vehicle will make you better acquainted with another, than one hour's conversation with him every day for three years.
Truth, wisdom, love, seek reasons; malice only seeks causes.
Each particle of matter is an immensity, each leaf a world, each insect an inexplicable compendium.
Beware of biting jests; the more truth they carry with them, the greater wounds they give, the greater smarts they cause, and the greater scars they leave behind them.
Loudness is impotence.
Don't speak evil of someone if you don't know for certain, and if you do know ask yourself, why am I telling it?
Habit is altogether too arbitrary a master for me to submit to.
As you treat your body, so your house, your domestics, your enemies, your friends - Dress is a table of your contents.
He who sedulously attends, pointedly asks, calmly speaks, coolly answers and ceases when he has no more to say is in possession of some of the best requisites of man
Indiscretion, rashness, falsehood, levity, and malice, produce each other.
How few our real wants, and how vast our imaginary ones!
Who gives is positive; who receives is negative; still there remains an immense class of mere passives.
There are no friends more inseparable than pride and hardness of heart, humility and love, falsehood and impudence.
The discovery of truth, by slow progressive meditation, is wisdom. - Intuition of truth, not preceded by perceptible meditation, is genius.
The jealous are possessed by a mad devil and a dull spirit at the same time.
She neglects her heart who too closely studies her glass.
Happy the heart to whom God has given enough strength and courage to suffer for Him, to find happiness in simplicity and the happiness of others.
A fop of fashion is the mercer's friend, the tailor's fool, and his own foe.
An entirely honest man, in the severe sense of the word, exists no more than an entirely dishonest knave: the best and the worst are only approximations of those qualities. Who are those that never contradict themselves? yet honesty never contradicts itself: Who are those that always contradict themselves? yet knavery is mere self-contradiction. Thus the knowledge of man determines not the things themselves, but their proportions, the quan∣tum of congruities and incongruities.
A beautiful smile is to the female countenance what the sunbeam is to the landscape; it embellishes an inferior face and redeems an ugly one.
What is the elevation of the soul? A prompt, delicate, certain feeling for all that is beautiful, all that is grand; a quick resolution to do the greatest good by the smallest means; a great benevolence joined to a great strength and great humility.
Trust him with none of thy individualities who is, or pretends to be, two things at once.
He who, silent, loves to be with us - he who loves us in our silence - has touched one of the keys that ravish hearts.
A sneer is often the sign of heartless malignity.
He who comes from the kitchen, smells of its smoke; and he who adheres to a sect, has something of its cant; the college air pursues the student; and dry inhumanity him who herds with literary pedants.
Evasions are the common shelter of the hard-hearted, the false, and impotent, when called upon to assist; the real great alone plan instantaneous help, even when their looks or words presage difficulties.
Words are the wings of actions.
Before thou callest a man hero or genius, investigate whether his exertion has features of indelibility; for all that is celestial, all genius, is the offspring of immortality.
Have you ever seen a pedant with a warm heart?
She whom smiles and tears make equally lovely may command all hearts.
Strange that cowards cannot see that their greatest safety lies in dauntless courage.
Where consequence ceases, there folly, restlessness and misery begin.
He who has no taste for order, will be often wrong in his judgment, and seldom considerate or conscientious in his actions.
If you mean to know yourself, interline such of these aphorisms as affect you agreeably in reading, and set a mark to such as left a sense of uneasiness with you; and then show your copy to whom you please.
True genius repeats itself forever, and never repeats itself--one ever varied sense beams novelty and unity on all.
Who is respectable when thinking himself alone and free from observation will be so before the eye of all the world.
Receive no satisfaction for premeditated impertinence - forget it, forgive it - but keep him inexorably at a distance who of∣fered it.
Who recollects distinctly his past adventures, knows his destiny to come.
No communication or gift can exhaust genius or impoverish charity.
Who knows whence he comes, where he is, and whither he tends, he, and he alone, is wise.
