Absence -- that common cure of love.
The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays that part.
Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our own deeds.
Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn.
Mere flimflam stories, and nothing but shams and lies.
Take away the cause, and the effect ceases.
To withdraw is not to run away, and to stay is no wise action, when there's more reason to fear than to hope.
Be slow of tongue and quick of eye.
I have always heard, Sancho, that doing good to base fellows is like throwing water into the sea.
Tell me thy company, and I'll tell thee what thou art.
He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he that loses his courage loses all.
Faint heart never won fair lady.
Every man is as heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse.
Those who'll play with cats must expect to be scratched.
Well, there's a remedy for all things but death, which will be sure to lay us flat one time or other.
'Tis the maddest trick a man can ever play in his whole life, to let his breath sneak out of his body without any more ado, and without so much as a rap o'er the pate, or a kick of the guts; to go out like the snuff of a farthing candle, and die merely of the mulligrubs, or the sullens.
Death eats up all things, both the young lamb and old sheep; and I have heard our parson say, death values a prince no more than a clown; all's fish that comes to his net; he throws at all, and sweeps stakes; he's no mower that takes a nap at noon-day, but drives on, fair weather or foul, and cuts down the green grass as well as the ripe corn: he's neither squeamish nor queesy-stomach d, for he swallows without chewing, and crams down all things into his ungracious maw; and you can see no belly he has, he has a confounded dropsy, and thirsts after men's lives, which he gurgles down like mother's milk.
Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness, its opposite, never brought a man to the goal of any of his best wishes.
No padlocks, bolts, or bars can secure a maiden better than her own reserve.
There is no greater folly in the world than for a man to despair.
There's no taking trout with dry breeches.
Our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within.
Nor has his death the world deceiv'd than his wondrous life surprise d; if he like a madman liv'd least he like a wise one dy'd.
He had a face like a blessing.
The eyes those silent tongues of love.
If you are ambitious of climbing up to the difficult, and in a manner inaccessible, summit of the Temple of Fame, your surest way is to leave on one hand the narrow path of Poetry, and follow the narrower track of Knight-Errantry, which in a trice may raise you to an imperial throne.
Fear has many eyes and can see things underground.
He is mad past recovery, but yet he has lucid intervals.
Liberty is one of the most precious gifts which heaven has bestowed on man; with it we cannot compare the treasures which the earth contains or the sea conceals; for liberty, as for honor, we can and ought to risk our lives; and, on for the other hand, captivity is the greatest evil that can befall man.
A man must eat a peck of salt with his friend, before he knows him.
By the street of by-and-by, one arrives at the house of never.
Man appoints, and God disappoints.
Though God's attributes are equal, yet his mercy is more attractive and pleasing in our eyes than his justice.
Thou camest out of thy mother's belly without government, thou hast liv'd hitherto without government, and thou mayst be carried to thy long home without government, when it shall please the Lord. How many people in this world live without government, yet do well enough, and are well look'd upon?
It seldom happens that any felicity comes so pure as not to be tempered and allayed by some mixture of sorrow.
For historians ought to be precise, truthful, and quite unprejudiced, and neither interest nor fear, hatred nor affection, should cause them to swerve from the path of truth, whose mother is history, the rival of time, the depository of great actions, the witness of what is past, the example and instruction of the present, the monitor of the future.
You are a king by your own fireside, as much as any monarch in his throne.
A person dishonored is worst than dead.
The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise.
Everyone is as God made him, and often a great deal worse.
Pray look better, Sir... those things yonder are no giants, but windmills.
My grandma (rest her soul) used to say, There were but two families in the world, have-much and have-little.
There is a strange charm in the thoughts of a good legacy, or the hopes of an estate, which wondrously removes or at least alleviates the sorrow that men would otherwise feel for the death of friends.
Jests that give pains are no jests.
Fair and softly goes far.
When the severity of the law is to be softened, let pity, not bribes, be the motive.
Laziness never arrived at the attainment of a good wish.
'Tis a dainty thing to command, though 'twere but a flock of sheep.
For a man to attain to an eminent degree in learning costs him time, watching, hunger, nakedness, dizziness in the head, weakness in the stomach, and other inconveniences.
She fights and vanquishes in me, and I live and breathe in her, and I have life and being.
Love and war are the same thing, and stratagems and policy are as allowable in the one as in the other.
'Tis said of love that it sometimes goes, sometimes flies; runs with one, walks gravely with another; turns a third into ice, and sets a fourth in a flame: it wounds one, another it kills: like lightning it begins and ends in the same moment: it makes that fort yield at night which it besieged but in the morning; for there is no force able to resist it.
One who has not only the four S's, which are required in every good lover, but even the whole alphabet; as for example... Agreeable, Bountiful, Constant, Dutiful, Easy, Faithful, Gallant, Honorable, Ingenious, Kind, Loyal, Mild, Noble, Officious, Prudent, Quiet, Rich, Secret, True, Valiant, Wise; the X indeed, is too harsh a letter to agree with him, but he is Young and Zealous.
Miracle me no miracles.
'Tis the only comfort of the miserable to have partners in their woes.
Alas! all music jars when the soul's out of tune.
Good painters imitate nature, bad ones spew it up.
No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly.
Patience and shuffle the cards.
And for the citation of so many authors, 'tis the easiest thing in nature. Find out one of these books with an alphabetical index, and without any farther ceremony, remove it verbatim into your own... there are fools enough to be thus drawn into an opinion of the work; at least, such a flourishing train of attendants will give your book a fashionable air, and recommend it for sale.
To be prepared is half the victory.
Thou hast seen nothing yet.
A blot in thy escutcheon to all futurity.
He preaches well that lives well.
Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.
Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience.
A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.
I believe there's no proverb but what is true; they are all so many sentences and maxims drawn from experience, the universal mother of sciences.
I do not say a proverb is amiss when aptly and reasonably applied, but to be forever discharging them, right or wrong, hit or miss, renders conversation insipid and vulgar.
Hold you there, neither a strange hand nor my own, neither heavy nor light shall touch my bum.
The bow cannot always stand bent, nor can human frailty subsist without some lawful recreation.
Well, now there's a remedy for everything except death.
The greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within.
One of the most considerable advantages the great have over their inferiors is to have servants as good as themselves.
No man is more than another unless he does more than another.
A private sin is not so prejudicial in this world, as a public indecency.
By such innovations are languages enriched, when the words are adopted by the multitude, and naturalized by custom.
Captivity is the greatest of all evils that can befall one.
Now blessings light on him that first invented this same sleep: it covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; 'Tis meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot. 'Tis the current coin that purchases all the pleasures of the world cheap; and the balance that sets the king and the shepherd, the fool and the wise-man even. There is only one thing that I dislike in sleep; 'Tis that it resembles death; there's very little difference between a man in his first sleep, and a man in his last sleep.
One shouldn't talk of halters in the hanged man's house.
'Tis ill talking of halters in the house of a man that was hanged.
Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always gets above falsehood, as oil does above water.
Truth will rise above falsehood as oil above water.
True valor lies between cowardice and rashness.
That which costs little is less valued.
The knowledge of yourself will preserve you from vanity.
The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application.
God bears with the wicked, but not forever.
Time ripens all things; no man is born wise.
Every man is the son of his own works.
The brave man carves out his fortune, and every man is the son of his own works.