We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us
love one another.
Reflect on things past as wars, negotiations, factions, etc. We enter so
little into those interests, that we wonder how men could possibly be so
busy and concerned for things so transitory; look on the present times,
we find the same humour, yet wonder not at all.
A wise man endeavours, by considering all circumstances, to make
conjectures and form conclusions; but the smallest accident intervening
(and in the course of affairs it is impossible to foresee all) does often
produce such turns and changes, that at last he is just as much in doubt
of events as the most ignorant and inexperienced person.
Positiveness is a good quality for preachers and orators, because he that
would obtrude his thoughts and reasons upon a multitude, will convince
others the more, as he appears convinced himself.
How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice, when they
will not so much as take warning?
I forget whether Advice be among the lost things which Aristo says are to
be found in the moon; that and Time ought to have been there.
No preacher is listened to but Time, which gives us the same train and
turn of thought that older people have tried in vain to put into our
heads before.
When we desire or solicit anything, our minds run wholly on the good side
or circumstances of it; when it is obtained, our minds run wholly on the
bad ones.
In a glass-house the workmen often fling in a small quantity of fresh
coals, which seems to disturb the fire, but very much enlivens it. This
seems to allude to a gentle stirring of the passions, that the mind may
not languish.
Religion seems to have grown an infant with age, and requires miracles to
nurse it, as it had in its infancy.
All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor;
it is like spending this year part of the next year's revenue.
The latter part of a wise man's life is taken up in curing the follies,
prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.
Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation to posterity, let
him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what
omissions he most laments.
Whatever the poets pretend, it is plain they give immortality to none but
themselves; it is Homer and Virgil we reverence and admire, not Achilles
or AEneas. With historians it is quite the contrary; our thoughts are
taken up with the actions, persons, and events we read, and we little
regard the authors.
When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign;
that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
Men who possess all the advantages of life, are in a state where there
are many accidents to disorder and discompose, but few to please them.
It is unwise to punish cowards with ignominy, for if they had regarded
that they would not have been cowards; death is their proper punishment,
because they fear it most.
The greatest inventions were produced in the times of ignorance, as the
use of the compass, gunpowder, and printing, and by the dullest nation,
as the Germans.
One argument to prove that the common relations of ghosts and spectres
are generally false, may be drawn from the opinion held that spirits are
never seen by more than one person at a time; that is to say, it seldom
happens to above one person in a company to be possessed with any high
degree of spleen or melancholy.
I am apt to think that, in the day of Judgment, there will be small
allowance given to the wise for their want of morals, nor to the ignorant
for their want of faith, because both are without excuse. This renders
the advantages equal of ignorance and knowledge. But, some scruples in
the wise, and some vices in the ignorant, will perhaps be forgiven upon
the strength of temptation to each.
The value of several circumstances in story lessens very much by distance
of time, though some minute circumstances are very valuable; and it
requires great judgment in a writer to distinguish.
It is grown a word of course for writers to say, "This critical age," as
divines say, "This sinful age."
It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on
the next. _Future ages shall talk of this_; _this shall be famous to all
posterity_. Whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about
present things, as ours are now.
The chameleon, who is said to feed upon nothing but air, hath, of all
animals, the nimblest tongue.
When a man is made a spiritual peer he loses his surname; when a
temporal, his Christian name.
It is in disputes as in armies, where the weaker side sets up false
lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more
numerous and strong than they really are.
Some men, under the notions of weeding out prejudices, eradicate virtue,
honesty, and religion.
In all well-instituted commonwealths, care has been taken to limit men's
possessions; which is done for many reasons, and among the rest, for one
which perhaps is not often considered: that when bounds are set to men's
desires, after they have acquired as much as the laws will permit them,
their private interest is at an end, and they have nothing to do but to
take care of the public.
There are but three ways for a man to revenge himself of the censure of
the world: to despise it, to return the like, or to endeavour to live so
as to avoid it. The first of these is usually pretended, the last is
almost impossible; the universal practice is for the second.
I never heard a finer piece of satire against lawyers than that of
astrologers, when they pretend by rules of art to tell when a suit will
end, and whether to the advantage of the plaintiff or defendant; thus
making the matter depend entirely upon the influence of the stars,
without the least regard to the merits of the cause.
The expression in Apocrypha about Tobit and his dog following him I have
often heard ridiculed, yet Homer has the same words of Telemachus more
than once; and Virgil says something like it of Evander. And I take the
book of Tobit to be partly poetical.
I have known some men possessed of good qualities, which were very
serviceable to others, but useless to themselves; like a sun-dial on the
front of a house, to inform the neighbours and passengers, but not the
owner within.
If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion,
learning, etc., beginning from his youth and so go on to old age, what a
bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last!
What they do in heaven we are ignorant of; what they do not we are told
expressly: that they neither marry, nor are given in marriage.
It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of a spider.
The Stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is
like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
Physicians ought not to give their judgment of religion, for the same
reason that butchers are not admitted to be jurors upon life and death.
The reason why so few marriages are happy, is, because young ladies spend
their time in making nets, not in making cages.
If a man will observe as he walks the streets, I believe he will find the
merriest countenances in mourning coaches.
Nothing more unqualifies a man to act with prudence than a misfortune
that is attended with shame and guilt.
The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for the happy
impute all their success to prudence or merit.
Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is
performed in the same posture with creeping.
Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.
Although men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps
as few know their own strength. It is, in men as in soils, where
sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.
Satire is reckoned the easiest of all wit, but I take it to be otherwise
in very bad times: for it is as hard to satirise well a man of
distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues. It
is easy enough to do either to people of moderate characters.
Invention is the talent of youth, and judgment of age; so that our
judgment grows harder to please, when we have fewer things to offer it:
this goes through the whole commerce of life. When we are old, our
friends find it difficult to please us, and are less concerned whether we
be pleased or no.
No wise man ever wished to be younger.
An idle reason lessens the weight of the good ones you gave before.
The motives of the best actions will not bear too strict an inquiry. It
is allowed that the cause of most actions, good or bad, may he resolved
into the love of ourselves; but the self-love of some men inclines them
to please others, and the self-love of others is wholly employed in
pleasing themselves. This makes the great distinction between virtue and
vice. Religion is the best motive of all actions, yet religion is
allowed to be the highest instance of self-love.
Old men view best at a distance with the eyes of their understanding as
well as with those of nature.
Some people take more care to hide their wisdom than their folly.
Anthony Henley's farmer, dying of an asthma, said, "Well, if I can get
this breath once _out_, I'll take care it never got _in_ again."
The humour of exploding many things under the name of trifles, fopperies,
and only imaginary goods, is a very false proof either of wisdom or
magnanimity, and a great check to virtuous actions. For instance, with
regard to fame, there is in most people a reluctance and unwillingness to
be forgotten. We observe, even among the vulgar, how fond they are to
have an inscription over their grave. It requires but little philosophy
to discover and observe that there is no intrinsic value in all this;
however, if it be founded in our nature as an incitement to virtue, it
ought not to be ridiculed.
Complaint is the largest tribute heaven receives, and the sincerest part
of our devotion.
The common fluency of speech in many men, and most women, is owing to a
scarcity of matter, and a scarcity of words; for whoever is a master of
language, and hath a mind full of ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to
hesitate upon the choice of both; whereas common speakers have only one
set of ideas, and one set of words to clothe them in, and these are
always ready at the mouth. So people come faster out of a church when it
is almost empty, than when a crowd is at the door.
Few are qualified to shine in company; but it is in most men's power to
be agreeable. The reason, therefore, why conversation runs so low at
present, is not the defect of understanding, but pride, vanity,
ill-nature, affectation, singularity, positiveness, or some other vice,
the effect of a wrong education.
To be vain is rather a mark of humility than pride. Vain men delight in
telling what honours have been done them, what great company they have
kept, and the like, by which they plainly confess that these honours were
more than their due, and such as their friends would not believe if they
had not been told: whereas a man truly proud thinks the greatest honours
below his merit, and consequently scorns to boast. I therefore deliver
it as a maxim, that whoever desires the character of a proud man, ought
to conceal his vanity.
Law, in a free country, is, or ought to be, the determination of the
majority of those who have property in land.
One argument used to the disadvantage of Providence I take to be a very
strong one in its defence. It is objected that storms and tempests,
unfruitful seasons, serpents, spiders, flies, and other noxious or
troublesome animals, with many more instances of the like kind, discover
an imperfection in nature, because human life would be much easier
without them; but the design of Providence may clearly be perceived in
this proceeding. The motions of the sun and moon--in short, the whole
system of the universe, as far as philosophers have been able to discover
and observe, are in the utmost degree of regularity and perfection; but
wherever God hath left to man the power of interposing a remedy by
thought or labour, there he hath placed things in a state of
imperfection, on purpose to stir up human industry, without which life
would stagnate, or, indeed, rather, could not subsist at all: _Curis
accuunt mortalia corda_.
Praise is the daughter of present power.
How inconsistent is man with himself!
I have known several persons of great fame for wisdom in public affairs
and counsels governed by foolish servants.
I have known great Ministers, distinguished for wit and learning, who
preferred none but dunces.