The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
He was persuaded he could know no happiness but in the society of one with whom he could for ever indulge the melancholy that had taken possession of his soul.
When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles.
I fear no bad angel, and have offended no good one.
Old friends are the great blessing of one’s later years. … They have a memory of the same events and have the same mode of thinking.
The best philosophy is to do one’s duties to take the world as it comes submit respectfully to one’s lot and bless the goodness that has given us so much happiness with it whatever it is.
The world is a comedy to those who think a tragedy to those who feel.
This world is a comedy to those who think a tragedy to those who feel.
There is no bombast, no similes, flowers, digressions, or unnecessary descriptions. Everything tends directly to the catastrophe.
By deafness one gains in one respect more than one loses one misses more nonsense than sense.
Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he isn’t. A sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is.
In all science, error precedes the truth, and it is better it should go first than last.
I avoid talking before the youth of the age as I would dancing before them: for if one’s tongue don’t move in the steps of the day, and thinks to please by its old graces, it is only an object of ridicule.
Justice is rather the activity of truth, than a virtue in itself. Truth tells us what is due to others, and justice renders that due. Injustice is acting a lie.
The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.
Poetry is a beautiful way of spoiling prose, and the laborious art of exchanging plain sense for harmony.
Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.