Over 40,000 Famous Quotes Sorted By Topic and Author

For truth is precious and divine; Too rich a pearl for carnal swine.

'Tis not antiquity, nor author, That makes truth truth, altho' time's daughter.

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.

The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.

Everyone should keep a mental wastepaper basket, and the older he grows, the more things will he promptly consign to it.

The wish to spread those opinions that we hold conducive to our own welfare is so deeply rooted in the English character that few of us can escape its influence.

He that complies against his will, Is of his own opinion still, Which he may adhere to, yet disown, For reasons to himself best known.

So Noah, when he anchor'd safe on The mountain's top, his lofty haven, And all the passengers he bore Were on the new world set ashore, He made it next his chief design To plant and propagate a vine, Which since has overwhelm'd and drown'd Far greater number, on dry ground, Of wretched mankind, one by one, Than all the flood before had done.

We grant, although he had much wit, H' was very shy of using it, As being loth to wear it out, And therefore bore it not about; Unless on holy days or so, As men their best apparel do.

Great wits and valours, like great states, Do sometimes sink with their own weights.

He that will win his dame must do As love does when he draws his bow; With one hand thrust the lady from, And with the other pull her home.

She that with poetry is won, Is but a desk to write upon; And what men say of her they mean No more than on the thing they lean.

And still be doing, never done.

'Tis virtue, wit, and worth, and all That men divine and sacred call; For what is worth, in anything, But so much money as 't will bring?

This was the penn'worth of his thought.

H' had got a hurt O' th' inside of a deadlier sort.

For zeal's a dreadful termagant, That teaches saints to tear and cant.