Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.

Roger L’Estrange

The just season of doing things must be nicked, and all accidents improved.

People are sooner reclaimed by the side-wind of a surprise than by downright admonition.

Upon the upshot, afflictions are the methods of a merciful Providence to force us upon the only means of settling matters right.

Unruly ambition is deaf, not only to the advice of friends, but to the counsels and monitions of reason itself.

Figure-flingers and star-gazers pretend to foretell the fortunes of kingdoms, and have no foresight in what concerns themselves.

It is a way of calling a man a fool when no heed is given to what he says.

Simonides was an excellent poet, insomuch that he made his fortune by it.

There are those that make it a point of bravery to bid defiance to the oracles of divine revelation.

The blessings of fortune are the lowest: the next are the bodily advantages of strength and health: but the superlative blessings, in fine, are those of the mind.

It is one of the vexatious mortifications of a studious man to have his thoughts disordered by a tedious visit.

The heart of man looks fair, but when we come to lay any weight upon’t the ground is false under us.

It requires a critical nicety to find out the genius or the propensions of a child.

Good or bad company is the greatest blessing or greatest plague of life.

All matches, friendships, and societies are dangerous and inconvenient, where the contractors are not equal.

’Tis not for a desultory thought to atone for a lewd course of life; nor for anything but the superinducing of a virtuous habit upon a vicious one, to qualify an effectual conversion.

The desire of more and more rises by a natural gradation to most, and after that to all.

By custom, practice, and patience, all difficulties and hardships, whether of body or of fortune, are made easy.

It is not advisable to reward where men have the tenderness not to punish.

He that changes his condition out of impatience and dissatisfaction, when he has tried a new one wishes for his old again.

Levity pushes on from one vain desire to another in a regular vicissitude and succession of cravings and satiety.

A body may as well lay too little as too much stress upon a dream, but the less we heed them the better.

All duties are matter of conscience; with this restriction, that a superior obligation suspends the force of an inferior one.

Every man has his station assigned him, and in that station he is well, if he can but think himself so.

There is not one grain in the universe … to be spared, nor so much as any one particle of it that mankind may not be the better or the worse for, according as ’tis applied.

There is more danger in a reserved and silent friend than in a noisy, babbling enemy.

He that would live clear of envy must lay his finger on his mouth, and keep his hand out of the ink-pot.

The common people do not judge of vice or virtue by morality, or immorality, so much as by the stamp that is set upon it by men of figure.

False men are not to be taken into confidence, nor fearful men into a post that requires resolution.

’Tis not necessity, but opinion, that makes men miserable, and when we come to be fancy-sick, there’s no cure.

To be longing for this thing to-day, and for that thing to-morrow; to change likings for loathings, and to stand wishing and hankering at a venture,—how is it possible for any man to be at rest in this fluctuant wandering humour and opinion?

Life is no life without the blessing of a friendly and an edifying conversation.

It’s uncharitable, unchristian, and inhuman, to pass a peremptory sentence of condemnation upon a try’d friend, where there is any room left for a more favourable judgment.

Here joys that endure forever, fresh and in vigour, are opposed to satisfactions that are attended with satiety and surfeits and flatten in the very tasting.

’Tis a great error to take facility for good-nature: tenderness without discretion is no better than a more pardonable folly.

In elective governments there is a tacit covenant that the king of their own making shall make his makers princes.

A grateful beast will stand upon record against those that in their prosperity forget their friends that to their loss and hazard stood by and succoured them in their adversity.

’Tis highly imprudent in the greatest of men unnecessarily to provoke the meanest.

He that does not secure himself of a stock of reputation in his greatness shall most certainly fall unpitied in his adversity.

He that upon a true principle lives without any disquiet of thought may be said to be happy.

Some natures are so sour and ungrateful that they are never to be obliged.

If we will stand boggling at imaginary evils, let us never blame a horse for starting at a shadow.

Men talk as if they believed in God, but they live as if they thought there was none: their vows and promises are no more than words of course.

We understand what we ought to do; but when we deliberate we play booty against ourselves: our consciences direct us one way, our corruptions hurry us another.

A plodding diligence brings us sooner to our journey’s end than a fluttering way of advancing by starts.

We mistake the gratuitous blessings of Heaven for the fruits of our own industry.

How many examples have we seen of men that have been picked up and relieved out of starving necessities afterwards conspire against their patrons!

Ingratitude is abhorred by God and man.

We spend our days in deliberating, and we end them without coming to any resolution.

When a prince fails in honour and justice, ’tis enough to stagger his people in their allegiance.

It is every man’s duty to labour in his calling, and not to despond for any miscarriages or disappointments that were not in his own power to prevent.

There needs no more to the setting of the whole world in a flame than a quarrelsome plaintiff and defendant.

We never think of the main business of life till a vain repentance minds us of it at the wrong end.

Nothing is so fierce but love will soften, nothing so sharp-sighted in other matters but it throws a mist before the eyes on’t.

Many a worthy man sacrifices his peace to formalities of compliment and good manners.

Where public ministers encourage buffoonery, it is no wonder if buffoons set up for public ministers.

The blessings of fortune are the lowest; the next are the bodily advantages of strength and health; but the superlative blessings, in fine, are those of the mind.

Money does all things; for it gives and it takes away, it makes honest men and knaves, fools and philosophers; and so forward, mutatis mutandis, to the end of the chapter.

Where there is a moral right on the one hand, no secondary right can discharge it.

Persons and humours may be jumbled and disguised; but nature, like quicksilver, will never be killed.

Men indulge those opinions and practices that favour their pretensions.

A man thinks better of his children than they deserve; but there is an impulse of tenderness, and there must be some esteem for the setting of that inbred affection at work.

Partiality in a parent is commonly unlucky; for fondlings are in danger to be made fools; and the children that are least cockered make the best and wisest men.

Passions, as fire and water, are good servants but bad masters, and subminister to the best and worst purposes.

There is no creature so contemptible but by resolution may gain his point.

’Tis a high point of philosophy and virtue for a man to be so present to himself as to be always provided against all accidents.

In virtue and in health we love to be instructed as well as physicked with pleasure.

What signifies the sound of words in prayer without the affection of the heart, and a sedulous application of the proper means that may naturally lead us to such an end?

By one delay after another they spin out their whole lives, till there’s no more future left for them.

Every distinct being has something peculiar to itself to make good in one circumstance what it wants in another.

Rather than impute our miscarriages to our own corruption, we do not stick to arraign Providence itself.

’Tis a rule that goes a great way in the government of a sober man’s life, not to put anything to hazard that may be secured by industry, consideration, or circumspection.

It is the greatest interest of particulars to advance the good of the community.

Raillery is the sauce of civil entertainment; and without some such tincture of urbanity, good humour falters.

There is no opposing brutal force to the stratagems of human reason.

Men indulge those opinions and practices that favour their pretensions.

Have a care how you keep company with those that, when they find themselves upon a pinch, will leave their friends in the lurch.

There is no surer remedy for superstitions and desponding weakness than, first, to govern ourselves by the best improvement of that reason which Providence has given us for a guide; and then, when we have done our parts, to commit all cheerfully, for the rest, to the good pleasure of heaven, with trust and resignation.

Much tongue and much judgment seldom go together; for talking and thinking are two quite different faculties.

Tutors should behave reverently before their pupils.

Shuffling may serve for a time, but truth will most certainly carry it at the long run.

The most insupportable of tyrants exclaim against the exercise of arbitrary power.

Imperfections would not be half so much taken notice of, if vanity did not make proclamation of them.

If we should cease to be generous and charitable, because another is sordid and ungrateful, it would be much in the power of vice to extinguish Christian virtues.

Some are so hardened in wickedness as to have no sense of the most friendly offices.

Wickedness may prosper for a while, but at the long run he that sets all knaves at work will pay them.

Intemperate wits will spare neither friend nor foe, and make themselves the common enemies of mankind.

A due consideration of the vanities of the world will naturally bring us to the contempt of it; and the contempt of the world will as certainly bring us home to ourselves.

It must be an industrious youth that provides against age; and he that fools away the one must either beg or starve in the other.