"Example is always more efficacious than precept."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Johnson had said that he could repeat a complete chapter of "The Natural History of Iceland," from the Danish of Horrebow, the whole of which was exactly (Ch. lxxii. Concerning snakes) thus: "There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island.""

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger at his death."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"If the man who turnips cries Cry not when his father dies, 'T is a proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"A man may write at any time if he will set himself doggedly to it."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"A fellow that makes no figure in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar-cruet."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know That life protracted is protracted woe."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow,--attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince Of Abyssinia."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Towering in the confidence of twenty-one."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! From Marlb'rough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires, a driv'ler and a show."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"He was a very good hater."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"A man will turn over half a library to make one book."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"His conversation does not show the minute-hand, but he strikes the hour very correctly."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"His death eclipsed the gayety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"The endearing elegance of female friendship."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"My friend was of opinion that when a man of rank appeared in that character [as an author], he deserved to have his merits handsomely allowed."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Studious to please, yet not ashamed to fail."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

""I fly from pleasure," said the prince, "because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others.""

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend,-- Path, motive, guide, original, and end."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"I never take a nap after dinner but when I have had a bad night; and then the nap takes me."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"The applause of a single human being is of great consequence."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Gloomy calm of idle vacancy."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Catch, then, oh catch the transient hour; Improve each moment as it flies! Life 's a short summer, man a flower; He dies--alas! how soon he dies!"

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay, And glides in modest innocence away."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"The first years of man must make provision for the last."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Wretched un-idea'd girls."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"This mournful truth is ev'rywhere confess'd,-- Slow rises worth by poverty depress'd."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"I am glad that he thanks God for anything."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an access of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Let observation with extensive view Survey mankind, from China to Peru."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in others."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"For we that live to please must please to live."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"This world, where much is to be done and little to be known."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and rather political than religious."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Sir, a woman preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"A very unclubable man."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain