Hell is paved with good intentions.
Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
I never take a nap after dinner but when I have had a bad night; and then the nap takes me.
In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
There is now less flogging in our great schools than formerly,--but then less is learned there; so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.
There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.
A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.
All this [wealth] excludes but one evil,--poverty.
Employment, sir, and hardships prevent melancholy.
When a man is tired of London he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
He was so generally civil that nobody thanked him for it.
Goldsmith, however, was a man who whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man could do.
Johnson 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 thus: "There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island." [Chap. lxxii.]
As the Spanish proverb says, "He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him," so it is in travelling,--a man must carry knowledge with him if he would bring home knowledge.
The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.
I remember a passage in Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: "I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing."... There was another fine passage too which he struck out: "When I was a young man, being anxious to distinguish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions. But I soon gave this over; for I found that generally what was new was false."
Claret is the liquor for boys, port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
A Frenchman must be always talking, whether he knows anything of the matter or not; an Englishman is content to say nothing when he has nothing to say.
Of Dr. Goldsmith he said, "No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had."
The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
The potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.
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.