If ever Shakespeare rants, it is not when his imagination is hurrying him along, but when he is hurrying his imagination along.--Macaulay.
It was said of Euripides, that every verse was a precept; and it may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and economical prudence.--Johnson.
The genius of Shakespeare was an innate university.--Keats.
Shame.--Nature's hasty conscience.--Maria Edgeworth.
Mortifications are often more painful than real calamities.--Goldsmith.
~Ship.~--A prison with the chance of being drowned.--Johnson.
Cradle of the rude imperious surge.--Shakespeare.
~Silence.~--The main reason why silence is so efficacious an element of repute is, first, because of that magnification which proverbially belongs to the unknown; and, secondly, because silence provokes no man's envy, and wounds no man's self-love.--Bulwer-Lytton.
Give thy thoughts no tongue.--Shakespeare.
True gladness doth not always speak; joy bred and born but in the tongue is weak.--Ben Jonson.
I hear other men's imperfections, and conceal my own.--Zeno.
Silence in times of suffering is the best.--Dryden.
Silence! coeval with eternity.--Pope.
Silence is the sanctuary of prudence.--Balthasar Gracian.
The unspoken word never does harm.--Kossuth.
Silence is the understanding of fools and one of the virtues of the wise.--Bonnard.
Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest. Your still fowl, blinking at you without remark, may all the while be sitting on one addled nest-egg; and when it takes to cackling, will have nothing to announce but that addled delusion.--George Eliot.
Silence gives consent.--Goldsmith.
Silence is the safest response for all the contradiction that arises from impertinence, vulgarity, or envy.--Zimmerman.
~Simplicity.~--Simplicity is doubtless a fine thing, but it often appeals only to the simple. Art is the only passion of true artists. Palestrina's music resembles the music of Rossini, as the song of the sparrow is like the cavatina of the nightingale. Choose.--Madame de Girardin.
Simplicity is Nature's first step, and the last of Art.--P. J. Bailey.
The world could not exist if it were not simple. This ground has been tilled a thousand years, yet its powers remain ever the same; a little rain, a little sun, and each spring it grows green again.--Goethe.
The fairest lives, in my opinion, are those which regularly accommodate themselves to the common and human model, without miracle, without extravagance.--Montaigne.
There is a majesty in simplicity which is far above the quaintness of wit.--Pope.
~Sin.~--Original sin is in us like the beard: we are shaved to-day, and look clean, and have a smooth chin; to-morrow our beard has grown again, nor does it cease growing while we remain on earth. In like manner original sin cannot be extirpated from us; it springs up in us as long as we exist; Nevertheless, we are bound to resist it to our utmost strength, and to cut it down unceasingly.--Luther.
Sin, in fancy, mothers many an ugly fact.--Theodore Parker.
There is no immunity from the consequences of sin; punishment is swift and sure to one and all.--Hosea Ballou.
Every man has his devilish minutes.--Lavater.
Pearls of Thought · The Wunder Library — complete classics, free to read, with narration.