45 quotes
English essayist, poet, playwright and politician (1672–1719)
“The utmost extent of man's knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.”
"No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority."
on Philosophy
"Music the greatest good that mortals know and all of heaven we have below."
on Art
"Friendship improves happiness and abates misery by doubling our joy and dividing our grief."
on Friendship
"Looking for Silver Linings Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains losses and disappointments."
on Life
"There is nothing that makes its way more directly into the soul than beauty."
"Nothing that is not a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency."
"The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship."
"The person who has a firm trust in the Supreme Being is powerful in his power wise by his wisdom happy by his happiness."
on Faith
"What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities."
on Wisdom
"Admiration is a very short-lived passion that immediately decays upon growing familiar with its object."
on Emotion
"The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do something to love and something to hope for."
on Happiness
"Cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind filling it with a steady and perpetual serenity."
"A day an hour of virtuous liberty is worth a whole eternity in bondage."
on Freedom
"Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body."
"Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature."
"A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes."
"To be an atheist requires an indefinitely greater measure of faith than to recieve all the great truths which atheism would deny."
"What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul."
on Education
"A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants."
