The poetry of heroism appeals irresistibly to those who don't go to a war, and even more to those whom the war is making enormously wealthy. It's always so.
One can't relive one's life. Forgiveness is not what's difficult; one's always too ready to forgive. And it does no good, that's obvious.
If you aren't rich you should always look useful.
Experience is a dim lamp, which only lights the one who bears it.
Almost every desire a poor man has is a punishable offence.
Truth is a pain which will not stop. And the truth of this world is to die. You must choose: either dying or lying. Personally, I have never been able to kill myself.
To philosophize is only another way of being afraid and leads hardly anywhere but to cowardly make-believe.
To hell with reality! I want to die in music, not in reason or in prose. People don't deserve the restraint we show by not going into delirium in front of them. To hell with them!
Life is filigree work. What is written clearly is not worth much, it's the transparency that counts.
There are two kinds of man: the ones who make history and the ones who endure it.
Literature is the denunciation of the times in which one lives.
Ideas? My head is full of them, one after the other, but they serve no purpose there. They must be put down on paper, one after the other.
When debts are not paid because they cannot be paid, the best thing to do is not talk about them, and shuffle the cards again.
Not that I am ashamed of my mind or body, my birth or breeding, my actions or fortunes, for my bashfulness is in my nature, not for any crime.
Not because they were servants were we so reserved, for many noble persons are forced to serve through necessity, but by reason the vulgar sort of servants are as ill bred as meanly born, giving children ill examples and worse counsel.
My other brother, the Lord Lucas, who was heir to my father's estate, and as it were the father to take care of us all, is not less valiant than they were, although his skill in the discipline of war was not so much, not being bred therein.
My mother was a good mistress to her servants, taking care of them in their sicknesses, not sparing any cost she was able to bestow for their recovery.
Marriage is the grave or tomb of wit.
Indeed, I was so afraid to dishonour my friends and family by my indiscreet actions, that I rather chose to be accounted a fool, than to be thought rude or wanton.
Indeed I had not much wit, yet I was not an idiot - my wit was according to my years.
Indeed I did not stand as a beggar at the Parliament door, for I never was at the Parliament-House, nor stood I ever at the door as I do know or can remember; not as a petitioner I am sure.
In such misfortunes my Mother was of an heroic spirit, in suffering patiently when there was no remedy, and being industrious where she thought she could help.
For Pleasure, Delight, Peace and Felicity live in method and temperance.
For I, hearing my Lord's estate amongst many more estates was to be sold, and that the wives of the owners should have an allowance therefrom, it gave me hopes I should receive a benefit thereby.
For disorder obstructs: besides, it doth disgust life, distract the appetities, and yield no true relish to the senses.
First, they were bred when I was not capable to observe or before I was born; likewise the breeding of men is of a different manner from that of women.
As for plenty, we had not only for necessity, conveniency and decency, but for delight and pleasure to superfluity.
As for our garments, my Mother did not only delight to see us neat and cleanly, fine and gay, but rich and costly: maintaining us to the heighth of her estate, but not beyond it.
As for my brothers, of whom I had three, I know not how they were bred.
And though my Lord hath lost his estate and been banished out of his country, yet neither despised poverty nor pinching necessity could make him break the bonds of friendship or weaken his loyal duty.
