Lend only what you can afford to lose. [ Proverb ]
The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation; that away,
Men are but gilded loam or painted clay. [ Rich. II ]
A nation cannot afford to do a mean thing. [ Charles Sumner ]
It is not every man who can afford to wear a shabby coat. [ Colton ]
We can't afford to be morbid. We have to have cheerful hearts. [ H. E. Rives ]
Books afford the surest relief in the most melancholy moments. [ Zimmermann ]
Surely nobody would be a charlatan who could afford to be sincere. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
There are many things which we can afford to forget which it is yet well to learn. [ Holmes ]
Beauty can afford to laugh at distinctions; it is itself the greatest distinction. [ Bovee ]
Most persons are disposed to expend more than they can afford, and to indulge more than they can endure. [ Mme. de Puisieux ]
There are few faces that can afford to smile. A smile is sometimes bewitching; in general vapid; often a contortion. [ Benjamin Disraeli ]
Thoughts take up no room. When they are right, they afford a portable pleasure, which one may travel with, without any trouble or encumbrance. [ Jeremy Collier ]
The chance meeting, the unplanned outing, and the unexpected diversion that so often come unsought in the passing days, afford the common channels of happiness. [ Henry D. Chapin ]
If ideas and words were distinctly weighed and duly considered, they would afford us another sort of logic and critic, than what we have been hitherto acquainted with. [ J. Locke ]
In ambition, as in love, the successful can afford to be indulgent towards their rivals. The prize our own, it is graceful to recognize the merit that vainly aspired to it. [ Bovee ]
An everlasting tranquility is, in my imagination, the highest possible felicity, because I know of no felicity on earth higher than that which a peaceful mind and contented heart afford. [ Zimmermann ]
To be forward to praise others implies either great eminence, that can afford to part with applause; or great quickness of discernment, with confidence in our own judgments; or great sincerity and love of truth, getting the better of our self-love. [ Hazlitt ]
Local esteem is far more conducive to happiness than general reputation. The latter may be compared to the fixed stars which glimmer so remotely as to afford little light and no warmth. The former is like the sun, each day shedding his prolific and cheering beams. [ W. B. Clulow ]
No one was ever the better for advice: in general, what we called giving advice was properly taking an occasion to show our own wisdom at another's expense; and to receive advice was little better than tamely to afford another the occasion of raising himself a character from our defects. [ Lord Shaftesbury ]
What delight will it afford to renew the sweet counsel we have taken together, to recount the toils, the combats, and the labor of the way, and to approach, not the house, but the throne of God, in company, in order to join in the symphonies of heavenly voices, and lose ourselves amidst the splendor and fruitions of the beatific vision. [ Robert Hall ]
The dramatist, like the poet, is born, not made. There must be inspiration back of all true and permanent art, dramatic or otherwise, and art is universal: there is nothing national about it. Its field is humanity, and it takes in all the world; nor does anything else afford the refuge that is provided by it from all troubles and all the vicissitudes of life. [ William Winter ]
It is not every man that can afford to wear a shabby coat; and worldly wisdom dictates to her disciples the propriety of dressing somewhat beyond their means, but of living somewhat within them, - for every one sees how we dress, but none see how we live, except we choose to let them. But the truly great are, by universal suffrage, exempted from these trammels, and may live or dress as they please. [ Colton ]