General Taylor never surrenders. [ Thos. L. Crittenden ]
What is an army without a general? [ Proverb ]
Extremes in nature equal good produce,
Extremes in man concur to general use. [ Pope ]
The grave is the general meeting-place. [ Proverb ]
Many friends in general, one in special. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
There is no vague general capability in men. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne,
In rayless majesty, now stretches forth
Her leaden sceptre over a slumbering world.
Silence, how dead! and darkness, how profound!
Nor eye, nor listening ear, an object finds;
Creation sleeps. 'Tis as the general pulse
Of life stood still, and nature made a pause;
An awful pause! prophetic of her end. [ Young ]
The only eyes a general can trust are his own. [ U. S. Grant ]
Air, earth, and seas, obey'd the Almighty nod,
And with a general fear confess'd the God. [ Dryden ]
There was a general whisper, toss, and wiggle,
But etiquette forbade them all to giggle. [ Byron ]
Reason can in general do more than blind force. [ Corn Gallus ]
No rule is so general, which admits not some exception. [ Burton ]
In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes. [ Ruskin ]
A general should make weakness appear strength to his enemy. [ Fabius ]
Nothing ages women so rapidly as having married the general rule. [ Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband ]
Women distrust men too much in general, and not enough in particular. [ Commerson ]
The complaints of the present times, is the general complaint of all times. [ Proverb ]
The world is an excellent judge in general, but a very bad one in particular. [ Lord Greville ]
As a general thing, an individual who is neat in his person is neat in his morals. [ H. W. Shaw ]
Disasters are wont to reveal the abilities of a general, good fortune to conceal them. [ Horace ]
Ten Things To Do.
Do good to all.
Speak evil of none.
Hear and know the facts before judging.
Think before speaking.
Hold an angry tongue.
Be kind to the distressed.
Ask pardon for all wrongs.
Be patient toward everybody.
Stop the ears to a tale-bearer.
Disbelieve most of the ill reports concerning friends, neighbors, and people in general.
The necessities that exist are in general created by the superfluities that are enjoyed. [ Zimmerman ]
Times of general calamity and confusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. [ Colton ]
In general, those who have nothing to say contrive to spend the longest time in doing it. [ Lowell ]
Resolved: To do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good of mankind in general. [ Jonathan Edwards ]
Romances, in general, are calculated rather to fire the imagination than to inform the judgment. [ Richardson ]
In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eat about twice as much as nature requires. [ Franklin ]
Those who are formed to win general admiration are seldom calculated to bestow individual happiness. [ Lady Blessington ]
The general of a large army may be defeated, but you cannot defeat the determined will of a peasant. [ Confucius ]
General infidelity is the hardest soil which the propagators of a new religion can have to work upon. [ Paley ]
There are no greater wretches in the world than many of those whom people in general take to be happy. [ Seneca ]
For life in general, there is but one decree: youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle, old age a regret. [ Benjamin Disraeli (Earl Beaconsfield) ]
Men in general do not live as if they looked to die; and therefore do not die as if they looked to live. [ Manton ]
Humility is a virtue of so general, so exceeding good influence, that we can scarce purchase it too dear. [ Thomas à Kempis ]
The reason that there is such a general outcry against flatterers is, that there are so very few good ones. [ Steele ]
Wit is, in general, the finest sense in the world. I had lived long before I discovered that wit was truth. [ Dr. Richard Porson ]
Many shining actions owe their success to chance, though the general or statesman runs away with the applause. [ Lord Karnes ]
I have often thought that the nature of women was inferior to that of men in general, but superior in particular. [ Greville ]
Men are in general so tricky, so envious, and so cruel, that when we find one who is only weak, we are too happy. [ Voltaire ]
There are few faces that can afford to smile. A smile is sometimes bewitching; in general vapid; often a contortion. [ Benjamin Disraeli ]
General observations drawn from particulars are the jewels of knowledge, comprehending great store in a little room. [ Locke ]
Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration. [ Macchiavelli ]
A man, if he be active and energetic, can hardly fail also, be he never so selfish, of benefiting the general public interest. [ Benjamin F. Butler ]
Men possessing minds which are morose, solemn, and inflexible, enjoy, in general, a greater share of dignity than of happiness. [ Bacon ]
Assertion, unsupported by fact, is nugatory; surmise and general abuse, in however elegant language, ought not to pass for proofs. [ Junius ]
When general observations are drawn from so many particulars as to become certain and indisputable, these are jewels of knowledge. [ Dr. Watts ]
Great men are the modellers, patterns, and in a wide sense creators, of whatsoever the general mass of men contrived to do and attain. [ Carlyle ]
There is no greater sign of a general decay of virtue in a nation than a want of zeal in its inhabitants for the good of their country. [ Addison ]
Sects of men are apt to be shut up in sectarian ideas of their own, and to be less open to new general ideas than the main body of men. [ Matthew Arnold ]
We may wager that any idea of the public, or any general opinion, is a folly, since it has received the approbation of a majority of the people. [ Chamfort ]
That which exists in nature is a something purely individual and particular. Art, on the contrary, is essentially destined to manifest the general. [ Schlegel ]
It is a general rule, one at least to which I know no exceptions, that all superior men inherit the elements of their superiority from their mothers. [ Michelet ]
Science is the knowledge of constant things, not merely of passing events, and is properly less the knowledge of general laws than of existing facts. [ John Ruskin ]
The misuse of words in this literature of ungoverned or ungovernable sensibility has become so general as to threaten the validity of all definitions. [ E. P. Whipple ]
In portraits, the grace and, we may add, the likeness consists more in taking the general air than in observing the exact similitude of every feature. [ Sir Joshua Reynolds ]
Worldly wealth is the devil's bait; and those whose minds feed upon riches, recede, in general, from real happiness, in proportion as their stores increase. [ Burton ]
In general, we do well to let an opponent's motives alone. We are seldom just to them. Our own motives on such occasions are often worse than those we assail. [ W. E. Channing ]
The ideal social state is not that in which each gets an equal amount of wealth, but in which each gets in proportion to his contribution to the general stock. [ Henry George ]
What I object to Scotch philosophers in general is that they reason upon man as they would upon a divinity; they pursue truth without caring if it be useful truth. [ Sydney Smith ]
Nothing so uncertain as general reputation. A man injures me from humor, passion, or interest; hates me because he has injured me; and speaks ill of me because he hates me. [ Henry Home ]
Nothing, in truth, has such a tendency to weaken not only the powers of invention, but the intellectual powers in general, as a habit of extensive and various reading without reflection. [ Dugald Stewart ]
When we see our enemies and friends gliding away before us, let us not forget that we are subject to the general law of mortality, and shall soon be where our doom will be fixed forever. [ Johnson ]
It may be laid down as a general rule that no woman who hath any great pretensions to admiration is ever well pleased in a company where she perceives herself to fill only a second place. [ Fielding ]
Happy contractedness of youth, nay, of mankind in general, that they think neither of the high nor the deep, of the true nor the false, but only of what is suited to their own conceptions. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
We declare to you that the earth has exhausted its contingent of master spirits. Now for decadence and general closing. We must make up our minds to it. We shall have no more men of genius. [ Victor Hugo ]
Praise or Applause? We express our approbation by praise and applause. Praise is the general, applause, the specific term. Applause springs from impulse, while praise is the result of reason and reflection. [ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]
Times of general calamity and confusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm. [ Colton ]
Worldly wealth is the Devil's bait; and those whose minds feed upon riches recede, in general, from real happiness, in proportion as their stores increase; as the moon, when she is fullest, is farthest from the sun. [ Burton ]
Of all the species of literary composition, perhaps biography is the most delightful. The attention concentrated on one individual gives a unity to the materials of which it is composed, which is wanting in general history. [ Robert Hall ]
A very small offence may be a just cause for great resentment: it is often much less the particular instance which is obnoxious to us than the proof if carries with it of the general tenor and disposition of the mind from whence it sprung. [ Greville ]
Dress has a moral effect upon the conduct of mankind. Let any gentleman find himself with dirty boots, old surtout, soiled neckcloth and a general negligence of dress, and he will in all probability find a corresponding disposition by negligence of address. [ Sir Jonah Barrington ]
Taste, if it mean anything but a paltry connoisseurship, must mean a general susceptibility to truth and nobleness; a sense to discern and a heart to love and reverence all beauty, order, goodness, wheresoever found and in whatsoever form and accompaniment. [ Carlyle ]
If there is excellence in my composition, set it down, first of all things and last, to the general fact that I have no method. Modes of expression in writing, like modes of expression in speech, are referable purely to feeling, not studied, but of the moment. [ Gen. Lew Wallace, The Art Of Authorship, 1891 ]
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 ]
There are persons of that general philanthropy and easy tempers, which the world in contempt generally calls good-natured, who seem to be sent into the world with the same design with which men put little fish into a pike pond, in order only to be devoured by that voracious water-hero. [ Fielding ]
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 ]
A French woman is a perfect architect in dress: she never, with Gothic ignorance, mixes the orders; she never tricks out a snobby Doric shape with Corinthian finery; or, to speak without metaphor, she conforms to general fashion only when it happens not to be repugnant to private beauty. [ Goldsmith ]
The first degree of proficiency is, in painting, what grammar is in literature, - a general preparation for whatever species of the art the student may afterwards choose for his more particular application. The power of drawing, modelling, and using colors is very properly called the language of the art. [ Sir Joshua Reynolds ]
As a general rule, people who flagrantly pretend to anything are the reverse of that which they pretend to. A man who sets up for a saint is sure to be a sinner; and a man who boasts that he is a sinner is sure to have some feeble, maudlin, snivelling bit of saintship about him which is enough to make him a humbug. [ Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]
Talk, except as the preparation for work, is worth almost nothing; sometimes it is worth infinitely less than nothing; and becomes, little conscious of playing such a fatal part, the general summary of pretentious nothingnesses, and the chief of all the curses the posterity of Adam are liable to in this sublunary world. [ Carlyle ]
Writers of novels and romances in general bring a double loss on their readers, - they rob them both of their time and money; representing men, manners and things that never have been, nor are likely to be; either confounding or perverting history and truth, inflating the mind, or committing violence upon the understanding. [ Mary Wortley Montagu ]
Music has certainly a powerful influence on the passions, and produces happy effects upon the human heart and mind when cultivated moderately; but when it becomes the general prevailing passion of a nation, or, as it were, gets dominion over them, it unquestionably produces not effeminacy merely, but a hateful depravity of manners. [ S. F. Bradford ]
A time will come when the science of destruction shall bend before the arts of peace; when the genius which multiplies our powers, which creates new products, which diffuses comfort and happiness among the great mass of the people, shall occupy in the general estimation of mankind that rank which reason and commonsense now assign to it. [ Arago ]
Blessings on him who invented sleep, the mantle that covers all human thoughts, the food that appeases hunger, the drink that quenches thirst, the fire that warms cold, the cold that moderates heat, and, lastly, the general coin that purchases all things, the balance and weight that equals the shepherd with the king, and the simple with the wise. [ Cervantes ]
Nominate or Name? To nominate is to mention for a specific purpose. To name is to mention for a general purpose. Persons only are nominated; things, as well as persons, are named. To be nominated is a public act; to be named is generally private. To be nominated is always an honor; to be named may, according to circumstances, be either honorable or dishonorable. [ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]
Necessary or Essential? Necessary signifies not to be departed from, and is a general and an indefinite term. The essential contains that essence or property which cannot be omitted. It is necessary for men to die. Exercise is essential to the preservation of health. There is an essential difference between gold and silver. Here we could not properly use necessary for essential. [ Pure English, Hackett And Girvin, 1884 ]
Great merit or great failings will make you respected or despised; but trifles, little attentions, mere nothings, either done or neglected, will make you either liked or disliked, in the general run of the world. Examine yourself, why you like such and such people and dislike such and such others; and you will find that those different sentiments proceed from very slight causes. [ Chesterfield ]
The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does not depend so much upon a man's general expense, as it does upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for instance, who should give a servant four shillings would pass for covetous, while he who gave him a crown would be reckoned generous; so that the difference of those two opposite characters turns upon one shilling. [ Chesterfield ]
All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance; it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united by canals. If a man was to compare the effect of a single stroke of a pickaxe, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and last result, he would be overwhelmed with the sense of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains are leveled and oceans bounded, by the slender force of human beings. [ Dr. Johnson ]
Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge: it is immortal as the heart of men. If the labors of the men of science should ever create any revolution, direct or indirect, in our condition, and in the impressions which we habitually receive, the poet will then sleep no more than at present; he will be ready to follow the steps of the man of science, not only in those general indirect effects, but he will be at his side, carrying sensation into the midst of the objects of the science itself. The remotest discoveries of the chemist, the botanist, or mineralogist will be as proper objects of the poet's art as any upon which it can be employed, if the time should ever come when these things shall be familiar to us, and the relations under which they are contemplated by the followers of the respective sciences shall be manifestly and palpably material to us as enjoying and suffering beings. If the time should ever come when what is now called science, thus familiarized to men, shall be ready to put on. as it were, a form of flesh and blood, the poet will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, and will welcome the being thus produced as a dear and genuine inmate of the household of man. [ Wordsworth ]