From a single instance you may infer the whole.
Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flattery. [ Swift ]
Money must be sought for in the first instance; virtue after riches. [ Horace ]
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies, for instance. [ Ruskin ]
You cannot give me an instance of any man who is permitted to lay out his own time contriving not to have tedious hours. [ Dr. Johnson ]
Genius in poverty is never feared, because Nature, though liberal in her gifts in one instance, is forgetful in another. [ B. R. Haydon ]
Think how completely all the griefs of this mortal life will be compensated by one age, for instance, of the felicities beyond the grave. [ John Foster ]
It has been shrewdly said, that when men abuse us we should suspect ourselves, and when they praise us, them. It is a rare instance of virtue to despise censure which we do not deserve; and still more rare to despise praise which we do. [ Colton ]
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 ]
A broken heart is a distemper which kills many more than is generally imagined, and would have a fair title to a place in the bills of mortality, did it not differ in one instance from all other diseases, namely, that no physicians can cure it. [ Fielding ]
This is that eloquence the ancients represented as lightning, bearing down every opposer; this the power which has turned whole assemblies into astonishment, admiration and awe that is described by the torrent, the flame, and every other instance of irresistible impetuosity. [ Goldsmith ]
Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion. For instance, let's say you're an astronaut on the moon and you fear that your partner has been turned into Dracula. The next time he goes out for the moon pieces, wham!, you just slam the door behind him and blast off. He might call you on the radio and say he's not Dracula, but you just say, Think again, bat man.
[ Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts ]
I have so great a contempt and detestation for meanness, that I could sooner make a friend of one who had committed murder, than of a person who could be capable, in any instance, of the former vice. Under meanness, I comprehend dishonesty; under dishonesty, ingratitude; under ingratitude, irreligion; and under this latter, every species of vice and immorality in human nature. [ Sterne ]
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 ]