Necessity knows no law. [ Constance ]
The soul knows no persons. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
Love knows nothing of labour. [ Italian Proverb ]
He knows not a pig from a dog. [ Proverb ]
Love is a secret no man knows
Till it within his bosom glows. [ Proverb ]
Every one thinks he knows much. [ Proverb ]
He that travels much knows much. [ Proverb ]
A wool seller knows a wool buyer. [ Proverb ]
He who knows much has many cares. [ Lessing ]
Every one knows how to find fault. [ Proverb ]
Nature alone knows what she means. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
The cat knows whose lips she licks. [ Proverb ]
God knows who are the best pilgrims. [ Proverb ]
The river knows the way to the sea:
Without a pilot it runs and falls.
Blessing all lands with its charity. [ Emerson ]
He knows not a hawk from a hand-saw. [ Proverb ]
A woman conceals what she knows not. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
He doubts nothing who knows nothing. [ Portuguese Proverb ]
No man knows himself as an original. [ Washington Allston ]
He who knows most believes the least. [ Buckle ]
He that converses not, knows nothing. [ Proverb ]
The rich knows not who is his friend. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Nature knows best, and she says, roar! [ Maria Edgeworth ]
The night comes on that knows no morn. [ Tennyson ]
He that knows little often repeats it. [ Proverb ]
The wearer knows where the shoe wrings. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
But faithfulness can feed on suffering.
And knows no disappointment. [ George Eliot ]
The night comes on that knows not morn,
When I shall cease to be all alone,
To live forgotten, and love forlorn. [ Tennyson ]
He is a wise man who knows what is wise. [ Xenophon ]
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking.
Morn of toil, nor night of waking. [ Scott ]
But blind to former as to future fate.
What mortal knows his preexistent state? [ Pope ]
The wise man knows himself to be a fool. [ William Shakespeare ]
The wolf knows what the ill beast thinks. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Once more upon the waters! yet once more!
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows his rider. [ Byron ]
Soldier, rest! thy warfare over.
Dream of fighting fields no more;
Sleep the sleep that knows not breakings,
Morn of toil, nor night of waking. [ Scott ]
Who knows who may keep sheep another day? [ Proverb ]
Necessity knows no law except to conquer. [ Publius Syrus ]
The full heart knows no rhetoric of words. [ Bovee ]
The ass knows well in whose face he brays. [ Spanish Proverb ]
None knows the weight of another's burden. [ Proverb ]
He's gone, and who knows how he may report
Thy words by adding fuel to the flame? [ Milton ]
No one knows himself until he has suffered. [ A. de Musset ]
None but an author knows an author's cares. [ Cowper ]
Prosperity knows not the worth of patience. [ Proverb ]
He that knows least commonly presumes most. [ Proverb ]
On the field of foughten battle still,
Woe knows no limits save the victor's will. [ The Gaulliad ]
None but an author knows an author's cares,
Or fancy's fondness for the child she bears. [ Cowper ]
The world knows only two, that's Home and I. [ Ben Jonson ]
What the soul is, the soul itself knows not. [ Cicero ]
I love vast libraries; yet there is a doubt,
If one be better with them or without -
Unless he use them wisely, and, indeed,
Knows the high art of what and how to read. [ J. G. Saxe ]
No one knows the weight of another's burden. [ Proverb ]
Heaven knows, I had no such intent;
But that necessity so bowed the state.
That I and greatness were compelled to kiss. [ Shakespeare ]
He bore a simple wild-flower wreath:
Narcissus, and the sweet brier rose;
Vervain, and flexile thyme, that breathe
Rich fragrance; modest heath, that glows
With purple bells; the amaranth bright.
That no decay, nor fading knows.
Like true love's holiest, rarest light;
And every purest flower, that blows,
In that sweet time, which Love most blesses,
When spring on summer's confines presses. [ Thomas Love Peacock ]
Who knows nothing base, fears nothing known. [ Owen Meredith ]
The world knows nothing of its greatest men. [ Henry Taylor ]
He's wise that knows when he is well enough. [ Proverb ]
He who knows man is everywhere in his place. [ Klinger ]
When one is on horseback he knows all things. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
He knows which side of his bread is buttered. [ Proverb ]
He who knows his incapacity, knows something. [ Marguerite de Valois ]
It is a wise father that knows his own child. [ William Shakespeare ]
The fox knows well with whom he plays tricks. [ Spanish Proverb ]
He is not a bad driver who knows how to turn. [ Danish Proverb ]
He is a wise child that knows his own father. [ Proverb ]
He that's long a-giving knows not how to give. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
The learned is happy nature to explore,
The fool is happy that he knows no more;
The rich is happy in the plenty given.
The poor contents him with the care of Heaven. [ Pope ]
He who best knows the world will love it least [ Balzac ]
A woman without beauty knows but half of life. [ Mme. de Montaran ]
A thief knows a thief, as a wolf knows a wolf. [ Proverb ]
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. [ William Cowper ]
He knows not what love is that has no children. [ Proverb ]
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool,
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan.
At fifty, chides his infamous delay.
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve.
Resolves - and re-resolves; then dies the same. [ Young ]
A discontented man knows not where to sit easy. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
He who knows most grieves most for wasted time. [ Dante ]
It is not so with Him that all things knows
As 'tis with us that square our guess by shows:
But most it is presumption in us when
The help of heaven we count the act of men. [ William Shakespeare ]
He knows much who knows how to hold his tongue. [ Proverb ]
He who has most of heart, knows most of sorrow. [ Bailey ]
The wearer only knows where the shoe harts him. [ Proverb ]
He cannot be good that knows not why he is good. [ Proverb ]
Great families of yesterday we show,
And lords whose parents were the Lord knows who. [ Daniel De Foe ]
I know him as well as the beggar knows his dish. [ Proverb ]
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. [ William Shakespeare, Richard III ]
He hath lived ill that knows not how to die well. [ Proverb ]
None knows what will happen to him before sunset. [ Proverb ]
The fox knows much, but more he that catches him. [ Proverb ]
He knows best what good is that has endured evil. [ Proverb ]
Little knows the fat sow what the lean one means. [ Proverb ]
Live on, brave lives, chained to the narrow round
Of Duty; live, expend yourselves, and make
The orb of Being wheel onward steadfastly
Upon its path--the Lord of Life alone
Knows to what goal of Good; work on, live on. [ Lewis Morris ]
Half the world knows not how the other half lives. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
What man would be wise, let him drink of the river
That bears on his bosom the record of time;
A message to him every wave can deliver
To teach him to creep till he knows how to climb. [ John Boyle O'Reilly ]
True valour knows as well how to suffer as to act. [ Proverb ]
A right Englishman knows not when a thing is well. [ Proverb ]
Only the heart without a stain knows perfect ease. [ Goethe ]
God keep us from a man who knows only one subject. [ French Proverb ]
A woman either loves or hates: she knows no medium. [ Syrus ]
He is happy that knows not himself to be otherwise. [ Proverb ]
Women are angels, wooing:
Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing:
That she beloved knows naught, that knows not this -
Men prize the thing ungamed more than it is. [ William Shakespeare ]
He knows little who will tell his wife all he knows. [ Fuller ]
He knows the water the best who has waded through it. [ Proverb ]
No one knows how far his powers go till he has tried. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
The mouse knows well when the cat's out of the house. [ Proverb ]
He teaches best.
Who feels the hearts of all men in his breast,
And knows their strength or weakness through his own. [ Bayard Taylor ]
We easily forget our faults, when no body knows them. [ Proverb ]
He receives most favours who knows how to return them. [ Publius Syrus ]
In the world who knows not to swim goes to the bottom. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
He that knows what may be gained in a day never steals. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
He a soldier, and knows not onion-seed from gun-powder? [ Proverb ]
The narrow soul knows not the godlike glory of forgiving. [ Rowe ]
Man knows nothing but what he has learned from experience. [ Wieland ]
Everything comes in time to the man who knows how to wait. [ French Proverb ]
No man knows himself till he hath tasted of both fortunes. [ Proverb ]
It is a blind goose that knows not a fox from a fern-bush. [ Proverb ]
The mother knows best whether the child be like the father. [ Proverb ]
The genius, our companion, who rules our natal star, knows. [ Horace ]
He that knows how to waste finds everything to his purpose. [ Proverb ]
God save me from a poor fiddler who knows nothing of music. [ F. Geminiani ]
Who knows what may be slumbering in the background of time! [ Schiller ]
The lute is in the hand of him that knows how to play on it. [ Proverb ]
The least wit a man has, the less he knows that he wants it. [ Proverb ]
Absolutism is tolerant, only because it knows itself mighty. [ A. de Gasparin ]
Everybody knows worse of himself than he knows of other men. [ Dr. Johnson ]
A man knows his companion in a long journey and a little inn. [ Proverb ]
The cow knows not what her tail is worth till she has lost it. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
The day that a man knows he commits a sin, he condemns himself. [ Proverb ]
Knaves will thrive when honest plainness knows not how to live. [ Shirley ]
He that knows not how to hold his tongue knows not how to talk. [ Proverb ]
Every man seeks for truth; but God only knows who has found it. [ Chesterfield ]
He who pretends to know everything proves that he knows nothing. [ Le Bailly ]
One knows the value of pleasure only after he has suffered pain. [ Fontanelle ]
He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. [ J. Stuart Mill ]
A fool knows more in his own house than a wise man in another's. [ Proverb ]
A noble man attracts noble men, and knows how to hold them fast. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
He who knows right principles is not equal to him who loves them. [ Confucius ]
Who knows whether the gods will add tomorrow to the present hour? [ Horace ]
The sovereign is called a tyrant who knows no laws but his caprice. [ Voltaire ]
Who falls from all he knows of bliss, cares little into what abyss. [ Byron ]
If the bed could tell all it knows, it would put many to the blush. [ Proverb ]
Whoever has loved knows all that life contains of sorrow and of joy. [ George Sand ]
Animals feed, man eats; the man of intellect alone knows how to eat. [ Brillat-Savarin ]
He who believes in nobody knows that he himself is not to be trusted. [ Auerbach ]
Whether in chains or in laurels, liberty knows nothing but victories. [ Wendell Phillips ]
Who knows but that my private watch may go truer than the town-clock? [ Proverb ]
Who knows most, doubts most; entertaining hope means recognizing fear. [ Browning ]
He knows enough who knows how to live and how to keep his own counsel. [ French Proverb ]
The good man of the house is the last that knows what is done at home. [ Proverb ]
Oh that simplicity and innocence its own unvalued work so seldom knows! [ Shelley ]
He who knows not, knows a good deal if he knows how to hold his tongue. [ Italian Proverb ]
Aggressive fighting for the right is the greatest sport the world knows. [ Theodore Roosevelt ]
The less a man thinks or knows about his virtues the better we like him. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
I envy no man that knows more than my self, but pity them that know less. [ Sir Thomas Browne ]
Whoever has not ascended mountains knows little of the beauties of Nature. [ William Hewitt ]
Man is nothing but contradiction; the less he knows it the more dupe he is. [ Amiel ]
He who knows not how to bestow a benefit is unreasonable if he expects one. [ Publius Syrus ]
Our age knows nothing but reactions, and leaps from one extreme to another. [ Niebuhr ]
He that is his own counsellor knows nothing sure but what he hath laid out. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
Grammar knows how to lord it over kings, and with high hand make them obey. [ Molière ]
He that knows useful things, not he that knows many things, is the wise man. [ Proverb ]
The moods of love are like the wind; and none knows whence or why they rise. [ Patmore ]
It is nothing for you to know a thing unless another knows that you know it. [ Pers ]
Blessed is that man who knows his own distaff and has found his own spindle. [ J. G. Holland ]
The world knows the worst of me, and I can say that I am better than my fame. [ Schiller ]
A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing. [ Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere's Fan ]
When a man says he has exhausted life one always knows life has exhausted him. [ Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance ]
He knows that the man is overcome ingloriously who is overcome without danger. [ Seneca ]
The fox knows many shifts, the cat only one great one, viz., to run up a tree. [ Proverb ]
Who knows that 'tis not life which we call death, and death our life on earth? [ Euripides ]
It is absurd that he should govern others, who knows not how to govern himself. [ Law Max ]
Only an inventor knows how to borrow, and every man is or should be an inventor. [ Emerson ]
He on whom Heaven bestows a sceptre knows not the weight of it till he bears it. [ Corneille ]
The wise man knows well that he does not know; the ignorant man thinks he knows. [ Spanish Proverb ]
And when obedient nature knows his will, a fly, a grapestone, or a hair can kill. [ Prior ]
A man who pours drugs of which he knows little into a body of which he knows less. [ Voltaire ]
A pedant holds more to instruct us with what he knows, than of what we are ignorant. [ J. Petit-Senn ]
Man little knows what calamities are beyond his patience to bear till he tries them. [ Goldsmith ]
Any one can give advice, such as it is, but only a wise man knows how to profit by it. [ Caleb C. Colton ]
He that has sense knows that learning is not knowledge, but rather the art of using it. [ Richard Steele ]
Of four things every man has more than he knows--of sins, and debts, and years, and foes. [ Persian Proverb ]
Offend her, and she knows not to forgive; Oblige her, and she'll hate you while you live. [ Pope ]
A woman whose size in gloves is seven and three quarters never knows much about anything. [ Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband ]
One that is perfectly idle is perfectly weary too, and knows not what he would do or have. [ Proverb ]
A great man knows the value of greatness: he dares not hazard it, he will not squander it. [ Landor ]
Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction. [ Goethe ]
Wit is a dangerous weapon, even to the possessor, if he knows not how to use it discreetly. [ Montaigne ]
Life is long enough for him who knows how to use it. Working and thinking extend its limits. [ Voltaire ]
Who that has loved knows not the tender tale which flowers reveal, when lips are coy to tell? [ Edward Bulwer-Lytton ]
It is in men as in soils where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of. [ Swift ]
The heart of true womanhood knows where its own sphere is, and never seeks to stray beyond it! [ Hawthorne ]
It is an inherent and inseparable inconvenience in persecution that it knows not where to stop. [ Robert Hall ]
Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not. [ Fielding ]
Nobody knows who may be listening; say nothing which you would not wish put in the daily paper. [ Spurgeon ]
He knows not how to speak who cannot be silent, still less how to act with vigour and decision. [ Lavater ]
The true characteristic of genius - without despising rules, it knows when and how to break them. [ Channing ]
Be it mine to draw from wisdom's fount, pure as it flows, that calm of soul which virtue only knows. [ Eschylus ]
The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and the beginning of his life. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
The less one sees and knows men, the higher one esteems them; for experience teaches their real value. [ Marguerite de Valois ]
There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage. [ Seneca ]
He knows very little of mankind who expects, by facts or reasoning, to convince a determined party-man. [ Lavater ]
The dark grave, which knows all secrets, can alone reclaim the fatal doubt once cast on a woman's name. [ George Herbert ]
What women would do if they could not cry, nobody knows. What poor defenceless creatures they would be! [ Douglas Jerrold ]
A just person knows how to secure his own reputation without blemishing another's by exposing his faults. [ Quesnel ]
He that at twenty is not, at thirty knows not, and at forty has not, will never either be, or know, or have. [ Italian Proverb ]
In this advanced century, a girl of sixteen knows as much as her mother, and enjoys her knowledge much more.
He who knows what it is to enjoy God will dread His loss; he who has seen His face will fear to see His back. [ Richard Alleine ]
If a man is a gentleman he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman whatever he knows is bad for him. [ Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance ]
He is incapable of a truly good action who knows not the pleasure in contemplating the good actions of others. [ Lavater ]
The wise man tells not what he knows. It is not prudent to sport with one's head by revealing the king's secrets. [ Saadi ]
In love, a woman is like a lyre that surrenders its secrets only to the hand that knows how to touch its strings. [ Balzac ]
Time knows not the weight of sleep or weariness, and night's deep darkness has no chain to bind his rushing pinion. [ George D. Prentice ]
Every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly until he knows that every day is Doomsday. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
To please, one must make up his mind to be taught many things which he already knows, by people who do not know them. [ Chamfort ]
There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It is a thing no married man knows anything about. [ Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere's Fan ]
Oft have I thought - jabber as he will, how learned soever, man knows nothing but what he has learned from experience! [ Wieland ]
Friendship, like love, is self-forgetful: the only inequality it knows, is one that exalts the object, and humbles self. [ H. Giles ]
Who is nobody? The man who lives for self, who has no affection for his own kin, and who lives a living he and knows it. [ James Ellis ]
Adversity is a great schoolmistress, as many a poor fellow knows that has whimpered over his lesson before her awful chair. [ Thackeray ]
I am a man of peace. God knows how I love peace; but I hope I shall never be such a coward as to mistake oppression for peace. [ Kossuth ]
Grammarian, rhetorician, geometrician, painter, anointer, augur, tight-rope dancer, physician, magician - he knows everything. [ Juv ]
But Christian faith knows that wealth means responsibility, and that responsibility may come to mean only heavy arrears of sin. [ H. P. Liddon ]
Love's sweetest meanings are unspoken; the full heart knows no rhetoric of words, and resorts to the pantomime of sighs and glances. [ Bovee ]
The truly proud man knows neither superiors nor inferiors. The first he does not admit of: the last he does not concern himself about. [ Hazlitt ]
We learn nothing from mere hearing, and he who does not take an active part in certain subjects knows them but half and superficially. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
Liberty knows nothing but victories. Soldiers call Bunker Hill a defeat; but liberty dates from it though Warren lay dead on the field. [ Wendell Phillips ]
As the present character of a man, so his past, so his future. Who recollects distinctly his past adventures knows his destiny to come. [ Lavater ]
Rules may teach us not to raise the arms above the head; but if passion carries them, it will be well done; passion knows more than art. [ Baron ]
The scholar only knows how dear these silent yet eloquent companions of pure thoughts and innocent hours become in the season of adversity. [ Washington Irving ]
I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to the gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right. [ Cato ]
When a mother, as fond mothers will, vows that she knows every thought in her daughter's heart, I think she pretends to know a great deal too much. [ Thackeray ]
Generosity, when once set going, knows not how to stop; as the more familiar we are with the lovely form, the more enamored we become of her charms. [ Pliny the Younger ]
God is the only being who has time enough; but a prudent man, who knows how to seize occasion, can commonly make a shift to find as much as he needs. [ Lowell ]
Putting thoughts in writing. It resembles a tradesman taking stock, without which he never knows either what he possesses, or in what he is deficient. [ John Hunter ]
To have neither superior, nor inferior, nor equal, united manlike to you; without father, without child, without brother, - man knows no sadder destiny. [ Carlyle ]
Government arrogates to itself that it alone forms men.... Everybody knows that Government never began anything. It is the whole world that thinks and governs. [ Wendell Phillips ]
In love, the importance lies in the beginning. The world knows well that whoever takes one step will take more: it is important, then, to take the first step well. [ Fontanelle ]
Nature knows how to convert evil to good; Nature utilises misers, fanatics, showmen, egotists to accomplish her ends; but we must not think better of the foible for that. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]
Through zeal knowledge is gotten, through lack of zeal knowledge is lost; let a man who knows this double path of gain and loss thus place himself that knowledge may grow. [ Buddha ]
The good pilot knows the whereabouts of every sunken rock in the harbor; how much of joy there would be in the world if all men knew the sunken rocks in the harbor of life. [ Catherine A. Atmould ]
Man loves before he sees; his heart is open before his eyes; love must irradiate his world for him before he well knows he is in it, what it is made of, and what to make of it. [ Ed ]
A misanthrope was told of a young friend of his: Your friend has no experience of the world; he knows nothing about it.
True; but he is already as sad as if he knew all about it.
Science is teaching man to know and reverence truth, and to believe that only so far as he knows and loves it can he live worthily on earth, and vindicate the dignity of his spirit. [ Moses Harvey ]
Every man that has felt pain knows how little all other comforts can gladden him to whom health is denied. Yet who is there does not sometimes hazard it for the enjoyment of an hour? [ Dr. Johnson ]
The greatest of fools is he who imposes on himself, and in his greatest concern thinks certainly he knows that which he has least studied, and of which he is most profoundly ignorant. [ Shaftesbury ]
There are two metals, one of which is omnipotent in the cabinet, and the other in the camp - gold and iron. He that knows how to apply them both may indeed attain the highest station. [ Colton ]
We rarely repent of having spoken too little, very often of having spoken too much: a maxim this which is old and trivial, and which every one knows, but which every one does not practise. [ La Bruyère ]
Health - the silliest word in our language, and one knows the popular idea of health. The English country gentleman galloping after a fox - the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable. [ Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance ]
Learning gives us a fuller conviction of the imperfections of our nature; which, one would think, might dispose us to modesty, for the more a man knows, the more he discovers his ignorance. [ Frances Kemble ]
A very desperate habit; one that is rarely cured. Apology is only egotism wrong side out. Nine times out of ten, the first thing a man's companion knows of his shortcomings is from his apology. [ Holmes ]
Flowers are the bright remembrances of youth; they waft us back, with their bland, odorous breath, the joyous hours that only young life knows, ere we have learnt that this fair earth hides graves. [ Countess of Blessington ]
He is the rich man who can avail himself of all men's faculties. He is the richest man who knows how to draw a benefit from the labors of the greatest number of men, - of men ia distant countries and in past times. [ Emerson ]
To know by rote is no knowledge: it is only a retention of what is intrusted to the memory. That which a man truly knows may be disposed of without regard to the author, or reference to the book from whence he had it. [ Montaigne ]
We are never without a pilot. When we know not how to steer, and dare not hoist a sail, we can drift. The current knows the way, though we do not. The ship of heaven guides itself, and will not accept a wooden rudder. [ Emerson ]
All the other passions condescend at times to accept the inexorable logic of facts; but jealousy looks facts straight in the face, ignores them utterly, and says that she knows a great deal better than they can tell her. [ Helps ]
A Christian builds his fortitude on a better foundation than stoicism; he is pleased with everything that happens, because he knows it could not happen unless it first pleased God, and that which pleases Him must be best. [ C. C. Colton ]
One of the illusions is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday. [ Emerson ]
No man can judge another, because no man knows himself; for we censure others but as they disagree with that humour which we fancy laudable in ourselves, and commend others but for that wherein they seem to quadrate and consent with us. [ Colton ]
Any man shall speak the better when he knows what others have said, and sometimes the consciousness of his inward knowledge gives a confidence to his outward behavior, which of all other is the best thing to grace a man in his carriage. [ Feltham ]
Man is intended for a limited condition; objects that are simple, near, determinate, he comprehends, and he becomes accustomed to employ such means as are at hand; but on entering a wider field he now knows neither what he would nor what he should. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]
A man who knows the world will not only make the most of everything he does know, but of many things he does not know, and will gain more credit by his adroit mode of hiding his ignorance; than the pedant by his awkward attempt to exhibit his erudition. [ Colton ]
We love a girl for very different qualities than understanding. We love her for her beauty, her youth, her mirth, her confidingness, her character, with its faults, caprices and God knows what other inexpressible charms; but we do not love her understanding. [ Goethe ]
What is the world, or its opinion, to him who has studied in the lives of men the mysteries of their egotism and perfidy! He knows that the best and most generous hearts are often forced to tread the thorny paths, where insults and outrages are heaped upon them! [ George Sand ]
A man who knows the world, will not only make the most of everything he does know, but of many things he does not know; and will gain more credit by the dexterity he displays in hiding his ignorance, than the pedant by his awkward attempt to exhibit his erudition. [ Sir R. B. Cotton ]
Nothing is more estimable than a physician who, having studied nature from his youth, knows the properties of the human body, the diseases which assail it, the remedies which will benefit it, exercises his art with caution, and pays equal attention to the rich and the poor. [ Voltaire ]
None but those who have loved can be supposed to understand the oratory of the eye, the mute eloquence of a look, or the conversational powers of the face. Love's sweetest meanings are unspoken; the full heart knows no rhetoric of words, and resorts to the pantomime of sighs and glances. [ Bovee ]
Moral beauty is the basis of all true beauty. This foundation is somewhat covered and veiled in nature. Art brings it out, and gives it more transparent forms. It is here that art, when it knows well its power and resources, engages in a struggle with nature in which it may have the advantage. [ Victor Cousin ]
I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wishes. The greater part of all the mischief in the world arises from the fact that men do not sufficiently understand their own aims. They have undertaken to build a tower, and spend no more labor on the foundation than would be necessary to erect a hut. [ Goethe ]
The summit charms us, the steps to it do not; with the heights before our eyes, we like to linger in the plain. It is only a part of art that can be taught; but the artist needs the whole. He who is only half instructed speaks much and is always wrong; who knows it wholly is content with acting and speaks seldom or late. [ Goethe ]
An observant man, in all his intercourse with society and the world, carries a pencil constantly in his hand, and, unperceived, marks on every person and thing the figure expressive of its value, and therefore instantly on meeting that person or thing again, knows what kind and degree of attention to give it. This is to make something of experience. [ John Foster ]
It is good for any man to be alone with nature and himself, or with a friend who knows when silence is more sociable than talk, In the wilderness alone, there where nature worships God.
It is well to be in places where man is little and God is great, where what he sees all around him has the same look as it had a thousand years ago, and will have the same, in all likelihood, when he has been a thousand years in his grave. It abates and rectifies a man, if he is worth the process. [ Sydney Smith ]
Man little knows what calamities are beyond his patience to bear till he tries them; as in ascending the heights of ambition, which look bright from below, every step we rise shows us some new and gloomy prospect of hidden disappointment; so in our descent from the summits of pleasure, though the vale of misery below may appear, at first, dark and gloomy, yet the busy mind, still attentive to its own amusement, finds, as we descend, something to flatter and to please. Still as we approach, the darkest objects appear to brighten, and the mortal eye becomes adapted to its gloomy situation. [ Goldsmith ]
True hope is based on energy of character. A strong mind always hopes, and has always cause to hope, because it knows the mutability of human affairs and how slight a circumstance may change the whole course of events. Such a spirit, too, rests upon itself, it is not confined to partial views, or to one particular object. And if at last all should be lost, it has saved itself, its own integrity and worth. Hope awakens courage, while despondency is the last of all evils, it is the abandonment of good, the giving up of the battle of life with dead nothingness. He who can implant courage in the human soul is the best physician. [ Von Knebel (German), Translated by Mrs. Austin ]
A beau is one who arranges his curled locks gracefully, who ever smells of balm, and cinnamon; who hums the songs of the Nile, and Cadiz; who throws his sleek arms into various attitudes; who idles away the whole day among the chairs of the ladies and is ever whispering into some one's ear; who reads little billets-doux from this quarter and that, and writes them in return; who avoids ruffling his dress by contact with his neighbors sleeve, who knows with whom everybody is in love; who flutters from feast to feast, who can recount exactly the pedigree of Hirpinus. What do you tell me? is this a beau, Cotilus? Then a beau, Cotilus, is a very trifling thing. [ Martial ]