'Tis an old maxim in the schools
That flattery's the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit. [ Swift ]

It is an old maxim in the schools
That flattery's the food for fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit,
Will condescend to take a bit. [ Swift ]

Appearances deceive
And this one maxim is a standing rule:
Men are not what they seem. [ Havard ]

It is a maxim with me that no man was ever written out of reputation but by himself. [ Monk ]

It is a maxim that no man was ever enslaved by influence while he was fit to be free. [ Johnson ]

'Tis my maxim, he's a fool that marries; but he's a greater that does not marry a fool. [ Wycherly ]

I have ever held it as a maxim never to do that through another which it was possible for me to execute myself. [ Montesquieu ]

I set it down as a maxim, that it is good for a man to live where he can meet his betters, intellectual and social. [ William M. Thackeray ]

In all our reasonings concerning men, we must lay it down as a maxim that the greater part are moulded by circumstances. [ Robert Hall ]

Health is the greatest of all possessions, and it is a maxim with me that a hale cobbler is a better man than a sick king. [ Bickerstaff ]

It may pass for a maxim in State, that the administration cannot be placed in too few hands, nor the legislature in too many. [ Swift ]

It is an invariable maxim that words which add nothing to the sense or to the clearness must diminish the force of the expression. [ Campbell ]

The Grecian's maxim would indeed be a sweeping clause in literature; it would reduce many a giant to a pygmy, many a speech to a sentence, and many a folio to a primer. [ Colton ]

It is on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular. [ Hume ]

A maxim is the exact and noble expression of an important and indisputable truth. Sound maxims are the germs of good; strongly imprinted in the memory, they nourish the will. [ Joubert ]

To live with our enemies as if they may some time become our friends, and to live with our friends as if they may some time become our enemies, is not a moral but a political maxim.

A maxim is the exact and noble expression of an important and unquestionable truth. Good maxims are the germs of all excellence. When firmly fixed on the memory, they nourish the will. [ Joseph Joubert ]

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 ]

When in reading we meet with any maxim that may be of use, we should take it for our own, and make an immediate application of it, as we would of the advice of a friend whom we have purposely consulted. [ Colton ]

Called to the throne by the voice of the people, my maxim has always been: A career open to talent without distinction of birth. It is this system of equality for which the European oligarchy detests me. [ Napoleon ]

He is a treacherous supplanter and underminer of the peace of all families and societies. This being a maxim of an unfailing truth, that nobody ever pries into another man's concerns but with a design to do, or to be able to do him a mischief. [ South ]

The maxim of Cleobulus, Mediocrity is best, has been long considered a universal principle, extending through the whole compass of life and nature. The experience of every age seems to have given it new confirmation, and to show that nothing, however specious or alluring, is pursued with propriety or enjoyed with safety beyond certain limits. [ Dr. Johnson ]