Sir Fulke Greville Quotes

Whatever natural right men may have to freedom and independency, it is manifest that some men have a natural ascendency over others.

A lively and agreeable man has not only the merit of liveliness and agreeableness himself, but that also of awakening them in others.

Unbecoming forwardness oftener proceeds from ignorance than impudence.

Surely no man can reflect, without wonder upon the vicissitudes of human life arising from causes in the highest degree accidental and trifling. If you trace the necessary concatenation of human events a very little way back, you may perhaps discover that a person's very going in or out of a door has been the means of coloring with misery or happiness the remaining current of his life.

Those men who are commended by everybody must be very extraordinary men; or, which is more probable, very inconsiderable men.

Men and statues that are admired ire an elevated situation have a very different effect upon us when we approach them; the first appear less than we imagined them, the last bigger.

The mind of man is this world's true dimension; and knowledge is the measure of the mind.

Good-humor is allied to generosity, ill-humor to meanness.

I hardly know so melancholy a reflection as that parents are necessarily the sole directors of the management of children, whether they have or have not judgment, penetration or taste to perform the task.

The brains of a pedant however full, are vacant.

Man is the only creature endowed with the power of laughter.

There is an unfortunate disposition in a man to attend much more to the faults of his companions which offend him, than to their perfections which please him.

The world is an excellent judge in general, but a very bad one in particular.

As charity covers a multitude of sins before God, so does politeness before men.

Good-humor will sometimes conquer ill-humor, but ill-humor will conquer it oftener; and for this plain reason, good-humor must operate on generosity, ill-humor on meanness.

We laugh heartily to see a whole flock of sheep jump because one did so. Might not one imagine that superior beings do the same, and for exactly the same reason?

A proud man never shows his pride so much as when he is civil.

To divest one's self of some prejudices would be like taking off the skin to feel the better.

I hardly know a sight that raises one's indignation more than that of an enlarged soul joined to a contracted fortune; unless it be that so much more common one, of a contracted soul joined to an enlarged fortune.

I have often thought that the nature of women was interior to that of men in general, but superior in particular.

Weak men often from the very principle of their weakness derive a certain susceptibility; delicacy and taste which render them, in those particulars, much superior to men of stronger and more consistent minds, who laugh at them.

Our companions please us less from the charms we find in their conversation than from those they find in ours.

Discernment is a power of the understanding in which few excel. Is not that owing to its connection with impartiality and truth? for are not prejudice and partiality blind?

Many with trust, with doubt few, are undone.

I hardly know so true a mark of a little mind as the servile imitation of others.

Human knowledge is the parent of doubt.

He whom God chooseth, out of doubt doth well:
What they that choose their God do, who can tell?

Envy is but the smoke of low estate,
Ascending still against the fortunate.