Sir William Temple
» Abstinence » “The only way for a rich man to be healthy is by exercise and abstinence, to live as if he were poor.”
» Age and Aging » “There cannot live a more unhappy creature than an ill-natured old man, who is neither capable of receiving pleasures, nor sensible of conferring them on others.”
» Alcohol and Alcoholism » “The first glass is for myself, the second for my friends, the third for good humor, and the forth for my enemies.”
» Books and Reading » “Who ever converses among old books will be hard to please among the new.”
» Books and Reading » “Books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of the ages through which they have passed”
» Complaints and Complaining » “Our present time is indeed a criticizing and critical time, hovering between the wish, and the inability to believe. Our complaints are like arrows shot up into the air at no target: and with no purpose they only fall back upon our own heads and destroy ourselves.”
» Conversation » “The first ingredient in conversation is truth, the next good sense, the third good humor, and the fourth wit.”
» Humankind » “When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward child, that must be played with and humored a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over.”
» Life and Living » “Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.”
» Poetry and Poets » “No one ever was a great poet, that applied himself much to anything else.”
» Prayer » “When I pray, coincidences happen, and when I don’t, they don’t.”
» Self-improvement » “The best rules to form a young man, are, to talk little, to hear much, to reflect alone upon what has passed in company, to distrust one’s own opinions, and value others that deserve it.”
