As long as you keep
in the upper regions, with all the world bowing to you as
you go, social arrangements have a very handsome air; but
once get under the wheels and you wish society were at the
devil. I will give most respectable men a fortnight of
such a life, and then I will offer them twopence for what
remains of their morality.
*
I hate cynicism a great deal worse than I do the devil;
unless, perhaps, the two were the same thing? And yet 'tis
a good tonic; the cold tub and bath-towel of the
sentiments; and positively necessary to life in cases of
advanced sensibility.
*
Most men, finding themselves the authors of their own
disgrace, rail the louder against God or destiny. Most
men, when they repent, oblige their friends to share the
bitterness of that repentance.
*
Delay, they say, begetteth peril; but it is rather this
itch of doing that undoes men.
*
Every man has a sane spot somewhere.
*
That is never a bad wind that blows where we want to go.
*
It is a great thing if you can persuade people that they
are somehow or other partakers in a mystery. It makes them
feel bigger.
*
But it is an evil age for the gypsily inclined among men.
He who can sit squarest on a three-legged stool, he it is
who has the wealth and glory.
*
For truth that is suppressed by friends is the
readiest weapon of the enemy.
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