J.W. Lord Quotes

And what is writ is writ - / Would it were worthier!

For a man to become a poet (witness Petrarch and Dante), he must be in love, or miserable.

Whenever a man seeks your advice he generally seeks your praise.

A judicious reticence is hard to learn, but it is one of the great lessons of life.

Very ugly or very beautiful women should be flattered on their understanding, and mediocre ones on their beauty.

Women's beauty, like men's wit, is generally fatal to the owners.

Women are all so far Machiavellians that they are never either good or bad by halves; their passions are too strong, and their reason too weak, to do anything with moderation.

Silence and reserve suggest latent power. What some men think has more effect than what others say.

Nothing sharpens the arrow of sarcasm so keenly as the courtesy that polishes it; no reproach is like that we clothe with a smile and present with a bow.

I have, by long experience, found women to be like Telephus's spear: if one end kills, the other cures.

A man's fortune is frequently decided by his first address. If pleasing, others at once conclude he has merit; but if ungraceful, they decide against him.

No man can possibly improve in any company for which he has not respect enough to be under some degree of restraint.

All I desire for my own burial, is not to be buried alive; but how or where, I think, must be entirely indifferent to every rational creature.

You will find that reason, which always ought to direct mankind, seldom does; but that passions and weaknesses commonly usurp itsseat, and rule in its stead.

There will never be a better time to start quitting smoking than today

I love every-day senses, every-day wit and entertainment; a man who is only good on holidays, is good for very little.

Six, or at most seven, hours' sleep is, for a constancy, as much as you or anybody else can want; more is only laziness and dozing, and is, I am persuaded, both unwholesome and stupefying.

One should always think of what one is about; when one is learning, one should not think of play; and when one is at play, one should not think of learning.

Smooth your way to the head through the heart. The way of reason is a good one: but it is commonly something longer, and perhapsnot so sure.

It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. One yawns, one procrastinates, one can do it when one will, and therefore one seldom does it at all.

Remember that whatever knowledge you do not solidly lay the foundation of before you are eighteen, you will never be master of while you breathe.

Few men are of one plain, decided color; most are mixed, shaded, and blended; and vary as much, from different situations, as changeable silks do from different lights.

There is time enough for everything in the course of the day if you do but one thing once; but there is not time enough in the year if you will do two things at a time.

The manner of a vulgar man has freedom without ease, and the manner of a gentleman has ease without freedom.

Wear your knowledge like your watch - in you pocket - and don't pull it out just for show.

The company of women of fashion will improve your manners, though not your understanding; and that complaisance and politeness, which are so useful in men's company, can only be acquired in women's.

Most people have ears, but few have judgment; tickle those ears, and depend upon it, you will catch their judgments, such as they are.

Remember that the wit, humour, and jokes of most mixed companies are local. They thrive in that particular soil, but will not often bear transplanting.

Women have, in general, but ne object, which is their beauty; upon which, scarce any flattery is too gross for them to swallow.

Cottages have them (falsehood and dissimulation) as well as courts, only with worse manners.

Knowledge is a comfortable and necessary retreat and shelter for us in an advanced age; and if we do not plant it while young, it will give us no shade when we grow old.

A man of sense may be in haste, but can never be in a hurry.

Wise people may say what they will, but one passion is never cured by another.

When one is at play, one should not think of one's learning.

A gentleman has ease without familiarity, is respectful without meanness; genteel without affectation, insinuating without seeming art.

It is by vivacity and wit that man shines in company; but trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon.

Either a good or a bad reputation outruns and gets before people wherever they go.

Sexual intercourse is a grossly overrated pastime; the position is undignified, the pleasure momentary and the consequences damnable.

There are some occasions in which a man must tell half his secret, in order to conceal the rest: but there is seldom one in which a man should tell it all.

Little secrets are commonly told again, but great ones generally kept.

If you will please people, you must please them in their own way; and as you cannot make them what they should be, you must take them as they are.

Good-breeding carries along with it a dignity that is respected by the most petulant. Ill-breeding invites and authorizes the familiarity of the most timid.

Letters should be easy and natural, and convey to the persons to whom we send them just what we should say to the persons if we were with them.

The greatest powers cannot injure a man's character whose reputation is unblemished among his party.

Give Dayrolles a chair.

Sincerity is the most compendious wisdom.

So much are our minds influenced by the accidents of our bodies, that every man is more the man of the day than a regular and consequential character.

To govern mankind, one must not overrate them.

Statesmen and beauties are very rarely sensible of the gradations of their decay.

In nature the most violent passions are silent; in tragedy they must speak and speak with dignity too.