MELMOTH, William ("Sir Thomas Fitzosborne") Quotes
(1710-1799), English author
Conversation opens our views, and gives our faculties a more vigorous play; it puts us upon turning our notions on every side, and holds them up to a light that discovers those latent flaws which would probably have lain concealed in the gloom of unagitated abstraction.
I am persuaded that he who is capable of being a bitter enemy can never possess the necessary virtues that constitute a true friend.
The most powerful and the most lasting friendships are usually those of the early season of our lives, when we are most susceptible of warm and affectionate impressions. The connections into which we enter in any after-period decrease in strength as our passions abate in heat; and there is not, I believe, a single instance of a vigorous friendship that ever struck root in a bosom chilled by years.
To complain that life has no joys while there is a single creature whom we can relieve by our bounty, assist by our counsels, or enliven by our presence, is to lament the loss of that which we possess, and is just as rational as to die of thirst with the cup in our hands.
We should learn, by reflecting on the misfortunes of others, that there is nothing singular in those which befall ourelves.
As land is improved by sowing it with various seeds, so is the mind by exercising it with different studies.
A copious manner of expression gives strength and weight to our ideas, which frequently make impression upon the mind, as iron does upon solid bodies, rather by repeated strokes than a single blow.
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