Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke Quotes - Page 2

Genius always looks forward, and not only sees what is, but what necessarily will be.

One great reason why men practice generosity so little in the world, is, their finding so little there: generosity is catching; and if so many men escape it, it is in a great degree from the same reason that country-men escape the smallpox, because they meet no one to give it to them.

When real nobleness accompanies that imaginary one of birth, the imaginary seems to mix with real, and becomes real too.

It is so much in the nature of men to overreach and deceive one another, that their very sports and plays are founded on that principle.

No fruit has a more precise marked period of maturity, than love; if neglected to be gathered at that time, it will certainly fall to the ground and die away.

Every character is in some respects uniform, and in others inconsistent; and it is only by the study both of the uniformity and inconsistency, and a comparison of them with each other, that the knowledge of man is acquired.

Might not most men be as well named boys grown old.

Though beauty is, with the most apt similitude, I had almost said with the most literal truth, called a flower that fades and dies almost in the very moment of its maturity; yet there is, methinks, a kind of beauty which lives even to old age; a beauty that is not in the features, but, if I may be allowed the expression, shines through them. As it is not merely corporeal it is not the object of mere sense, nor is it to be discovered but by persons of true taste and refined sentiment.

Silence augmenteth grief, writing increaseth rage

You deny that man is really so prejudiced as I suppose him; talk to him then of some foreign country, ask him what religion he is of.

If the human mind naturally produces noisome weeds, it also produces flowers and fruit; and ... the best method to mend the soil in general, is for each of us to cultivate his own particular spot.

Penetration seems a kind of inspiration; it gives me an idea of prophecy.

Have you never seen a strange unconnected deformed representation of a figure, which seen in another point of view, became proportioned and agreeable? It is the picture of man.

Some women destroy all your sensibility towards them by their coldness, others by their heat.

It is in numberless instances happier to have a false opinion which we believe true, than a true one of which we doubt.

If nature did not take delight in blood, She would have made more easy ways to good.

It would be doing cunning too much honor to call it an inferior species of true discernment.

If they who understand the utmost refinement of any art will enjoy the perfection of it in a manner superior to other men, will they not amply pay for that advantage in feeling more than other men the imperfection of it, which in the natural course of things must so much oftener fall in their way?

It has been said that the beauties of the mind are valuable because they are more lasting than those of the body; but I do not remember to have heard it said that the beauties of the mind are valuable because they make those of the body more lasting.