Delphi Complete Harvard Classics and Shelf of Fiction

by Charles William Eliot

We sometimes disputed, and very fond we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting one another, which disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to become a very bad habit, making people often extremely disagreeable in company by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it into practice; and thence, besides souring

and spoiling the conversation, is productive of disgusts and, perhaps enmities where you may have occasion for friendship. I had caught it by reading my father’s books of dispute about religion. Persons of good sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it, except lawyers, university men, and men of all sorts that have been bred at Edinborough.

even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.

he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declin’d it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.

Look round the habitable world, how few Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue! Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forc’d by the occasion.

Time is what we want most, but what, alas! we use worst;

And since nothing below Man can so Think; Man, in being Thoughtless, must needs fall below himself.

In his Prayers he says, Thy Will be done: But means his own: At least acts so.

Men are generally more careful of the Breed of their Horses and Dogs than of their Children.

the swan, who, having sung the praises of Apollo all his life long, sings at his death more lustily than ever.

we often talk about the origin of evil, that great bugbear of theologians, by which they frighten us into believing any superstition.