George Savile Quotes

George Savile offers blunt, plain-spoken reflections on hope, desire and the limits of human understanding.

41 quotes

1. Children and fools want everything, because they want wit to distinguish; there is no stronger evidence of a crazy understanding than the making too large a catalogue of things unneccesary.

2. A man that should call every thing by its right Name, would hardly pass the Streets without being knock'd down as a common Enemy.

3. Popularity is a crime from the moment it is sought; it is only a virtue where men have it whether they will or no.

4. Misspending a man's time is a kind of self-homicide.

5. Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen.

6. A husband without faults is a dangerous observer.

7. A man may dwell so long upon a thought that it may take him prisoner.

8. A man who is a master of patience is master of everything else.

9. A prince who will not undergo the difficulty of understanding must undergo the danger of trusting.

10. A princely mind will undo a private family.

11. A very great memory often forgotteth how much time is lost by repeating things of no use.

12. Education is what remains when we have forgotten all that we have been taught.

13. Every single act either weakeneth or improveth our credit with other men; and as a habit of being just to our word will confirm, so a habit of too freely dispensing with it must necessarily destroy it.

14. He that leaveth nothing to chance will do few things ill, but he will do very few things.

15. Hope is generally a wrong guide, though it is good company along the way.

16. If the laws could speak for themselves, they would complain of the lawyers in the first place.

17. In this Age, when it is said of a man, 'He knows how to live,' it may be implied he is not very honest.

18. In your clothes avoid too much gaudiness; do not value yourself upon an embroidered gown; and remember that a reasonable word, or an obliging look, will gain you more respect than all your fine trappings.

19. It is a general mistake to to think the men we like are good for every thing, and those we do not, good for nothing.

20. Laws are generally not understood by three sorts of persons, viz, by those who make them, by those who execute them, and by those who suffer if they break them.

21. Love is a passion that hath friends in the garrison.

22. Malice is of a low stature, but it hath very long arms.

23. Many men swallow the being cheated, but no man can ever endure to chew it.

24. Men who borrow their opinions can never repay their debts.

25. Most men make little use of their speech than to give evidence against their own understanding.

26. No man is so much a fool as not to have wit enough sometimes to be a knave; nor any so cunning a knave as not to have the weakness sometimes to play the fool.

27. Nothing has an uglier look to us than reason, when it is not on our side.

28. Nothing would more contribute to make a man wise than to have always an enemy in his view.

29. Our nature hardly allows us to have enough of anything without having too much.

30. Some men's memory is like a box where a man should mingle his jewels with his old shoes.

31. The best party is but a kind of conspiracy against the rest of the nation.

32. The best qualification of a prophet is to have a good memory.

33. The best way to suppose what may come, is to remember what is past.

34. The invisible thing called a Good Name is made up of the breath of numbers that speak well of you.

35. The people are never so perfectly backed, but that they will kick and fling if not stroked at seasonable times.

36. The sight of a drunkard is a better sermon against that vice than the best that was ever preached on that subject.

37. The vanity of teaching doth oft tempt a man to forget that he is a blockhead.

38. There is reason to think the most celebrated philosophers would have been bunglers at business; but the reason is because they despised it.

39. They who are of the opinion that money will do everything, may very well be suspected to do everything for money.

40. When the people contend for their liberty, they seldom get anything by their victory but new masters.

41. Most men's anger about religion is as if two men should quarrel for a lady that neither of them care for.