Quotes from Sir Fulke Greville

A lively and agreeable man has not only the merit of liveliness and agreeableness himself, but that also of awakening them in others.

Whatever natural right men may have to freedom and independency, it is manifest that some men have a natural ascendency over others.

As charity covers a multitude of sins before God, so does politeness before men.

Men and statues that are admired ire an elevated situation have a very different effect upon us when we approach them; the first appear less than we imagined them, the last bigger.

Those men who are commended by everybody must be very extraordinary men; or, which is more probable, very inconsiderable men.

I have often thought that the nature of women was interior to that of men in general, but superior in particular.

A proud man never shows his pride so much as when he is civil.

He whom God chooseth, out of doubt doth well: What they that choose their God do, who can tell?

Some characters are like some bodies in chemistry; very good, perhaps, in themselves, yet fly off and refuse the least conjunction with each other.

True joy is only hope put out of fear.

Good-humor is allied to generosity, ill-humor to meanness.

Respect is better procured by exacting than soliciting it.

Human knowledge is the parent of doubt.

The mind of man is this world's true dimension; and knowledge is the measure of the mind.

Discernment is a power of the understanding in which few excel. Is not that owing to its connection with impartiality and truth? for are not prejudice and partiality blind?

What an argument in favor of social connections is the observation that by communicating our grief we have less, and by communicating our pleasure we have more.