Henry Home, Lord Kames

Words have a separate effect on the mind abstracted from their signification and their imitative power; they are more or less agreeable to the ear by the fulness.

Were wisdom to be sold, she would give no price; every man is satisfied with the share he has from nature.

Great wants proceed from great wealth; but they are undutiful children, for they sink wealth down to poverty.

The most unhappy of all men is he who believes himself to be so.

When you descant on the faults of others, consider whether you be not guilty of the same. To gain knowledge of ourselves, the best way is to convert the imperfections of others into a mirror for discovering our own.

The coward reckons himself cautious, the miser frugal.

There is no such fop as my young master of his lady-mother's making. She blows him up with self-conceit, and there he stops. She makes a man of him at twelve, and a boy all his life after.

Even dress is apt to inflame a man's opinion of himself.

Ridicule, which chiefly arises from pride, a selfish passion, is but at best a gross pleasure, too rough an entertainment for those who are highly polished and refined.

Nothing so uncertain as general reputation. A man injures me from humor, passion, or interest; hates me because he has injured me; and speaks ill of me because he hates me.

The sordid meal of the Cynics contributed neither to their tranquillity nor to their modesty. Pride went with Diogenes into his tub; and there he had the presumption to command Alexander the haughtiest of all men.

True praise is frequently the lot of the humble; false praise is always confined to the great.

Nothing so apt to inflame passion as hopes and fears: a young woman of a calm temper and modest deportment is less apt to attract lovers, than one who is changeable and coquettish; a man of sense and gravity is less apt to succeed with a …

Violent passions are formed in solitude. In the bustle of the world no object has time to make a deep impression.

A great mind will neither give an affront nor bear it.

Luxury possibly may contribute to give bread to the poor; but if there were no luxury, there would be no poor.

As nice as we are in love, we forgive more faults in that than in friendship. Expostulations betwixt friends end generally ill, but well betwixt lovers.

Nothing more excites to everything noble and generous, than virtuous love.

The comparison of love to fire holds good in one respect, that the fiercer it burns the sooner it is extinguished.

Light is no less favorable to merit than unfavorable to imposture.

When interest is at variance with conscience, any distinction to make them friends will serve the hollow-hearted.

No man ever did a designed injury to another, without doing a greater to himself.

Ingratitude is of all crimes what in ourselves we account the most venial, in others the most unpardonable.

Such is the power of imagination, that even a chimerical pleasure in expectation affects us more than a solid pleasure in possession.