Samuel Laman Blanchard

There is an instinct that leads a listener to be very sparing of credence when a fact is communicated

When a story has gone the grand circuit, and travels back to us uncontradicted, we may reasonably begin to relax in our belief of it. If nobody questions it, it is manifestly a fiction; if it passes current, it is almost sure to be a …

Social and political life is a Society for the Diffusion of Mendacity.

Everybody's word is worth Nobody's taking.

None are so easily taken in as the "knowing ones."

The ancient gentleman who has seen the world, who is profoundly experienced, and much too deep to be the dupe of an age so shallow as this, is to be won by an admiring glance at the brilliancy of his knee-buckle; praise his very pigtail, …

Tell her she is not to be imposed upon, and you impose upon her effectually. Admire her penetration, and you will not find her impenetrable.

The starched matron is fain to put faith in the compliment

and blessing our stars that the good will be found out by its flavor "without our stir." As it is inestimable, we seek not to win esteem for it; as it is beyond all praise, we bestow no praises upon it.

proclaiming the merits of the bad wine

We feel bound to be punctual and conscientious with those we are indifferent about; while we can afford at any time, on the frostiest night, to be an hour after our appointment with the single gentleman who occupies an apartment in our …

It is surely one of the strangest of our propensities to mark out those we love best for the worst usage; yet we do, all of us. We can take any freedom with a friend; we stand on no ceremony with a friend.

parts with his last guinea by exactly the same turn of the dice which lost him his first. Experience leaves fools as foolish as ever.

Forewarned, forearmed, is sheer nonsense.

Man will take anything you like, except warning.

We insist on self-roasting, by slow degrees, and at regular intervals, to show our contempt for experience, and to develop our chief virtue, which is obstinacy.

As with the tender juvenile, who sets light to his frock, so with the sweet senior, who sets his fortunes on fire. Even in his maturer time, in his state of cinderhood, he still craves to be further consumed.

Wherever two or three are gathered together, one, at least, has left his head at home in his night-cap, or hung it up in his hat as he entered.

Two hats, we grant, may be better than one; yet is one enough at a time. It is so with the head. It should be sole and self-relying. We like to wear ours in single blessedness on our own shoulders, and not let it hanker after a place on …

What if two negatives make an affirmative ...does it follow that two nobodies shall be some body?

It is an odd mode of diminishing one's own weakness to ask a friend to lend us the equal force of his.

No longer would we imprison thee though thou art all gentleness and would chat and jest with us by the hour.

Give me to live with Love alone And let the world go dine and dress; For Love hath lowly haunts... If life's a flower, I choose my own— 'T is "love in Idleness".

Sooth't were a pleasant life to lead, With nothing in the world to do But just to blow a shepherd's reed, The silent season thro' And just to drive a flock to feed,— Sheep—quiet, fond and few!