George D. Prentice Quotes

Prudery is often immodestly modest; its habit is to multiply sentinels in proportion as the fortress is less threatened.

Some people use half their ingenuity to get into debt, and the other half to avoid paying it.

A word of kindness is seldom spoken in vain, while witty saying are as easily lost as the pearls slipping from a broken string.

A dentist at work in his vocation always looks down in the mouth.

Our material possessions, like our joys, are enhanced in value by being shared. Hoarded and unimproved property can only afford satisfaction to a miser.

We are in favor of tolerance, but it is a very difficult thing to tolerate the intolerant and impossible to tolerate the intolerable.

Remorseless time! fierce spirit of the glass and scythe,--what power can stay him in his silent course, or melt his iron heart with pity!

Some men's ugliness is hard to beat.

Many a writer seems to think he is never profound except when he can't understand his own meaning.

A word of kindness is seldom spoken in vain. It can be and is often treasured by the recipient for life.

Some people seem as if they can never have been children, and others seem as if they could never be anything else.

Many writers profess great exactness in punctuation who never yet made a point.

A pin has as much head as some authors and a good deal more point.

It is in vain to hope to please all alike. Let a man stand with his face in what direction he will, he must necessarily turn his back on one half of the world.

A man bitten by a dog, whether the animal is mad or not, is apt to get mad himself.

One of the very best of all earthly possessions is self-possession.

It seems no more than right that men should seize time by the forelock, for the rude old fellow, sooner or later, pulls all their hair out.

He is a first-rate collector who can, upon all occasions, collect his wits.

It is, perhaps, a debatable question, whether a person who has always been notoriously in the habit of lying, has a right to tell the truth; it is, of course, the only device by which he can deceive people.

There is a realm where the rainbow never fades

A friend you have to buy won't be worth what you pay for him.

Some old women and men grow bitter with age; the more their teeth drop out, the more biting they get.

Courage, like cowardice, is undoubtedly contagious, but some persons are not liable to catch it.

Those who think that in order to dress well it is necessary to dress extravagantly or grandly, make a great mistake. Nothing so well becomes true feminine beauty as simplicity.

Some things are better eschewed than chewed; tobacco is one of them.

When a man has been intemperate so long that shame no longer paints a blush upon his cheek, his liquor generally does it instead.

The pen is a formidable weapon, but a man can kill himself with it a great deal more easily than he can other people.

It is undoubtedly true that some people mistake sycophancy for good nature, but it is equally true that many more mistake impertinence for sincerity.

Some men give as little light in the world as a farthing tallow candle, and when they expire, leave as bad an odor behind them.

Much smoking kills live men and cures dead swine.

A great many political speeches are literary parricides; they kill their fathers.

What some name well being, if bought by perpetual nervousness about weight loss plan, is not a lot better than tedious illness.

If you woo the company of the angels in your waking hours, they will be sure to come to you in your sleep.

Time knows not the weight of sleep or weariness, and night's deep darkness has no chain to bind his rushing pinion.

A bare assertion is not necessarily the naked truth.

In New York City, the common bats fly only at twilight. Brick-bats fly at all hours.

A good many men and women want to get possession of secrets just as spendthrifts want to get money-for circulation.

Some people have a peculiar faculty for denying facts.

Prejudice is the twin of illiberality.