Lord Greville Quotes

Pride, like ambition, is sometimes virtuous and sometimes vicious, according to the character in which it is found, and the object to which it is directed. As a principle, it is the parent of almost every virtue and every vice - everything that pleases and displeases in mankind; and as the effects are so very different, nothing is more easy than to discover, even to ourselves, whether the pride that produces them is virtuous or vicious: the first object of virtuous pride is rectitude, and the next independence.
[Pride]

Some men put me in mind of half-bred horses, which often grow worse in proportion as you feed and exercise them for improvement.

Some prejudices are to the mind what the atmosphere is to the body; we cannot feel without the one, nor breathe without the other. [Prejudice]

That is the true season of love, when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will love in the same way after us. [Love]

The criterion of true beauty is, that it increases on examination; if false, that it lessens. - There is therefore, something in true beauty that corresponds with right reason, and is not the mere creation of fancy. [Beauty]

The great see the world at one end by flattery, the little at the other end by neglect; the meanness which both discover is the same; but how different, alas! are the mediums through which it is seen? [World]

The poets judged like philosophers when they feigned love to be blind. - How often do we see in a woman what our judgment and taste approve, and yet feel nothing of love toward her; how often what they both condemn, and yet feel a great deal. [Love]

There is an unfortunate disposition in man to attend much more to the faults of his companions that offend him, than to their perfections which please him.

There is in some men a dispassionate neutrality of mind, which, though it generally passes for good temper, can neither gratify nor warm us; it must indeed be granted that these men can only negatively offend; but then it should also be remembered that they cannot positively please. [Neutrality]

There sometimes wants only a stroke of fortune to discover numberless latent good or bad qualities, which would otherwise have been eternally concealed; as words written with a certain liquor appear only when applied to the fire. [Opportunity]

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

To divest one's self of some prejudices, would be like taking off the skin to feel the better. [Prejudice]

True delicacy, as true generosity, is more wounded by an act of offence from itself, than to itself.

Unbecoming forwardness oftener proceeds from ignorance than impudence. [Manners]

Vanity is the poison of agreeableness; yet as poison, when properly applied, has a salutary effect in medicine, so has vanity in the commerce and society of the world. [Vanity]

We should do by our cunning as we do by our courage, - always have it ready to defend ourselves, never to offend others. [Cunning]

Weak men, often, from the very principle of their weakness, derive a certain susceptibility, delicacy, and taste, which render them, in these particulars, much superior to men of stronger and more consistent minds, who laugh at them.

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. [Friendship]

When real nobleness accompanies the imaginary one of birth, the imaginary mixes with the real and becomes real too. [Ancestry]

You may fail to shine in the opinion of others, both in our conversation and actions, from being superior, as well as inferior to them. [Appreciation]