The Triumph of Wit is to make your good Nature subdue your Censure; to be quick in seeing Faults, and slow in exposing them. You are to consider, that the invisible thing called a Good Name, is made up of the Breath of Numbers that speak well of you; so that if by a disobliging Word you silence the meanest, the Gale will be less strong which is to bear up your Esteem.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

Categorized in : Numbers Names Speak

True merit, like a river, the deeper it is, the less noise it mak... by E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Hal...

True merit, like a river, the deeper it is, the less noise it makes.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

humility positive meaningful

Hope is generally a wrong guide, though it is very good company b... by E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Hal...

Hope is generally a wrong guide, though it is very good company by the way.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

good-company life way

I often think how much easier the world would have been to manage if Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini had been at Oxford.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

oxford education thinking

The past is the best way to suppose what may come.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

may way past

Gratitude is one of those things that cannot be bought. It must be born with men, or else all the obligations in the world will not create it.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

gratitude inspirational men

Nothing would more contribute to make a man wise than to have alw... by E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Hal...

Nothing would more contribute to make a man wise than to have always an enemy in his view.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

views wise men

Formality is sufficiently revenged upon the world for being so unreasonably laughed at; it is destroyed, it is true, but it hath the spiteful satisfaction of seeing everything destroyed with it.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

spiteful satisfaction world

If the laws could speak for themselves, they would complain of th... by E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Hal...

If the laws could speak for themselves, they would complain of the lawyers.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

law complaining funny

If none were to have Liberty but those who understand what it is, there would not be many freed Men in the world.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

liberty men world

There is an accumulative cruelty in a number of men, though none... by E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Hal...

There is an accumulative cruelty in a number of men, though none in particular are ill natured.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

cruelty numbers men

Most men's anger about religion is as if two men should quarrel for a lady they neither of them care for.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

anger men two

A man that should call everything by its right name would hardly pass the streets without being knocked down as a common enemy.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

names men enemy

The more arguments you win, the less friends you will have

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

contention argument winning

Business is so much lower a thing than learning that a man used to the last cannot easily bring his stomach down to the first.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

lasts business men

Ignorance makes most men go into a political party, and shame kee... by E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Hal...

Ignorance makes most men go into a political party, and shame keeps them from getting out of it.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

party ignorance men

Gratitude is one of those things that cannot be bought.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

gratitude-and-appreciation gratitude

Power is so apt to be insolent and Liberty to be saucy, that they... by E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Hal...

Power is so apt to be insolent and Liberty to be saucy, that they are seldom upon good Terms.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

liberty term freedom

The plainer the dress, the greater luster does beauty appear.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

lust dresses beauty

Friendship cannot live with ceremony, nor without civility.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

ceremony civility friendship

A man that steps aside from the world and has leisure to observe it without interest and design, thinks all mankind as mad as they think him.

E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

men philosophy art