True merit, like a river, the deeper it is, the less noise it makes. E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax More Quotes by E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax More Quotes From E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax 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 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 the lawyers. E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax law complaining funny 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 speak names numbers 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 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 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 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