Meaning of Life Perspectives in United Kingdom

"Talking doesn't mean you're thinking. It means you're talking."

"The corruption of the best things produces the worst."

"Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer."

"Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality."

"Things without all remedy should be without regard: what's done is done."

"All the philosophy in the world, and all the religion in the world, are not able to give a moment’s ease to the troubled mind."

"The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable."

"Pleasure is the only thing to live for. Nothing ages like happiness."

"Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head."

"The most perfect philosophy of the natural kind only staves off our ignorance a little longer."

"Every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value."

"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."

"Assume a virtue, if you have it not."

"Skepticism, for me, is not a doctrine, but a cure for the malady of dogmatism."

"The difference between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, custom, and education."

"To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up."

"The better part of valor is discretion."

"The feelings of our heart, the agitation of our passions, the vehemence of our affections, diffuse over every object a sentiment, which, though it is not reality, yet is of equal importance to us."

"What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconvenience to the whole."

"Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result."

"Life is a great disappointment, but I am an optimist by nature, so I am never disappointed."

"Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once."

"The passions are the only causes of action, and reason can never be any cause of action."

"Universal opulence naturally diffuses itself through all the different ranks of society."

"Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven."

"Truth is disputable; not taste: what exists in the nature of things is the standard of our judgment; what each man feels within himself is the standard of sentiment."

"The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life."

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."

"It is impossible for the mind of man to believe an absurdity."

"No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable."

"The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast."

"Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself."

"What's done is done."

"Custom, then, is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone which renders our experience useful to us, and makes us expect, for the future, a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past."

"The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle."

"A man who does not think for himself does not think at all."

"Striving to better, oft we mar what's well."

"When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion."

"The great secret of education is to direct the natural curiosity of the child."

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."

"The life of man is of no greater importance than that of an oyster."

"A man is of all sorts of luggage the most difficult to be transported."

"Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about."

"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."

"The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness. For this purpose, as well as for the preservation of our being, we are endowed with various affections, desires, and passions."

"The desire of food is by no means, in the great part of men, so keen as the desire of present ease."

"I am not young enough to know everything."

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence."

"Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition."