James Burgh Quotes

Reproof is a medicine like mercury or opium; if it be improperly administered it will do harm instead of good.

In the midst of mirth, reflect that many of your fellow creatures round the world are expiring; and that your turn will come shortly. So will you keep your life uniform and free from excess.

If you happen into company where the talk runs into party, obscemty, scandal, folly, or vice of any kind, you had better pass for morose or unsocial, among people whose good opinion is not worth having, than shock your own conscience by joining in conversation which you must disapprove of.

Be sure of the fact before you lose time in searching for a cause.

Do not endeavour to shine in all companies. Leave room for your hearers to imagine something within you beyond all you have said. And remember, the more you are praised, the more you will be envied.

If you want to gain any man's good opinion, take particular care how you behave the first time you are in company with him; the light you appear in at first, to one who is neither inclinable to think well nor ill of you, will strongly prejudice him either for or against you.

If you have seen a man misbehave once, do not from thence conclude him a fool; if you find he has been in a mistake in one particular, do not at once conclude him void of understanding : by that way of judging, you can entertain a favourable opinion of no man upon earth, nor even of yourself.

Be careful of your word, even in keeping the most trifling appointment. But do not blame another for a failure of that kind till you have heard his excuse.

If you mean to make your side of the argument appear plausible, do not prejudice the people against what you think truth by your passionate manner of defending it.

All lawful authority, legislative, and executive, originates from the people. Power in the people is like light in the sun: native, original, inherent, and unlimited by anything human. In governors it may be compared to the reflected light of the moon, for it is only borrowed, delegated, and limited by the intention of the people; whose it is, and to whom governors are to consider themselves aa responsible, while the people are answerable only to God; — themselves being the losers, if they pursue a false scheme of politics.

There is an affected humility more unsufferable than downright pride, as hypocrisy is more abominable than libertimsm. Take care that your virtues be genuine and unsophisticated.

If a great person has omitted rewarding your services, do not talk of it; perhaps he may not yet have had an opportunity, for they have always on hand expectants innumerable, and the clamorous are too generally gratified before the deserving; besides, it is the way to draw his displeasure upon you, which can do you no good, but make bad worse. If the services you did were voluntary, you ought not to expect any return, because you made a present of them unasked; and a free gift is not to be turned into a loan, to draw the person you have served into debt. If you have served a great person merely with a view to self-interest, perhaps he is aware of that, and rewards you accordingly: nor can you justly complain: he owes you nothing; it was not him you meant to serve.

Love your fellow creature, though vicious. Hate vice in the friend you love the most.

Fools pretend to foretell what will be the issue of things, and are laughed at for their awkward conjectures. Wise men being aware of the uncertainty of human aflairs, and having observed how small a matter often produces a great change, are modest in their conjectures.

There is no occasion to trample upon the meanest reptile, nor to sneak to the greatest prince. Insolence and baseness are equally unmanly.