Samuel Laman Blanchard Quotes

We feel bound to be punctual and conscientious with those we are indifferent about; while we can afford at any time, on the frostiest night, to be an hour after our appointment with the single gentleman who occupies an apartment in our heart's core.

Credulity lives next door to Gossip.

Give me to live with Love alone
And let the world go dine and dress;
For Love hath lowly haunts...
If life's a flower, I choose my own—
'T is "love in Idleness".

As with the tender juvenile, who sets light to his frock, so with the sweet senior, who sets his fortunes on fire. Even in his maturer time, in his state of cinderhood, he still craves to be further consumed.

Wherever two or three are gathered together, one, at least, has left his head at home in his night-cap, or hung it up in his hat as he entered.

Everybody's word is worth Nobody's taking.

Everybody is seldom to be believed. "They say" is not proof that they know. On dit is French for a fib.

There is an instinct that leads a listener to be very sparing of credence when a fact is communicated; it doesn't ring well in his ears—it has too much or too little gloss; he receives it with a shrug, and passes it on with a huge notch in it to show how justly it is entitled to suspicion; he is not to be imposed upon by a piece of truth. But give him a fable fresh from the mint of the Mendacity Society—an on dit of the first water—and he will not only make affidavit of its truth, but will call any man out who ventures to dispute its authenticity.

How often does it happen that an obscure line finds its way into a periodical... is requoted in every book that comes out during the next three months, and "sleeps again!"

When the error is universal, it is supposed to end. The adoption of the foundling establishes its consanguinity.

What if two negatives make an affirmative ...does it follow that two nobodies shall be some body?

We insist on self-roasting, by slow degrees, and at regular intervals, to show our contempt for experience, and to develop our chief virtue, which is obstinacy.

So, in our wisdom and fair justice we go on—"Giving to dust that is a little gilt, More laud than gold e'er dusted;" proclaiming the merits of the bad wine, and making it, by every token, as enticing as we can; and blessing our stars that the good will be found out by its flavor "without our stir." As it is inestimable, we seek not to win esteem for it; as it is beyond all praise, we bestow no praises upon it.

Man will take anything you like, except warning.

Two words of such a book, though possessing no peculiar signification, if met with in the dullest sentence, are enough: they call up, what has been finely termed, the "lightning of the mind." We feel an instantaneous kindness and reverence towards an author (together with a high opinion of his discrimination) who cites as it were the very language of our dreams—the secret converse of our own invisible spirit. We are almost startled at its being made public, and fancy that we have been at some time overheard reading. He is forthwith admitted a member of our heart's privy council. His hard words and bad reasoning are forgiven: we shut our ears to his angular periods—remembering only that his habits and desires, his sympathies, perceptions and enjoyments, are under the same master-key as our own—that he has struck into the same path, drank at the same brook, mused upon the same bank, and plucked almost the same leaf with ourselves.