Sourced and curated.

Remember that Time is Money.

Rebellion to Tyrants is obedience to God.

The American Instructor: or Young Man's Best Companion · 1748

★ 8.5

Epitaph

1775

★ 8.4

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

1736

★ 7.6

Early to Bed and early to rise, makes a Man healthy, wealthy and wise.

1735

★ 7.5

Fish and Visitors stink after three days.

1736

★ 7.5

Haste makes Waste.

1753

★ 7.5

Little strokes fell great Oaks.

1750

★ 7.4

Always do what you are afraid to do.

Essays: First Series (Emerson) · 1841

★ 7.2

In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Essays: First Series (Emerson) · 1841

★ 7.1

Essay · Political literature

The body of B. Franklin, Printer; Like the cover of an old Book, Its Contents torn out, And stript of its lettering and gilding, Lies here, food for worms. But the work shall not be wholly lost: For it will, as he believ’d, appear once more, In a new & more perfect edition, Corrected and amended By the Author.

1755

★ 7.1

Epitaph

Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency, but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes!

1728

★ 7.0

Letter

Letters of Benjamin Franklin · 1789

★ 7.0

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

1837

★ 7.0

The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.

Come out of your warm, angular house, resounding with few voices, into the chill, grand, instantaneous night, with such a Presence as a full moon in the clouds.

Essays: First Series (Emerson) · 1841

★ 7.0

Personal journal

Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, had always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

1838

★ 6.9

Autobiography and memoir

Henry Adams

The Education of Henry Adams · 1907

★ 6.9

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.

I am about Courting a Girl I have had but little Acquaintance with; how shall I come to a Knowledge of her Fawlts? and whether she has the Virtues I imagine she has? Answ. Commend her among her Female Acquaintance.

Compania General de Tabacos de Filipinas v. Collector of Internal Revenue · 1927

★ 6.9

Newspaper

If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought—not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.

1732

★ 6.0

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

United States v. Schwimmer · 1929

★ 6.0

He that lieth down with Dogs, shall rise up with Fleas.

1733

★ 5.5

God helps them that help themselves.

1736

★ 5.5

Experience keeps a dear school, yet Fools will learn In no other.

1743

★ 5.5

When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.

1746

★ 5.5

Genius without Education is like Silver in the Mine.

1750

★ 5.5

Love your Neighbor; yet don't pull down your Hedge.

1754

★ 5.5

A republic, if you can keep it.

I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship.

1787

★ 5.5

Novel · Coming of age story

Louisa May Alcott

Little Women · 1868

★ 5.5

Tart Words make no Friends: a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a Gallon of Vinegar.

1744

★ 5.5

Old Boys have their Playthings as well as young Ones; the Difference is only in the Price.

1752

★ 5.5

Men are what their mothers made them.

Fate · 1860

★ 5.5

Our chief want in life is, somebody who shall make us do what we can.

Considerations by the Way · 1860

★ 5.5

He that falls in love with himself, will have no Rivals.

1738

★ 5.4

If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.

Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces.

The American Scholar · 1837

★ 5.4

Autobiography and memoir

Henry Adams

The Education of Henry Adams · 1907

★ 5.4

Autobiography and memoir

All the steam in the world could not, like the Virgin, build Chartres.

Henry Adams

The Education of Henry Adams · 1907

★ 5.4

Men grind and grind in the mill of a truism, and nothing comes out but what was put in. But the moment they desert the tradition for a spontaneous thought, then poetry, wit, hope, virtue, learning, anecdote, all flock to their aid.

Literary Ethics · 1838

★ 5.3

Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.

Standing on the bare ground,—my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,—all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.

1911

★ 5.3

Nature · 1836

★ 5.2

Avarice and happiness never saw each other, how then should they become acquainted.

1734

★ 5.2

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that's the stuff life is made of.

Scepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer.

1746

★ 5.2

George Santayana

1923

★ 5.2

Speech · Political speech

A monarchy is a merchantman which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock, and go to the bottom; a republic is a raft which will never sink, but then your feet are always in the water.

Fisher Ames

1795

★ 5.1

The truth is, that the law is always approaching, and never reaching, consistency. It is forever adopting new principles from life at one end, and it always retains old ones from history at the other, which have not yet been absorbed or sloughed off. It will become entirely consistent only when it ceases to grow.

A tough but nervous, tenacious but restless race; materially ambitious, yet prone to introspection, and subject to waves of religious emotion... A race whose typical member is eternally torn between a passion for righteousness and a desire to get on in the world.

1880

★ 5.1

Historical literature

Samuel Eliot Morison

1921

★ 5.0

Glass, China, and Reputation, are easily crack’d, and never well mended.

1750

★ 4.7

Great Estates may venture more; Little Boats must keep near Shore.

1751

★ 4.7

Keep cool: it will be all one a hundred years hence.

Montaigne; or, the Skeptic · 1850

★ 4.5

For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.

That there is a Devil, is a Thing Doubted by none but such as are under the Influence of the Devil. For any to Deny the Being of a Devil must be from an Ignorance or Profaneness, worse than diabolical.

Essays: Second Series (Emerson) · 1844

★ 4.4

Religious literature

Cotton Mather

The Wonders of the Invisible World · 1693

★ 4.4

Essay · Philosophical literature

Let a man once overcome his selfish terror at his own finitude, and his finitude is, in one sense, overcome.

George Santayana

Introduction to Spinoza's Ethics · 1910

★ 4.4

It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past.

A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought, and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.

1897

★ 4.3

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

It will need more than the Nineteenth Amendment to convince me that there are no differences between men and women, or that legislation cannot take those differences into account.

Towne v. Eisner · 1918

★ 4.3

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

Adkins v. Children's Hospital · 1923

★ 4.3

The poor have little, Beggars none; The rich too much, Enough not one.

1733

★ 3.9

Take counsel in Wine, but resolve afterwards in Water.

1733

★ 3.9

He that cannot obey, cannot command.

1734

★ 3.9

Be slow in chusing a Friend, be slower in changing.

1735

★ 3.9

Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.

1735

★ 3.9

Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.