George Savile (1633 – 1695)
English statesman, writer, and politician.
Half the Truth is often as arrant a Lye, as can be made.
Most men make little other use of their Speech than to give evidence against their own Understanding.
Men make it such a point of honour to be fit for business that they forget to examine whether business is fit for a man.
Some Mens Memory is like a Box, where a Man should mingle his Jewels with his old Shoes.
Every single Act either weakeneth or improveth our Credit with other Men ; and as an habit of being just to our Word will confirm, so an habit of too freely dispensing with it must necessarily destroy it.
A Man may dwell so long upon a Thought, that it may take him Prisoner.
The People are never so perfectly backed, but that they will kick and fling if not stroked at seasonable times.
A Man may so overdo it in looking too far before him, that he may stumble the more for it.
The best way to suppose what may come, is to remember what is past.
Anger is never without an Argument, but seldom with a good one.
Men are not hang'd for stealing Horses, but that Horses may not be stolen.
Most Mens' Anger about Religion is as if two Men should quarrel for a Lady they neither of them care for.
Modesty is oftner mistaken than any other Virtue.
The sight of a drunkard is a better sermon against that vice than the best that was ever preached on that subject.
It is Ill-manners to silence a Fool, and Cruelty to let him go on.
If the Laws could speak for themselves, they would complain of the Lawyers in the first Place.
A Man is to go about his own Business as if he had not a Friend in the World to help him in it.
Our nature hardly allows us to have enough of anything without having too much.
A wise man will keep his Suspicions muzzled, but he will keep them awake.
There is Reason to think the most celebrated Philosophers would have been Bunglers at Business ; but the Reason is because they despised it.