Story
The four great monarchies make the subject of ancient story.
Sir William Temple
Statesman and essayist, 1628-1699
Cited as Sir W. Temple. — 82 quotations
Cash
This bank is properly a general cash, where every man lodges his money.
Cast
The cloister . . . had, I doubt not, been cast for [an orange-house].
Collector
A great part of this is now embezzled . . . by collectors, and other officers.
Commodiousness
Of cities, the greatness and riches increase according to the commodiousness of their situation.
Compellation
The peculiar compellation of the kings in France is by “Sire,” which is nothing else but father.
Condole
Your friends would have cause to rejoice, rather than condole with you.
Consider
England could grow into a posture of being more united at home, and more considered abroad.
Defense
Severe defenses . . . against wearing any linen under a certain breadth.
Demerit
Secure, unless forfeited by any demerit or offense.
Design
I wish others the same intention, and greater successes.
Digester
Rice is . . . a great restorer of health, and a great digester.
Digression
The digressions I can not excuse otherwise, than by the confidence that no man will read them.
Draught
A general custom of using oxen for all sort of draught would be, perhaps, the greatest improvement.
Duplicate
I send a duplicate both of it and my last dispatch.
Endurance
Their fortitude was most admirable in their patience and endurance of all evils, of pain and of death.
Estimable
A lady said of her two companions, that one was more amiable, the other more estimable.
Expensive
The idle and expensive are dangerous.
Favorable
The temper of the climate, favorable to generation, health, and long life.
Handle
The hardness of the winters forces the breeders to house and handle their colts six months every year.
Heady
All the talent required is to be hot, to be heady, -- to be violent on one side or the other.
Heart
The expelled nations take heart, and when they fly from one country invade another.
Honest
An honest physician leaves his patient when he can contribute no farther to his health.
Imbecility
Cruelty . . . argues not only a depravedness of nature, but also a meanness of courage and imbecility of mind.
Immorality
The root of all immorality.
Inclose
The inclosed copies of the treaty.
Indemnify
The states must at last engage to the merchants here that they will indemnify them from all that shall fall out.
Industrious
Frugal and industrious men are commonly friendly to the established government.
Ingenious
The more ingenious men are, the more apt are they to trouble themselves.
Ingeniously
“Too ingeniously politic.”
Interest
Divisions hinder the common interest and public good.
Intervention
Let us decide our quarrels at home, without the intervention, of any foreign power.
Just
Just at the point of death.
Leisure
The desire of leisure is much more natural than of business and care.
Live
Those who live by labor.
Lose
How should you go about to lose him a wife he loves with so much passion?
Manager
A prince of great aspiring thoughts; in the main, a manager of his treasure.
Mend
The best service they could do the state was to mend the lives of the persons who composed it.
Much
All left the world much as they found it.
Mulctary
Fines, or some known mulctuary punishments.
Oblong
The best figure of a garden I esteem an oblong upon a descent.
Obstinate
I have known great cures done by obstinate resolution of drinking no wine.
pace
The first pace necessary for his majesty to make is to fall into confidence with Spain.
Pass
Others, dissatisfied with what they have, . . . pass from just to unjust.
Play
Men are apt to play with their healths.
Poach
His horse poching one of his legs into some hollow ground.
Practice
[I am] little inclined to practice on others, and as little that others should practice on me.
Proverbial
In case of excesses, I take the German proverbial cure, by a hair of the same beast, to be the worst.
Quarrel
Beasts called sociable quarrel in hunger and lust.
Race
Some . . . great race of fancy or judgment.
Rack
A fit of the stone puts a king to the rack, and makes him as miserable as it does the meanest subject.
Raise
The plate pieces of eight were raised three pence in the piece.
Rapport
'T is obvious what rapport there is between the conceptions and languages in every country.
Ravel
The humor of raveling into all these mystical or entangled matters.
Request
Knowledge and fame were in as great request as wealth among us now.
Reverse
A pyramid reversed may stand upon his point if balanced by admirable skill.
Rise
The rise or fall that may happen in his constant revenue by a Spanish war.
Run
Men gave them their own names, by which they run a great while in Rome.
Scent
He gained the observations of innumerable ages, and traveled upon the same scent into Ethiopia.
Sciolist
These passages in that book were enough to humble the presumption of our modern sciolists, if their pride were not as great as their ignorance.
Sensible
The disgrace was more sensible than the pain.
Serenity
A general peace and serenity newly succeeded a general trouble.
Simple
What virtue is in this remedy lies in the naked simple itself as it comes over from the Indies.
Soever
What great thing soever a man proposed to do in his life, he should think of achieving it by fifty.
Speculation
From him Socrates derived the principles of morality, and most part of his natural speculations.
Standard
In France part of their gardens is laid out for flowers, others for fruits; some standards, some against walls.
Start
Sensual men agree in the pursuit of every pleasure they can start.
Stir
My foot I had never yet in five days been able to stir.
Strain
Credit is gained by custom, and seldom recovers a strain.
Stud
In the studs of Ireland, where care is taken, we see horses bred of excellent shape, vigor, and size.
Study
Study gives strength to the mind; conversation, grace.
Submission
No duty in religion is more justly required by God . . . than a perfect submission to his will in all things.
Suffer
Public business suffers by private infirmities.
Sufficiency
Sufficiency is a compound of vanity and ignorance.
Through
Through these hands this science has passed with great applause.
Treatable
The heats or the colds of seasons are less treatable than with us.
Turn
When the passage is open, land will be turned most to cattle; when shut, to sheep.
Value
Some value themselves to their country by jealousies of the crown.
Vent
There is no vent for any commodity but of wool.
Vexation
Passions too violent . . . afford us nothing but vexation and pain.
wager
Besides these plates for horse races, the wagers may be as the persons please.
Way
The public ministers that fell in my way.