We are apt to rely upon future prospects, and become really expensive while we are only rich in possibility. We live up to our expectations, not to our possessions, and make a figure proportionable to what we may be, not what we are. We outrun our present income, as not doubting to disburse ourselves out of the profits of some future place, project, or reversion that we have in view.—Addison.
Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.—George Eliot.
Antiquarian.—A thorough-paced antiquarian not only remembers what all other people have thought proper to forget, but he also forgets what all other people think it proper to remember.—Colton.
The earliest and the longest has still the mastery over us.—George Eliot.
Antithesis.—Young people are dazzled by the brilliancy of antithesis, and employ it.—Bruyère.
Antithesis may be the blossom of wit, but it will never arrive at maturity unless sound sense be the trunk, and truth the root.—Colton.
Apology.—An apology in the original sense was a pleading off from some charge or imputation, by explaining or defending principles or conduct. It therefore amounted to a vindication.—Crabbe.
Brother, brother, we are both in the wrong.—Gay.
Apothegms.—Nor do apothegms only serve for ornament and delight, but also for action and civil use, as being the edge tools of speech, which cut and penetrate the knots of business and affairs.—Bacon.
Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms, and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.—Coleridge.