John Philpot Curran Quotations

I have never yet heard of a murderer who was not afraid of a ghost.

My dear doctor, I am surprised to hear you say that I am coughing very badly, as I have been practising all night.

His smile is like the silver plate on a coffin.

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active.

Assassinate me you may; intimidate me you cannot.

In this administration, a place can be found for every bad man.

When I can't talk sense, I talk metaphor.

To brand man with infamy, and let him free, is an absurdity that peoples our forests with assassins.

Madame de Stael talks herself into a beauty.

The first inventions of commerce are, like those of all other arts, cunning and short-sighted.

But as in wailing there's nought availing, And Death unfailing will strike the blow, Then for that reason, and for a season, Let us be merry before we go.

Evil prospers when good men do nothing.

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become prey to the active. The conditions upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt.