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O Athenians, what toil do I undergo to please you!
Author: Alexander, the Great
Source: quoted by Carlyle in "Essays on Voltaire"
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It is happy for you that possess the talent of pleasing with
delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed
from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous
study?
Author: Jane Austen (signed first book "By a Lady")
Source: Pride and Prejudice (ch. XIV)
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Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem;
There's not a leaf that falls upon the ground
but holds some joy of silence or of sound,
Some sprite begotten of a summer dream.
Author: Laman Blanchard
Source: Sonnet VII--Hidden Joys
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Every age has its pleasures, its style of wit, and its own ways.
Author: Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
Source: The Art of Poetry (canto III, l. 374)
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But pleasures are like poppies spread;
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed.
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white--then melts forever.
Author: Robert Burns
Source: Tam o' Shanter (l. 59)
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The rule of my life is to make business a pleasure, and pleasure
my business.
Author: Aaron Burr
Source: Letter to Pichon
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Doubtless the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated as to cheat.
Author: Samuel Butler (1)
Source: Hudibras (pt. II, canto III, l. 1)
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There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Childe Harold (canto IV, st. 178)
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In our amusements a certain limit is to be placed that we may not
devote ourselves to a life of pleasure and thence fall into
immorality.
[Lat., Ludendi etiam est quidam modus retinendus, ut ne nimis
omnia profundamus, elatique voluptate in aliquam turpitudinem
delabamur.]
Author: Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Source: De Officiis (I, 29)
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In everything satiety closely follows the greatest pleasures.
[Lat., Omnibus in rebus voluptatibus maximis fastidium finitimum
est.]
Author: Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Source: De Oratore (III, 25)
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Pleasure blinds (so to speak) the eyes of the mind, and has no
fellowship with virtue.
[Lat., Voluptas mentis (ut ita dicam) praestringit oculos, nec
habet ullum cum virtute commercium.]
Author: Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Source: De Senectute (XII)
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Plato divinely calls pleasure the bait of evil, inasmuch as men
are caught by it as fish by a hook.
[Lat., Divine Plato escam malorum appeliat voluptatem, quod ea
videlicet homines capiantur, ut pisces hamo.]
Author: Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Source: De Senectute (XIII, 44)
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Who pleases one against his will.
Author: William Congreve
Source: The Way of the World--Epilogue
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That, though on pleasure she was bent,
She had a frugal mind.
Author: William Cowper
Source: History of John Gilpin (st. 8)
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Pleasure admitted in undue degree
Enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free.
Author: William Cowper
Source: Progress of Error (l. 267)
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Rich the treasure,
Sweet the pleasure,
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
Author: John Dryden
Source: Alexander's Feast (l. 58)
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I walked a mile with Pleasure,
She chattered all the way;
But left me none the wiser,
For all she had to say.
I walked a mile with Sorrow
And ne'er a word said she;
But, oh, the things I learned from her
When Sorrow walked with me!
Author: Robert Browning Hamilton
Source: Along the Road
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Men may scoff, and men may pray,
But they pay
Every pleasure with a pain.
Author: William Ernest Henley
Source: Ballade of Truisms
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Follow pleasure, and then will pleasure flee,
Flee pleasure, and pleasure will follow thee.
Author: John Heywood
Source: Proverbs (pt. I, ch. X)
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Let the fictitious sources of pleasure be as near as possible to
the true.
[Lat., Ficta voluptatis causa sint proxima veris.]
Author: Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Source: Ars Poetica (338)
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I live and reign since I have abandoned those pleasures which you
by your praises extol to the skies.
[Lat., Vivo et regno, simul ista reliqui
Quae vos ad coelum effertis rumore secundo.]
Author: Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Source: Epistles (I, 10, 8)
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Despise pleasure; pleasure bought by pain in injurious.
[Lat., Sperne voluptates; nocet empta dolora voluptas.]
Author: Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Source: Epistles (I, 2, 55)
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I fly from pleasure, because pleasure has ceased to please: I am
lonely because I am miserable.
Author: Samuel Johnson
Source: Rasselas (ch. III)
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Pleasure the servant, Virtue looking on.
Author: Ben Jonson
Source: Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue
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Rare indulgence produces greater pleasure.
[Lat., Voluptates commendat rarior usus.]
Author: Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenal)
Source: Satires (XI, 208)
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The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.
Author: Aristotle
Source: None
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Pleasure for one hour, a bottle of wine. Pleasure for one year a marriage; but pleasure for a lifetime, a garden.
Author: Chinese Proverb
Source: None
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The rule of my life is to make business a pleasure, and pleasure my business.
Author: Aaron Burr
Source: None
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A fool bolts pleasure, then complains of moral indigestion.
Author: Minna Thomas Antrim
Source: None
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Pleasure is a necessary reciprocal. No one feels, who does not at the same time give it. To be pleased, one must please. What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you.
Author: Lord Chesterfield
Source: None
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I despise the pleasure of pleasing people that I despise.
Author: Mary Wortley Montagu
Source: None
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In everything, satiety closely follows the greatest pleasures.
Author: Marcus T. Cicero
Source: None
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The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.
Author: Charles Lamb
Source: None
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Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.
Author: Benjamin Franklin
Source: None
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When the idea of any pleasure strikes your imagination, make a just computation between the duration of the pleasure and that of the repentance that is likely to follow it.
Author: Epicetus
Source: None
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The vocabulary of pleasure depends on the imagery of pain.
Author: Marina Warner
Source: None
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Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure.
Author: Lord Byron
Source: None
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We tire of those pleasures we take, but never of those we give.
Author: John Petit-senn
Source: None
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Look upon the world as your enemy because only then the gifts it gives will give you immense pleasure.
Author: Kazi Shams
Source: None
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The average man does not get pleasure out of an idea because he thinks it is true; he thinks it is true because he gets pleasure out of it.
Author: H. L. Mencken
Source: None
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Pleasure's couch is virtue's grave.
Author: Augustine J. Duganne
Source: None
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Whenever you are sincerely pleased you are nourished.
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: None
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There is no sterner moralist than pleasure.
Author: Lord Byron
Source: None
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That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
Author: Henry David Thoreau
Source: None
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In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls.
Author: Honore De Balzac
Source: None
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