“The truth is, I do indulge myself a little the more in pleasure, knowing that this is the proper age of my life to do it; and out of my observation that most men that do thrive in the world, do forget to take pleasure during the time that they are getting their estate, but reserve that till they have got one, and then it is too late for them to enjoy it with any pleasure.”
March 10, 1666
Diary
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Samuel Pepys16
English naval administrator and member of parliament 1633–1703Related quotes
Fakhruddin 'Iraqi (1213–1289) Persian philosopher
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“Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America
Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights
Catherine Earnshaw (Ch. IX).
Source: Wuthering Heights (1847)
Context: I can not express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is, or should be an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of creation if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning; my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger. I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff - he's always, always in my mind - not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself - but as my own being; so, don't talk of our separation again - it is impracticable.
“Do you know that conversation is one of the greatest pleasures in life? But it wants leisure.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) British playwright, novelist, short story writer
The Trembling of a Leaf (1921), ch. 3
Charles Lamb (1775–1834) English essayist
Quoted in "Table Talk" http://books.google.com/books?id=LIxUAAAAcAAJ&q=%22greatest+pleasure+I+know+is+to+do+a+good+action+by+stealth+and+to+have+it+found+out+by+accident%22&pg=PA14#v=onepage in The Athenaeum magazine (4 January 1834).
Tim McGraw (1967) American country singer
It's a Business Doing Pleasure with You
Song lyrics, Southern Voice (2009)
Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian
No. 1.
Seventy Resolutions (1722-1723)
“Do you know the only thing that gives me pleasure? It's to see my dividends coming in.”
John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) American business magnate and philanthropist
Remark to a neighbor, quoted by John Lewis in Cosmopolitan (1908)
“We enjoy no pleasure so much as we do tormenting ourselves.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist
The Monthly Magazine