George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick, FRS, FSA, styled Lord Greville until 1773, was a British nobleman and politician. The eldest son of Francis Greville, 1st Earl Brooke, he was born on 16 September 1746 at Warwick Castle. He was baptised on 10 October 1746 at St. Mary’s, Warwick, with King George I standing as his sponsor.
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Those who are commended by everybody must be very extraordinary men, or, which is more probable, very inconsiderable men.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Popularity
May not taste be compared to that exquisite sense of the bee, which instantly discovers and extracts the quintessence of every flower, and disregards all the rest of it?
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Taste
A very small offence may be a just cause for great resentment; it is often much less the particular instance which is obnoxious to us, than the proof it carries with it of the general tenor and disposition of the mind from whence it sprung.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
To divest one’s self of some prejudices, would be like taking off the skin to feel the better.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Prejudice
Hardly a man, whatever his circumstances and situation, but if you get his confidence, will tell you that he is not happy. It is however certain that all men are not unhappy in the same degree, though by these accounts we might almost be tempted to think so. Is not this to be accounted for, by supposing that all men measure the happiness they possess by the happiness they desire, or think they deserve?
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Unhappiness
I hardly know so true a mark of a little mind as the servile imitation of others.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Imitation
Some prejudices are to the mind what the atmosphere is to the body; we cannot feel without the one, nor breathe without the other.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Prejudice
No man was ever so much deceived by another as by himself.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Conceit, Deception, Deceit
There sometimes wants only a stroke of fortune to discover numberless latent good or bad qualities, which would otherwise have been eternally concealed; as words written with a certain liquor appear only when applied to the fire.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Opportunity, Fortune
What an argument in favor of social connections is the observation that by communicating our grief we have less, and by communicating our pleasure we have more.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Friendship, Society
Weak men, often, from the very principle of their weakness, derive a certain susceptibility, delicacy, and taste, which render them, in these particulars, much superior to men of stronger and more consistent minds, who laugh at them.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
A generous man places the benefits he confers beneath his feet; those he receives, nearest his heart.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Generosity
It is an unhappy, and yet I fear a true reflection, that they who have uncommon easiness and softness of temper have seldom very noble and nice sensations of soul.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Temper
Some men put me in mind of half-bred horses, which often grow worse in proportion as you feed and exercise them for improvement.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
The poets judged like philosophers when they feigned love to be blind.—How often do we see in a woman what our judgment and taste approve, and yet feel nothing of love toward her; how often what they both condemn, and yet feel a great deal.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Love
Despair gives the shocking ease to the mind that mortification gives to the body.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Despair
As charity covers a multitude of sins before God, so does politeness before men.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Politeness
There is in some men a dispassionate neutrality of mind, which, though it generally passes for good temper, can neither gratify nor warm us; it must indeed be granted that these men can only negatively offend; but then it should also be remembered that they cannot positively please.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Man is the only creature endowed with the power of laughter; is he not also the only one that deserves to be laughed at?
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Laughter
A good ear for music, and a taste for music are two very different things which are often confounded; and so is comprehending and enjoying every object of sense and sentiment.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Music
The criterion of true beauty is that it increases on examination; if false, that it lessens. There is therefore, something in true beauty that corresponds with right reason, and is not the mere creation of fancy.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Most men have more courage than even they themselves think they have.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Courage, Bravery
When real nobleness accompanies the imaginary one of birth, the imaginary mixes with the real and becomes real too.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Birth, Ancestry
Human knowledge is the parent of doubt.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Doubt
Unbecoming forwardness oftener proceeds from ignorance than impudence.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Manners
A proud man never shows his pride so much as when he is civil.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Pride
It is often better to have a great deal of harm happen to one than a little; a great deal may rouse you to remove what a little will only accustom you to endure.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Difficulties, Things, Little Things, Adversity, Misery
Pride, like ambition, is sometimes virtuous and sometimes vicious, according to the character in which it is found, and the object to which it is directed. As a principle, it is the parent of almost every virtue and every vice—everything that pleases and displeases in mankind; and as the effects are so very different, nothing is more easy than to discover, even to ourselves, whether the pride that produces them is virtuous or vicious: the first object of virtuous pride is rectitude, and the next independence.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Pride
We should do by our cunning as we do by our courage,—always have it ready to defend ourselves, never to offend others.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Cunning
There is an unfortunate disposition in man to attend much more to the faults of his companions that offend him, than to their perfections which please him.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
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