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.
Source: Wikipedia (via CC-BY-SA license) • READ: Works by George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
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: Things, Little Things, Misery, Difficulties, Adversity
Good humor will sometimes conquer ill humor, but ill humor will conquer it oftener; and for this plain reason, good humor must operate on generosity; ill humor on meanness.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
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: Society, Friendship
The great see the world at one end by flattery, the little at the other end by neglect; the meanness which both discover is the same; but how different, alas! are the mediums through which it is seen?
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: World
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
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
Men and statues that are admired in an elevated situation, have a very different effect on us when we approach them; the first appear less than we imagined them, the last bigger.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Men
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
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
Human knowledge is the parent of doubt.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Doubt
A proud man never shows his pride so much as when he is civil.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Pride
You may fail to shine in the opinion of others, both in your conversation and actions, from being superior, as well as inferior, to them.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Appreciation
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
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
Vanity is the poison of agreeableness; yet as poison, when properly applied, has a salutary effect in medicine, so has vanity in the commerce and society of the world.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Vanity
Penetration seems a kind of inspiration; it gives me an idea of prophecy.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Perception
True delicacy, as true generosity, is more wounded by an act of offence from itself, than to itself.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
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
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
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
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
No man was ever so much deceived by another as by himself.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Conceit, Deceit, Deception
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: Ancestry, Birth
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
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
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
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
I have often thought that the nature of women was inferior to that of men in general, but superior in particular.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Woman
Most men have more courage than even they themselves think they have.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Bravery, Courage
Despair gives the shocking ease to the mind that mortification gives to the body.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Despair
Unbecoming forwardness oftener proceeds from ignorance than impudence.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Manners
Our companions please us less from the charms we find in their conversation, than from those they find in ours.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Conversation
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
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
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
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
As charity covers a multitude of sins before God, so does politeness before men.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Politeness
It is not enough that you form, and even follow the most excellent rules for conducting yourself in the world; you must, also, know when to deviate from them, and where lies the exception.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
One great reason why men practise generosity so little in the world is, their finding so little there: generosity is catching; and if so many men escape it, it is in a great degree from the same reason that countrymen escape the smallpox,—because they meet with no one to give it them.
—George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick
Topics: Generosity
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