Background Image

...

All Poets Pretend To Write For Immortality, But The Whole Tribe Have No Objection To Present Pay, And Present Praise. Lord Burleigh Is Not The Only Statesman Who Has Thought One Hundred Pounds Too Much For A Song, Though Sung By Spenser; Although Oliver Goldsmith Is The Only Poet Who Ever Considered Himself To Have Been Overpaid.

-Charles Caleb Colton

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

All Poets Pretend To

Charles Caleb Colton

...

All Poets Pretend To Write For Immortality, But The Whole Tribe Have No Objection To Present Pay, And Present Praise. Lord Burleigh Is Not The Only Statesman Who Has Thought One Hundred Pounds Too Much For A Song, Though Sung By Spenser; Although Oliver Goldsmith Is The Only Poet Who Ever Considered Himself To Have Been Overpaid.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Charles Caleb Colton

I Will Not Be Revenged, And This I Owe To My Enemy; But I Will Remember, And This I Owe To Myself.

Love Is An Alliance Of Friendship And Animalism; If The Former Predominates It Is Passion Exalted And Refined; If The Latter, Gross And Sensual.

Lost Friendship

Ladies Of Fashion Starve Their Happiness To Feed Their Vanity, And Their Love To Feed Their Pride.

In Its Primary Signification, All Vice, That Is, All Excess, Brings On Its Own Punishment, Even Here. By Certain Fixed, Settled And Established Laws Of Him Who Is The God Of Nature, Excess Of Every Kind Destroys That Constitution Which Temperance Would Preserve. The Debauchee Offers Up His Body A "living Sacrifice To Sin.

The Breast Of A Good Man Is A Little Heaven Commencing On Earth; Where The Deity Sits Enthroned With Unrivaled Influence, Every Subjugated Passion, "like The Wind And Storm, Fulfilling His Word.

Be Real And Adjust You Strategy According To Honest Results.

Patience Is The Support Of Weakness; Impatience The Ruin Of Strength.

Shining Outward Qualities, Although They May Excite First-rate Expectations, Are Not Unusually Found To Be The Companions Of Second-rate Abilities.

He That Has Energy Enough To Root Out A Vice Should Go Further, And Try To Plant A Virtue In Its Place.

Happiness, That Grand Mistress Of The Ceremonies In The Dance Of Life, Impels Us Through All Its Mazes And Meanderings, But Leads None Of Us By The Same Route.

Imitation Is The Highest Form Of Flattery.

There Can Be No Christianity Where There Is No Charity

Subtract From Many Modern Poets All That May Be Found In Shakespeare, And Trash Will Remain.

Villains Are Usually The Worst Casuists, And Rush Into Crimes To Avoid Less. Henry Viii. Committed Murder To Avoid The Imputation Of Adultery; And In Our Times, Those Who Commit The Latter Crime Attempt To Wash Off The Stain Of Seducing The Wife By Signifying Their Readiness To Shoot The Husband.

The Rich Are More Envied By Those Who Have A Little, Than By Those Who Have Nothing.

As In The Game Of Billiards, The Balls Are Constantly Producing Effects From Mere Chance, Which The Most Skillful Player Could Neither Execute Nor Foresee, But Which, When They Do Happen, Serve Mainly To Teach Him How Much He Has Still To Learn; So It Is In The Most Profound And Complicated Game Of Politics And Diplomacy. In Both Cases, We Can Only Regulate Our Play By What We Have Seen, Rather Than By What We Have Hoped; And By What We Have Experienced, Rather Than By What We Have Expected.

A Thorough-paced Antiquary Not Only Remembers What All Other People Have Thought Proper To Forget, But He Also Forgets What All Other People Think Is Proper To Remember.

It Is A Curious Paradox That Precisely In Proportion To Our Own Intellectual Weakness Will Be Our Credulity, To Those Mysterious Powers Assumed By Others; And In Those Regions Of Darkness And Ignorance Where Man Cannot Effect Even Those Things That Are Within The Power Of Man, There We Shall Ever Find That A Blind Belief In Feats That Are Far Beyond Those Powers Has Taken The Deepest Root In The Minds Of The Deceived, And Produced The Richest Harvest To The Knavery Of The Deceiver.

We May Lay In A Stock Of Pleasures, As We Would Lay In A Stock Of Wine, But If Defer Tasting Them Too Long, We Shall Find That Both Are Soured By Age.

Logic And Metaphysics Make Use Of More Tools Than All The Rest Of The Sciences Put Together, And Do The Least Work.

What Is Earthly Happiness? That Phantom Of Which We Hear So Much, And See So Little; Whose Promises Are Constantly Given And Constantly Broken, But As Constantly Believed; That Cheats Us With The Sound Instead Of The Substance, And With The Blossom Instead Of The Fruit. Like Juno, She Is A Goddess In Pursuit, But A Cloud In Possession.

Those Graces Which From Their Presumed Facility Encourage All To Attempt An Imitation Of Them, Are Usually The Most Inimitable.

Total Freedom From Error Is What None Of Us Will Allow To Our Neighbors; However We May Be Inclined To Flirt A Little With Such Spotless Perfection Ourselves.

Those Who Have Resources Within Themselves, Who Can Dare To Live Alone, Want Friends The Least, But, At The Same Time, Best Know How To Prize Them The Most. But No Company Is Far Preferable To Bad, Because We Are More Apt To Catch The Vices Of Others Than Their Virtues, As Disease Is Far More Contagious Than Health.

Wit In Women Is A Jewel, Which, Unlike All Others, Borrows Lustre From Its Setting, Rather Than Bestows It; Since Nothing Is So Easy As To Fancy A Very Beautiful Woman Extremely Witty.

Words Indeed Are But The Signs And Counters Of Knowledge, And Their Currency Should Be Strictly Regulated By The Capital Which They Represent.

No Man Can Purchase His Virtue Too Dear, For It Is The Only Thing Whose Value Must Ever Increase With The Price It Has Cost Us. Our Integrity Is Never Worth So Much As When We Have Parted With Our All To Keep It.

Those That Will Not Permit Their Wealth To Do Any Good For Others. . . Cut Themselves Off From The Truest Pleasure Here And The Highest Happiness Later.

In Cases Of Doubtful Morality, It Is Usual To Say Is There Any Harm In Doing This? This Question May Sometimes Be Best Answered By Asking Ourselves Another; Is There Any Harm In Letting It Alone?

The Mob Is A Monster, With The Hands Of Briareus, But The Head Of Polyphemus,--strong To Execute, But Blind To Perceive.

There Is No Quality Of The Mind, Or Of The Body, That So Instantaneously And Irresistibly Captivates, As Wit. An Elegant Writer Has Observed That Wit May Do Very Well For A Mistress, But That He Should Prefer Reason For A Wife. He That Deserts The Latter, And Gives Himself Up Entirely To The Guidance Of The Former, Will Certainly Fall Into Many Pitfalls And Quagmires, Like Him Who Walks By Flashes Of Lightning, Rather Than The Steady Beams Of The Sun.

The Enthusiast Has Been Compared To A Man Walking In A Fog; Everything Immediately Around Him, Or In Contact With Him, Appears Sufficiently Clear And Luminous; But Beyond The Little Circle Of Which He Himself Is The Centre, All Is Mist And Error And Confusion.

Wit May Do Very Well For A Mistress, But [i] Should Prefer Reason For A Wife.

Few Things Are More Agreeable To Self-love Than Revenge, And Yet No Cause So Effectually Restrains Us From Revenge As Self-love. And This Paradox Naturally Suggests Another; That The Strength Of The Community Is Not Unfrequently Built Upon The Weakness Of Those Individuals That Compose It.

Man, If He Compare Himself With All That He Can See, Is At The Zenith Of Power; But If He Compare Himself With All That He Can Conceive, He Is At The Nadir Of Weakness.

If You Cannot Inspire A Woman With Love Of You, Fill Her Above The Brim With Love Of Herself; All That Runs Over Will Be Yours.

Make No Enemies; He Is Insignificant Indeed That Can Do Thee No Harm.

The Inheritance Of A Distinguished And Noble Name Is A Proud Inheritance To Him Who Lives Worthily Of It.

If The Prodigal Quits Life In Debt To Others, The Miser Quits It Still Deeper In Debt To Himself.

Vanity Finds In Self-love So Powerful An Ally That It Storms, As It Were, By A Coup De Main,, The Citadel Of Our Heads, Where, Having Blinded The Two Watchmen, It Readily Descends Into The Heart.

To Know The Pains Of Power, We Must Go To Those Who Have It; To Know Its Pleasures, We Must Go To Those Who Are Seeking It: The Pains Of Power Are Real, Its Pleasures Imaginary.

Justice To My Readers Compels Me To Admit That I Write Because I Have Nothing To Do; Justice To Myself Induces Me To Add That I Will Cease To Write The Moment I Have Nothing To Say.

Deformity Of The Heart I Call The Worst Deformity Of All; For What Is Form, Or What Is Face, But The Soul's Index, Or Its Case?

It Is Far More Easy To Acquire A Fortune Like A Knave, Than To Expend It, Like A Gentleman.

There Are Two Things That Bestow Consequence; Great Possession, Or Great Debts.

Subtract From The Great Man All That He Owes To Opportunity, All That He Owes To Chance, And All That He Gained By The Wisdom Of His Friends And The Folly Of His Enemies, And The Giant Will Often Be Seen To Be A Pygmy.

Most Of Our Misfortunes Are More Supportable Than The Comments Of Our Friends Upon Them.

Subtlety Will Sometimes Give Safety, No Less Than Strength; And Minuteness Has Sometimes Escaped, Where Magnitude Would Have Been Crushed. The Little Animal That Kills The Boa Is Formidable Chiefly From Its Insignificance, Which Is Incompressible By The Folds Of Its Antagonist.

He That Has Never Known Adversity Is But Half Acquainted With Others, Or With Himself.

Riches May Enable Us To Confer Favors, But To Confer Them With Propriety And Grace Requires A Something That Riches Cannot Give.

Suicide Sometimes Proceeds From Cowardice, But Not Always; For Cowardice Sometimes Prevents It; Since As Many Live Because They Are Afraid To Die, As Die Because They Are Afraid To Live.

Put On The Livery Of The Best Master Only To Serve The Worst.

If You Are Under Obligations To Many, It Is Prudent To Postpone The Recompensing Of One, Until It Be In Your Power To Remunerate All; Otherwise You Will Make More Enemies By What You Give, Than By What You Withhold.

Friendship, Of Itself A Holy Tie, Is Made More Sacred By Adversity.

If It Be True That Men Of Strong Imaginations Are Usually Dogmatists--and I Am Inclined To Think It Is So--it Ought To Follow That Men Of Weak Imaginations Are The Reverse; In Which Case We Should Have Some Compensation For Stupidity. But It Unfortunately Happens That No Dogmatist Is More Obstinate Or Less Open To Conviction Than A Fool.

As There Are Some Faults That Have Been Termed Faults On The Right Side, So There Are Some Errors That Might Be Denominated Errors On The Safe Side. Thus We Seldom Regret Having Been Too Mild, Too Cautious, Or Too Humble; But We Often Repent Having Been Too Violent, Too Precipitate, Or Too Proud.

Happiness Is Much More Equally Divided Than Some Of Us Imagine. One Man Shall Possess Most Of The Materials, But Little Of The Thing; Another May Possess Much Of The Thing, But Very Few Of The Material. In This Particular View Of It, Happiness Had Been Beautifully Compared To The Man In The Desert--he That Gathered Much Had Nothing Over, And He That Gathered Little Had No Lack.

The Man Of Pleasure, By A Vain Attempt To Be More Happy Than Any Man Can Be, Is Often More Miserable Than Most Men Are.

The Masses Procure Their Opinions Ready Made In Open Market.

That Theatrical Kind Of Virtue, Which Requires Publicity For Its Stage, And An Applauding World For Its Audience, Could Not Be Depended On, In The Secrecy Of Solitude, Or The Retirement Of A Desert.

Revenge Is A Debt, In The Paying Of Which The Greatest Knave Is Honest And Sincere, And, So Far As He Is Able, Punctual.

The Learned Languages Are Indispensable To Form The Gentleman And The Scholar, And Are Well Worth All The Labor That They Have Cost Us, Provided They Are Valued Not For Themselves Alone, Which Would Make A Pedant, But As A Foundation For Further Acquirements.

Women That Are The Least Bashful Are Often The Most Modest.

None Are So Seldom Found Alone, And Are So Soon Tired Of Their Own Company, As Those Coxcombs Who Are On The Best Terms With Themselves.

The Study Of Mathematics, Like The Nile, Begins In Minuteness But Ends In Magnificence.

Fame Is An Undertaker That Pays But Little Attention To The Living, But Bedizens The Dead, Furnishes Out Their Funerals, And Follows Them To The Grave

A Lady Of Fashion Will Sooner Excuse A Freedom Flowing From Admiration Than A Slight Resulting From Indifference.

Ignorance Lies At The Bottom Of All Human Knowledge, And The Deeper We Penetrate The Nearer We Arrive Unto It. For What Do We Truly Know, Or What Can We Clearly Affirm, Of Any One Of Those Important Things Upon Which All Our Reasonings Must Of Necessity Be Built--time And Space, Life And Death, Matter And Mind?

It Is With Antiquity As With Ancestry, Nations Are Proud Of The One, And Individuals Of The Other; But If They Are Nothing In Themselves, That Which Is Their Pride Ought To Be Their Humiliation.

Alas! What Is Man? Whether He Be Deprived Of That Light Which Is From On High, Of Whether He Discard It, A Frail And Trembling Creature; Standing On Time, That Bleak And Narrow Isthmus Between Two Eternities, He Sees Nothing But Impenetrable Darkness On The One Hand, And Doubt, Distrust, And Conjecture, Still More Perplexing, On The Other. Most Gladly Would He Take An Observation, As To Whence He Has Come, Or Whither He Is Going; Alas, He Has Not The Means: His Telescope Is Too Dim, His Compass Too Wavering, His Plummet Too Short.

If Merited, No Courage Can Stand Against Its Just Indignation.

The Worst Thing That Can Be Said Of The Most Powerful Is That They Can Take Your Life; But The Same Can Be Said Of The Most Weak.

Criticism Is Like Champagne, Nothing More Execrable If Bad, Nothing More Excellent If Good; If Meagre, Muddy, Vapid And Sour, Both Are Fit Only To Engender Colic And Wind; But If Rich, Generous And Sparkling, They Communicate A Genial Glow To The Spirits, Improve The Taste, And Expand The Heart.

That Which We Acquire With The Most Difficulty We Retain The Longest; As Those Who Have Earned A Fortune Are Usually More Careful Of It Than Those Who Have Inherited One.

There Is But One Pursuit In Life Which It Is In The Power Of All To Follow, And Of All To Attain. It Is Subject To No Disappointments, Since He That Perseveres, Makes Every Difficulty An Advancement, And Every Contest A Victory; And This Is The Pursuit Of Virtue.

An Irish Man Fights Before He Reasons, A Scotchman Reasons Before He Fights, An Englishman Is Not Particular As To The Order Of Precedence, But Will Do Either To Accommodate His Customers.

Let Us Not Be Too Prodigal When We Are Young, Nor Too Parsimonious When We Are Old. Otherwise We Shall Fall Into The Common Error Of Those, Who, When They Had The Power To Enjoy, Had Not The Prudence To Acquire; And When They Had The Prudence To Acquire, Had No Longer The Power To Enjoy.

The Hand That Unnerved Belshazzar Derived Its Most Horrifying Influence From The Want Of A Body, And Death Itself Is Not Formidable In What We Do Know Of It, But In What We Do Not.

Moderation Is The Inseparable Companion Of Wisdom, But With It Genius Has Not Even A Nodding Acquaintance.

The Plainest Man That Can Convince A Woman That He Is Really In Love With Her Has Done More To Make Her In Love With Him Than The Handsomest Man, If He Can Produce No Such Conviction. For The Love Of Woman Is A Shoot, Not A Seed, And Flourishes Most Vigorously Only When Ingrafted On That Love Which Is Rooted In The Breast Of Another.

As The Rays Of The Sun, Notwithstanding Their Velocity, Injure Not The Eye, By Reason Of Their Minuteness, So The Attacks Of Envy, Notwithstanding Their Number, Ought Not To Wound Our Virtue By Reason Of Their Insignificance.

By Privileges, Immunities, Or Prerogatives To Give Unlimited Swing To The Passions Of Individuals, And Then To Hope That They Will Restrain Them, Is About As Reasonable As To Expect That The Tiger Will Spare The Hart To Browse Upon The Herbage.

When You Have Nothing To Say, Say Nothing.

Evils In The Journey Of Life Are Like The Hills Which Alarm Travelers Upon Their Road; They Both Appear Great At A Distance, But When We Approach Them We Find That They Are Far Less Insurmountable Than We Had Conceived.

Hope Is A Prodigal Young Heir, And Experience Is His Banker.

We Shall At All Times Chance Upon Men Of Recondite Acquirements, But Whose Qualifications, From The Incommunicative And Inactive Habits Of Their Owners, Are As Utterly Useless To Others As Though The Possessors Had Them Not.

Fashion ... Has Brought Every Thing Into Vogue, By Turns.

As We Ascend In Society, Like Those Who Climb A Mountain, We Shall Find That The Line Of Perpetual Congelation Commences With The Higher Circles; And The Nearer We Approach To The Grand Luminary The Court, The More Frigidity And Apathy Shall We Experience.

We Cannot Think Too Highly Of Our Nature, Nor Too Humbly Of Ourselves. When We See The Martyr To Virtue, Subject As He Is To The Infirmities Of A Man, Yet Suffering The Tortures Of A Demon, And Bearing Them With The Magnanimity Of A God, Do We Not Behold A Heroism That Angels May Indeed Surpass, But Which They Cannot Imitate, And Must Admire.

Time,- That Black And Narrow Isthmus Between Two Eternities.

Time Is The Most Undefinable Yet Paradoxical Of Things; The Past Is Gone, The Future Is Not Come, And The Present Becomes The Past, Even While We Attempt To Define It.

The Consequences Of Things Are Not Always Proportionate To The Apparent Magnitude Of Those Events That Have Produced Them. Thus The American Revolution, From Which Little Was Expected, Produced Much; But The French Revolution, From Which Much Was Expected, Produced Little.

That Alliance May Be Said To Have A Double Tie, Where The Minds Are United As Well As The Body; And The Union Will Have All Its Strength When Both The Links Are In Perfection Together.

There Is A Holy Love And A Holy Rage, And Our Best Virtues Never Glow So Brightly As When Our Passions Are Excited In The Cause. Sloth, If It Has Prevented Many Crimes, Has Also Smothered Many Virtues; And The Best Of Us Are Better When Roused.

Secrecy Of Design, When Combined With Rapidity Of Execution, Like Me Column That Guided Israel In The Deserts, Becomes The Guardian Pillar Of Light And Fire To Our Friends, A Cloud Of Overwhelming And Impenetrable Darkness To Our Enemies.

When The Air Balloon Was First Discovered, Some One Flippantly Asked Dr. Franklin What Was The Use Of It. The Doctor Answered This Question By Asking Another: "what Is The Use Of A New-born Infant? It May Become A Man."

Style Is Indeed The Valet Of Genius, And An Able One Too; But As The True Gentleman Will Appear, Even In Rags, So True Genius Will Shine, Even Through The Coarsest Style.

Posthumous Charities Are The Very Essence Of Selfishness When Bequeathed By Those Who, Even Alive, Would Part With Nothing.

The Drafts Which True Genius Draws Upon Posterity, Although They May Not Always Be Honored So Soon As They Are Due, Are Sure To Be Paid With Compound Interest In The End.

He That Dies A Martyr Proves That He Was Not A Knave, But By No Means That He Was Not A Fool; Since The Most Absurd Doctrines Are Not Without Such Evidence As Martyrdom Can Produce. A Martyr, Therefore, By The Mere Act Of Suffering, Can Prove Nothing But His Own Faith.

A Hug Is Worth A Thousand Words.

Living Authors, Therefore, Are Usually, Bad Companions. If They Have Not Gained Character, They Seek To Do So By Methods Often Ridiculous, Always Disgusting; And If They Have Established A Character, They Are Silent For Fear Of Losing By Their Tongue What They Have Acquired By Their Pen--for Many Authors Converse Much More Foolishly Than Goldsmith, Who Have Never Written Half So Well.

We Strive As Hard To Hide Our Hearts From Ourselves As From Others, And Always With More Success; For In Deciding Upon Our Own Case We Are Both Judge, Jury, And Executioner, And Where Sophistry Cannot Overcome The First, Or Flattery The Second, Self-love Is Always Ready To Defeat The Sentence By Bribing The Third.

The Greatest Genius Is Never So Great As When It Is Chastised And Subdued By The Highest Reason.

There Are Many That Despise Half The World; But If There Be Any That Despise The Whole Of It, It Is Because The Other Half Despises Them.

Nothing More Completely Baffles One Who Is Full Of Trick And Duplicity Himself, Than Straight Forward And Simple Integrity In Another.

He That Openly Tells, His Friends All That He Thinks Of Them, Must Expect That They Will Secretly Tell His Enemies Much That They Do Not Think Of Him.

The Moral Cement Of All Society Is Virtue; It Unites And Preserves, While Vice Separates And Destroys.

No Disorders Have Employed So Many Quacks, As Those That Have No Cure; And No Sciences Have Exercised So Many Quills, As Those That Have No Certainty.

Tomorrow! It Is A Period Nowhere To Be Found In All The Registers Of Time, Unless, Perchance, In The Fool's Calendar.

Physical Courage, Which Despises All Danger, Will Make A Man Brave In One Way; And Moral Courage, Which Despises All Opinion, Will Make A Man Brave In Another.

Of Present Fame Think Little, And Of Future Less; The Praises That We Receive After We Are Buried, Like The Flowers That Are Strewed Over Our Grave, May Be Gratifying To The Living, But They Are Nothing To The Dead.

If We Look Backwards To Antiquity It Should Be As Those That Are Winning A Race.

Love Is A Volcano, The Crater Of Which No Wise Man Will Approach Too Nearly, Lest ... He Should Be Swallowed Up.

Very Great Personages Are Not Likely To Form Very Just Estimates Either Of Others Or Of Themselves; Their Knowledge Of Themselves Is Obscured By The Flattery Of Others; Their Knowledge Of Others Is Equally Clouded By Circumstances Peculiar To Themselves. For In The Presence Of The Great, The Modest Are Sure To Suffer From Too Much Diffidence, And The Confident From Too Much Display.

Emulation Has Been Termed A Spur To Virtue, And Assumes To Be A Spur Of Gold. But It Is A Spur Composed Of Baser Materials, And If Tried In The Furnace Will Be Found To Want That Fixedness Which Is The Characteristic Of Gold. He That Pursues Virtue, Only To Surpass Others, Is Not Far From Wishing Others Less Forward Than Himself; And He That Rejoices Too Much At His Own Perfections Will Be Too Little Grieved At The Defects Of Other Men.

To Know A Man, Observe How He Wins His Object, Rather Than How He Loses It; For When We Fail, Our Pride Supports Us - When We Succeed, It Betrays Us.

Our Wealth Is Often A Snare To Ourselves, And Always A Temptation To Others.

Cruel Men Are The Greatest Lovers Of Mercy, Avaricious Men Of Generosity, And Proud Men Of Humility; That Is To Say, In Other, Not In Themselves.

Doubt Is The Vestibule Of Faith.

Falsehood, Like A Drawing In Perspective, Will Not Bear To Be Examined In Every Point Of View, Because It Is A Good Imitation Of Truth, As A Perspective Is Of The Reality, Only In One. But Truth, Like That Reality Of Which The Perspective Is The Representation, Will Bear To Be Scrutinized In All Points Of View, And Though Examined Under Every Situation, Is One And The Same.

It Was Observed Of Elizabeth That She Was Weak Herself, But Chose Wise Counsellors; To Which It Was Replied, That To Choose Wise Counsellors Was, In A Prince, The Highest Wisdom.

To Be Obliged To Beg Our Daily Happiness From Others Bespeaks A More Lamentable Poverty Than That Of Him Who Begs His Daily Bread.

If There Be A Pleasure On Earth Which Angels Cannot Enjoy, And Which They Might Almost Envy Man The Possession Of, It Is The Power Of Relieving Distress--if There Be A Pain Which Devils Might Pity Man For Enduring, It Is The Death-bed Reflection That We Have Possessed The Power Of Doing Good, But That We Have Abused And Perverted It To Purposes Of Ill.

Ennui Has Made More Gamblers Than Avarice.

It Is Astonishing How Much More Anxious People Are To Lengthen Life Than To Improve It; And As Misers Often Lose Large Sums Of Money In Attempting To Make More, So Do Hypochondriacs Squander Large Sums Of Time In Search Of Nostrums By Which They Vainly Hope They May Get More Time To Squander.

Gross And Vulgar Minds Will Always Pay A Higher Respect To Wealth Than To Talent; For Wealth, Although It Be A Far Less Efficient Source Of Power Than Talent, Happens To Be Far More Intelligible.

Life Isn't Like A Book. Life Isn't Logical Or Sensible Or Orderly. Life Is A Mess Most Of The Time. And Theology Must Be Lived In The Midst Of That Mess.

Opinions, Like Showers, Are Generated In High Places, But They Invariably Descend Into Lower Ones, And Ultimately Flow Down To The People As Rain Unto The Sea.

It Has Been Well Observed That The Tongue Discovers The State Of The Mind No Less Than That Of The Body; But In Either Case, Before The Philosopher Or The Physician Can Judge, The Patient Must Open His Mouth.

Light, Whether It Be Material Or Moral, Is The Best Reformer; For It Prevents Those Disorders Which Other Remedies Sometimes Cure, But Sometimes Confirm.

Early Rising Not Only Gives Us More Life In The Same Number Of Years, But Adds, Likewise, To Their Number; And Not Only Enables Us To Enjoy More Of Existence In The Same Time, But Increases Also The Measure.

We Ask Advice But We Mean Approbation.

We Are Ruined, Not By What We Really Want, But By What We Think We Do; Therefore Never Go Abroad In Search Of Your Wants; If They Be Real Wants, They Will Come Home In Search Of You; For He That Buys What He Does Not Want, Will Soon Want What He Cannot Buy.

The Wealth Is Ultimately Just A Relative Thing. As A Person With Little Money And Little More Needs To Rich Guys Money But Really Wishes

That Extremes Beget Extremes Is An Apothegm Built On The Most Profound Observation Of The Human Mind.

In Death Itself There Can Be Nothing Terrible, For The Act Of Death Annihilates Sensation; But There Are Many Roads To Death, And Some Of Them Justly Formidable, Even To The Bravest.

There Are Some Men Who Are Fortune's Favorites, And Who, Like Cats, Light Forever On Their Legs.

Anguish Of Mind Has Driven Thousands To Suicide; Anguish Of Body, None. This Proves That The Health Of The Mind Is Of Far More Consequence To Our Happiness Than The Health Of The Body, Although Both Are Deserving Of Much More Attention Than Either Of Them Receive.

Wars Are To The Body Politic, What Drams Are To The Individual. There Are Times When They May Prevent A Sudden Death, But If Frequently Resorted To, Or Long Persisted In, They Heighten The Energies Only To Hasten The Dissolution.

Death Is Like Thunder In Two Particulars; We Are Alarmed, At The Sound Of It; And It Is Formidable Only From That Which Preceded It.

Avarice Has Ruined More Men Than Prodigality, And The Blindest Thoughtlessness Of Expenditure Has Not Destroyed So Many Fortunes As The Calculating But Insatiable Lust Of Accumulation.

Men Of Strong Minds And Who Think For Themselves, Should Not Be Discouraged On Finding Occasionally That Some Of Their Best Ideas Have Been Anticipated By Former Writers; They Will Neither Anathematize Others Nor Despair Themselves. They Will Rather Go On Discovering Things Before Discovered, Until They Are Rewarded With A Land Hitherto Unknown, An Empire Indisputably Their Own, Both Right Of Conquest And Of Discovery.

All The Poets Are Indebted More Or Less To Those Who Have Gone Before Them; Even Homer's Originality Has Been Questioned, And Virgil Owes Almost As Much To Theocritus, In His Pastorals, As To Homer, In His Heroics; And If Our Own Countryman, Milton, Has Soared Above Both Homer And Virgil, It Is Because He Has Stolen Some Feathers From Their Wings.

It Has Been Said That Men Carry On A Kind Of Coasting Trade With Religion. In The Voyage Of Life, They Profess To Be In Search Of Heaven, But Take Care Not To Venture So Far In Their Approximations To It, As Entirely To Lose Sight Of The Earth; And Should Their Frail Vessel Be In Danger Of Shipwreck, They Will Gladly Throw Their Darling Vices Overboard, As Other Mariners Their Treasures, Only To Fish Them Up Again When The Storm Is Over.

Human Foresight Often Leaves Its Proudest Possessor Only A Choice Of Evils.

When All Moves Equally (says Pascal), Nothing Seems To Move As In A Vessel Under Sail; And When All Run By Common Consent Into Vice, None Appear To Do So. He That Stops First, Views As From A Fixed Point The Horrible Extravagance That Transports The Rest.

If You Would Be Known, And Not Know, Vegetate In A Village; If You Would Know, And Not Be Known, Live In A City.

Of All The Passions, Jealousy Is That Which Exacts The Hardest Service, And Pays The Bitterest Wages. Its Service Is To Watch The Success Of One's Enemy; Its Wages To Be Sure Of It.

To Be A Mere Verbal Critic Is What No Man Of Genius Would Be If He Could; But To Be A Critic Of True Taste And Feeling Is What No Man Without Genius Could Be If He Would.

He That Dies A Martyr Proves That He Was Not A Knave, But By No Means That He Was Not A Fool.

We Are Sure To Be Losers When We Quarrel With Ourselves; It Is Civil War.

For All The Practical Purposes Of Life, Truth Might As Well Be In A Prison As In The Folio Of A Schoolman; And Those Who Release Her From Her Cobwebbed Shelf And Teach Her To Live With Men Have The Merit Of Liberating, If Not Of Discovering, Her.

There Is This Of Good In Real Evils; They Deliver Us, While They Last, From The Petty Despotism Of All That Were Imaginary.

Power. Like The Diamond, Dazzles The Beholder, And Also The Wearer; It Dignifies Meanness; It Magnifies Littleness; To What Is Contemptible, It Gives Authority; To What Is Low, Exaltation. To Acquire It, Appears Not More Difficult Than To Be Dispossessed Of It When Acquired, Since It Enables The Holder To Shift His Own Errors On Dependents, And To Take Their Merits To Himself. But The Miracle Of Losing It Vanishes, When We Reflect That We Are As Liable To Fall As To Rise, By The Treachery Of Others; And That To Say "i Am" Is Language That Has Been Appropriated Exclusively To God!

Precisely In Proportion To Our Own Intellectual Weakness Will Be Our Credulity As To Those Mysterious Powers Assumed By Others.

We Injure Mysteries, Which Are Matters Of Faith, By Any Attempt At Explanation In Order To Make Them Matters Of Reason. Could They Be Explained, They Would Cease To Be Mysteries; And It Has Been Well Said That A Thing Is Not Necessarily Against Reason Because It Happens To Be Above It.

Pedantry Crams Our Heads With Learned Lumber And Takes Out Our Brains To Make Room For It.

Let Those Who Would Affect Singularity With Success First Determine To Be Very Virtuous, And They Will Be Sure To Be Very Singular.

We Often Pretend To Fear What We Really Despise, And More Often Despise What We Really Fear.

It Is Better To Have Wisdom Without Learning Than Learning Without Wisdom.

No Two Things Differ More Than Hurry And Despatch. Hurry Is The Mark Of A Weak Mind; Despatch Of A Strong One.

With Respect To The Authority Of Great Names, It Should Be Remembered That He Alone Deserves To Have Any Weight And Influence With Posterity, Who Has Shown Himself Superior To The Particular And Predominant Error Of His Own Times; Who, Like The Peak Of Teneriffe, Has Hailed The Intellectual Sun Before Its Beams Have Reached The Horizon Of Common Minds.

Some Philosophers Would Give A Sex To Revenge, And Appropriate It Almost Exclusively To The Female Mind. But, Like Most Other Vices, It Is Of Both Genders; Yet, Because Wounded Vanity And Slighted Love Are The Two Most Powerful Excitements To Revenge, It Has Been Thought, Perhaps, To Rage With More Violence In The Female Heart.

Extemporaneous And Oral Harangues Will Always Have This Advantage Over Those That Are Read From A In Manuscript: Every Burst Of Eloquence Or Spark Of Genius They May Contain, However Studied They May Have Been Beforehand, Will Appear To The Audience To Be The Effect Of The Sudden Inspiration Of Talent.

Pain May Be Said To Follow Pleasure As Its Shadow.

God Is On The Side Of Virtue; For Whoever Dreads Punishment Suffers It, And Whoever Deserves It, Dreads It .

It Is Always Easy To Shut A Book, But Not Quite So Easy To Get Rid Of A Lettered Coxcomb.

Light, Whether It Be Material Or Moral, Is The Best Reformer.

Flattery Is Often A Traffic Of Mutual Meanness, Where Although Both Parties Intend Deception, Neither Are Deceived.

Afflictions Sent By Providence Melt The Constancy Of The Noble Minded, But Confirm The Obduracy Of The Vile, As The Same Furnace That Liquefies The Gold, Hardens The Clay Charles Caleb Colton.

No Improvement That Takes Place In Either Sex Can Possibly Be Confined To Itself. Each Is A Universal Mirror To Each, And The Respective Refinement Of The One Will Always Be In Reciprocal Proportion To The Polish Of The Other.

Of All The Faculties Of The Mind, Memory Is The First That Flourishes, And The First That Dies.

To Admit That There Is Any Such Thing As Chance, In The Common Acceptation Of The Term, Would Be To Attempt To Establish A Power Independent Of God.

It Is Adverse To Talent To Be Consorted And Trained Up With Inferior Minds And Inferior Companions, However High They May Rank. The Foal Of The Racer Neither Finds Out His Speed Nor Calls Out His Powers If Pastured Out With The Common Herd, That Are Destined For The Collar And The Yoke.

Great Men, Like Comets, Are Eccentric In Their Courses, And Formed To Do Extensive Good By Modes Unintelligible To Vulgar Minds.

It Is Easier To Pretend To Be What You Are Not Than To Hide What You Really Are; But He That Can Accomplish Both Has Little To Learn In Hypocrisy.

There Are Two Things Which Ought To Teach Us To Think But Meanly Of Human Glory; The Very Best Have Had Their Calumniators, The Very Worst Their Panegyrists.

Constant Success Shows Us But One Side Of The World. For As It Surrounds Us With Friends Who Will Tell Us Only Our Merits, So It Silences Those Enemies From Whom Alone We Can Learn Our Defects.

The Wisest Man May Be Wiser To-day Than He Was Yesterday, And To-morrow Than He Is To-day. Total Freedom From Change Would Imply Total Freedom From Error; But This Is The Prerogative Of Omniscience Alone.

That Profound Firmness Which Enabler A Man To Regard Difficulties But As Evils To Be Surmounted, No Matter What Shape They May Assume.

When We Feel A Strong Desire To Thrust Our Advice Upon Others, It Is Usually Because We Suspect Their Weakness; But We Ought Rather To Suspect Our Own.

The Grecian’s Maxim Would Indeed Be A Sweeping Clause In Literature; It Would Reduce Many A Giant To A Pygmy; Many A Speech To A Sentence; And Many A Folio To A Primer.

Reform Is A Good Replete With Paradox; It Is A Cathartic Which Our Political Quacks, Like Our Medical, Recommend To Others, But Will Not Take Themselves; It Is Admired By All Who Cannot Effect It, And Abused By All Who Can; It Is Thought Pregnant With Danger, For All Time That Is Present, But Would Have Been Extremely Profitable For That Which Is Past, And Will Be Highly Salutary For That Which Is To Come.

Reply To Wit With Gravity, And To Gravity With Wit.

"lawyers Are": The Only Civil Delinquents Whose Judges Must Of Necessity Be Chosen From (amongst) Themselves.

Secrecy Is The Soul Of All Great Designs. Perhaps More Has Been Effected By Concealing Our Own Intentions Than By Discovering Those Of Our Enemy.

Forgiveness, That Noblest Of All Self-denial, Is A Virtue Which He Alone Who Can Practise In Himself Can Willingly Believe In Another.

Pedantry Prides Herself On Being Wrong By Rules; While Common Sense Is Contented To Be Right Without Them.

Constant Success Shows Us But One Side Of The World; Adversity Brings Out The Reverse Of The Picture.

Congratulations

Many A Man May Thank His Talent For His Rank, But No Man Has Ever Been Able To Return The Compliment By Thanking His Rank For His Talent.

We Devote The Activity Of Our Youth To Revelry And The Decrepitude Of Our Old Age To Repentance: And We Finish The Farce By Bequeathing Our Dead Bodies To The Chancel, Which When Living, We Interdicted From The Church.

If You Cannot Avoid A Quarrel With A Blackguard, Let Your Lawyer Manage It, Rather Than Yourself. No Man Sweeps His Own Chimney, But Employs A Chimney-sweeper, Who Has No Objection To Dirty Work, Because It Is His Trade.

Whenever We Find Ourselves More Inclined To Persecute Than To Persuade, We May Then Be Certain That Our Zeal Has More Of Pride In It Than Of Charity.

Villainy That Is Vigilant Will Be An Overmatch For Virtue, If She Slumber At Her Post.

Liberty Will Not Descend To A People; A People Must Raise Themselves To Liberty; It Is A Blessing That Must Be Earned Before It Can Be Enjoyed.

Genius, When Employed In Works Whose Tendency It Is To Demoralize And To Degrade Us, Should Be Contemplated With Abhorrence Rather Than With Admiration; Such A Monument Of Its Power, May Indeed Be Stamped With Immortality, But Like The Coliseum At Rome, We Deplore Its Magnificence Because We Detest The Purposes For Which It Was Designed.

Hurry Is The Mark Of A Weak Mind, Dispatch Of A Strong One.

Time Is The Most Subtle Yet The Most Insatiable Of Depredators, And By Appearing To Take Nothing Is Permitted To Take All; Nor Can It Be Satisfied Until It Has Stolen The World From Us, And Us From The World. It Constantly Flies, Yet Overcomes All Things By Flight; And Although It Is The Present Ally, It Will Be The Future Conqueror Of Death.

We Are Not More Ingenious In Searching Out Bad Motives For Good Actions When Performed By Others, Than Good Motives For Bad Actions When Performed By Ourselves.

Trending Author

Donald Barthelme

Laurie Halse Anderson

Category