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All Who Have Been Great And Good Without Christianity Would Have Been Much Greater And Better With It. If There Be, Amongst The Sons Of Men, A Single Exception To This Maxim, The Divine Socrates May Be Allowed To Put In The Strongest Claim. It Was His High Ambition To Deserve, By Deeds, Not By Creeds, An Unrevealed Heaven, And By Works, Not By Faith, To Enter An Unpromised Land.

-Charles Caleb Colton

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All Who Have Been

Charles Caleb Colton

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All Who Have Been Great And Good Without Christianity Would Have Been Much Greater And Better With It. If There Be, Amongst The Sons Of Men, A Single Exception To This Maxim, The Divine Socrates May Be Allowed To Put In The Strongest Claim. It Was His High Ambition To Deserve, By Deeds, Not By Creeds, An Unrevealed Heaven, And By Works, Not By Faith, To Enter An Unpromised Land.

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Insults Are Engendered From Vulgar Minds, Like Toadstools From A Dunghill.

No One Knows Where He Who Invented The Plow Was Born, Nor Where He Died; Yet He Has Done More For Humanity Than The Whole Race Of Heroes Who Have Drenched The Earth With Blood And Whose Deeds Have Been Handed Down With A Precision Proportionate Only To The Mischief They Wrought.

Immitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery.

Honor Is Unstable And Seldom The Same; For She Feeds Upon Opinion, And Is As Fickle As Her Food.

When We Are In The Company Of Sensible Men, We Ought To Be Doubly Cautious Of Talking Too Much, Lest We Lose Two Good Things, Their Good Opinion And Our Own Improvement; For What We Have To Say We Know, But What They Have To Say We Know Not.

By Paying Our Other Debts, We Are Equal With All Mankind; But In Refusing To Pay A Debt Of Revenge, We Are Superior.

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.

Ignorance Is A Blank Sheet, On Which We May Write; But Error Is A Scribbled One, On Which We Must First Erase.

A Christian Builds His Fortitude On A Better Foundation Than Stoicism; He Is Pleased With Every Thing That Happens, Because He Knows It Could Not Happen Unless It First Pleased God, And That Which Pleases Him Must Be Best.

Avarice Begets More Vices Than Priam Did Children And Like Priam Survives Them All. It Starves Its Keeper To Surfeit Those Who Wish Him Dead, And Makes Him Submit To More Mortifications To Lose Heaven Than The Martyr Undergoes To Gain It.

Natural Good Is' So Intimately Connected With Moral Good, And Natural Evil With Moral Evil, That I Am As Certain As If I Heard A Voice From Heaven Proclaim It, That God Is On The Side Of Virtue. He Has Learnt Much, And Has Not Lived In Vain, Who Has Practically Discovered That Most Strict And Necessary Connection, That Does And Will Ever Exist Between Vice And Misery, And Virtue And Happiness.

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

We Own Almost All Our Knowledge Not To Those Who Have Agreed But To Those Who Have Differed.

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.

We Ask Advice But We Mean Approbation.

God Will Excuse Our Prayers For Ourselves Whenever We Are Prevented From Them By Being Occupied In Such Good Works As To Entitle Us To The Prayers Of Others.

Some Read To Think, These Are Rare; Some To Write, These Are Common; And Some Read To Talk, And These Form The Great Majority.

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.

Brutes Leave Ingratitude To Man.

The Seeds Of Repentance Are Sown In Youth By Pleasure, But The Harvest Is Reaped In Age By Pain.

We Should Choose Our Books As We Would Our Companions, For Their Sterling And Intrinsic Merit.

Like The Rainbow, Peace Rests Upon The Earth, But Its Arch Is Lost In Heaven. Heaven Bathes It In Hues Of Light--it Springs Up Amid Tears And Clouds--it Is A Reflection Of The Eternal Sun--it Is An Assurance Of Calm--it Is The Sign Of A Great Covenant Between God And Man--it Is An Emanation From The Distant Orb Of Immortal Light.

The French Revolution Was A .eune Invented And Constructed For The Purpose Of Manufacturing Liberty; But It Had Neither Lever Cogs, Nor Adjusting Powers, And The Consequences Were That It Worked So Rapidly That It Destroyed Its Own Inventors, And Set Itself On Fire.

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.

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

Faith And Works Are Necessary To Our Spiritual Life As Christians, As Soul And Body Are To Our Natural Life As Men; For Faith Is The Soul Of Religion, And Works The Body.

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.

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.

If We Trace The History Of Most Revolutions, We Shall Find That The First Inroads Upon The Laws Have Been Made By The Governors, As Often As By The Governed.

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.

Drunkenness Is The Vice Of A Good Constitution Or Of A Bad Memory Of A Constitution So Treacherously Good That It Never Bends Till It Breaks; Or Of A Memory That Recollects The Pleasures Of Getting Intoxicated, But Forgets The Pains Of Getting Sober.

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.

A Hug Is Worth A Thousand Words.

Time, The Cradle Of Hope.... Wisdom Walks Before It, Opportunity With It, And Repentance Behind It: He That Has Made It His Friend Will Have Little To Fear From His Enemies, But He That Has Made It His Enemy Will Have Little To Hope From His Friends.

Expect Not Praise Without Envy Until You Are Dead.

If Once A Woman Breaks Through The Barriers Of Decency, Her Ease Is Desperate; And If She Goes Greater Lengths Than The Men, And Leaves The Pale Of Propriety Farther Behind Her, It Is Because She Is Aware That All Return Is Prohibited, And By None So Strongly As By Her Own Sex.

As The Gout Seems Privileged To Attack The Bodies Of The Wealthy, So Ennui Seems To Exert A Similar Prerogative Over Their Minds.

He That Swells In Prosperity Will Be Sure To Shrink In Adversity.

Fortune, Like Other Females, Prefers A Lover To A Master, And Submits With Impatience To Control; But He That Wooes Her With Opportunity And Importunity Will Seldom Court Her In Vain.

The Acquirements Of Science May Be Termed The Armour Of The Mind; But That Armour Would Be Worse Than Useless, That Cost Us All We Had, And Left Us Nothing To Defend.

There Are Circumstances Of Peculiar Difficulty And Danger, Where A Mediocrity Of Talent Is The Most Fatal Quantum That A Man Can Possibly Possess. Had Charles The First And Louis The Sixteenth Been More Wise Or More Weak, More Firm Or More Yielding, In Either Case They Had Both Of Them Saved Their Heads.

The Plainest Man Who Pays Attention To Women, Will Sometimes Succeed As Well As The Handsomest Man Who Does Not.

There Are Two Modes Of Establishing Our Reputation; To Be Praised By Honest Men, And To Be Abused By Rogues.

Wars Of Opinion, As They Have Been The Most Destructive, Are Also The Most Disgraceful Of Conflicts.

When You Have Nothing To Say, Say Nothing.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Perfection Doesn't Exist... Only Good Attempts.

Truth Can Hardly Be Expected To Adapt Herself To The Crooked Policy And Wily Sinuosities Of Worldly Affairs; For Truth, Like Light, Travels Only In Straight Lines.

In All Places, And In All Times, Those Religionists Who Have Believed Too Much Have Been More Inclined To Violence And Persecution Than Those Who Have Believed Too Little.

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

A House May Draw Visitors, But It Is The Possessor Alone That Can Detain Them.

Mystery Is Not Profoundness.

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

Theories Are Private Property, But Truth Is Common Stock.

A Thorough-paced Knave Will Rarely Quarrel With One Whom He Can Cheat: His Revenge Is Plunder; Therefore He Is Usually The Most Forgiving Of Beings, Upon The Principle That If He Come To An Open Rupture, He Must Defend Himself; And This Does Not Suit A Man Whose Vocation It Is To Keep His Hands In The Pocket Of Another.

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?

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.

Men Are Born With Two Eyes, But With One Tongue, In Order That They Should See Twice As Much As They Say.

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.

There Is Nothing More Imprudent Than Excessive Prudence.

It Is With Nations As With Individuals, Those Who Know The Least Of Others Think The Highest Of Themselves; For The Whole Family Of Pride And Ignorance Are Incestuous, And Mutually Beget Each Other.

There Is This Difference Between The Two Temporal Blessings - Health And Money; Money Is The Most Envied, But The Least Enjoyed; Health Is The Most Enjoyed, But The Least Envied; And This Superiority Of The Latter Is Still More Obvious When We Reflec.

To Despise Our Own Species Is The Price We Must Often Pay For Knowledge Of It.

It Is Not Until We Have Passed Through The Furnace That We Are Made To Know How Much Dross There Is In Our Composition.

A High Degree Of Intellectual Refinement In The Female Is The Surest Pledge Society Can Have For The Improvement Of The Male.

Sleep, The Type Of Death, Is Also, Like That Which It Typifies, Restricted To The Earth. It Flies From Hell And Is Excluded From Heaven.

Nothing Is More Durable Than The Dynasty Of Doubt; For He Reigns In The Hearts Of All His People, But Gives Satisfaction To None Of Them, And Yet He Is The Only Despot Who Can Never Die, While Any Of His Subjects Live.

War Is A Game In Which Princes Seldom Win, The People Never.

In Science, Reason Is The Guide; In Poetry, Taste. The Object Of The One Is Truth, Which Is Uniform And Indivisible; The Object Of The Other Is Beauty, Which Is Multiform And Varied.

Many Books Require No Thought From Those Who Read Them, And For A Very Simple Reason; They Made No Such Demand Upon Those Who Wrote Them.

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.

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.

It Is A Mistake, That A Lust For Power Is The Mark Of A Great Mind; For Even The Weakest Have Been Captivated By It; And For Minds Of The Highest Order, It Has No Charms.

There Are Some Who Affect A Want Of Affectation, And Flatter Themselves That They Are Above Flattery; They Are Proud Of Being Thought Extremely Humble, And Would Go Round The World To Punish Those Who Thought Them Capable Of Revenge; They Are So Satisfied Of The Suavity Of Their Own Temper That They Would Quarrel With Their Dearest Benefactor Only For Doubting It.

It Is Good To Act As If. It Is Even Better To Grow To The Point Where It Is No Longer An Act.

Antithesis May Be The Blossom Of Wit, But It Will Never Arrive At Maturity Unless Sound Sense Be The Trunk And Truth The Root.

Of All The Marvelous Works Of God, Perhaps The One Angels View With The Most Supreme Astonishment, Is A Proud Man.

A Coxcomb Begins By Determining That His Own Profession Is The First; And He Finishes By Deciding That He Is The First Of Profession.

Where We Cannot Invent, We May At Least Improve.

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

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.

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.

There Is This Paradox In Fear: He Is Most Likely To Inspire It In Others Who Has None Himself!

Some Persons Will Tell You, With An Air Of The Miraculous, That They Recovered Although They Were Given Over; Whereas They Might With More Reason Have Said, They Recovered Because They Were Given Over.

As The Grand Discordant Harmony Of The Celestial Bodies May Be Explained By The Simple Principles Of Gravity And Impulse, So Also In That More Wonderful And Complicated Microcosm, The Heart Of Man, All The Phenomena Of Morals Are Perhaps Resolvable Into One Single Principle, The Pursuit Of Apparent Good; For Although Customs Universally Vary, Yet Man In All Climates And Countries Is Essentially The Same.

There Are Truths Which Some Men Despise Because They Have Not Examined, And Which They Will Not Examine Because They Despise.

Hannibal Knew Better How To Conquer Than How To Profit By The Conquest; And Napoleon Was More Skilful In Taking Positions Than In Maintaining Them. As To Reverses, No General Cart Presume To Say That He May Not Be Defeated; But He Can, And Ought To Say, That He Will Not Be Surprised.

The Most Consistent Men Are Not More Unlike To Others, Than They Are At Times To Themselves.

Ambition Is To The Mind What The Cap Is To The Falcon; It Blinds Us First, And Then Compels Us To Tower By Reason Of Our Blindness.

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.

Marriage Is A Feast Where The Grace Is Sometimes Better Than The Dinner.

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

There Are Too Many Who Reverse Both The Principles And The Practice Of The Apostles; They Become All Things To All Men, Not To Serve Others, But Themselves; And They Try All Things Only To Hold Fast That Which Is Bad.

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.

Courage Is Like The Diamond,--very Brilliant; Not Changed By Fire, Capable Of High Polish, But Except For The Purpose Of Cutting Hard Bodies Useless.

The Pride Of Ancestry Is A Superstructure Of The Most Imposing Height, But Resting On The Most Flimsy Foundation. It Is Ridiculous Enough To Observe The Hauteur With Which The Old Nobility Look Down On The New. The Reason Of This Puzzled Me A Little, Until I Began To Reflect That Most Titles Are Respectable Only Because They Are Old; If New, They Would Be Despised, Because All Those Who Now Admire The Grandeur Of The Stream Would See Nothing But The Impurity Of The Source.

Where True Religion Has Prevented One Crime, False Religions Have Afforded A Pretext For A Thousand.

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.

No Men Deserve The Title Of Infidels So Little As Those To Whom It Has Been Usually Applied; Let Any Of Those Who Renounce Christianity, Write Fairly Down In A Book All The Absurdities That They Believe Instead Of It, And They Will Find That It Requires More Faith To Reject Christianity Than To Embrace It.

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.

The Praise Of The Envious Is Far Less Creditable Than Their Censure; They Praise Only That Which They Can Surpass, But That Which Surpasses Them They Censure.

Happiness ... Leads None Of Us By The Same Route.

Levity Is Often Less Foolish And Gravity Less Wise Than Each Of Them Appears.

If Kings Would Only Determine Not To Extend Their Dominions Until They Had Filled Them With Happiness, They Would Find The Smallest Territories Too Large, But The Longest Life Too Short For The Full Accomplishment Of So Grand And So Noble An Ambition.

Much Too Oft We Make Life Gloomy-- When Happy We Might Be, If We Gathered More Of Sunshine, And Not Dark Shadows See.

It Is Almost As Difficult To Make A Man Unlearn His Errors As His Knowledge.

The Most Ridiculous Of All Animals Is A Proud Priest; He Cannot Use His Own Tools Without Cutting His Own Fingers.

The Firmest Of Friendships Have Been Formed In Mutual Adversity, As Iron Is Most Strongly United By The Fiercest Flame.

Kings And Their Subjects, Masters And Slaves, Find A Common Level In Two Places - At The Foot Of The Cross, And In The Grave.

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

False Reasoners Are Often Best Confuted By Giving Them The Full Swing Of Their Own Absurdities.

The Art Of Declamation Has Been Sinking In Value From The Moment That Speakers Were Foolish Enough To Publish, And Hearers Wise Enough To Read.

Self-love, In A Well-regulated Breast, Is As The Steward Of The Household, Superintending The Expenditure, And Seeing That Benevolence Herself Should Be Prudential, In Order To Be Permanent, By Providing That The Reservoir Which Feeds Should Also Be Fed.

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.

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.

There Are Two Way Of Establishing A Reputation, One To Be Praised By Honest People And The Other To Be Accused By Rogues. It Is Best, However, To Secure The First One, Because It Will Always Be Accompanied By The Latter.

Those Who Worship Gold In A World So Corrupt As This We Live In Have At Least One Thing To Plead In Defense Of Their Idolatry--the Power Of Their Idol. It Is True That, Like Other Idols, It Can Neither Move, See, Hear, Feel, Nor Understand; But, Unlike Other Idols, It Has Often Communicated All These Powers To Those Who Had Them Not, And Annihilated Them In Those Who Had. This Idol Can Boast Of Two Peculiarities; It Is Worshipped In All Climates, Without A Single Temple, And By All Classes, Without A Single Hypocrite.

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.

An Honest Man Will Continue To Be So Though Surrounded On All Sides By Rogues.

If Our Eloquence Be Directed Above The Heads Of Our Hearers, We Shall Do No Execution. By Pointing Our Arguments Low, We Stand A Chance Of Hitting Their Hearts As Well As Their Heads. In Addressing Angels, We Could Hardly Raise Our Eloquence Too High; But We Must Remember That Men Are Not Angels.

Gaming Is The Child Of Avarice, But The Parent Of Prodigality.

He That Abuses His Own Profession Will Not Patiently Bear With Any One Else Who Does So. And This Is One Of Our Most Subtle Operations Of Self-love. For When We Abuse Our Own Profession, We Tacitly Except Ourselves; But When Another Abuses It, We Are Far From Being Certain That This Is The Case.

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

Those Who Visit Foreign Nations, But Who Associate Only With Their Own Countrymen, Change Their Climate, But Not Their Customs 'caelum Non Animum Mutant': They See New Meridians, But The Same Men, And With Heads As Empty As Their Pockets.

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.

Where Thou Perceivest Knowledge, Bend The Ear Of Attention And Respect; But Yield Not Further To The Teaching, Than As Thy Mind Is Warranted By Reasons. Better Is An Obstinant Disputant, That Yieldeth Inch By Inch, Than The Shallow Traitor To Himself, Who Surrendereth To Half An Argument.

The Two Most Precious Things This Side Of The Grave Are Our Reputation And Our Life. But It Is To Be Lamented That The Most Contemptible Whisper May Deprive Us Of The One, And The Weakest Weapon Of The Other.

No Propagation Or Multiplication Is More Rapid That That Of Evil, Unless It Be Checked; No Growth More Certain.

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.

There Were Moments Of Despondency When Shakespeare Thought Himself No Poet, And Raphael No Painter; When The Greatest Wits Have Doubted The Excellence Of Their Happiest Efforts.

Pain May Be Said To Follow Pleasure As Its Shadow.

With The Offspring Of Genius, The Law Of Parturition Is Reversed; The Throes Are In The Conception, The Pleasure In The Birth.

In Life We Shall Find Many Men That Are Great, And Some That Are Good, But Very Few Men That Are Both Great And Good.

It May Be Observed Of Good Writing, As Of Good Blood, That It Is Much Easier To Say What It Is Composed Of Than To Compose It.

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.

Much May Be Done In Those Little Shreds And Patches Of Time Which Every Day Produces, And Which Most Men Throw Away.

Love Is An Alchemist That Can Transmute Poison Into Food.

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

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.

Times Of Great Calamity And Confusion Have Been Productive For The Greatest Minds. The Purest Ore Is Produced From The Hottest Furnace. The Brightest Thunder-bolt Is Elicited From The Darkest Storm.

The Benevolent Have The Advantage Of The Envious, Even In This Present Life; For The Envious Man Is Tormented Not Only By All The Ill That Befalls Himself, But By All The Good That Happens To Another; Whereas The Benevolent Man Is The Better Prepared To Bear His Own Calamities Unruffled, From The Complacency And Serenity He Has Secured From Contemplating The Prosperity Of All Around Him.

The Greatest And Most Amiable Privilege Which The Rich Enjoy Over The Poor Is That Which They Exercise The Least--the Privilege Of Making Others Happy.

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.

Charles Fox Said That Restorations Were The Most Bloody Of All Revolutions; And He Might Have Added That Reformations Are The Best Mode Of Preventing The Necessity Of Either.

None Are So Fond Of Secrets As Those Who Do Not Mean To Keep Them; Such Persons Covet Secrets As A Spendthrift Covets Money, For The Purpose Of Circulation.

Secrecy Is The Soul Of All Great Designs.

We Should Have A Glorious Conflagration, If All Who Cannot Put Fire Into Their Works Would Only Consent To Put Their Works Into The Fire.

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

To Be Continually Subject To The Breath Of Slander, Will Tarnish The Purest Virtue, As A Constant Exposure To The Atmosphere Will Obscure The Brightness Of The Finest Gold; But In Either Case, The Real Value Of Both Continues The Same, Although The Currency May Be Somewhat Impeded.

Duke Chartres Used To Boast That No Man Could Have Less Real Value For Character Than Himself, Yet He Would Gladly Give Twenty Thousand Pounds For A Good One, Because He Could Immediately Make Double That Sum By Means Of It.

Wealth After All Is A Relative Thing Since He That Has Little And Wants Less Is Richer Than He That Has Much And Wants More.

Greatest Wealth

There Are Some Frauds So Well Conducted That It Would Be Stupidity Not To Be Deceived By Them.

To Be Satisfied With The Acquittal Of The World, Though Accompanied With The Secret Condemnation Of Conscience, This Is The Mark Of A Little Mind; But It Requires A Soul Of No Common Stamp To Be Satisfied With Its Own Acquittal, And To Despise The Condemnation Of The World.

Some Authors Write Nonsense In A Clear Style, And Others Sense In An Obscure One; Some Can Reason Without Being Able To Persuade, Others Can Persuade Without Being Able To Reason; Some Dive So Deep That They Descend Into Darkness, And Others Soar So High That They Give Us No Light; And Some, In A Vain Attempt To Be Cutting And Dry, Give Us Only That Which Is Cut And Dried. We Should Labor, Therefore, To Treat With Ease Of Things That Are Difficult; With Familiarity, Of Things That Are Novel; And With Perspicuity, Of Things That Are Profound.

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.

The Greatest Miracle That The Almighty Could Perform Would Be To Make A Bad Man Happy, Even In Heaven; He Must Unparadise That Blessed Place To Accomplish It. In Its Primary Signification, All Vice--that Is, All Excess--brings Its Own Punishment Even Here.

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.

Some Men Of A Secluded And Studious Life, Have Sent Forth From Their Closet Or Their Cloister, Rays Of Intellectual Light That Have Agitated Courts, And Revolutionized Kingdoms; Like The Moon, That Far Removed From The Ocean, And Shining Upon It With A Serene And Sober Light, Is The Chief Cause Of All Those Ebbings And Flowings Which Incessantly Disturb That World Of Waters.

Literature Has Her Quacks No Less Than Medicine, And They Are Divided Into Two Classes; Those Who Have Erudition Without Genius, And Those Who Have Volubility Without Depth; We Shall Get Second-hand Sense From The One, And Original Nonsense From The Other.

It Is Curious That We Pay Statesmen For What They Say, Not For What They Do; And Judge Of Them From What They Do, Not From What They Say. Hence They Have One Code Of Maxims For Profession And Another For Practice, And Make Up Their Consciences As The Neapolitans Do Their Beds, With One Set Of Furniture For Show And Another For Use.

It Is More Easy To Forgive The Weak Who Have Injured Us Than The Powerful Whom We Have Injured.

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

He [the Miser] Falls Down And Worships The God Of This World, But Will Have Neither Its Pomps, Its Vanities Nor Its Pleasures For His Trouble.

When We Live Habitually With The Wicked, We Become Necessarily Either Their Victim Or Their Disciple; When We Associate, On The Contrary, With Virtuous Men, We Form Ourselves In Imitation Of Their Virtues, Or, At Least, Lose Every Day Something Of Our Faults.

The Three Great Apostles Of Practical Atheism, That Make Converts Without Persecuting, And Retain Them Without Preaching, Are Wealth, Health And Power.

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

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.

Error, When She Retraces Her Steps, Has Farther To Go Before She Can Arrive At Truth Than Ignorance.

A Town, Before It Can Be Plundered And, Deserted, Must First Be Taken; And In This Particular Venus Has Borrowed A Law From Her Consort Mars. A Woman That Wishes To Retain Her Suitor Must Keep Him In The Trenches; For This Is A Siege Which The Besieger Never Raises For Want Of Supplies, Since A Feast Is More Fatal To Love Than A Fast, And A Surfeit Than A Starvation. Inanition May Cause It To Die A Slow Death, But Repletion Always Destroys It By A Sudden One.

Custom Is The Law Of One Description Of Fools, And Fashion Of Another; But The Two Parties Often Clash--for Precedent Is The Legislator Of The First, And Novelty Of The Last. Custom, Therefore, Looks To Things That Are Past, And Fashion To Things That Are Present.

Criticism Discloses That Which It Would Fain Conceal, But Conceals That Which It Professes To Disclose; It Is Therefore, Read By The Discerning, Not To Discover The Merits Of An Author, But The Motives Of His Critic.

It Is Sufficiently Humiliating To Our Nature To Reflect That Our Knowledge Is But As She Rivulet, Our Ignorance As The Sea. On Points Of The Highest Interest, The Moment We Quit The Light Of Revelation We Shall Find That Platonism Itself Is Intimately Connected With Pyrrhonism, And The Deepest Inquiry With The Darkest Doubt.

The Victim To Too Severe A Law Is Considered As A Martyr Rather Than A Criminal.

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

We Know The Effects Of Many Things, But The Cause Of Few; Experience, Therefore, Is A Surer Guide Than Imagination, And Inquiry Than Conjecture.

Self-denial Is Often The Sacrifice Of One Sort Of Self-love For Another.

Men Spend Their Lives In Anticipations,—in Determining To Be Vastly Happy At Some Period When They Have Time. But The Present Time Has One Advantage Over Every Other—it Is Our Own. Past Opportunities Are Gone, Future Have Not Come. We May Lay In A Stock Of Pleasures, As We Would Lay In A Stock Of Wine; But If We Defer The Tasting Of Them Too Long, We Shall Find That Both Are Soured By Age.

There Are Two Metals, One Of Which Is Omnipotent In The Cabinet, And The Other In The Camp--gold And Iron. He That Knows How To Apply Them Both May Indeed Attain The Highest Station.

From Its Very Inaction, Idleness Ultimately Becomes The Most Active Cause Of Evil; As A Palsy Is More To Be Dreaded Than A Fever. The Turks Have A Proverb Which Says That The Devil Tempts All Other Men, But That Idle Men Tempt The Devil.

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

Our Admiration Of Fine Writing Will Always Be In Proportion To Its Real Difficulty And Its Apparent Ease.

Instead Of Exhibiting Talent In The Hope That The World Would Forgive Their Eccentricities, They Have Exhibited Only Their Eccentricities, In The Hope That The World Would Give Them Credit For Talent.

Anger Is Practical Awkwardness.

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.

We Hate Some Persons Because We Do Not Know Them; And Will Not Know Them Because We Hate Them.

A Youth Without Fire Is Followed By An Old Age Without Experience.

The Further We Advance In Knowledge, The More Simplicity Shall We Discover In Those Primary Rules That Regulate All The Apparently Endless, Complicated, And Multiform Operations Of The Godhead.

Those That Know The Least Of Others Think The Highest Of Themselves.

Calumny Crosses Oceans, Scales Mountains And Traverses Deserts, With Greater Ease Than The Scythian Abaris, And Like Him, Rides Upon A Poisoned Arrow.

Hope Is A Prodigal Young Heir, And Experience Is His Banker; But His Drafts Are Seldom Honoured, Since There Is Often A Heavy Balance Against Him, Because He Draws Largely On A Small Capital, Is Not Yet In Possession, And If He Were, Would Die.

Sensibility Would Be A Good Portress If She Had But One Hand; With Her Right She Opens The Door To Pleasure, But With Her Left To Pain.

Fashion Is The Veriest Goddess Of Semblance And Of Shade; To Be Happy Is Of Far Less Consequence To Her Worshippers Than To Appear So; Even Pleasure Itself They Sacrifice To Parade, And Enjoyment To Ostentation.

Hypocrites Act By Virtue.... They Frame Many Counterfeits Of Her, With Which They Make An Ostentatious Parade, In All Public Assemblies, And Processions; But The Original Of What They Counterfeit, And Which May Indeed Be Said To Have Fallen From Heaven, They Produce So Seldom, That It Is Cankered By The Rust Of Sloth, And Useless From Non-application.

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

The Present Time Has One Advantage Over Every Other -- It Is Our Own.

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.

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Deborah Harkness

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