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As A Man Of Pleasure, By A Vain Attempt To Be More Happy Than Any Man Can Be, Is Often More Miserable Than Most Men Are, So The Sceptic, In A Vain Attempt To Be Wise Beyond What Is Permitted To Man, Plunges Into A Darkness More Deplorable, And A Blindness More Incurable Than That Of The Common Herd, Whom He Despises, And Would Fain Instruct.

-Charles Caleb Colton

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As A Man Of

Charles Caleb Colton

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As A Man Of Pleasure, By A Vain Attempt To Be More Happy Than Any Man Can Be, Is Often More Miserable Than Most Men Are, So The Sceptic, In A Vain Attempt To Be Wise Beyond What Is Permitted To Man, Plunges Into A Darkness More Deplorable, And A Blindness More Incurable Than That Of The Common Herd, Whom He Despises, And Would Fain Instruct.

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Brutes Leave Ingratitude To Man.

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

That Is Fine Benevolence, Finely Executed, Which, Like The Nile, Comes From Hidden Sources.

If All Seconds Were As Averse To Duels As Their Principals, Very Little Blood Would Be Shed In That Way.

Ambition Makes The Same Mistake Concerning Power That Avarice Makes Concerning Wealth. She Begins By Accumulating Power As A Means To Happiness, And She Finishes By Continuing To Accumulate It As An End.

The Code Of Poor Laws Has At Length Grown Up Into A Tree, Which, Like The Fabulous Upas, Overshadows And Poisons The Land; Unwholesome Expedients Were The Bud, Dilemmas And Depravities Have Been The Blossom, And Danger And Despair Are The Bitter Fruit.

Adroit Observers Will Find That Some Who Affect To Dislike Flattery, May Yet Be Flattered Indirectly, By A Well Seasoned Abuse And Ridicule Of Their Rivals.

Books, Like Friends, Should Be Few And Well Chosen. Like Friends, Too, We Should Return To Them Again And Again For, Like True Friends, They Will Never Fail Us - Never Cease To Instruct - Never Cloy.

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.

The Whole Family Of Pride And Ignorance Are Incestuous, And Mutually Beget Each Other

Were We As Eloquent As Angels We Still Would Please People Much More By Listening Rather Than Talking.

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.

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.

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.

Death Is The Liberator Of Him Whom Freedom Cannot Release, The Physician Of Him Whom Medicine Cannot Cure, And The Comforter Of Him Whom Time Cannot Console.

Some Men Who Know That They Are Great Are So Very Haughty Withal And Insufferable That Their Acquaintance Discover Their Greatness Only By The Tax Of Humility Which They Are Obliged To Pay As The Price Of Their Friendship.

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

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.

Silence Is Less Injurious Than A Weak Reply.

Princes Rule The People, And Their Own Passions Rule Princes; But Providence Can Over-rule The Whole, And Draw The Instruments Of His Inscrutable Purposes From The Vices, No Less Than The Virtues Of Kings.

The Head Of Dullness, Unlike The Tail Of The Torpedo, Loses Nothing Of The Benumbing And Lethargizing Influence By Reiterated Discharges.

Pleasure Is To A Woman What The Sun Is To The Flower: If Moderately Enjoyed, It Beautifies, It Refreshes, And It Improves; If Immoderately, It Withers, Deteriorates, And Destroys. But The Duties Of Domestic Life, Exercised As They Must Be In Retirement, And Calling Forth All The Sensibilities Of The Female, Are Perhaps As Necessary To The Full Development Of Her Charms, As The Shade And The Shower Are To The Rose, Confirming Its Beauty, And Increasing Its Fragrance.

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

There Are Only Two Things In Which The False Professors Of All Religions Have Agreed--to Persecute All Other Sects And To Plunder Their Own.

How Strange It Is That We Of The Present Day Are Constantly Praising That Past Age Which Our Fathers Abused, And As Constantly Abusing That Present Age, Which Our Children Will Praise.

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

Short As Life Is, Some Find It Long Enough To Outlive Their Characters, Their Constitutions And Their Estates.

Never Join With Your Friend When He Abuses His Horse Or His Wife, Unless The One Is About To Be Sold, The Other To Be Buried.

Eloquence, To Produce Her Full Effect, Should Start From The Head Of The Orator, As Pallas From The Brain Of Jove, Completely Armed And Equipped. Diffidence, Therefore, Which Is So Able A Mentor To The Writer, Would Prove A Dangerous Counsellor For The Orator.

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.

None Of Us Are So Much Praised Or Censured As We Think.

Our Very Best Friends Have A Tincture Of Jealousy Even In Their Friendship; And When They Hear Us Praised By Others, Will Ascribe It To Sinister And Interested Motives If They Can.

Lost Friendship

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.

Where We Cannot Invent, We May At Least Improve.

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

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

Modesty Is The Richest Ornament Of A Woman ... The Want Of It Is Her Greatest Deformity.

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.

He That Is Good Will Infallibly Become Better, And He That Is Bad Will As Certainly Become Worse; For Vice, Virtue, And Time Are Three Things That Never Stand Still.

Make The Most Of The Day, By Determining To Spend It On Two Sorts Of Acquaintances Only--those By Whom Something May Be Got, And Those From Whom Something May Be Learned.

We Submit To The Society Of Those That Can Inform Us, But We Seek The Society Of Those Whom We Can Inform. And Men Of Genius Ought Not To Be Chagrined If They See Themselves Neglected. For When We Communicate Knowledge, We Are Raised In Our Own Estimation; But When We Receive It, We Are Lowered.

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

When A Man Has Displayed Talent In Some Particular Path, And Left All Competitors Behind Him In It, The World Are Too Apt To Give Him Credit For Universality Of Genius, And To Anticipate For Him Success In All That He Undertakes.

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.

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

The Gamester, If He Die A Martyr To His Profession, Is Doubly Ruined. He Adds His Soul To Every Other Loss, And By The Act Of Suicide, Renounces Earth To Forfeit Heaven.

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

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

Vice Has More Martyrs Than Virtue; And It Often Happens That Men Suffer More To Be Lost Than To Be Saved.

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.

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.

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?

When Millions Applaud You Seriously Ask Yourself What Harm You Have Done; And When They Disapprove You, What Good.

Habit Will Reconcile Us To Everything But Change

Religion, Like Its Votaries, While It Exists On Earth, Must Have A Body As Well As A Soul. A Religion Purely Spiritual Might Suit A Being As Pure, But Men Are Compound Animals; And The Body Too Often Lords It Over The Mind.

There Are Two Principles Of Established Acceptance In Morals; First, That Self-interest Is The Mainspring Of All Of Our Actions, And Secondly, That Utility Is The Test Of Their Value.

For One Man Who Sincerely Pities Our Misfortunes, There Are A Thousand Who Sincerely Hate Our Success.

It Has Been Observed That A Dwarf Standing On The Shoulders Of A Giant Will See Farther Than The Giant Himself; And The Moderns, Standing As They Do On The Vantage Ground Of Former Discoveries And Uniting All The Fruits Of The Experience Of Their Forefathers, With Their Own Actual Observation, May Be Admitted To Enjoy A More Enlarged And Comprehensive View Of Things Than The Ancients Themselves.

Neither Can We Admit That Definition Of Genius That Some Would Propose--"a Power To Accomplish All That We Undertake;" For We Might Multiply Examples To Prove That This Definition Of Genius Contains More Than The Thing Defined. Cicero Failed In Poetry, Pope In Painting, Addison In Oratory; Yet It Would Be Harsh To Deny Genius To These Men.

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.

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.

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.

God Is As Great In Minuteness As He Is In Magnitude.

Atheism Is A System Which Can Communicate Neither Warmth Nor Illumination, Except From Those Fagots Which Your Mistaken Zeal Has Lighted Up For Its Destruction.

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

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

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

No Man Can Promise Himself Even Fifty Years Of Life, But Any Man May, If He Please, Live In The Proportion Of Fifty Years In Forty-let Him Rise Early, That He May Have The Day Before Him, And Let Him Make The Most Of The Day, By Determining To Expend It On Two Sorts Of Acquaintance Only-those By Whom Something May Be Got, And Those From Whom Something Maybe Learned.

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.

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.

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.

Courage Is Generosity Of The Highest Order, For The Brave Are Prodigal Of The Most Precious Things.

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.

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.

Great Minds Had Rather Deserve Contemporaneous Applause Without Obtaining It, Than Obtain Without Deserving It. If It Follow Them It Is Well, But They Will Not Deviate To Follow It.

Love Is An Alchemist That Can Transmute Poison Into Food.

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.

He That Can Please Nobody Is Not So Much To Be Pitied As He That Nobody Can Please.

If A Book Really Wants The Patronage Of A Great Name, It Is A Bad Book; And If It Be A Good Book, It Wants It Not.

If A Cause Be Good, The Most Violent Attack Of Its Enemies Will Not Injure It So Much As An Injudicious Defence Of It By Its Friends.

Sturdy Beggars Can Bear Stout Denials.

Too High An Appreciation Of Our Own Talents Is The Chief Cause Why Experience Preaches To Us All In Vain.

We Cannot Think Too Highly Of Our Nature, Nor Too Humbly Of Ourselves.

We Must Suit The Flattery To The Mind And Taste Of The Recipient. We Do Not Put Essences Into Hogsheads, Nor Porter Into Phials. Delicate Minds May Be Disgusted By Compliments That Would Please A Grosser Intellect; As Some Fine Ladies Who Would Be Shocked At The Idea Of A Dram Will Not Refuse A Liqueur.

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

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.

A Beautiful Woman, If Poor, Should Use Double Circumspection; For Her Beauty Will Tempt Others, Her Poverty Herself.

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.

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.

From The Preponderance Of Talent, We May Always Infer The Soundness And Vigour Of The Commonwealth; But From The Preponderance Of Riches, Its Dotage And Degeneration.

He That Can Enjoy The Intimacy Of The Great, And On No Occasion Disgust Them By Familiarity, Or Disgrace Himself By Servility, Proves That He Is As Perfect A Gentleman By Nature As His Companions Are By Rank.

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.

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

There Is This Difference Between Happiness And Wisdom; He That Thinks Himself The Happiest Man, Really Is So; But He That Thinks Himself The Wisest, Is Generally The Greatest Fool.

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

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

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

Nothing More Completely Baffles One Who Is Full Of Trick And Duplicity Than Straigthforward And Simple Integrity In Another. A Knave Would Rather Quarrel With A Brother Knave Than With A Fool, But He Would Rather Avoid A Quarrel With One Honest Man Than With Both. He Can Combat A Fool By Management And Address, And He Can Conquer A Knave By Temptations. But The Honest Man Is Neither To Be Bamboozled Nor Bribed.

We Ask Advice But We Mean Approbation.

To Cure Us Of Our Immoderate Love Of Gain, We Should Seriously Consider How Many Goods There Are That Money Will Not Purchase, And These The Best; And How Many Evils There Are That Money Will Not Remedy, And These The Worst.

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.

Pity A Thing Often Avowed, Seldom Felt; Hatred Is A Thing Often Felt, Seldom Avowed.

I Question If Epicurus And Hume Have Done Mankind A Greater Service By The Looseness Of Their Doctrines Than By The Purity Of Their Lives. Of Such Men We May More Justly Exclaim, Than Of Caesar, "confound Their Virtues, They've Undone The World!

Custom Looks To Things That Are Past, And Fashion To Things That Are Present, But Both Of Them Are Somewhat Purblind As To Things That Are To Come.

Logic Is A Large Drawer, Containing Some Useful Instruments, And Many More That Are Superfluous. A Wise Man Will Look Into It For Two Purposes, To Avail Himself Of Those Instruments That Are Really Useful, And To Admire The Ingenuity With Which Those That Are Not So, Are Assorted And Arranged.

Men Pursue Riches Under The Idea That Their Possession Will Set Them At Ease, And Above The World. But The Law Of Association Often Makes Those Who Begin By Loving Gold As A Servant Finish By Becoming Themselves Its Slaves; And Independence Without Wealth Is At Least As Common As Wealth Without Independence.

A Wise Man May Be Duped As Well As A Fool; But The Fool Publishes The Triumph Of His Deceiver; The Wise Man Is Silent, And Denies That Triumph To An Enemy Which He Would Hardly Concede To A Friend; A Triumph That Proclaims His Own Defeat.

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

Dreams Ought To Produce No Conviction Whatever On Philosophical Minds. If We Consider How Many Dreams Are Dreamt Every Night, And How Many Events Occur Every Day, We Shall No Longer Wonder At Those Accidental Coincidences Which Ignorance Mistakes For Verifications.

There Are Three Kinds Of Power,--wealth, Strength, And Talent; But As Old Age Always Weakens, Often Destroys, The Two Latter, The Aged Are Induced To Cling With The Greater Avidity To The Former.

Any One Can Give Advice, Such As It Is, But Only A Wise Man Knows How To Profit By It.

To Dare To Live Alone Is The Rarest Courage; Since There Are Many Who Had Rather Meet Their Bitterest Enemy In The Field, Than Their Own Hearts In Their Closet.

Contemporaries Appreciate The Person Rather Than Their Merit, Posterity Will Regard The Merit Rather Than The Person.

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

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.

Jealousy Is Sustained As Often By Pride As By Affection.

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.

When Young, We Trust Ourselves Too Much, And We Trust Others Too Little When Old. Rashness Is The Error Of Youth, Timid Caution Of Age. Manhood Is The Isthmus Between The Two Extremes; The Ripe And Fertile Season Of Action, When Alone We Can Hope To Find The Head To Contrive, United With The Hand To Execute.

The Hate Which We All Bear With The Most Christian Patience Is The Hate Of Those Who Envy Us.

Nobility Of Birth Does Not Always Insure A Corresponding Unity Of Mind; If It Did, It Would Always Act As A Stimulus To Noble Actions; But It Sometimes Acts As A Clog Rather Than A Spur.

The Masses Procure Their Opinions Ready Made In Open Market.

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

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.

Memory Is The Friend Of Wit, But The Treacherous Ally Of Invention; There Are Many Books That Owe Their Success To Two Things; Good Memory Of Those Who Write Them, And The Bad Memory Of Those Who Read Them

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

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.

To Look Back To Antiquity Is One Thing, To Go Back To It Is Another.

Ignorance Lies At The Bottom Of All Human Knowledge, And The Deeper We Penetrate, The Nearer We Arrive Unto It.

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

As A Man Of Pleasure, By A Vain Attempt To Be More Happy Than Any Man Can Be, Is Often More Miserable Than Most Men Are, So The Sceptic, In A Vain Attempt To Be Wise Beyond What Is Permitted To Man, Plunges Into A Darkness More Deplorable, And A Blindness More Incurable Than That Of The Common Herd, Whom He Despises, And Would Fain Instruct.

Power Will Intoxicate The Best Hearts, As Wine The Strongest Heads. No Man Is Wise Enough, Nor Good Enough To Be Trusted With Unlimited Power.

There Are Male As Well As Female Gossips.

Many ... Begin To Make Converts From Motives Of Charity, But Continue To Do So From Motives Of Pride. ... Charity Is Contented With Exhortation And Example, But Pride Is Not To Be So Easily Satisfied. ... Whenever We Find Ourselves More Inclined To Persecute Than Persuade, We May Then Be Certain That Our Zeal Has More Of Pride In It Than Of Charity.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There Are Many Who Say More Than The Truth On Some Occasions, And Balance The Account With Their Consciences By Saying Less Than The Truth On Others. But The Fact Is That They Are In Both Instances As Fraudulant As He Would Be That Exacted More Than His Due From His Debtors, And Paid Less Than Their Due To His Creditors.

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?

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.

The Temple Of Truth Is Built Indeed Of Stones Of Crystal, But, Inasmuch As Men Have Been Concerned In Rearing It, It Has Been Consolidated By A Cement Composed Of Baser Materials.

A Public Debt Is A Kind Of Anchor In The Storm; But If The Anchor Be Too Heavy For The Vessel, She Will Be Sunk By That Very Weight Which Was Intended For Her Preservation.

When In Reading We Meet With Any Maxim That May Be Of Use, We Should Take It For Our Own, And Make An Immediate Application Of It, As We Would Of The Advice Of A Friend Whom We Have Purposely Consulted.

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

Be Real And Adjust You Strategy According To Honest Results.

It Is In The Middle Classes Of Society That All The Finest Feeling, And The Most Amiable Propensities Of Our Nature Do Principally Nourish And Abound. For The Good Opinion Of Our Fellow-men Is The Strongest Though Not The Purest Motive To Virtue. The Privations Of Poverty Render Us Too Cold And Callous, And The Privileges Of Property Too Arrogant And Confidential, To Feel; The First Places Us Beneath The Influence Of Opinion--the Second, Above It.

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.

Knavery Is Supple, And Can Bend, But Honesty Is Firm And Upright And Yields Not.

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.

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

Pride, Like The Magnet, Constantly Points To One Object, Self; But, Unlike The Magnet, It Has No Attractive Pole, But At All Points Repels.

What Would You Do If You Knew For Sure That No One Would Ever Find Out?

Antithesis May Be The Blossom Of Wit, But It Will Never Arrive At Maturity Unless Sound Sense Be The Trunk And Truth The Root. Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon; Or, Many Things In A Few Words Light, Whether It Be Material Or Moral, Is The Best Reformer; For It Prevents Those Disorders Which Other Remedies Sometimes Cure, But Sometimes Confirm.

Most Importantly: Don't Adjust Your Results To Build Up The Ego Of The Chief Strategist. Especially If The Strategist Is You.

The Next Thing To Having Wisdom Ourselves, Is To Profit By That Of Others.

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

There Are Truths Which Some Men Despise Because They Have Not Examined, And Which They Will Not Examine Because They Despise. There Is One Signal Instance On Record Where This Kind Of Prejudice Was Overcome By A Miracle; But The Age Of Miracles Is Past, While That Of Prejudice Remains.

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.

A Society Composed Of None But The Wicked Could Not Exist; It Contains Within Itself The Seeds Of Its Own Destruction, And Without A Flood, Would Be Swept Away From The Earth By The Deluge Of Its Own Iniquity.

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.

How Small A Portion Of Our Life It Is That We Really Enjoy! In Youth We Are Looking Forward To Things That Are To Come; In Old Age We Are Looking Backward To Things That Are Gone Past; In Manhood, Although We Appear Indeed To Be More Occupied In Things That Are Present, Yet Even That Is Too Often Absorbed In Vague Determinations To Be Vastly Happy On Some Future Day When We Have Time.

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

Law And Equity Are Two Things Which God Has Joined, But Which Man Has Put Asunder.

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.

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.

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.

Mathematicians Have Sought Knowledge In Figures, Philosophers In Systems, Logicians In Subtleties, And Metaphysicians In Sounds. It Is Not In Any Nor In All Of These. He That Studies Only Men, Will Get The Body Of Knowledge Without The Soul, And He That Studies Only Books, The Soul Without The Body.

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.

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

There Is Nothing More Imprudent Than Excessive Prudence.

A Hug Is Worth A Thousand Words.

Others, Again, Give Us The Mere Carcass Of Another Man’s Thoughts, But Deprived Of All Their Life And Spirit, And This Is To Add Murder To Robbery. I Have Somewhere Seen It Observed, That We Should Make The Same Use Of A Book, As A Bee Does Of A Flower; She Steals Sweets From It, But Does Not Injure It; And Those Sweets She Herself Improves And Concocts Into Honey. But Most Plagiarists, Like The Drone, Have Neither Taste To Select, Nor Industry To Acquire, Nor Skill To Improve, But Impudently Pilfer The Honey Ready Prepared From The Hive.

It Is Curious That Some Learned Dunces, Because They Can Write Nonsense In Languages That Are Dead, Should Despise Those That Talk Sense In Languages That Are Living.

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

Oppression Cannot Prosper Where None Will Submit To Be Enslaved.

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

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.

All Preceptors Should Have That Kind Of Genius Described By Tacitus, "equal To Their Business, But Not Above It;" A Patient Industry, With Competent Erudition; A Mind Depending More On Its Correctness Than Its Originality, And On Its Memory Rather Than On Its Invention.

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

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.

Our Minds Are As Different As Our Faces. We Are All Traveling To One Destination: Happiness, But Few Are Going By The Same Road.

Metaphysicians Have Been Learning Their Lessons For The Last Four Thousand Years, And It Is High Time That They Should Now Begin To Teach Us Something. Can Any Of The Tribe Inform Us Why All The Operations Of The Mind Are Carried On With Undiminished Strength And Activity In Dreams, Except The Judgment, Which Alone Is Suspended And Dormant?

In Civil Jurisprudence It Too Often Happens That There Is So Much Law, That There Is No Room For Justice, And That The Claimant Expires Of Wrong In The Midst Of Right, As Mariners Die Of Thirst In The Midst Of Water.

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

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.

Sometimes The Greatest Adversities Turn Out To Be The Greatest Blessings.

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

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 Family Is The Most Basic Unit Of Government. As The First Community To Which A Person Is Attached And The First Authority Under Which A Person Learns To Live, The Family Establishes Society's Most Basic Values.

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 Is Not Every Man That Can Afford To Wear A Shabby Coat.

Ennui Has Made More Gamblers Than Avarice.

Secrecy Is The Soul Of All Great Designs.

Avarice Has Ruined More Souls Than Extravagance.

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