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Cut Off My Head, And Singular I Am, Cut Off My Tail, And Plural I Appear; Although My Middle's Left, There's Nothing There! What Is My Head Cut Off? A Sounding Sea; What Is My Tail Cut Off? A Rushing River; And In Their Mingling Depths I Fearless Play, Parent Of Sweetest Sounds, Yet Mute Forever.

-Thomas B. Macaulay

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Cut Off My Head,

Thomas B. Macaulay

...

Cut Off My Head, And Singular I Am, Cut Off My Tail, And Plural I Appear; Although My Middle's Left, There's Nothing There! What Is My Head Cut Off? A Sounding Sea; What Is My Tail Cut Off? A Rushing River; And In Their Mingling Depths I Fearless Play, Parent Of Sweetest Sounds, Yet Mute Forever.

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We Never Could Clearly Understand How It Is That Egotism, So Unpopular In Conversation, Should Be So Popular In Writing.

The Real Object Of The Drama Is The Exhibition Of Human Character.

A Dominant Religion Is Never Ascetic.

Sense Can Support Herself Handsomely In Most Countries On Some Eighteen Pence A Day; But For Fantasy, Planets And Solar Systems, Will Not Suffice.

Logicians May Reason About Abstractions. But The Great Mass Of Men Must Have Images. The Strong Tendency Of The Multitude In All Ages And Nations To Idolatry Can Be Explained On No Other Principle.

As Civilization Advances, Poetry Almost Necessarily Declines.

It Was Before Deity Embodied In A Human Form Walking Among Men, Partaking Of Their Infirmities, Leaning On Their Bosoms, Weeping Over Their Graves, Slumbering In The Manger, Bleeding On The Cross, That The Prejudices Of The Synagogue, And The Doubts Of The Academy, And The Pride Of The Portico, And The Fasces Of The Lictor, And The Swords Of Thirty Legions Were Humbled In The Dust.

This Is The Best Book Ever Written By Any Man On The Wrong Side Of A Question Of Which He Is Profoundly Ignorant.

The Puritan Hated Bear-baiting, Not Because It Gave Pain To The Bear, But Because It Gave Pleasure To The Spectators.

Satire Is, Indeed, The Only Sort Of Composition In Which The Latin Poets Whose Works Have Come Down To Us Were Not Mere Imitators Of Foreign Models; And It Is Therefore The Sort Of Composition In Which They Have Never Been Excelled.

Lars Porsena Of Clusium By The Nine Gods He Swore That The Great House Of Tarquin Should Suffer Wrongs No More.

He Had A Head Which Statuaries Loved To Copy, And A Foot The Deformity Of Which The Beggars In The Streets Mimicked.

A Man Possessed Of Splendid Talents, Which He Often Abused, And Of A Sound Judgment, The Admonitions Of Which He Often Neglected; A Man Who Succeeded Only In An Inferior Department Of His Art, But Who In That Department Succeeded Pre-eminently.

How It Chanced That A Man Who Reasoned On His Premises So Ably, Should Assume His Premises So Foolishly, Is One Of The Great Mysteries Of Human Nature.

Shakespeare Has Had Neither Equal Nor Second.

In The Plays Of Shakespeare Man Appears As He Is, Made Up Of A Crowd Of Passions Which Contend For The Mastery Over Him, And Govern Him In Turn.

The Passages In Which Milton Has Alluded To His Own Circumstances Are Perhaps Read More Frequently, And With More Interest, Than Any Other Lines In His Poems.

In Plato's Opinion, Man Was Made For Philosophy; In Bacon's Opinion, Philosophy Was Made For Man.

The Knowledge Of The Theory Of Logic Has No Tendency Whatever To Make Men Good Reasoners.

In Every Age The Vilest Specimens Of Human Nature Are To Be Found Among Demagogues.

Power, Safely Defied, Touches Its Downfall.

That Is The Best Government Which Desires To Make The People Happy, And Knows How To Make Them Happy.

There Were Gentlemen And There Were Seamen In The Navy Of Charles The Second. But The Seamen Were Not Gentlemen; And The Gentlemen Were Not Seamen.

Nothing Is So Galling To A People Not Broken In From Birth As A Paternal, Or, In Other Words, A Meddling Government, A Government Which Tells Them What To Read, And Say, And Eat, And Drink And Wear.

We Are Free, We Are Civilised, To Little Purpose, If We Grudge To Any Portion Of The Human Race An Equal Measure Of Freedom And Civilisation.

Men Of Great Conversational Powers Almost Universally Practise A Sort Of Lively Sophistry And Exaggeration Which Deceives For The Moment Both Themselves And Their Auditors.

To Punish A Man Because He Has Committed A Crime, Or Because He Is Believed, Though Unjustly, To Have Committed A Crime, Is Not Persecution. To Punish A Man, Because We Infer From The Nature Of Some Doctrine Which He Holds, Or From The Conduct Of Other Persons Who Hold The Same Doctrines With Him, That He Will Commit A Crime, Is Persecution, And Is, In Every Case, Foolish And Wicked.

I Shall Cheerfully Bear The Reproach Of Having Descended Below The Dignity Of History.

Scotland By No Means Escaped The Fate Ordained For Every Country Which Is Connected, But Not Incorporated, With Another Country Of Greater Resources.

We Must Succumb To The General Influence Of The Times. No Man Can Be Of The Tenth Century, If He Would; Be Must Be A Man Of The Nineteenth Century.

Queen Mary Had A Way Of Interrupting Tattle About Elopements, Duels, And Play Debts, By Asking The Tattlers, Very Quietly Yet Significantly, Whether They Had Ever Read Her Favorite Sermon--dr. Tillotson On Evil Speaking.

Those Who Have Read History With Discrimination Know The Fallacy Of Those Panegyrics And Invectives Which Represent Individuals As Effecting Great Moral And Intellectual Revolutions, Subverting Established Systems, And Imprinting A New Character On Their Age. The Difference Between One Man And Another Is By No Means So Great As The Superstitious Crowd Suppose.

Then None Was For A Party; Than All Were For The State; Then The Great Man Helped The Poor, And The Poor Man Loved The Great: Then Lands Were Fairly Portioned; Then Spoils Were Fairly Sold: The Romans Were Like Brothers In The Brave Days Of Old.

Everybody's Business Is Nobody's Business.

It Is Possible To Be Below Flattery As Well As Above It. One Who Trusts Nobody Will Not Trust Sycophants. One Who Does Not Value Real Glory Will Not Value Its Counterfeit.

With Respect To The Doctrine Of A Future Life, A North American Indian Knows Just As Much As Any Ancient Or Modern Philosopher.

Language, The Machine Of The Poet, Is Best Fitted For His Purpose In Its Rudest State. Nations, Like Individuals, First Perceive, And Then Abstract. They Advance From Particular Images To General Terms. Hence The Vocabulary Of An Enlightened Society Is Philosophical, That Of A Half-civilized People Is Poetical.

Nothing Except The Mint Can Make Money Without Advertising.

Our Rulers Will Best Promote The Improvement Of The Nation By Strictly Confining Themselves To Their Own Legitimate Duties, By Leaving Capital To Find Its Most Lucrative Course, Commodities Their Fair Price, Industry And Intelligence Their Natural Reward, Idleness And Folly Their Natural Punishment, By Maintaining Peace, By Defending Property, By Diminishing The Price Of Law, And By Observing Strict Economy In Every Department Of The State. Let The Government Do This: The People Will Assuredly Do The Rest.

No Man Who Is Correctly Informed As To The Past Will Be Disposed To Take A Morose Or Desponding View Of The Present.

The Maxim, That Governments Ought To Train The People In The Way In Which They Should Go, Sounds Well. But Is There Any Reason For Believing That A Government Is More Likely To Lead The People In The Right Way Than The People To Fall Into The Right Way Of Themselves?

The Good-humor Of A Man Elated With Success Often Displays Itself Towards Enemies.

In Truth It May Be Laid Down As An Almost Universal Rule That Good Poets Are Bad Critics.

Western Literature Has Been More Influenced By The Bible Than Any Other Book.

Every Political Sect Has Its Esoteric And Its Exoteric School--its Abstract Doctrines For The Initiated; Its Visible Symbols, Its Imposing Forms, Its Mythological Fables, For The Vulgar.

Turn Where We May, Within, Around, The Voice Of Great Events Is Proclaiming To Us, Reform, That You May Preserve!

With The Dead There Is No Rivalry, With The Dead There Is No Change.

But The Time Will Come When New England Will Be As Thickly Peopled As Old England. Wages Will Be As Low, And Will Fluctuate As Much With You As With Us. You Will Have Your Manchesters And Birminghams; And, In Those Manchesters And Birminghams, Hundreds Of Thousands Of Artisans Will Assuredly Be Sometimes Out Of Work. Then Your Institutions Will Be Fairly Brought To The Test.

Perhaps No Person Can Be A Poet, Or Can Even Enjoy Poetry, Without A Certain Unsoundness Of Mind.

History Begins In Novel And Ends In Essay.

The Temple Of Silence And Reconciliation.

In That Temple Of Silence And Reconciliation Where The Enmities Of Twenty Generations Lie Buried, In The Great Abbey Which Has During Many Ages Afforded A Quiet Resting-place To Those Whose Minds And Bodies Have Been Shattered By The Contentions Of The Great Hall.

People Crushed By Law Have No Hopes But From Power. If Laws Are Their Enemies, They Will Be Enemies To Laws.

The End Of Government Is The Happiness Of The People.

Grief, Which Disposes Gentle Natures To Retirement, To Inaction, And To Meditation, Only Makes Restless Spirits More Restless.

The Perfect Disinterestedness And Self-devotion Of Which Men Seem Incapable, But Which Is Sometimes Found In Women.

The Upper Current Of Society Presents No Pertain Criterion By Which We Can Judge Of The Direction In Which The Under Current Flows.

Nothing Is So Useless As A General Maxim.

I Don't Mind Your Thinking Slowly; I Mind Your Publishing Faster Than You Think.

There Was, It Is Said, A Criminal In Italy Who Was Suffered To Make His Choice Between Guicciardini And The Galleys. He Chose The History. But The War Of Pisa Was Too Much For Him; He Changed His Mind, And Went To The Oars.

No Man In The World Acts Up To His Own Standard Of Right.

The Hearts Of Men Are Their Books; Events Are Their Tutors; Great Actions Are Their Eloquence.

Such Night In England Ne'er Had Been, Nor Ne'er Again Shall Be.

History, Is Made Up Of The Bad Actions Of Extraordinary Men And Woman. All The Most Noted Destroyers And Deceivers Of Our Species, All The Founders Of Arbitrary Governments And False Religions Have Been Extraordinary People; And Nine Tenths Of The Calamities That Have Befallen The Human Race Had No Other Origin Than The Union Of High Intelligence With Low Desires.

A Politician Must Often Talk And Act Before He Has Thought And Read. He May Be Very Ill Informed Respecting A Question: All His Notions About It May Be Vague And Inaccurate; But Speak He Must. And If He Is A Man Of Ability, Of Tact, And Of Intrepidity, He Soon Finds That, Even Under Such Circumstances, It Is Possible To Speak Successfully.

I Would Rather Be Poor In A Cottage Full Of Books Than A King Without The Desire To Read.

Many Politicians Are In The Habit Of Laying It Down As A Self-evident Proposition That No People Ought To Be Free Till They Are Fit To Use Their Freedom. The Maxim Is Worthy Of The Fool In The Old Story Who Resolved Not To Go Into The Water Till He Had Learned To Swim.

It Has Often Been Found That Profuse Expenditures, Heavy Taxation, Absurd Commercial Restrictions, Corrupt Tribunals, Disastrous Wars, Seditions, Persecutions, Conflagrations, Inundation, Have Not Been Able To Destroy Capital So Fast As The Exertions Of Private Citizens Have Been Able To Create It.

There Is Surely No Contradiction In Saying That A Certain Section Of The Community May Be Quite Competent To Protect The Persons And Property Of The Rest, Yet Quite Unfit To Direct Our Opinions, Or To Superintend Our Private Habits.

Man Is So Inconsistent A Creature That It Is Impossible To Reason From His Beliefs To His Conduct, Or From One Part Of His Belief To Another.

In Taste And Imagination, In The Graces Of Style, In The Arts Of Persuasion, In The Magnificence Of Public Works, The Ancients Were At Least Our Equals.

A Few More Days, And This Essay Will Follow The Defensio Populi To The Dust And Silence Of The Upper Shelf... For A Month Or Two It Will Occupy A Few Minutes Of Chat In Every Drawing-room, And A Few Columns In Every Magazine; And It Will Then Be Withdrawn, To Make Room For The Forthcoming Novelties.

Every Sect Clamors For Toleration When It Is Down.

A System In Which The Two Great Commandments Are To Hate Your Neighbor And To Love Your Neighbor's Wife.

I Am Always Nearest To Myself," Says The Latin Proverb.

Few Of The Many Wise Apothegms Which Have Been Uttered Have Prevented A Single Foolish Action.

Language Is The Machine Of The Poet.

At Present, The Novels Which We Owe To English Ladies Form No Small Part Of The Literary Glory Of Our Country. No Class Of Works Is More Honorably Distinguished For Fine Observation, By Grace, By Delicate Wit, By Pure Moral Feeling.

A Government Cannot Be Wrong In Punishing Fraud Or Force, But It Is Almost Certain To Be Wrong If, Abandoning Its Legitimate Function, It Tells Private Individuals That It Knows Their Business Better Than They Know It Themselves.

Highest Among Those Who Have Exhibited Human Nature By Means Of Dialogue Stands Shakespeare. His Variety Is Like The Variety Of Nature,--endless Diversity, Scarcely Any Monstrosity.

Knowledge Advances By Steps, And Not By Leaps.

Office Of Itself Does Much To Equalize Politicians. It By No Means Brings All Characters To A Level; But It Does Bring High Characters Down And Low Characters Up Towards A Common Standard.

[i Can] Scarcely Write Upon Mathematics Or Mathematicians. Oh For Words To Express My Abomination Of The Science.

A Grecian History, Perfectly Written Should Be A Complete Record Of The Rise And Progress Of Poetry, Philosophy, And The Arts.

The Doctrine Which, From The Very First Origin Of Religious Dissensions, Has Been Held By Bigots Of All Sects, When Condensed Into A Few Words And Stripped Of Rhetorical Disguise, Is Simply This: I Am In The Right, And You Are In The Wrong. When You Are The Stronger, You Ought To Tolerate Me; For It Is Your Duty To Tolerate Truth. But When I Am The Stronger I Shall Persecute You; For It Is My Duty To Persecute Error.

She Thoroughly Understands What No Other Church Has Ever Understood, How To Deal With Enthusiasts.

All The Walks Of Literature Are Infested With Mendicants For Fame, Who Attempt To Excite Our Interest By Exhibiting All The Distortions Of Their Intellects And Stripping The Covering From All The Putrid Sores Of Their Feelings.

The Measure Of A Man's Real Character Is What He Would Do If He Knew He Would Never Be Found Out.

It Is Impossible For Us, With Our Limited Means, To Attempt To Educate The Body Of The People. We Must At Present Do Our Best To Form A Class Who May Be Interpreters Between Us And The Millions Whom We Govern.

Our Estimate Of A Character Always Depends Much On The Manner In Which That Character Affects Our Own Interests And Passions.

The Business Of Everybody Is The Business Of Nobody.

We Must Judge Of A Form Of Government By It's General Tendency, Not By Happy Accidents

Ambrose Phillips . . . Who Had The Honor Of Bringing Into Fashion A Species Of Composition Which Has Been Called, After His Name, Namby Pamby.

Finesse Is The Best Adaptation Of Means To Circumstances.

Generalization Is Necessary To The Advancement Of Knowledge; But Particularly Is Indispensable To The Creations Of The Imagination. In Proportion As Men Know More And Think More They Look Less At Individuals And More At Classes. They Therefore Make Better Theories And Worse Poems.

Only Imagine A Man Acting For One Single Day On The Supposition That All His Neighbors Believe All That They Profess, And Act Up To All That They Believe!

Facts Are The Mere Dross Of History. It Is From The Abstract Truth Which Interpenetrates Them, And Lies Latent Among Them, Like Gold In The Ore, That The Mass Derives Its Whole Value; And The Precious Particles Are Generally Combined With The Baser In Such A Manner That The Separation Is A Task Of The Utmost Difficulty.

Books Are Becoming Everything To Me. If I Had At This Moment Any Choice In Life, I Would Bury Myself In One Of Those Immense Libraries...and Never Pass A Waking Hour Without A Book Before Me.

He Who, In An Enlightened And Literary Society, Aspires To Be A Great Poet, Must First Become A Little Child. He Must Take To Pieces The Whole Web Of His Mind. He Must Unlearn Much Of That Knowledge Which Has Perhaps Constituted Hitherto His Chief Title To Superiority. His Very Talents Will Be A Hindrance To Him.

The Gallery In Which The Reporters Sit Has Become A Fourth Estate Of The Realm.

The Effective Strength Of Sects Is Not To Be Ascertained Merely By Counting Heads.

There Is No Country In Europe Which Is So Easy To Over-run As Spain; There Is No Country Which It Is More Difficult To Conquer.

He Had Done That Which Could Never Be Forgiven; He Was In The Grasp Of One Who Never Forgave.

British History

A Single Breaker May Recede; But The Tide Is Evidently Coming In.

In Perseverance, In Self Command, In Forethought, In All Virtues Which Conduce To Success In Life, The Scots Have Never Been Surpassed.

Beards In Olden Times, Were The Emblems Of Wisdom And Piety.

What Proposition Is There Respecting Human Nature Which Is Absolutely And Universally True? We Know Of Only One,--and That Is Not Only True, But Identical,--that Men Always Act From Self-interest.

Half-knowledge Is Worse Than Ignorance.

The Conformation Of His Mind Was Such That Whatever Was Little Seemed To Him Great, And Whatever Was Great Seemed To Him Little.

The Opinion Of The Great Body Of The Reading Public Is Very Materially Influenced Even By The Unsupported Assertions Of Those Who Assume A Right To Criticize.

Great Minds Do Indeed React On The Society Which Has Made Them What They Are; But They Only Pay With Interest What They Have Received.

He Was A Rake Among Scholars, And A Scholar Among Rakes.

A Perfect Historian Must Possess An Imagination Sufficiently Powerful To Make His Narrative Affecting And Picturesque; Yet He Must Control It So Absolutely As To Content Himself With The Materials Which He Finds, And To Refrain From Supplying Deficiencies By Additions Of His Own. He Must Be A Profound And Ingenious Reasoner; Yet He Must Possess Sufficient Self-command To Abstain From Casting His Facts In The Mould Of His Hypothesis.

A Page Digested Is Better Than A Volume Hurriedly Read.

He [charles Ii] Was Utterly Without Ambition. He Detested Business, And Would Sooner Have Abdicated His Crown Than Have Undergone The Trouble Of Really Directing The Administration.

From The Poetry Of Lord Byron They Drew A System Of Ethics Compounded Of Misanthropy And Voluptuousness,-a System In Which The Two Great Commandments Were To Hate Your Neighbour And To Love Your Neighbour's Wife.

Both In Individuals And In Masses Violent Excitement Is Always Followed By Remission, And Often By Reaction. We Are All Inclined To Depreciate Whatever We Have Overpraised, And, On The Other Hand, To Show Undue Indulgence Where We Have Shown Undue Rigor.

The Saviour Of Mankind Himself, In Whose Blameless Life Malice Could Find No Act To Impeach, Has Been Called In Question For Words Spoken.

So True It Is, That Nature Has Caprices Which Art Cannot Imitate.

The Real Security Of Christianity Is To Be Found In Its Benevolent Morality, In Its Exquisite Adaptation To The Human Heart, In The Facility With Which Its Scheme Accommodates Itself To The Capacity Of Every Human Intellect, In The Consolation Which It Bears To The House Of Mourning, In The Light With Which It Brightens The Great Mystery Of The Grave.

The Impenetrable Stupidity Of Prince George (son-in-law Of James Ii) Served His Turn. It Was His Habit, When Any News Was Told Him, To Exclaim, "est Il Possible?"-"is It Possible?"

That Wonderful Book, While It Obtains Admiration From The Most Fastidious Critics, Is Loved By Those Who Are Too Simple To Admire It.

Forget All Feuds, And Shed One English Tear O'er English Dust. A Broken Heart Lies Here.

I Have Not The Smallest Doubt That, If We Had A Purely Democratic Government Here, The Effect Would Be The Same. Either The Poor Would Plunder The Rich, And Civilisation Would Perish; Or Order And Property Would Be Saved By A Strong Military Government, And Liberty Would Perish.

If Ever Shakespeare Rants, It Is Not When His Imagination Is Hurrying Him Along, But When He Is Hurrying His Imagination Along.

A Few More Years Will Destroy Whatever Yet Remains Of That Magical Potency Which Once Belonged To The Name Of Byron.

Even The Law Of Gravitation Would Be Brought Into Dispute Were There A Pecuniary Interest Involved.

The Highest Eulogy Which Can Be Pronounced On The Revolution Of 1688 Is This That This Was Our Last Revolution.

Politeness Has Been Well Defined As Benevolence In Small Things.

We Hardly Know An Instance Of The Strength And Weakness Of Human Nature So Striking And So Grotesque As The Character Of This Haughty, Vigilant, Resolute, Sagacious Blue-stocking, Half Mithridates And Half Trissotin, Bearing Up Against A World In Arms, With An Ounce Of Poison In One Pocket And A Quire Of Bad Verses In The Other.

A Kind Of Semi-solomon, Half-knowing Everything, From The Cedar To The Hyssop.

Knowing Everything

This Is The Highest Miracle Of Genius, That Things Which Are Not Should Be As Though They Were, That The Imaginations Of One Mind Should Become The Personal Recollections Of Another.

The Life Of Johnson Is Assuredly A Great, A Very Great Work. Homer Is Not More Decidedly The First Of Heroic Poets. Shakespeare Is Not More Decidedly The First Of Dramatists, Demosthenes Is Not More Decidedly The First Of Orators, Than Boswell Is The First Of Biographers. He Has No Second.

What A Blessing It Is To Love Books As I Love Them;- To Be Able To Converse With The Dead, And To Live Amidst The Unreal!

In Order That He Might Rob A Neighbour Whom He Had Promised To Defend, Black Men Fought On The Coast Of Coromandel And Red Men Scalped Each Other By The Great Lakes Of North America.

No War Ought Ever To Be Undertaken But Under Circumstances Which Render All Intercourse Of Courtesy Between The Combatants Impossible. It Is A Bad Thing That Men Should Hate Each Other; But It Is Far Worse That They Should Contract The Habit Of Cutting One Another's Throats Without Hatred. War Is Never Lenient But Where It Is Wanton; When Men Are Compelled To Fight In Self-defence, They Must Hate And Avenge: This May Be Bad; But It Is Human Nature.

In After-life You May Have Friends--fond, Dear Friends; But Never Will You Have Again The Inexpressible Love And Gentleness Lavished Upon You Which None But A Mother Bestows.

The Best Portraits Are Those In Which There Is A Slight Mixture Of Caricature.

Genius Is Subject To The Same Laws Which Regulate The Production Of Cotton And Molasses.

The History Of Nations, In The Sense In Which I Use The Word, Is Often Best Studied In Works Not Professedly Historical.

Men Are Never So Likely To Settle A Question Rightly As When They Discuss It Freely.

The Great Cause Of Revolutions Is This, That While Nations Move Onward, Constitutions Stand Still.

We Hold That The Most Wonderful And Splendid Proof Of Genius Is A Great Poem Produced In A Civilized Age.

It Is Certain That Satirical Poems Were Common At Rome From A Very Early Period. The Rustics, Who Lived At A Distance From The Seat Of Government, And Took Little Part In The Strife Of Factions, Gave Vent To Their Petty Local Animosities In Coarse Fescennine Verse.

Ye Diners Out From Whom We Guard Our Spoons.

I Have Seen The Hippopotamus, Both Asleep And Awake; And I Can Assure You That, Awake Or Asleep, He Is The Ugliest Of The Works Of God.

It Is Good To Be Often Reminded Of The Inconsistency Of Human Nature, And To Learn To Look Without Wonder Or Disgust On The Weaknesses Which Are Found In The Strongest Minds.

The Business Of The Dramatist Is To Keep Himself Out Of Sight, And To Let Nothing Appear But His Characters. As Soon As He Attracts Notice To His Personal Feelings, The Illusion Is Broken.

A Beggarly People, A Church And No Steeple.

Free Trade, One Of The Greatest Blessings Which A Government Can Confer On A People, Is In Almost Every Country Unpopular.

The Highest Intellects, Like The Tops Of Mountains, Are The First To Catch And To Reflect The Dawn.

Every Generation Enjoys The Use Of A Vast Hoard Bequeathed To It By Antiquity, And Transmits That Hoard, Augmented By Fresh Acquisitions, To Future Ages.

The Reluctant Obedience Of Distant Provinces Generally Costs More Than It - The Territory Is Worth. Empires Which Branch Out Widely Are Often More Flourishing For A Little Timely Pruning.

Oh, Wherefore Come Ye Forth In Triumph From The North, With Your Hands, And Your Feet, And Your Raiment All Red? And Wherefore Doth Your Rout Send Forth A Joyous Shout? And Whence Be The Grapes Of The Wine-press Which Ye Tread?

Every Age And Every Nation Has Certain Characteristic Vices, Which Prevail Almost Universally, Which Scarcely Any Person Scruples To Avow, And Which Even Rigid Moralists But Faintly Censure. Succeeding Generations Change The Fashion Of Their Morals With The Fashion Of Their Hats And Their Coaches; Take Some Other Kind Of Wickedness Under Their Patronage, And Wonder At The Depravity Of Their Ancestors.

The Orientals Have Another Word For Accident; It Is "kismet,"--fate.

The Object Of Oratory Alone In Not Truth, But Persuasion.

Power Of Persuasion

Nobles By The Right Of An Earlier Creation, And Priests By The Imposition Of A Mightier Hand.

There Is Only One Cure For The Evils Which Newly Acquired Freedom Produces, And That Cure Is Freedom.

To Sum Up The Whole, We Should Say That The Aim Of The Platonic Philosophy Was To Exalt Man Into A God.

Our Judgment Ripens; Our Imagination Decays. We Cannot At Once Enjoy The Flowers Of The Spring Of Life And The Fruits Of Its Autumn.

The Spartan, Smiting And Spurning The Wretched Helot, Moves Our Disgust. But The Same Spartan, Calmly Dressing His Hair, And Uttering His Concise Jests, On What The Well Knows To Be His Last Day, In The Pass Of Thermopylae, Is Not To Be Contemplated Without Admiration.

The Best Portraits Are Perhaps Those In Which There Is A Slight Mixture Of Caricature; And We Are Not Certain That The Best Histories Are Not Those In Which A Little Of The Exaggeration Of Fictitious Narrative Is Judiciously Employed. Something Is Lost In Accuracy; But Much Is Gained In Effect. The Fainter Lines Are Neglected; But The Great Characteristic Features Are Imprinted On The Mind Forever.

A Church Is Disaffected When It Is Persecuted, Quiet When It Is Tolerated, And Actively Loyal When It Is Favored And Cherished.

History Distinguishes What Is Accidental And Transitory In Human Nature From What Is Essential And Immutable.

Was None Who Would Be Foremost To Lead Such Dire Attack; But Those Behind Cried "forward!" And Those Before Cried "back!

People Who Take No Pride In The Noble Achievements Of Remote Ancestors Will Never Achieve Anything Worthy To Be Remembered With Pride By Remote Descendants.

The Church Is The Handmaid Of Tyranny And The Steady Enemy Of Liberty.

Those Who Seem To Load The Public Taste Are, In General, Merely Outrunning It In The Direction Which It Is Spontaneously Pursuing.

There Are Countries In Which It Would Be As Absurd To Establish Popular Governments As To Abolish All The Restraints In A School Or To Unite All The Strait-waistcoats In A Madhouse.

Thus Our Democracy Was From An Early Period The Most Aristocratic, And Our Aristocracy The Most Democratic.

A Good Constitution Is Infinitely Better Than The Best Despot.

Temple Was A Man Of The World Amongst Men Of Letters, A Man Of Letters Amongst Men Of The World.

And How Can Man Die Better Than Facing Fearful Odds, For The Ashes Of His Fathers, And The Temples Of His Gods?

If The Sunday Had Not Been Observed As A Day Of Rest During The Last Three Centuries, I Have Not The Slightest Doubt That We Should Have Been At This Moment A Poorer People And Less Civilized.

If Any Person Had Told The Parliament Which Met In Terror And Perplexity After The Crash Of 1720 That In 1830 The Wealth Of England Would Surpass All Their Wildest Dreams, That The Annual Revenue Would Equal The Principal Of That Debt Which They Considered An Intolerable Burden, That For One Man Of

Mere Negation, Mere Epicurean Infidelity, As Lord Bacon Most Justly Observes, Has Never Disturbed The Peace Of The World. It Furnishes No Motive For Action; It Inspires No Enthusiasm; It Has No Missionaries, No Crusades, No Martyrs.

Reform, That We May Preserve.

Cut Off My Head, And Singular I Am, Cut Off My Tail, And Plural I Appear; Although My Middle's Left, There's Nothing There! What Is My Head Cut Off? A Sounding Sea; What Is My Tail Cut Off? A Rushing River; And In Their Mingling Depths I Fearless Play, Parent Of Sweetest Sounds, Yet Mute Forever.

Thus, Then, Stands The Case. It Is Good, That Authors Should Be Remunerated; And The Least Exceptionable Way Of Remunerating Them Is By A Monopoly. Yet Monopoly Is An Evil. For The Sake Of The Good We Must Submit To The Evil; But The Evil Ought Not To Last A Day Longer Than Is Necessary For The Purpose Of Securing The Good.

Complete Self-devotion Is Woman's Part.

The Whole History Of Christianity Proves That She Has Little Indeed To Fear From Persecution As A Foe, But Much To Fear From Persecution As An Ally.

I Have Long Been Convinced That Institutions Purely Democratic Must, Sooner Or Later, Destroy Liberty Or Civilization, Or Both.

Democracies Have

How Well Horatius Kept The Bridge In The Brave Days Of Old.

Parent Of Sweetest Sounds, Yet Mute Forever.

I Shall Cheerfully Bear The Reproach Of Having Descended Below The Dignity Of History If I Can Succeed In Placing Before The English Of The Nineteenth Century A True Picture Of The Life Of Their Ancestors.

We Cannot Absolutely Prove That Those Are In Error Who Tell Us That Society Has Reached A Turning Point, That We Have Seen Our Best Days. But So Said All Before Us, And With Just As Much Apparent Reason.

A Man Who Should Act, For One Day, On The Supposition That All The People About Him Were Influenced By The Religion Which They Professed Would Find Himself Ruined By Night.

What A Singular Destiny Has Been That Of This Remarkable Man!-to Be Regarded In His Own Age As A Classic, And In Ours As A Companion! To Receive From His Contemporaries That Full Homage Which Men Of Genius Have In General Received Only From Posterity; To Be More Intimately Known To Posterity Than Other Men Are Known To Their Contemporaries!

To Be A Really Good Historian Is Perhaps The Rarest Of Intellectual Distinctions.

The Sweeter Sound Of Woman's Praise.

The Effect Of Violent Dislike Between Groups Has Always Created An Indifference To The Welfare And Honor Of The State.

A Vice Sanctioned By The General Opinion Is Merely A Vice. The Evil Terminates In Itself. A Vice Condemned By The General Opinion Produces A Pernicious Effect On The Whole Character. The Former Is A Local Malady; The Latter, Constitutional Taint. When The Reputation Of The Offender Is Lost, He Too Often Flings The Remainder Of His Virtue After It In Despair.

To That Class We May Leave It To Refine The Vernacular Dialects Of The Country, To Enrich Those Dialects With Terms Of Science Borrowed From The Western Nomenclature, And To Render Them By Degrees Fit Vehicles For Conveying Knowledge To The Great Mass Of The Population.

I Wish I Was As Sure Of Anything As He Is Of Everything.

We Do Not Think It Necessary To Prove That A Quack Medicine Is Poison; Let The Vender Prove It To Be Sanative.

The Desire Of Posthumous Fame And The Dread Of Posthumous Reproach And Execration Are Feelings From The Influence Of Which Scarcely Any Man Is Perfectly Free, And Which In Many Men Are Powerful And Constant Motives Of Action.

The Study Of The Properties Of Numbers, Plato Tells Us, Habituates The Mind To The Contemplation Of Pure Truth, And Raises Us Above The Material Universe. He Would Have His Disciples Apply Themselves To This Study, Not That They May Be Able To Buy Or Sell, Not That They May Qualify Themselves To Be Shopkeepers Or Travelling Merchants, But That They May Learn To Withdraw Their Minds From The Ever-shifting Spectacle Of This Visible And Tangible World, And To Fix Them On The Immutable Essences Of Things.

It May Be Laid As An Universal Rule That A Government Which Attempts More Than It Ought Will Perform Less.

It Is The Age That Forms The Man, Not The Man That Forms The Age.

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Nicolas Chamfort

Edgar Allan Poe

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