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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.

-Charles Caleb Colton

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He That Abuses His

Charles Caleb Colton

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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.

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

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.

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.

Men's Arguments Often Prove Nothing But Their Wishes.

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

That Writer Does The Most Who Gives His Reader The Most Knowledge And Takes From Him The Least Time.

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

The Good Opinion Of Our Fellow Men Is The Strongest, Though Not The Purest Motive To Virtue.

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.

Criticism Is Like Champagne, Nothing More Execrable If Bad, Nothing More Excellent If Good.

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

A Leveller Has Long Ago Been Set Down As A Ridiculous And Chimerical Being, Who, If He Could Finish His Work To-day, Would Have To Begin It Again Tomorrow.

Mystery Magnifies Danger As The Fog The Sun.

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

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.

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

An Act By Which We Make One Friend And One Enemy Is A Losing Game; Because Revenge Is A Much Stronger Principle Than Gratitude

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.

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

Imitation Is The Sincerest Of Flattery.

Emulation Looks Out For Merits, That She May Exalt Herself By A Victory; Envy Spies Out Blemishes That She May Lower Another By Defeat.

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.

When You Have Nothing To Say, Say Nothing; A Weak Defense Strengthens Your Opponent, And Silence Is Less Injurious Than A Bad Reply.

The Reason Why Great Men Meet With So Little Pity Or Attachment In Adversity, Would Seem To Be This: The Friends Of A Great Man Were Made By His Fortune, His Enemies By Himself, And Revenge Is A Much More Punctual Paymaster Than Gratitude.

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

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.

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

That Politeness Which We Put On, In Order To Keep The Assuming And The Presumptuous At A Proper Distance Will Generally Succeed. But It Sometimes Happens That These Obtrusive Characters Are On Such Excellent Terms With Themselves That They Put Down This Very Politeness To The Score Of Their Own Great Merits And High Pretensions, Meeting The Coldness Of Our Reserve With A Ridiculous Condescension Of Familiarity, In Order To Set Us At Ease With Ourselves.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Nobility Is A River That Sets With A Constant And Undeviating Current, Directly Into The Great Pacific Ocean Of Time; But, Unlike All Other Rivers, It Is More Grand At Its Source, Than At Its Termination.

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

The Poorest Man Would Not Part With Health For Money, But The Richest Would Gladly Part With All Their Money For Health.

Pain May Be Said To Follow Pleasure As Its Shadow.

The Avarice Of The Miser May Be Termed The Grand Sepulchral Of All His Other Passions, As They Successively Decay.

The Integrity That Lives Only On Opinion Would Starve Without It.

Worldly Wisdom Dictates To Her Disciples The Propriety Of Dressing Somewhat Beyond Their Means, But Of Living Somewhat Within Them.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Sir Richard Steele Has Observed, That There Is This Difference Between The Church Of Rome And The Church Of England: The One Professes To Be Infallible, The Other To Be Never In The Wrong.

Is There Anything More Tedious Than The Often Repeated Tales Of The Old And Forgetful?

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

There Is A Diabolical Trio Existing In The Natural Man, Implacable, Inextinguishable, Co-operative And Consentaneous, Pride, Envy, And Hate; Pride That Makes Us Fancy We Deserve All The Goods That Others Possess; Envy That Some Should Be Admired While We Are Overlooked; And Hate, Because All That Is Bestowed On Others, Diminishes The Sum We Think Due To Ourselves.

If We Steal Thoughts From The Moderns, It Will Be Cried Down As Plagiarism; If From The Ancients, It Will Be Cried Up As Erudition.

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

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

She Is Deceitful As The Calm That Precedes The Hurricane, Smooth As The Water On The Verge Of The Cataract, And Beautiful As The Rainbow, That Smiling Daughter Of The Storm; But, Like The Mirage In The Desert, She Tantalizes Us With A Delusion That Distance Creates, And That Contiguity Destroys.

No Company Is Preferable To Bad. We Are More Apt To Catch The Vices Of Others Than Virtues, As Disease Is Far More Contagious Than Health.

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

Our Incomes Should Be Like Our Shoes, If Too Small, They Will Gall And Pinch Us, But If Too Large, They Will Cause Us To Stumble And To Trip. Wealth, After All, Is A Relative Thing, Since He That Has Little And Wants Less Is Richer Than He That Has Much But Wants More. True Contentment Depends Not Upon What We Have; A Tub Was Large Enough For Diogenes, But A World Was Too Little For Alexander.

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

No Two Things Differ More Than Hurry And Dispatch. Hurry Is The Mark Of A Weak Mind, Dispatch Of A Strong One. A Weak Man In Office, Like A Squirrel In A Cage, Is Laboring Eternally, But To No Purpose, And Is In Constant Motion Without Getting On A Job; Like A Turnstile, He Is In Everybody's Way, But Stops Nobody; He Talks A Great Deal, But Says Very Little; Looks Into Everything But Sees Nothing; And Has A Hundred Irons In The Fire, But Very Few Of Them Are Hot, And With Those Few That Are, He Only Burns His Fingers.

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.

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

The Cynic Who Twitted Aristippus By Observing That The Philosopher Who Could Dine On Herbs Might Despise The Company Of A King, Was Well Replied To By Aristippus, When He Remarked That The Philosopher Who Could Enjoy The Company Or A King Might Also Despise A Dinner Of Herbs.

That An Author's Work Is The Mirror Of His Mind Is A Position That Has Led To Very False Conclusions. If Satan Himself Were To Write A Book It Would Be In Praise Of Virtue, Because The Good Would Purchase It For Use, And The Bad For Ostentation.

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.

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.

The Awkwardness And Embarrassment Which All Feel On Beginning To Write, When They Themselves Are The Theme, Ought To Serve As A Hint To Author's That Self Is A Subject They Ought Very Rarely To Descant Upon.

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

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

Some Reputed Saints That Have Been Canonized Ought To Have Been Cannonaded.

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

Deliberate With Caution, But Act With Decision And Yield With Graciousness, Or Oppose With Firmness.

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

Heroism, Self-denial, And Magnanimity, In All Instances Where They Do Not Spring From A Principle Of Religion, Are But Splendid Altars On Which We Sacrifice One Kind Of Self-love To Another.

It Is Much Easier To Ruin A Man Of Principle Than A Man Of None, For He May Be Ruined Through His Scruples. Knavery Is Supple And Can Bend; But Honesty Is Firm And Upright, And Yields Not.

With Books, As With Companions, It Is Of More Consequence To Know Which To Avoid, Than Which To Choose; For Good Books Are As Scarce As Good Companions...

Heaven May Have Happiness As Utterly Unknown To Us As The Gift Of Perfect Vision Would Be To A Man Born Blind. If We Consider The Inlets Of Pleasure From Five Senses Only, We May Be Sure That The Same Being Who Created Us Could Have Given Us Five Hundred, If He Had Pleased.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Pride Requires Very Costly Food-its Keeper's Happiness.

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

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

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.

The Mistakes Of The Fool Are Known To The World, But Not To Himself. The Mistakes Of The Wise Man Are Known To Himself, But Not To The World.

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.

In All Societies, It Is Advisable To Associate If Possible With The Highest; Not That The Highest Are Always The Best, But Because, If Disgusted There, We Can Descend At Any Time; But If We Begin With The Lowest, To Ascend Is Impossible.

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.

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

We Should Have All Our Communications With Men, As In The Presence Of God; And With God, As In The Presence Of Men.

Happiness Is That Single And Glorious Thing Which Is The Very Light And Sun Of The Whole Animated Universe; And Where She Is Not It Were Better That Nothing Should Be.

There Can Be No Christianity Where There Is No Charity

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.

Men Are More Readily Contented With No Intellectual Light Than With A Little; And Wherever They Have Been Taught To Acquire Some Knowledge In Order To Please Others, They Have Most Generally Gone On To Acquire More, To Please Themselves.

In The Pursuit Of Knowledge, Follow It Wherever It Is To Be Found; Like Fern, It Is The Produce Of All Climates, And Like Coin, Its Circulation Is Not Restricted To Any Particular Class.

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

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.

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

The Masses Procure Their Opinions Ready Made In Open Market.

Some Well-meaning Christians Tremble For Their Salvation, Because They Have Never Gone Through That Valley Of Tears And Of Sorrow, Which They Have Been Taught To Consider As An Ordeal That Must Be Passed Through Before They Can Arrive At Regeneration. To Satisfy Such Minds, It May Be Observed, That The Slightest Sorrow For Sin Is Sufficient, If It Produce Amendment, And That The Greatest Is Insufficient, If It Do Not.

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.

A Harmless Hilarity And A Buoyant Cheerfulness Are Not Infrequent Concomitants Of Genius; And We Are Never More Deceived Than When We Mistake Gravity For Greatness, Solemnity For Science, And Pomposity For Erudition.

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

Some Are Cursed With The Fullness Of Satiety; And How Can They Bear The Ills Of Life When Its Very Pleasures Fatigue Them?

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.

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

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

Men Will Wrangle For Religion, Write For It, Fight For It, Die For It; Anything But Live For It.

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 Excess Of Our Youth Are Checks Written Against Our Age And They Are Payable With Interest Thirty Years Later.

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

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.

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

To Judge By The Event Is An Error All Commit: For In Every Instance Courage, If Crowned With Success, Is Heroism; If Clouded By Defeat, Temerity. When Nelson Fought His Battle In The Sound, It Was The Result Alone That Decided Whether He Was To Kiss A Hand At Court Or A Rod At A Court-martial.

The True Measure Of Your Character Is What You Do When Nobody's Watching.

There Is One Passage In The Scriptures To Which All The Potentates Of Europe Seem To Have Given Their Unanimous Assent And Approbation...."there Went Out A Decree In The Days Of Caesar Augustus, That All The World Should Be Taxed."

There Are Male As Well As Female Gossips.

Love Is An Alchemist That Can Transmute Poison Into Food.

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.

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

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.

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

In Politics, As In Religion, It So Happens, That We Have Less Charity For Those Who Believe The Half Of Our Creed, Than For Those That Deny The Whole Of It; Since If Servetus Had Been A Mohammedan, He Would Not Have Been Burnt By Calvin.

True Friendship Is Like Sound Health; The Value Of It Is Seldom Known Until It Is Lost.

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.

Gold Is Worshipped In All Climates, Without A Single Temple, And By All Classes, Without A Single Hypocrite.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Where We Cannot Invent, We May At Least Improve.

They That Are Loudest In Their Threats Are The Weakest In The Execution Of Them. It Is Probable That He Who Is Killed By Lightning Hears No Noise; But The Thunder-clap Which Follows, And Which Most Alarms The Ignorant, Is The Surest Proof Of Their Safety.

Theories Are Private Property, But Truth Is Common Stock.

The French Have A Saying That Whatever Excellence A Man May Exhibit In A Public Station He Is Very Apt To Be Ridiculous In A Private One.

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

The Martyrs To Vice Far Exceed The Martyrs To Virtue, Both In Endurance And In Number.

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?

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.

My Lowest Days As A Christian Have Been More Fulfilling And Rewarding Than All The Days Of Glory In The White House.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

He That Is Gone So Far As To Cut The Claws Of The Lion, Will Not Feel Himself Quite Secure, Until He Has Also Drawn His Teeth.

Mystery Is Not Profoundness.

Temperate Men Drink The Most, Because They Drink The Longest.

It Is Best, If Possible, To Deceive No One; For He That ... Begins By Deceiving Others, Will End ... By Deceiving Himself.

Deceiving Others

Most Men Know What They Hate, Few What They Love.

Silence Is Foolish If We Are Wise, But Wise If We Are Foolish.

When All Run By Common Consent Into Vice, None Appear To Do So.

It Is Doubtful Whether Mankind Are Most Indebted To Those Who Like Bacon And Butler Dig The Gold From The Mine Of Literature, Or To Those Who, Like Paley, Purify It, Stamp It, Fix Its Real Value, And Give It Currency And Utility

That Author, However, Who Has Thought More Than He Has Read, Read More Than He Has Written, And Written More Than He Has Published, If He Does Not Command Success, Has At Least Deserved It.

If Often Happens Too, Both In Courts And In Cabinets, That There Are Two Things Going On Together,--a Main Plot And An Under-plot; And He That Understands Only One Of Them Will, In All Probability, Be The Dupe Of Both. A Mistress May Rule A Monarch, But Some Obscure Favorite May Rule The Mistress.

Bed Is A Bundle Of Paradoxes: We Go To It With Reluctance, Yet We Quit It With Regret.

It Is Far Better To Borrow Experience Than To Buy It.

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.

Be Very Slow To Believe That You Are Wiser Than All Others; It Is A Fatal But Common Error.

Women Generally Consider Consequences In Love, Seldom In Resentment.

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.

There Is Not A Little Generalship And Stratagem Required In The Managing And Marshalling Of Our Pleasures, So That Each Shall Not Mutually Encroach To The Destruction Of All. For Pleasures Are Very Voracious, Too Apt To Worry One Another, And Each, Like Aaron's Serpent, Is Prone To Swallow Up The Rest. Thus Drinking Will Soon Destroy The Power, Gaming The Means, And Sensuality The Taste, For Other Pleasures Less Seductive, But Far More Salubrious, And Permanent As They Are Pure.

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

Envy Ought To Have No Place Allowed It In The Hearts Of People; For The Goods Of This Present World Are So Vile And Low That They Are Beneath It; And Those Of The Future World Are So Vast And Exalted That They Are Above It.

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.

Purity Lives And Derives Its Life Solely From The Spirit Of God.

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

Theory Is Worth But Little, Unless It Can Explain Its Own Phenomena, And It Must Effect This Without Contradicting Itself; Therefore, The Facts Are Sometimes Assimilated To The Theory, Rather Than The Theory To The Facts.

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.

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

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.

Love Is An Alchemist That Can Transmute Poison Into Food--and A Spaniel, That Prefers Even Punishment From One Hand To Caresses From Another. But It Is In Love As In War, We Are Often More Indebted For Our Success To The Weakness Of The Defence Than To The Energy Of The Attack; For Mere Idleness Has Ruined More Women Than Passion; Vanity More Than Idleness, And Credulity More Than Either.

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.

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

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.

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.

Those Who Have Finished By Making All Others Think With Them, Have Usually Been Those Who Began By Daring To Think With Themselves.

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.

All Poets Pretend To Write For Immortality, But The Whole Tribe Have No Objection To Present Pay And Present Praise.

The Intoxication Of Anger, Like That Of The Grape, Shows Us To Others, But Hides Us From Ourselves.

The Policy That Can Strike Only While The Iron Is Hot Will Be Overcome By That Perseverance, Which ... Can Make That Iron Hot By Striking And He That Can Only Rule The Storm Must Yield To Him Who Can Both Raise And Rule It.

The Seat Of Perfect Contentment Is In The Head; For Every Individual Is Thoroughly Satisfied With His Own Proportion Of Brains.

If Sensuality Be Our Only Happiness We Ought To Envy The Brutes, For Instinct Is A Surer, Shorter, Safer Guide To Such Happiness Than Reason.

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

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

It Is Always Safe To Learn, Even From Our Enemies; Seldom Safe To Venture To Instruct, Even Our Friends.

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

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