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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.

-Charles Caleb Colton

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If Often Happens Too,

Charles Caleb Colton

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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.

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

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.

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

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

The Most Notorious Swindler Has Not Assumed So Many Names As Self-love, Nor Is So Much Ashamed Of His Own. She Calls Herself Patriotism, When At The Same Time She Is Rejoicing At Just As Much Calamity To Her Native Country As Will Introduce Herself Into Power, And Expel Her Rivals.

The Acquirements Of Science Maybe Termed The Armor Of The Mind.

It Is Better To Meet Danger Than To Wait For It.

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

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

It Is An Easy And Vulgar Thing To Please The Mob, And No Very Arduous Task To Astonish Them.

The Most Zealous Converters Are Always The Most Rancorous When They Fail Of Producing Conversion.

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

There Are Some Who Write, Talk, And Think, So Much About Vice And Virtue, That They Have No Time To Practice Either The One Or The Other.

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

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.

Time Is The Measurer Of All Things, But Is Itself Immeasurable, And The Grand Discloser Of All Things, But Is Itself Undisclosed.

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

A Fool Is Often As Dangerous To Deal With As A Knave, And Always More Incorrigible.

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

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

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

All Wars Of Interference, Arising From An Officious Intrusion Into The Concerns Of Other States; All Wars Of Ambition, Carried On For The Purposes Of Aggrandizement; And All Wars Of Aggression, Undertaken For The Purpose Of Forcing An Assent To This Or That Set Of Religious Opinions; All Such Wars Are Criminal In Their Very Outset, And Have Hypocrisy For Their Common Base.

There Are Three Difficulties In Authorship; To Write Any Thing Worth The Publishing — To Find Honest Men To Publish It — And To Get Sensible Men To Read It.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

If Martyrdom Is Now On The Decline, It Is Not Because Martyrs Are Less Zealous, But Because Martyr-mongers Are More Wise. The Light Of Intellect Has Put Out The Fire Of Persecution, As Other Fires Are Observed To Smoulder Before The Light Of The Same.

The Greatest Friend Of Truth Is Time, Her Greatest Enemy Is Prejudice, And Her Constant Companion Is Humility.

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.

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.

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

He Who Knows Himself Knows Others.

Self-examination

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

Did Universal Charity Prevail, Earth Would Be A Heaven, And Hell A Fable.

Love, Like The Cold Bath, Is Never Negative, It Seldom Leaves Us Where It Finds Us; If Once We Plunge Into It, It Will Either Heighten Our Virtues, Or Inflame Our Vices.

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

It Is Seldom That Statesmen Have The Option Of Choosing Between A Good And An Evil.

Oppression Cannot Prosper Where None Will Submit To Be Enslaved.

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

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

Friendship Often Ends In Love, But Love In Friendship - Never.

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

Pride Is Less Ashamed Of Being Ignorant, Than Of Being Instructed, And She Looks Too High To Find That, Which Very Often Lies Beneath Her.

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

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

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.

Love Is An Alchemist That Can Transmute Poison Into Food.

In Great Cities Men Are More Callous Both To The Happiness And The Misery Of Others, Than In The Country; For They Are Constantly In The Habit Of Seeing Both Extremes.

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.

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

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

Congratulations

Brutes Leave Ingratitude To Man.

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

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.

The Masses Procure Their Opinions Ready Made In Open Market.

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

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Success Seems To Be That Which Forms The Distinction Between Confidence And Conceit.

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

There Are Many Women Who Have Never Intrigued, And Many Men Who Have Never Gamed; But Those Who Have Done Either But Once Are Very Extraordinary Animals.

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

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.

Revenge Is Fever In Our Own Blood, To Be Cured Only By Letting The Blood Of Another; But The Remedy Too Often Produces A Relapse, Which Is Remorse--a Malady Far More Dreadful Than The First Disease, Because It Is Incurable.

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.

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

Where We Cannot Invent, We May At Least Improve.

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

Many Speak The Truth When They Say That They Despise Riches, But They Mean The Riches Possessed By Others.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Knowledge Is Two-fold, And Consists Not Only In An Affirmation Of What Is True, But In The Negation Of That Which Is False.

Doubt Is The Vestibule Of Faith.

It Is Not Every Man That Can Afford To Wear A Shabby Coat; And Worldly Wisdom Dictates To Her Disciples The Propriety Of Dressing Somewhat Beyond Their Means, But Of Living Somewhat Within Them,--for Every One, Sees How We Dress, But None See How We Live, Except We Choose To Let Them. But The Truly Great Are, By Universal Suffrage, Exempted From These Trammels, An May Live Or Dress As They Please.

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.

A Wise Minister Would Rather Preserve Peace Than Gain A Victory, Because He Knows That Even The Most Successful War Leaves Nations Generally More Poor, Always More Profligate, Than It Found Them.

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.

Avarice Has Ruined More Souls Than Extravagance.

Women Generally Consider Consequences In Love, Seldom In Resentment.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Life Is The Jailer Of The Soul In This Filthy Prison, And Its Only Deliverer Is Death.

Some Frauds Succeed From The Apparent Candor, The Open Confidence, And The Full Blaze Of Ingenuousness That Is Thrown Around Them. The Slightest Mystery Would Excite Suspicion And Ruin All. Such Stratagems May Be Compared To The Stars; They Are Discoverable By Darkness And Hidden Only By Light.

The Press Is The Foe Of Rhetoric, But The Friend Of Reason.

It Is Not So Difficult A Task To Plant New Truths, As To Root Out Old Errors; For There Is This Paradox In Men, They Run After That Which Is New, But Are Prejudiced In Favor Of That Which Is Old.

Five Thousand Years Have Added No Improvement To The Hive Of The Bee, Nor To The House Of The Beaver; But Look At The Habitations And The Achievements Of Men!

The Blindness Of Bigotry, The Madness Of Ambition, And The Miscalculations Of Diplomacy Seek Their Victims Principally Amongst The Innocent And The Unoffending. The Cottage Is Sure To Suffer For Every Error Of The Court, The Cabinet, Or The Camp. When Error Sits In The Seat Of Power And Of Authority, And Is Generated In High Places, It May Be Compared To That Torrent Which Originates Indeed In The Mountain, But Commits Its Devastation In The Vale.

Cheerfulness Ought To Be The Viaticum Vitae Of Their Life To The Old; Age Without Cheerfulness Is A Lapland Winter Without A Sun.

Some Men Are Very Entertaining For A First Interview, But After That They Are Exhausted, And Run Out; On A Second Meeting We Shall Find Them Flat And Monotonous; Like Hand-organs, We Have Heard All Their Tunes.

Some Indeed There Are Who Profess To Despise All Flattery, But Even These Are Nevertheless To Be Flattered, By Being Told That They Do Despise It.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Were The Life Of Man Prolonged, He Would Become Such A Proficient In Villainy, That It Would Become Necessary Again To Drown Or To Burn The World. Earth Would Become An Hell; For Future Rewards When Put Off To A Great Distance, Would Cease To Encourage, And Future Punishments To Alarm.

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.

Perhaps That Is Nearly The Perfection Of Good Writing Which Is Original, But Whose Truth Alone Prevents The Reader From Suspecting That It Is So; And Which Effects That For Knowledge Which The Lens Effects For The Sunbeam, When It Condenses Its Brightness In Order To Increase Its Force.

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.

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

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."

The Science Of Mathematics Performs More Than It Promises, But The Science Of Metaphysics Promises More Than It Performs.

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

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

Religion Has Treated Knowledge Sometimes As An Enemy, Sometimes As A Hostage; Often As A Captive And More Often As A Child; But Knowledge Has Become Of Age, And Religion Must Either Renounce Her Acquaintance, Or Introduce Her As A Companion And Respect Her As A Friend.

Corruption Is Like A Ball Of Snow, Once It's Set A Rolling It Must Increase.

Moral Corruption

Tyrants Have Not Yet Discovered Any Chains That Can Fetter The Mind.

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.

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.

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

If Satan Ever Laughs, It Must Be At Hypocrites; They Are The Greatest Dupes He Has.

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

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

Genius, In One Respect, Is Like Gold; Numbers Of Persons Are Constantly Writing About Both, Who Have Neither.

A Hug Is Worth A Thousand Words.

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

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

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

Taking Things Not As They Ought To Be, But As They Are, I Fear It Must Be Allowed That Macchiavelli Will Always Have More Disciples Than Jesus.

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.

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

Habit Will Reconcile Us To Everything But Change

Wealth Is A Relative Thing Since Those Who Have Little And Want Less Are Richer Than Those Who Have Much But Want More.

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.

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

He That Has Never Suffered Extreme Adversity Knows Not The Full Extent Of His Own Depravation.

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

Public Charities And Benevolent Associations For The Gratuitous Relief Of Every Species Of Distress, Are Peculiar To Christianity; No Other System Of Civil Or Religious Policy Has Originated Them; They Form Its Highest Praise And Characteristic Feature.

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.

Most Plagiarists, Like The Drone, Have Neither Taste To Select, Industry To Acquire, Nor Skill To Improve, But Impudently Pilfer The Honey Ready Prepared, From The Hive.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Bigotry Murders Religion To Frighten Fools With Her Ghost.

Religious Bigotry

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

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.

As That Gallant Can Best Affect A Pretended Passion For One Woman Who Has No True Love For Another, So He That Has No Real Esteem For Any Of The Virtues Can Best Assume The Appearance Of Them All.

Man Is An Embodied Paradox, A Bundle Of Contradictions.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Pain May Be Said To Follow Pleasure As Its Shadow.

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

Death Is The Only Sovereign Whom No Partiality Can Warp, And No Price Corrupt.

There Is An Elasticity In The Human Mind, Capable Of Bearing Much, But Which Will Not Show Itself, Until A Certain Weight Of Affliction Be Put Upon It; Its Powers May Be Compared To Those Vehicles Whose Springs Are So Contrived That They Get On Smoothly Enough When Loaded, But Jolt Confoundedly When They Have Nothing To Bear.

In Answering An Opponent, Arrange Your Ideas, But Not Your Words.

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.

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

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

Where 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.

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.

When Certain Persons Abuse Us, Let Us Ask Ourselves What Description Of Characters It Is That They Admire; We Shall Often Find This A Very Consolatory Question.

It Is The Briefest Yet Wisest Maxim Which Tells Us To Meddle Not.

It Is A Common Observation That Any Fool Can Get Money; But They Are Not Wise That Think So.

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

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

Slight Sorrow For Sin Is Sufficient, Provided It At The Same Time Produces Amendment.

Grant Graciously What You Cannot Refuse Safely And Conciliate Those You Cannot Conquer.

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

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