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

-Charles Caleb Colton

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It Has Been Observed

Charles Caleb Colton

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

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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.

Immitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery.

The Masses Procure Their Opinions Ready Made In Open Market.

Deformity Of The Heart I Call The Worst Deformity Of All; For What Is Form, Or What Is Face, But The Soul's Index, Or Its Case?

We Make A Goddess Of Fortune ... And Place Her In The Highest Heaven. But It Is Not Fortune That Is Exalted And Powerful, But We Ourselves That Are Abject And Weak.

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

He That Aspires To Be The Head Of A Party Will Find It More Difficult To Please His Friends Than To Perplex His Foes. He Must Often Act From False Reasons Which Are Weak, Because He Dares Not Avow The True Reasons Which Are Strong.

He That Studies Books Alone, Will Know How Things Ought To Be; And He That Studies Men, Will Know How Things Are.

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.

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

Imitation Is The Sincerest Of Flattery.

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."

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Next To Acquiring Good Friends, The Best Acquisition Is That Of Good Books.

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.

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

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

Lost Friendship

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.

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

Many Books Owe Their Success To The Good Memories Of Their Authors And The Bad Memories Of Their Readers.

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

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.

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.

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.

The Young Fancy That Their Follies Are Mistaken By The Old For Happiness. The Old Fancy That Their Gravity Is Mistaken By The Young For Wisdom.

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.

There Is More Jealousy Between Rival Wits Than Rival Beauties, For Vanity Has No Sex. But In Both Cases There Must Be Pretensions, Or There Will Be No Jealousy.

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.

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.

Where We Cannot Invent, We May At Least Improve; We May Give Somewhat Of Novelty To That Which Was Old, Condensation To That Which Was Diffuse, Perspicuity To That Which Was Obscure, And Currency To That Which Was Recondite.

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

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

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

There Is A Holy Love And A Holy Rage, And Our Best Virtues Never Glow So Brightly As When Our Passions Are Excited In The Cause. Sloth, If It Has Prevented Many Crimes, Has Also Smothered Many Virtues; And The Best Of Us Are Better When Roused.

He That Places Himself Neither Higher Nor Lower Than He Ought To Do Exercises The Truest Humility.

The Victims Of Ennui Paralyze All The Grosser Feelings By Excess, And Torpify All The Finer By Disuse And Inactivity. Disgusted With This World, And Indifferent About Another, They At Last Lay Violent Hands Upon Themselves, And Assume No Small Credit For The Sang Froid With Which They Meet Death. But, Alas! Such Beings Can Scarcely Be Said To Die, For They Have Never Truly Lived.

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

The True Motives Of Our Actions, Like The Real Pipes Of An Organ, Are Usually Concealed; But The Gilded And Hollow Pretext Is Pompously Placed In The Front For Show.

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

Doubt Is The Vestibule Which All Must Pass Before They Can Enter Into The Temple Of Wisdom; Therefore, When We Are In Doubt And Puzzle Out The Truth By Our Own Exertions, We Have Gained A Something That Will Stay By Us, And Which Will Serve Us Again. But, If To Avoid The Trouble Of The Search We Avail Ourselves Of The Superior Information Of A Friend, Such Knowledge Will Not Remain With Us; We Have Not Bought But Borrowed It.

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.

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

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

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

None Are So Fond Of Secrets As Those Who Do Not Mean To Keep Them.

Silence Is Less Injurious Than A Weak Reply.

There Are Three Kinds Of Praise, That Which We Yield, That Which We Lend, And That Which We Pay. We Yield It To The Powerful From Fear, We Lend It To The Weak From Interest, And We Pay It To The Deserving From Gratitude.

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.

What Is Earthly Happiness? That Phantom Of Which We Hear So Much, And See So Little; Whose Promises Are Constantly Given And Constantly Broken, But As Constantly Believed; That Cheats Us With The Sound Instead Of The Substance, And With The Blossom Instead Of The Fruit. Like Juno, She Is A Goddess In Pursuit, But A Cloud In Possession.

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

Most Females Will Forgive A Liberty Rather Than A Slight

The Interests Of Society Often Render It Expedient Not To Utter The Whole Truth, The Interests Of Science Never: For In This Field We Have Much More To Fear From The Deficiency Of Truth Than From Its Abundance.

Shakespeare, Butler And Bacon Have Rendered It Extremely Difficult For All Who Come After Them To Be Sublime, Witty Or Profound.

Shrewd And Crafty Politicians, When They Wish To Bring About An Unpopular Measure, Must Not Go Straight Forward To Work, If They Do They Will Certainly Fail; And Failures To Men In Power, Are Like Defeats To A General, They Shake Their Popularity. Therefore, Since They Cannot Sail In The Teeth Of The Wind, They Must Tack, And Ultimately Gain Their Object, By Appearing At Times To Be Departing From It.

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

There Are Two Things Which Ought To Teach Us To Think But Meanly Of Human Glory; The Very Best Have Had Their Calumniators, The Very Worst Their Panegyrists.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Philosophy Is A Goddess, Whose Head Indeed Is In Heaven, But Whose Feet Are Upon Earth; She Attempts More Than She Accomplishes, And Promises More Than She Performs.

It Has Been Shrewdly Said, That When, Men Abuse Us We Should Suspect Ourselves, And When They Praise Us, Them. It Is A Rare Instance Of Virtue To Despise Which Censure Which We Do Not Deserve; And Still More Rare To Despise Praise Which We Do.

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

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.

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.

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

No Disorders Have Employed So Many Quacks, As Those That Have No Cure; And No Sciences Have Exercised So Many Quills, As Those That Have No Certainty.

When We Feel A Strong Desire To Thrust Our Advice Upon Others, It Is Usually Because We Suspect Their Weakness; But We Ought Rather To Suspect Our Own.

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

Death Is Like Thunder In Two Particulars; We Are Alarmed, At The Sound Of It; And It Is Formidable Only From That Which Preceded It.

This World Cannot Explain Its Own Difficulties Without The Assistance Of Another.

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.

Of Present Fame Think Little, And Of Future Less; The Praises That We Receive After We Are Buried, Like The Flowers That Are Strewed Over Our Grave, May Be Gratifying To The Living, But They Are Nothing To The Dead.

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

Hope Is A Prodigal Young Heir, And Experience Is His Banker.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Philosophy Is A Bully That Talks Loud When The Danger Is At A Distant; But, The Moment She Is Pressed Hard By An Enemy, She Is Nowhere To Be Found And Leaves The Brunt Of The Battle To Be Fought By Her Steady, Humble Comrade, Religion.

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

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 Excesses Of Our Youth Are Drafts Upon Our Old Age.

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

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

It Is Astonishing How Much More People Are Interested In Lengthening Life Than Improving It.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Folly Disgusts Us Less By Her Ignorance Than Pedantry By Her Learning.

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.

There Is No Cruelty So Inexorable And Unrelenting As That Which Proceeds From A Bigoted And Presumptuous Supposition Of Doing Service To God. The Victim Of The Fanatical Persecutor Will Find That The Stronger The Motives He Can Urge For Mercy Are, The Weaker Will Be His Chance For Obtaining It, For The Merit Of His Destruction Will Be Supposed To Rise In Value In Proportion As It Is Effected At The Expense Of Every Feeling Both Of Justice And Of Humanity.

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

Faults Of The Head Are Punished In This World, Those Of The Heart In Another; But As Most Of Our Vices Are Compound, So Also Is Their Punishment.

He That Knows Himself, Knows Others; And He That Is Ignorant Of Himself, Could Not Write A Very Profound Lecture On Other Men's Heads.

Mystery Magnifies Danger, As A Fog The Sun, The Hand That Warned Belshazzar Derived Its Horrifying Effect From The Want Of A Body.

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.

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

Genius In One Grand Particular Is Like Life. We Know Nothing Of Either But By Their Effects.

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

Criticism Is Like Champagne, Nothing More Execrable If Bad, Nothing More Excellent If Good; If Meagre, Muddy, Vapid And Sour, Both Are Fit Only To Engender Colic And Wind; But If Rich, Generous And Sparkling, They Communicate A Genial Glow To The Spirits, Improve The Taste, And Expand The Heart.

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

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

Power, Like The Diamond, Dazzles The Beholder, And Also The Wearer; It Dignifies Meanness; It Magnifies Littleness; To What Is Contemptible, It Gives Authority; To What Is Low, Exaltation.

Let Us Not Be Too Prodigal When We Are Young, Nor Too Parsimonious When We Are Old. Otherwise We Shall Fall Into The Common Error Of Those, Who, When They Had The Power To Enjoy, Had Not The Prudence To Acquire; And When They Had The Prudence To Acquire, Had No Longer The Power To Enjoy.

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

He That Sympathizes In All The Happiness Of Others, Perhaps Himself Enjoys The Safest Happiness.

That Alliance May Be Said To Have A Double Tie, Where The Minds Are United As Well As The Body; And The Union Will Have All Its Strength When Both The Links Are In Perfection Together.

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.

For What Are The Triumphs Of War, Planned By Ambition, Executed By Violence, And Consummated By Devastation? The Means Are The Sacrifice Of Many, The End, The Bloated Aggrandizement Of The Few.

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

To Know The Pains Of Power, We Must Go To Those Who Have It; To Know Its Pleasures, We Must Go To Those Who Are Seeking It: The Pains Of Power Are Real, Its Pleasures Imaginary.

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

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

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. Literature Has Now Become A Game; In Which The Booksellers Are The Kings; The Critics The Knaves; The Public, The Pack; And The Poor Author, The Mere Table, Or The Thing Played Upon.

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.

Anger Is Practical Awkwardness.

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.

Jealousy Is Sustained As Often By Pride As By Affection.

Novels May Teach Us As Wholesome A Moral As The Pulpit. There Are "sermons In Stones," In Healthy Books, And "good In Everything.

In Most Quarrels There Is A Fault On Both Sides. A Quarrel May Be Compared To A Spark, Which Cannot Be Produced Without A Flint, As Well As Steel. Either Of Them May Hammer On Wood Forever; No Fire Will Follow.

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

If A Horse Has Four Legs, And I'm Riding It, I Think I Can Win.

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.

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.

Happiness Is Much More Equally Divided Than Some Of Us Imagine. One Man Shall Possess Most Of The Materials, But Little Of The Thing; Another May Possess Much Of The Thing, But Very Few Of The Material. In This Particular View Of It, Happiness Had Been Beautifully Compared To The Man In The Desert--he That Gathered Much Had Nothing Over, And He That Gathered Little Had No Lack.

Idleness Is The Grand Pacific Ocean Of Life, And In That Stagnant Abyss The Most Salutary Things Produce No Good, The Most Noxious No Evil. Vice, Indeed, Abstractedly Considered, May Be, And Often Is Engendered In Idleness; But The Moment It Becomes Efficiently Vice, It Must Quit Its Cradle And Cease To Be Idle.

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.

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

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

Life Isn't Like A Book. Life Isn't Logical Or Sensible Or Orderly. Life Is A Mess Most Of The Time. And Theology Must Be Lived In The Midst Of That Mess.

Avarice Has Ruined More Souls Than Extravagance.

We Injure Mysteries, Which Are Matters Of Faith By Any Attempt At Explanation In Order To Make Them Matters Of Reason.

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

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.

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.

In Pulpit Eloquence, The Grand Difficulty Lies Here--to Give The Subject All The Dignity It So Fully Deserves, Without Attaching Any Importance To Ourselves. The Christian Messenger Cannot Think Too Highly Of His Prince, Nor Too Humbly Of Himself.

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.

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.

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.

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

If Rich, It Is Easy Enough To Conceal Our Wealth; But, If Poor, It Is Not Quite So Easy To Conceal Our Poverty. We Shall Find That It Is Less Difficult To Hide A Thousand Guineas, Than One Hole In Our Coat.

Two Things, Well Considered, Would Prevent Many Quarrels: First, To Have It Well Ascertained Whether We Are Not Disputing About Terms, Rather Than Things; And, Secondly, To Examine Whether That On Which We Differ Is Worth Contending About.

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.

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.

Sloth, If It Has Prevented Many Crimes, Has Also Smothered Many Virtues.

In Death Itself There Can Be Nothing Terrible, For The Act Of Death Annihilates Sensation; But There Are Many Roads To Death, And Some Of Them Justly Formidable, Even To The Bravest.

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

Habit Will Reconcile Us To Everything But Change

To Know A Man, Observe How He Wins His Object, Rather Than How He Loses It; For When We Fail, Our Pride Supports Us - When We Succeed, It Betrays Us.

He That Has Energy Enough In His Constitution To Root Out A Vice Should Go A Little Further, And Try To Plant A Virtue In Its Place; Otherwise He Will Have His Labor To Renew. A Strong Soil That Has Produced Weeds May Be Made To Produce Wheat With Far Less Difficulty Than It Would Cost To Make It Produce Nothing.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Attempts At Reform, When They Fail, Strengthen Despotism, As He That Struggles Tightens Those Cords He Does Not Succeed In Breaking.

That Theatrical Kind Of Virtue, Which Requires Publicity For Its Stage, And An Applauding World For Its Audience, Could Not Be Depended On, In The Secrecy Of Solitude, Or The Retirement Of A Desert.

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.

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

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.

True Contentment Depends Not Upon What We Have; A Tub Was Large Enough For Diogenes, But A World Was Too Little For Alexander.

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.

The Wealth Is Ultimately Just A Relative Thing. As A Person With Little Money And Little More Needs To Rich Guys Money But Really Wishes

In Order To Try Whether A Vessel Be Leaky, We First Prove It With Water Before We Trust It With Wine.

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

I Have Somewhere Seen It Observed That We Should Make The Same Use Of A Book That The Bee Does Of A Flower: She Steals Sweets From It, But Does Not Injure It.

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

We Ask Advice But We Mean Approbation.

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

The Upright, If He Suffer Calumny To Move Him, Fears The Tongue Of Man More Than The Eye Of God.

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

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

To Admit That There Is Any Such Thing As Chance, In The Common Acceptation Of The Term, Would Be To Attempt To Establish A Power Independent Of God.

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.

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.

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.

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Muqtada Al Sadr

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