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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.

-Charles Caleb Colton

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Living Authors, Therefore, Are

Charles Caleb Colton

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Be Very Slow To Believe That You Are Wiser Than All Others; It Is A Fatal But Common Error. Where One Has Been Saved By A True Estimation Of Another's Weakness, Thousands Have Been Destroyed By A False Appreciation Of Their Own Strength.

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

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

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.

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.

Fashion Is The Veriest Goddess Of Semblance And Of Shade; To Be Happy Is Of Far Less Consequence To Her Worshippers Than To Appear So; Even Pleasure Itself They Sacrifice To Parade, And Enjoyment To Ostentation.

Accustom Yourself To Submit On All And Every Occasion, And On The Most Minute, No Less Than On The Most Important Circumstances Of Life, To A Small Present Evil, To Obtain A Greater Distant Good. This Will Give Decision, Tone, And Energy To The Mind, Which, Thus Disciplined, Will Often Reap Victory From Defeat And Honor From Repulse.

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.

A Town, Before It Can Be Plundered And, Deserted, Must First Be Taken; And In This Particular Venus Has Borrowed A Law From Her Consort Mars. A Woman That Wishes To Retain Her Suitor Must Keep Him In The Trenches; For This Is A Siege Which The Besieger Never Raises For Want Of Supplies, Since A Feast Is More Fatal To Love Than A Fast, And A Surfeit Than A Starvation. Inanition May Cause It To Die A Slow Death, But Repletion Always Destroys It By A Sudden One.

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

The Only Kind Office Performed For Us By Our Friends Of Which We Never Complain Is Our Funeral; And The Only Thing Which We Most Want, Happens To Be The Only Thing We Never Purchase--our Coffin.

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.

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.

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

There Are Both Dull Correctness And Piquant Carelessness; It Is Needless To Say Which Will Command The Most Readers And Have The Most Influence.

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.

Where We Cannot Invent, We May At Least Improve.

As There Are Some Faults That Have Been Termed Faults On The Right Side, So There Are Some Errors That Might Be Denominated Errors On The Safe Side. Thus We Seldom Regret Having Been Too Mild, Too Cautious, Or Too Humble; But We Often Repent Having Been Too Violent, Too Precipitate, Or Too Proud.

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.

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.

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.

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

No One Knows Where He Who Invented The Plow Was Born, Nor Where He Died; Yet He Has Done More For Humanity Than The Whole Race Of Heroes Who Have Drenched The Earth With Blood And Whose Deeds Have Been Handed Down With A Precision Proportionate Only To The Mischief They Wrought.

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.

Liberty Will Not Descend To A People; A People Must Raise Themselves To Liberty; It Is A Blessing That Must Be Earned Before It Can Be Enjoyed.

A Man Who Knows The World Will Not Only Make The Most Of Everything He Does Know, But Of Many Things He Does Not Know, And Will Gain More Credit By His Adroit Mode Of Hiding His Ignorance Than The Pedant By His Awkward Attempt To Exhibit His Erudition.

It Has Been Well Observed That We Should Treat Futurity As An Aged Friend From Whom We Expect A Rich Legacy.

Avarice Has Ruined More Souls Than Extravagance.

He Who Knows Himself Knows Others.

Self-examination

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.

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

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.

Man, If He Compare Himself With All That He Can See, Is At The Zenith Of Power; But If He Compare Himself With All That He Can Conceive, He Is At The Nadir Of Weakness.

Some Read To Think, These Are Rare; Some To Write, These Are Common; And Some Read To Talk, And These Form The Great Majority.

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

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.

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

Whenever We Find Ourselves More Inclined To Persecute Than To Persuade, We May Then Be Certain That Our Zeal Has More Of Pride In It Than Of Charity.

We Ought Not To Be Over-anxious To Encourage Innovation In Cases Of Doubtful Improvement, For An Old System Must Ever Have Two Advantages Over A New One; It Is Established, And It Is Understood.

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?

If You Cannot Avoid A Quarrel With A Blackguard, Let Your Lawyer Manage It, Rather Than Yourself. No Man Sweeps His Own Chimney, But Employs A Chimney-sweeper, Who Has No Objection To Dirty Work, Because It Is His Trade.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Alas! What Is Man? Whether He Be Deprived Of That Light Which Is From On High, Of Whether He Discard It, A Frail And Trembling Creature; Standing On Time, That Bleak And Narrow Isthmus Between Two Eternities, He Sees Nothing But Impenetrable Darkness On The One Hand, And Doubt, Distrust, And Conjecture, Still More Perplexing, On The Other. Most Gladly Would He Take An Observation, As To Whence He Has Come, Or Whither He Is Going; Alas, He Has Not The Means: His Telescope Is Too Dim, His Compass Too Wavering, His Plummet Too Short.

It Has Been Well Observed That The Tongue Discovers The State Of The Mind No Less Than That Of The Body; But In Either Case, Before The Philosopher Or The Physician Can Judge, The Patient Must Open His Mouth.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Men Spend Their Lives In Anticipations,—in Determining To Be Vastly Happy At Some Period When They Have Time. But The Present Time Has One Advantage Over Every Other—it Is Our Own. Past Opportunities Are Gone, Future Have Not Come. We May Lay In A Stock Of Pleasures, As We Would Lay In A Stock Of Wine; But If We Defer The Tasting Of Them Too Long, We Shall Find That Both Are Soured By Age.

So Long As Lust, Whether Of The World Or Flesh, Smells Sweet In Our Nostrils, So Long We Are Loathsome To God.

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.

Injuries Accompanied With Insults Are Never Forgiven: All Men, On These Occasions, Are Good Haters, And Lay Out Their Revenge At Compound Interest.

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.

Where True Religion Has Prevented One Crime, False Religions Have Afforded A Pretext For A Thousand.

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.

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

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.

If You Are Under Obligations To Many, It Is Prudent To Postpone The Recompensing Of One, Until It Be In Your Power To Remunerate All; Otherwise You Will Make More Enemies By What You Give, Than By What You Withhold.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

I'm Aiming By The Time I'm Fifty To Stop Being An Adolescent.

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.

He That Openly Tells, His Friends All That He Thinks Of Them, Must Expect That They Will Secretly Tell His Enemies Much That They Do Not Think Of Him.

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.

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

Levity Is Often Less Foolish And Gravity Less Wise Than Each Of Them Appears.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Mental Pleasures Never Cloy; Unlike Those Of The Body, They Are Increased By Reputation, Approved By Reflection, And Strengthened By Enjoyment.

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...

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 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.

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.

He That Dies A Martyr Proves That He Was Not A Knave, But By No Means That He Was Not A Fool; Since The Most Absurd Doctrines Are Not Without Such Evidence As Martyrdom Can Produce. A Martyr, Therefore, By The Mere Act Of Suffering, Can Prove Nothing But His Own Faith.

He That Has Energy Enough To Root Out A Vice Should Go Further, And Try To Plant A Virtue In Its Place.

We Ask Advice But We Mean Approbation.

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

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

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

Words Are In This Respect Like Water, That They Often Take Their Taste, Flavour, And Character, From The Mouth Out Of Which They Proceed, As The Water From The Channel Through Which It Flows.

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.

The Two Most Precious Things This Side Of The Grave Are Our Reputation And Our Life. But It Is To Be Lamented That The Most Contemptible Whisper May Deprive Us Of The One, And The Weakest Weapon Of The Other.

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.

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.

The Highest Knowledge Can Be Nothing More Than The Shortest And Clearest Road To Truth; All The Rest Is Pretension, Not Performance, Mere Verbiage And Grandiloquence, From Which We Can Learn Nothing.

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.

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.

In Cases Of Doubtful Morality, It Is Usual To Say Is There Any Harm In Doing This? This Question May Sometimes Be Best Answered By Asking Ourselves Another; Is There Any Harm In Letting It Alone?

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

A Coxcomb Begins By Determining That His Own Profession Is The First; And He Finishes By Deciding That He Is The First Of Profession.

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

There Are Male As Well As Female Gossips.

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

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

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

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.

Speaking Generally, No Man Appears Great To His Contemporaries, For The Same Reason That No Man Is Great To His Servants--both Know Too Much Of Him.

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.

Subtract From The Great Man All That He Owes To Opportunity, All That He Owes To Chance, And All That He Gained By The Wisdom Of His Friends And The Folly Of His Enemies, And The Giant Will Often Be Seen To Be A Pygmy.

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

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.

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

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

Anger Is Practical Awkwardness.

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

Love Is An Alchemist That Can Transmute Poison Into Food.

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

Our Wealth Is Often A Snare To Ourselves, And Always A Temptation To Others.

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

When You Have Nothing To Say, Say Nothing.

The Science Of Legislation Is Like That Of Medicine In One Respect: That It Is Far More Easy To Point Out What Will Do Harm Than What Will Do Good.

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.

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

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

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

If That Marvellous Microcosm, Man, With All The Costly Cargo Of His Faculties And Powers, Were Indeed A Rich Argosy, Fitted Out And Freighted Only For Shipwreck And Destruction, Who Amongst Us That Tolerate The Present Only From The Hope Of The Future, Who That Have Any Aspirings Of A High And Intellectual Nature About Them, Could Be Brought To Submit To The Disgusting Mortifications Of The Voyage?

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

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.

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

Posthumous Fame Is A Plant Of Tardy Growth, For Our Body Must Be The Seed Of It; Or We May Liken It To A Torch, Which Nothing But The Last Spark Of Life Can Light Up; Or We May Compare It To The Trumpet Of The Archangel, For It Is Blown Over The Dead; But Unlike That Awful Blast, It Is Of Earth, Not Of Heaven, And Can Neither Rouse Nor Raise Us.

Unity Of Opinion Is Indeed A Glorious And Desirable Thing, And Its Circle Cannot Be Too Strong And Extended, If The Centre Be Truth; But If The Centre Be Error, The Greater The Circumference, The Greater The Evil.

Gaming Has Been Resorted To By The Affluent As A Refuge From Ennui. It Is A Mental Dram, And May Succeed For A Moment; But, Like All Other Stimuli, It Produces Indirect Debility.

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.

Put On The Livery Of The Best Master Only To Serve The Worst.

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

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.

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.

If There Be A Pleasure On Earth Which Angels Cannot Enjoy, And Which They Might Almost Envy Man The Possession Of, It Is The Power Of Relieving Distress--if There Be A Pain Which Devils Might Pity Man For Enduring, It Is The Death-bed Reflection That We Have Possessed The Power Of Doing Good, But That We Have Abused And Perverted It To Purposes Of Ill.

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

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.

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

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

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.

The Hand That Unnerved Belshazzar Derived Its Most Horrifying Influence From The Want Of A Body, And Death Itself Is Not Formidable In What We Do Know Of It, But In What We Do Not.

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?

Those That Are The Loudest In Their Threats Are The Weakest In Their Actions.

The Wise Man Has His Follies, No Less Than The Fool; But It Has Been Said That Herein Lies The Difference--the Follies Of The Fool Are Known To The World, But Hidden From Himself; The Follies Of The Wise Are Known To Himself, But Hidden From The World.

Antithesis May Be The Blossom Of Wit, But It Will Never Arrive At Maturity Unless Sound Sense Be The Trunk And Truth The Root.

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

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

Insults Are Engendered From Vulgar Minds, Like Toadstools From A Dunghill.

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.

Falsehood Is Never So Successful As When She Baits Her Hook With Truth, And No Opinions So Fatally Mislead Us As Those That Are Not Wholly Wrong, As No Watches So Effectively Deceive The Wearer As Those That Are Sometimes Right.

We Are Ruined, Not By What We Really Want, But By What We Think We Do; Therefore Never Go Abroad In Search Of Your Wants; If They Be Real Wants, They Will Come Home In Search Of You; For He That Buys What He Does Not Want, Will Soon Want What He Cannot Buy.

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

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.

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.

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.

Those Who Visit Foreign Nations, But Who Associate Only With Their Own Countrymen, Change Their Climate, But Not Their Customs 'caelum Non Animum Mutant': They See New Meridians, But The Same Men, And With Heads As Empty As Their Pockets.

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.

There Are Some Men Who Are Fortune's Favorites, And Who, Like Cats, Light Forever On Their Legs.

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.

Revenge Is A Debt, In The Paying Of Which The Greatest Knave Is Honest And Sincere, And, So Far As He Is Able, Punctual.

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.

Imitation Is The Highest Form Of Flattery.

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

Drunkenness Is The Vice Of A Good Constitution Or Of A Bad Memory Of A Constitution So Treacherously Good That It Never Bends Till It Breaks; Or Of A Memory That Recollects The Pleasures Of Getting Intoxicated, But Forgets The Pains Of Getting Sober.

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.

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

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

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.

If We Look Backwards To Antiquity It Should Be As Those That Are Winning A Race.

Courage Is Like The Diamond,--very Brilliant; Not Changed By Fire, Capable Of High Polish, But Except For The Purpose Of Cutting Hard Bodies Useless.

Men Of Great And Shining Qualities Do Not Always Succeed In Life, But The Fault Lies More Often In Themselves Than In Others.

All Who Have Been Great And Good Without Christianity Would Have Been Much Greater And Better With It. If There Be, Amongst The Sons Of Men, A Single Exception To This Maxim, The Divine Socrates May Be Allowed To Put In The Strongest Claim. It Was His High Ambition To Deserve, By Deeds, Not By Creeds, An Unrevealed Heaven, And By Works, Not By Faith, To Enter An Unpromised Land.

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

The Grecian’s Maxim Would Indeed Be A Sweeping Clause In Literature; It Would Reduce Many A Giant To A Pygmy; Many A Speech To A Sentence; And Many A Folio To A Primer.

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.

True Goodness Is Not Without That Germ Of Greatness That Can Bear With Patience The Mistakes Of The Ignorant.

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.

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.

We Are More Inclined To Hate One Another For Points On Which We Differ, Than To Love One Another For Points On Which We Agree.

Love One Another

Early Rising Not Only Gives Us More Life In The Same Number Of Years, But Adds, Likewise, To Their Number; And Not Only Enables Us To Enjoy More Of Existence In The Same Time, But Increases Also The Measure.

We Cannot Think Too Highly Of Our Nature, Nor Too Humbly Of Ourselves. When We See The Martyr To Virtue, Subject As He Is To The Infirmities Of A Man, Yet Suffering The Tortures Of A Demon, And Bearing Them With The Magnanimity Of A God, Do We Not Behold A Heroism That Angels May Indeed Surpass, But Which They Cannot Imitate, And Must Admire.

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