Background Image

...

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.

-Charles Caleb Colton

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Mathematicians Have Sought Knowledge

Charles Caleb Colton

...

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.

Views: 11

Topic

More From Charles Caleb Colton

None Are So Seldom Found Alone, And Are So Soon Tired Of Their Own Company, As Those Coxcombs Who Are On The Best Terms With Themselves.

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

As There Are None So Weak That We May Venture To Injure Them With Impunity, So There Are None So Low That They May Not At Some Time Be Able To Repay An Obligation. Therefore, What Benevolence Would Dictate, Prudence Would Confirm.

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

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

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.

In Life We Shall Find Many Men That Are Great, And Some That Are Good, But Very Few Men That Are Both Great And Good.

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

Calumny Crosses Oceans, Scales Mountains And Traverses Deserts, With Greater Ease Than The Scythian Abaris, And Like Him, Rides Upon A Poisoned Arrow.

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.

Examinations Are Formidable Even To The Best Prepared, For The Greatest Fool May Ask More Than The Wisest Man Can Answer.

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.

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

Men Of Strong Minds And Who Think For Themselves, Should Not Be Discouraged On Finding Occasionally That Some Of Their Best Ideas Have Been Anticipated By Former Writers; They Will Neither Anathematize Others Nor Despair Themselves. They Will Rather Go On Discovering Things Before Discovered, Until They Are Rewarded With A Land Hitherto Unknown, An Empire Indisputably Their Own, Both Right Of Conquest And Of Discovery.

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

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

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.

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

In All Places, And In All Times, Those Religionists Who Have Believed Too Much Have Been More Inclined To Violence And Persecution Than Those Who Have Believed Too Little.

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

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.

The Sun Should Not Set Upon Our Anger, Neither Should He Rise Upon Our Confidence. We Should Forgive Freely, But Forget Rarely. I Will Not Be Revenged, And This I Owe To My Enemy; But I Will Remember, And This I Owe To Myself.

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.

Professors In Every Branch Of The Sciences, Prefer Their Own Theories To Truth: The Reason Is That Their Theories Are Private Property, But Truth Is Common Stock.

He That Dies A Martyr Proves That He Was Not A Knave, But By No Means That He Was Not A Fool.

Be Real And Adjust You Strategy According To Honest Results.

We Must Suit The Flattery To The Mind And Taste Of The Recipient. We Do Not Put Essences Into Hogsheads, Nor Porter Into Phials. Delicate Minds May Be Disgusted By Compliments That Would Please A Grosser Intellect; As Some Fine Ladies Who Would Be Shocked At The Idea Of A Dram Will Not Refuse A Liqueur.

It Is An Easy And Vulgar Thing To Please The Mob, And Not A Very Arduous Task To Astonish Them; But Essentially To Benefit And To Improve Them Is A Work Fraught With Difficulty, And Teeming With Danger.

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.

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

It Is Astonishing How Much More Anxious People Are To Lengthen Life Than To Improve It; And As Misers Often Lose Large Sums Of Money In Attempting To Make More, So Do Hypochondriacs Squander Large Sums Of Time In Search Of Nostrums By Which They Vainly Hope They May Get More Time To Squander.

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

Times Of Great Calamity And Confusion Have Been Productive For The Greatest Minds. The Purest Ore Is Produced From The Hottest Furnace. The Brightest Thunder-bolt Is Elicited From The Darkest Storm.

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.

The Rich Are More Envied By Those Who Have A Little, Than By Those Who Have Nothing.

There Were Moments Of Despondency When Shakespeare Thought Himself No Poet, And Raphael No Painter; When The Greatest Wits Have Doubted The Excellence Of Their Happiest Efforts.

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.

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

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.

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

Doubt Is The Vestibule Of Faith.

Short As Life Is, Some Find It Long Enough To Outlive Their Characters, Their Constitutions And Their Estates.

Unlike The Sun, Intellectual Luminaries Shine Brightest After They Set.

Habit Will Reconcile Us To Everything But Change

A Christian Builds His Fortitude On A Better Foundation Than Stoicism; He Is Pleased With Every Thing That Happens, Because He Knows It Could Not Happen Unless It First Pleased God, And That Which Pleases Him Must Be Best.

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.

Miss Edgeworth And Mme. De Stael Have Proved That There Is No Sex In Style; And Mme. La Roche Jacqueline, And The Duchesse D'angouleme Have Proved That There Is No Sex In Courage.

Fashion ... Has Brought Every Thing Into Vogue, By Turns.

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.

Of All The Marvelous Works Of God, Perhaps The One Angels View With The Most Supreme Astonishment, Is A Proud Man.

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

There Can Be No Christianity Where There Is No Charity

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

All Adverse And Depressing Influences Can Be Overcome, Not By Fighting, By By Rising Above Them.

Theories Are Private Property, But Truth Is Common Stock.

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?

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.

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.

The Plainest Man That Can Convince A Woman That He Is Really In Love With Her Has Done More To Make Her In Love With Him Than The Handsomest Man, If He Can Produce No Such Conviction. For The Love Of Woman Is A Shoot, Not A Seed, And Flourishes Most Vigorously Only When Ingrafted On That Love Which Is Rooted In The Breast Of Another.

For All The Practical Purposes Of Life, Truth Might As Well Be In A Prison As In The Folio Of A Schoolman; And Those Who Release Her From Her Cobwebbed Shelf And Teach Her To Live With Men Have The Merit Of Liberating, If Not Of Discovering, Her.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

There Are Some Frauds So Well Conducted That It Would Be Stupidity Not To Be Deceived By Them.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Alas! How Has The Social Spirit Of Christianity Been Perverted By Fools At One Time, And By Knaves And Bigots At Another; By The Self-tormentors Of The Cell, And The All-tormentors Of The Conclave!

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

If Merited, No Courage Can Stand Against Its Just Indignation.

He That Has Never Known Adversity Is But Half Acquainted With Others, Or With Himself.

There Are Many Who Say More Than The Truth On Some Occasions, And Balance The Account With Their Consciences By Saying Less Than The Truth On Others. But The Fact Is That They Are In Both Instances As Fraudulant As He Would Be That Exacted More Than His Due From His Debtors, And Paid Less Than Their Due To His Creditors.

Precisely In Proportion To Our Own Intellectual Weakness Will Be Our Credulity As To Those Mysterious Powers Assumed By Others.

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

There Is But One Pursuit In Life Which It Is In The Power Of All To Follow, And Of All To Attain. It Is Subject To No Disappointments, Since He That Perseveres, Makes Every Difficulty An Advancement, And Every Contest A Victory; And This Is The Pursuit Of Virtue.

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.

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.

Fortune, Like Other Females, Prefers A Lover To A Master, And Submits With Impatience To Control; But He That Wooes Her With Opportunity And Importunity Will Seldom Court Her In Vain.

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

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

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

There Are Two Metals, One Of Which Is Omnipotent In The Cabinet, And The Other In The Camp--gold And Iron. He That Knows How To Apply Them Both May Indeed Attain The Highest Station.

There Are Too Many Who Reverse Both The Principles And The Practice Of The Apostles; They Become All Things To All Men, Not To Serve Others, But Themselves; And They Try All Things Only To Hold Fast That Which Is Bad.

We Cannot Think Too Highly Of Our Nature, Nor Too Humbly Of Ourselves.

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.

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.

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.

Jealousy Is Sustained As Often By Pride As By Affection.

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

Deceiving Others

The Next Thing To Having Wisdom Ourselves, Is To Profit By That Of Others.

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.

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

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

Life Often Presents Us With A Choice Of Evils, Rather Than Of Goods.

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.

It Is With Disease Of The Mind, As With Those Of The Body; We Are Half Dead Before We Understand Our Disorder, And Half Cured When We Do.

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.

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

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

We Strive As Hard To Hide Our Hearts From Ourselves As From Others, And Always With More Success; For In Deciding Upon Our Own Case We Are Both Judge, Jury, And Executioner, And Where Sophistry Cannot Overcome The First, Or Flattery The Second, Self-love Is Always Ready To Defeat The Sentence By Bribing The Third.

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.

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

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

Total Freedom From Error Is What None Of Us Will Allow To Our Neighbors; However We May Be Inclined To Flirt A Little With Such Spotless Perfection Ourselves.

The Enthusiast Has Been Compared To A Man Walking In A Fog; Everything Immediately Around Him, Or In Contact With Him, Appears Sufficiently Clear And Luminous; But Beyond The Little Circle Of Which He Himself Is The Centre, All Is Mist And Error And Confusion.

Literature Has Her Quacks No Less Than Medicine, And They Are Divided Into Two Classes; Those Who Have Erudition Without Genius, And Those Who Have Volubility Without Depth; We Shall Get Second-hand Sense From The One, And Original Nonsense From The Other.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Friendship, Of Itself A Holy Tie, Is Made More Sacred By Adversity.

The Code Of Poor Laws Has At Length Grown Up Into A Tree, Which, Like The Fabulous Upas, Overshadows And Poisons The Land; Unwholesome Expedients Were The Bud, Dilemmas And Depravities Have Been The Blossom, And Danger And Despair Are The Bitter Fruit.

If We Trace The History Of Most Revolutions, We Shall Find That The First Inroads Upon The Laws Have Been Made By The Governors, As Often As By The Governed.

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.

Strong As Our Passions Are, They May Be Starved Into Submission, And Conquered Without Being Killed.

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.

Anguish Of Mind Has Driven Thousands To Suicide; Anguish Of Body, None. This Proves That The Health Of The Mind Is Of Far More Consequence To Our Happiness Than The Health Of The Body, Although Both Are Deserving Of Much More Attention Than Either Of Them Receive.

The Moral Cement Of All Society Is Virtue; It Unites And Preserves, While Vice Separates And Destroys.

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.

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.

The Art Of Declamation Has Been Sinking In Value From The Moment That Speakers Were Foolish Enough To Publish, And Hearers Wise Enough To Read.

No Man Can Purchase His Virtue Too Dear, For It Is The Only Thing Whose Value Must Ever Increase With The Price It Has Cost Us. Our Integrity Is Never Worth So Much As When We Have Parted With Our All To Keep It.

It Has Been Said That Men Carry On A Kind Of Coasting Trade With Religion. In The Voyage Of Life, They Profess To Be In Search Of Heaven, But Take Care Not To Venture So Far In Their Approximations To It, As Entirely To Lose Sight Of The Earth; And Should Their Frail Vessel Be In Danger Of Shipwreck, They Will Gladly Throw Their Darling Vices Overboard, As Other Mariners Their Treasures, Only To Fish Them Up Again When The Storm Is Over.

There Is This Paradox In Pride - It Makes Some Men Ridiculous, But Prevents Others From Becoming So.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Money Is The Most Envied, But The Least Enjoyed. Health Is The Most Enjoyed, But The Least Envied.

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.

Eloquence, To Produce Her Full Effect, Should Start From The Head Of The Orator, As Pallas From The Brain Of Jove, Completely Armed And Equipped. Diffidence, Therefore, Which Is So Able A Mentor To The Writer, Would Prove A Dangerous Counsellor For The Orator.

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.

Neutrality Is No Favorite With Providence, For We Are So Formed That It Is Scarcely Possible For Us To Stand Neuter In Our Hearts, Although We May Deem It Prudent To Appear So In Our Actions

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

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

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

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.

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

No Men Deserve The Title Of Infidels So Little As Those To Whom It Has Been Usually Applied; Let Any Of Those Who Renounce Christianity, Write Fairly Down In A Book All The Absurdities That They Believe Instead Of It, And They Will Find That It Requires More Faith To Reject Christianity Than To Embrace It.

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.

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

No Metaphysician Ever Felt The Deficiency Of Language So Much As The Grateful.

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

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.

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

All Poets Pretend To Write For Immortality, But The Whole Tribe Have No Objection To Present Pay, And Present Praise. Lord Burleigh Is Not The Only Statesman Who Has Thought One Hundred Pounds Too Much For A Song, Though Sung By Spenser; Although Oliver Goldsmith Is The Only Poet Who Ever Considered Himself To Have Been Overpaid.

Man Is An Embodied Paradox, A Bundle Of Contradictions.

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

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

We Submit To The Society Of Those That Can Inform Us, But We Seek The Society Of Those Whom We Can Inform. And Men Of Genius Ought Not To Be Chagrined If They See Themselves Neglected. For When We Communicate Knowledge, We Are Raised In Our Own Estimation; But When We Receive It, We Are Lowered.

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.

Posthumous Charities Are The Very Essence Of Selfishness When Bequeathed By Those Who, Even Alive, Would Part With Nothing.

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.

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.

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

Revenge Is A Much More Punctual Paymaster Than Gratitude

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.

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.

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.

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.

A High Degree Of Intellectual Refinement In The Female Is The Surest Pledge Society Can Have For The Improvement Of The Male.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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. The Reason Perhaps Is This: When We Find Others That Agree With Us, We Seldom Trouble Ourselves To Confirm That Agreement; But When We Chance On Those Who Differ From Us, We Are Zealous Both To Convince And To Convert Them. Our Pride Is Hurt By The Failure, And Disappointed Pride Engenders Hatred.

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.

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.

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.

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

Most Females Will Forgive A Liberty Rather Than A Slight

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

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

It 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.

Trending Author

Gouverneur Morris

Boris Pasternak

Category