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Men Pursue Riches Under The Idea That Their Possession Will Set Them At Ease, And Above The World. But The Law Of Association Often Makes Those Who Begin By Loving Gold As A Servant Finish By Becoming Themselves Its Slaves; And Independence Without Wealth Is At Least As Common As Wealth Without Independence.

-Charles Caleb Colton

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Men Pursue Riches Under

Charles Caleb Colton

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Men Pursue Riches Under The Idea That Their Possession Will Set Them At Ease, And Above The World. But The Law Of Association Often Makes Those Who Begin By Loving Gold As A Servant Finish By Becoming Themselves Its Slaves; And Independence Without Wealth Is At Least As Common As Wealth Without Independence.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Make No Enemies; He Is Insignificant Indeed That Can Do Thee No Harm.

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

The Greatest Miracle That The Almighty Could Perform Would Be To Make A Bad Man Happy, Even In Heaven; He Must Unparadise That Blessed Place To Accomplish It. In Its Primary Signification, All Vice--that Is, All Excess--brings Its Own Punishment Even Here.

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

The Excesses Of Our Youth Are Drafts Upon Our Old Age.

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.

To Cure Us Of Our Immoderate Love Of Gain, We Should Seriously Consider How Many Goods There Are That Money Will Not Purchase, And These The Best; And How Many Evils There Are That Money Will Not Remedy, And These The Worst.

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

With Respect To The Authority Of Great Names, It Should Be Remembered That He Alone Deserves To Have Any Weight And Influence With Posterity, Who Has Shown Himself Superior To The Particular And Predominant Error Of His Own Times; Who, Like The Peak Of Teneriffe, Has Hailed The Intellectual Sun Before Its Beams Have Reached The Horizon Of Common Minds.

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

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

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

Some Men Of A Secluded And Studious Life, Have Sent Forth From Their Closet Or Their Cloister, Rays Of Intellectual Light That Have Agitated Courts, And Revolutionized Kingdoms; Like The Moon, That Far Removed From The Ocean, And Shining Upon It With A Serene And Sober Light, Is The Chief Cause Of All Those Ebbings And Flowings Which Incessantly Disturb That World Of Waters.

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

Tomorrow! It Is A Period Nowhere To Be Found In All The Registers Of Time, Unless, Perchance, In The Fool's Calendar.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Some Philosophers Would Give A Sex To Revenge, And Appropriate It Almost Exclusively To The Female Mind. But, Like Most Other Vices, It Is Of Both Genders; Yet, Because Wounded Vanity And Slighted Love Are The Two Most Powerful Excitements To Revenge, It Has Been Thought, Perhaps, To Rage With More Violence In The Female Heart.

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

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

There Is Nothing More Imprudent Than Excessive Prudence.

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.

Extemporaneous And Oral Harangues Will Always Have This Advantage Over Those That Are Read From A In Manuscript: Every Burst Of Eloquence Or Spark Of Genius They May Contain, However Studied They May Have Been Beforehand, Will Appear To The Audience To Be The Effect Of The Sudden Inspiration Of Talent.

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

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 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.

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.

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?

Pain May Be Said To Follow Pleasure As Its Shadow.

There Is This Paradox In Fear: He Is Most Likely To Inspire It In Others Who Has None Himself!

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.

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.

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

Ladies Of Fashion Starve Their Happiness To Feed Their Vanity, And Their Love To Feed Their Pride.

A Thorough-paced Knave Will Rarely Quarrel With One Whom He Can Cheat: His Revenge Is Plunder; Therefore He Is Usually The Most Forgiving Of Beings, Upon The Principle That If He Come To An Open Rupture, He Must Defend Himself; And This Does Not Suit A Man Whose Vocation It Is To Keep His Hands In The Pocket Of Another.

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

Mystery Is Not Profoundness.

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.

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

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.

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

A Semi-civilized State Of Society, Equally Removed From The Extremes Of Barbarity And Of Refinement, Seems To Be That Particular Meridian Under Which All The Reciprocities And Gratuities Of Hospitality Do Most Readily Flourish And Abound. For It So Happens That The Ease, The Luxury, And The Abundance Of The Highest State Of Civilization, Are As Productive Of Selfishness, As The Difficulties, The Privations, And The Sterilities Of He Lowest.

Let Those Who Would Affect Singularity With Success First Determine To Be Very Virtuous, And They Will Be Sure To Be Very Singular.

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

It 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.

So Blinded Are We By Our Passions, That We Suffer More To Be Damned Than To Be Saved.

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

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.

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

Metaphysicians Have Been Learning Their Lessons For The Last Four Thousand Years, And It Is High Time That They Should Now Begin To Teach Us Something. Can Any Of The Tribe Inform Us Why All The Operations Of The Mind Are Carried On With Undiminished Strength And Activity In Dreams, Except The Judgment, Which Alone Is Suspended And Dormant?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

He Who Knows Himself Knows Others.

Self-examination

Man Is An Embodied Paradox, A Bundle Of Contradictions.

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

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.

Time ... Advances Like The Slowest Tide, But Retreats Like The Swiftest Torrent.

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...

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.

Fashions Smile Has Given Wit To Dullness And Grace To Deformity, And Has Brought Everything Into Vogue, By Turns, But Virtue.

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

Immitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery.

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

Most Females Will Forgive A Liberty Rather Than A Slight

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

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

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

Vice Has More Martyrs Than Virtue; And It Often Happens That Men Suffer More To Be Lost Than To Be Saved.

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

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

Make The Most Of The Day, By Determining To Spend It On Two Sorts Of Acquaintances Only--those By Whom Something May Be Got, And Those From Whom Something May Be Learned.

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.

A Man's Profundity May Keep Him From Opening On A First Interview, And His Caution On A Second; But I Should Suspect His Emptiness, If He Carried On His Reserve To A Third.

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.

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.

When We Live Habitually With The Wicked, We Become Necessarily Either Their Victim Or Their Disciple; When We Associate, On The Contrary, With Virtuous Men, We Form Ourselves In Imitation Of Their Virtues, Or, At Least, Lose Every Day Something Of Our Faults.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Sincerely To Aspire After Virtue, Is To Gain Her; And Zealously To Labour After Her Wages, Is To Receive Them.

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

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

An Honest Man Will Continue To Be So Though Surrounded On All Sides By Rogues.

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.

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.

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

Where We Cannot Invent, We May At Least Improve.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

The Seeds Of Repentance Are Sown In Youth By Pleasure, But The Harvest Is Reaped In Age By Pain.

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?

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.

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

Anger Is Practical Awkwardness.

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

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

Custom Looks To Things That Are Past, And Fashion To Things That Are Present, But Both Of Them Are Somewhat Purblind As To Things That Are To Come.

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.

In All Countries Where Nature Does The Most, Man Does The Least.

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

If You Cannot Inspire A Woman With Love Of You, Fill Her Above The Brim With Love Of Herself; All That Runs Over Will Be Yours.

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.

It Is A Mortifying Truth, And Ought To Teach The Wisest Of Us Humility, That Many Of The Most Valuable Discoveries Have Been The Result Of Chance Rather Than Of Contemplation, And Of Accident Rather Than Of Design.

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

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

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.

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

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

Repartee Is Perfect When It Effects Its Purpose With A Double Edge. It Is The Highest Order Of Wit, As It Indicates The Coolest Yet Quickest Exercise Of Genius, At A Moment When The Passions Are Roused.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Modesty Is The Richest Ornament Of A Woman ... The Want Of It Is Her Greatest Deformity.

Gross And Vulgar Minds Will Always Pay A Higher Respect To Wealth Than To Talent; For Wealth, Although It Be A Far Less Efficient Source Of Power Than Talent, Happens To Be Far More Intelligible.

The Further We Advance In Knowledge, The More Simplicity Shall We Discover In Those Primary Rules That Regulate All The Apparently Endless, Complicated, And Multiform Operations Of The Godhead.

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

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

Opinions, Like Showers, Are Generated In High Places, But They Invariably Descend Into Lower Ones, And Ultimately Flow Down To The People As Rain Unto The Sea.

When I Meet With Any Persons Who Write Obscurely Or Converse Confusedly, I Am Apt To Suspect Two Things; First, That Such Persons Do Not Understand Themselves; And Secondly, That They Are Not Worthy Of Being Understood By Others.

Emulation Has Been Termed A Spur To Virtue, And Assumes To Be A Spur Of Gold. But It Is A Spur Composed Of Baser Materials, And If Tried In The Furnace Will Be Found To Want That Fixedness Which Is The Characteristic Of Gold. He That Pursues Virtue, Only To Surpass Others, Is Not Far From Wishing Others Less Forward Than Himself; And He That Rejoices Too Much At His Own Perfections Will Be Too Little Grieved At The Defects Of Other Men.

Pleasure Is To A Woman What The Sun Is To The Flower: If Moderately Enjoyed, It Beautifies, It Refreshes, And It Improves; If Immoderately, It Withers, Deteriorates, And Destroys. But The Duties Of Domestic Life, Exercised As They Must Be In Retirement, And Calling Forth All The Sensibilities Of The Female, Are Perhaps As Necessary To The Full Development Of Her Charms, As The Shade And The Shower Are To The Rose, Confirming Its Beauty, And Increasing Its Fragrance.

Those Who Bequeath Unto Themselves A Pompous Funeral, Are At Just So Much Expense To Inform The World Of Something That Had Much Better Be Concealed; Namely, That Their Vanity Has Survived Themselves.

Pedantry Crams Our Heads With Learned Lumber And Takes Out Our Brains To Make Room For It.

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

If Kings Would Only Determine Not To Extend Their Dominions Until They Had Filled Them With Happiness, They Would Find The Smallest Territories Too Large, But The Longest Life Too Short For The Full Accomplishment Of So Grand And So Noble An Ambition.

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

Style Is Indeed The Valet Of Genius, And An Able One Too; But As The True Gentleman Will Appear, Even In Rags, So True Genius Will Shine, Even Through The Coarsest Style.

Men Are Born With Two Eyes, But With One Tongue, In Order That They Should See Twice As Much As They Say.

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.

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

There Are Male As Well As Female Gossips.

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!

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

There Are Some Who Affect A Want Of Affectation, And Flatter Themselves That They Are Above Flattery; They Are Proud Of Being Thought Extremely Humble, And Would Go Round The World To Punish Those Who Thought Them Capable Of Revenge; They Are So Satisfied Of The Suavity Of Their Own Temper That They Would Quarrel With Their Dearest Benefactor Only For Doubting It.

Peace Is The Evening Star Of The Soul, As Virtue Is Its Sun, And The Two Are Never Far Apart.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Nothing More Completely Baffles One Who Is Full Of Trick And Duplicity Than Straigthforward And Simple Integrity In Another. A Knave Would Rather Quarrel With A Brother Knave Than With A Fool, But He Would Rather Avoid A Quarrel With One Honest Man Than With Both. He Can Combat A Fool By Management And Address, And He Can Conquer A Knave By Temptations. But The Honest Man Is Neither To Be Bamboozled Nor Bribed.

The Greatest Genius Is Never So Great As When It Is Chastised And Subdued By The Highest Reason.

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

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.

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

It Is With Antiquity As With Ancestry, Nations Are Proud Of The One, And Individuals Of The Other; But If They Are Nothing In Themselves, That Which Is Their Pride Ought To Be Their Humiliation.

Revenge Is A Much More Punctual Paymaster Than Gratitude

Hypocrites Act By Virtue.... They Frame Many Counterfeits Of Her, With Which They Make An Ostentatious Parade, In All Public Assemblies, And Processions; But The Original Of What They Counterfeit, And Which May Indeed Be Said To Have Fallen From Heaven, They Produce So Seldom, That It Is Cankered By The Rust Of Sloth, And Useless From Non-application.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Some Men Who Know That They Are Great Are So Very Haughty Withal And Insufferable That Their Acquaintance Discover Their Greatness Only By The Tax Of Humility Which They Are Obliged To Pay As The Price Of Their Friendship.

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

No Two Things Differ More Than Hurry And Despatch. Hurry Is The Mark Of A Weak Mind; Despatch Of A Strong One.

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

Ambition Makes The Same Mistake Concerning Power That Avarice Makes Concerning Wealth. She Begins By Accumulating Power As A Means To Happiness, And She Finishes By Continuing To Accumulate It As An End.

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

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

Envy Is The Coward Side Of Hate, And All Her Ways Are Bleak And Desolate.

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

Hannibal Knew Better How To Conquer Than How To Profit By The Conquest; And Napoleon Was More Skilful In Taking Positions Than In Maintaining Them. As To Reverses, No General Cart Presume To Say That He May Not Be Defeated; But He Can, And Ought To Say, That He Will Not Be Surprised.

Doubt Is The Vestibule Of Faith.

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