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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.

-Charles Caleb Colton

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No Men Deserve The

Charles Caleb Colton

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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.

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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.

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

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

We Ask Advice But We Mean Approbation.

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.

Flattery Is Often A Traffic Of Mutual Meanness, Where Although Both Parties Intend Deception, Neither Are Deceived.

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 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.

There Is Nothing More Imprudent Than Excessive Prudence.

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

Lord Bacon Has Compared Those Who Move In Higher Spheres To Those Heavenly Bodies In The Firmament, Which Have Much Admiration, But Little Rest. And It Is Not Necessary To Invest A Wise Man With Power To Convince Him That It Is A Garment Bedizened With Gold, Which Dazzles The Beholder By Its Splendor, But Oppresses The Wearer By Its Weight.

To Diminish Envy, Let Us Consider Not What Others Possess, But What They Enjoy; Mere Riches May Be The Gift Of Lucky Accident Or Blind Chance, But Happiness Must Be The Result Of Prudent Preference And Rational Design; The Highest Happiness Then Can Have No Other Foundation Than The Deepest Wisdom; And The Happiest Fool Is Only As Happy As He Knows How To Be.

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

None Of Us Are So Much Praised Or Censured As We Think.

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.

Mystery Magnifies Danger As The Fog The Sun.

Ennui Has Made More Gamblers Than Avarice.

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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. To Acquire It, Appears Not More Difficult Than To Be Dispossessed Of It When Acquired, Since It Enables The Holder To Shift His Own Errors On Dependents, And To Take Their Merits To Himself. But The Miracle Of Losing It Vanishes, When We Reflect That We Are As Liable To Fall As To Rise, By The Treachery Of Others; And That To Say "i Am" Is Language That Has Been Appropriated Exclusively To God!

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.

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.

Any One Can Give Advice, Such As It Is, But Only A Wise Man Knows How To Profit By It.

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

All Preceptors Should Have That Kind Of Genius Described By Tacitus, "equal To Their Business, But Not Above It;" A Patient Industry, With Competent Erudition; A Mind Depending More On Its Correctness Than Its Originality, And On Its Memory Rather Than On Its Invention.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

He That Gives A Portion Of His Time And Talent To The Investigation Of Mathematical Truth, Will Come To All Other Questions With A Decided Advantage Over His Opponents.

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.

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

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.

There Are Three Modes Of Bearing The Ills Of Life; By Indifference, Which Is The Most Common; By Philosophy, Which Is The Most Ostentatious; And By Religion, Which Is The Most Effectual.

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

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.

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

The Cynic Who Twitted Aristippus By Observing That The Philosopher Who Could Dine On Herbs Might Despise The Company Of A King, Was Well Replied To By Aristippus, When He Remarked That The Philosopher Who Could Enjoy The Company Or A King Might Also Despise A Dinner Of Herbs.

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.

Those Who Worship Gold In A World So Corrupt As This We Live In Have At Least One Thing To Plead In Defense Of Their Idolatry--the Power Of Their Idol. It Is True That, Like Other Idols, It Can Neither Move, See, Hear, Feel, Nor Understand; But, Unlike Other Idols, It Has Often Communicated All These Powers To Those Who Had Them Not, And Annihilated Them In Those Who Had. This Idol Can Boast Of Two Peculiarities; It Is Worshipped In All Climates, Without A Single Temple, And By All Classes, Without A Single Hypocrite.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Wealth After All Is A Relative Thing Since He That Has Little And Wants Less Is Richer Than He That Has Much And Wants More.

Greatest Wealth

The Road To Glory Would Cease To Be Arduous If It Were Trite And Trodden; And Great Minds Must Be Ready Not Only To Take Opportunities But To Make Them.

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

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

Pure Truth, Like Pure Gold, Has Been Found Unfit For Circulation Because Men Have Discovered That It Is Far More Convenient To Adulterate The Truth Than To Refine Themselves.

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

Secrecy Of Design, When Combined With Rapidity Of Execution, Like Me Column That Guided Israel In The Deserts, Becomes The Guardian Pillar Of Light And Fire To Our Friends, A Cloud Of Overwhelming And Impenetrable Darkness To Our Enemies.

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

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

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.

Religion, Like Its Votaries, While It Exists On Earth, Must Have A Body As Well As A Soul. A Religion Purely Spiritual Might Suit A Being As Pure, But Men Are Compound Animals; And The Body Too Often Lords It Over The Mind.

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

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

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.

Love May Exist Without Jealousy, Although This Is Rare: But Jealousy May Exist Without Love, And This Is Common; For Jealousy Can Feed On That Which Is Bitter No Less Than On That Which Is Sweet, And Is Sustained By Pride As Often As By Affection.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Fame Is An Undertaker That Pays But Little Attention To The Living, But Bedizens The Dead, Furnishes Out Their Funerals, And Follows Them To The Grave

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.

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

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.

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

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

Adroit Observers Will Find That Some Who Affect To Dislike Flattery, May Yet Be Flattered Indirectly, By A Well Seasoned Abuse And Ridicule Of Their Rivals.

Time, The Cradle Of Hope.... Wisdom Walks Before It, Opportunity With It, And Repentance Behind It: He That Has Made It His Friend Will Have Little To Fear From His Enemies, But He That Has Made It His Enemy Will Have Little To Hope From His Friends.

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

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

Philosophers Have Widely Differed As To The Seat Of The Soul, And St. Paul Has Told Us That Out Of The Heart Proceed Murmurings; But There Can Be No Doubt That The Seat Of Perfect Contentment Is In The Head, For Every Individual Is Thoroughly Satisfied With His Own Proportion Of Brains.

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

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

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?

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.

Patience Is The Support Of Weakness; Impatience The Ruin Of Strength.

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

In Science, Reason Is The Guide; In Poetry, Taste. The Object Of The One Is Truth, Which Is Uniform And Indivisible; The Object Of The Other Is Beauty, Which Is Multiform And Varied.

Men's Arguments Often Prove Nothing But Their Wishes.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

He Who Knows Himself Knows Others.

Self-examination

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

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.

I Have Found By Experience That They Who Have Spent All Their Lives In Cities, Improve Their Talents But Impair Their Virtues; And Strengthen Their Minds But Weaken Their Morals.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Duke Chartres Used To Boast That No Man Could Have Less Real Value For Character Than Himself, Yet He Would Gladly Give Twenty Thousand Pounds For A Good One, Because He Could Immediately Make Double That Sum By Means Of It.

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.

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.

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

Eloquence Is The Language Of Nature, And Cannot Be Learned In The Schools; But Rhetoric Is The Creature Of Art, Which He Who Feels Least Will Most Excel In.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

There Are Truths Which Some Men Despise Because They Have Not Examined, And Which They Will Not Examine Because They Despise. There Is One Signal Instance On Record Where This Kind Of Prejudice Was Overcome By A Miracle; But The Age Of Miracles Is Past, While That Of Prejudice Remains.

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

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

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

The Soundest Argument Will Produce No More Conviction In An Empty Head Than The Most Superficial Declamation; As A Feather And A Guinea Fall With Equal Velocity In A Vacuum.

A Hug Is Worth A Thousand Words.

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

The Brightest Thunder-bolt Is Elicited From The Darkest Storm.

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.

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.

He That Abuses His Own Profession Will Not Patiently Bear With Any One Else Who Does So. And This Is One Of Our Most Subtle Operations Of Self-love. For When We Abuse Our Own Profession, We Tacitly Except Ourselves; But When Another Abuses It, We Are Far From Being Certain That This Is The Case.

Secrecy Is The Soul Of All Great Designs. Perhaps More Has Been Effected By Concealing Our Own Intentions Than By Discovering Those Of Our Enemy.

There Is One Passage In The Scriptures To Which All The Potentates Of Europe Seem To Have Given Their Unanimous Assent And Approbation...."there Went Out A Decree In The Days Of Caesar Augustus, That All The World Should Be Taxed."

Gaming Is The Child Of Avarice, But The Parent Of Prodigality.

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

If All Seconds Were As Averse To Duels As Their Principals, Very Little Blood Would Be Shed In That Way.

Secrecy Is The Soul Of All Great Designs.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Happiness ... Leads None Of Us By The Same Route.

It Is Not So Difficult A Task As To Plant New Truths, As To Root Out Old Errors

Many A Man May Thank His Talent For His Rank, But No Man Has Ever Been Able To Return The Compliment By Thanking His Rank For His Talent.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

The Poorest Man Would Not Part With Health For Money, But The Richest Would Gladly Part With All Their Money For Health.

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

If A Cause Be Good, The Most Violent Attack Of Its Enemies Will Not Injure It So Much As An Injudicious Defence Of It By Its Friends.

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.

Physical Courage, Which Despises All Danger, Will Make A Man Brave In One Way; And Moral Courage, Which Despises All Opinion, Will Make A Man Brave In 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.

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.

Perfection Doesn't Exist... Only Good Attempts.

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

Man Is An Embodied Paradox, A Bundle Of Contradictions.

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.

No Propagation Or Multiplication Is More Rapid That That Of Evil, Unless It Be Checked; No Growth More Certain.

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.

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

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.

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

It Is Easier To Pretend To Be What You Are Not Than To Hide What You Really Are; But He That Can Accomplish Both Has Little To Learn In Hypocrisy.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Habit Will Reconcile Us To Everything But Change

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.

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