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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.

-Charles Caleb Colton

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Nothing More Completely Baffles

Charles Caleb Colton

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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.

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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.

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

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

Secrecy Is The Soul Of All Great Designs.

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.

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

No Man Can Promise Himself Even Fifty Years Of Life, But Any Man May, If He Please, Live In The Proportion Of Fifty Years In Forty-let Him Rise Early, That He May Have The Day Before Him, And Let Him Make The Most Of The Day, By Determining To Expend It On Two Sorts Of Acquaintance Only-those By Whom Something May Be Got, And Those From Whom Something Maybe Learned.

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.

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

A House May Draw Visitors, But It Is The Possessor Alone That Can Detain Them.

It Is Not Until We Have Passed Through The Furnace That We Are Made To Know How Much Dross There Is In Our Composition.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

A Lady Of Fashion Will Sooner Excuse A Freedom Flowing From Admiration Than A Slight Resulting From Indifference.

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.

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.

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.

Love Is An Alchemist That Can Transmute Poison Into Food--and A Spaniel, That Prefers Even Punishment From One Hand To Caresses From Another. But It Is In Love As In War, We Are Often More Indebted For Our Success To The Weakness Of The Defence Than To The Energy Of The Attack; For Mere Idleness Has Ruined More Women Than Passion; Vanity More Than Idleness, And Credulity More Than Either.

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

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

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.

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

The Study Of Mathematics, Like The Nile, Begins In Minuteness But Ends In Magnificence.

The Most Ridiculous Of All Animals Is A Proud Priest; He Cannot Use His Own Tools Without Cutting His Own Fingers.

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.

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

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

Our Incomes Should Be Like Our Shoes, If Too Small, They Will Gall And Pinch Us, But If Too Large, They Will Cause Us To Stumble And To Trip. Wealth, After All, Is A Relative Thing, Since He That Has Little And Wants Less Is Richer Than He That Has Much But Wants More. True Contentment Depends Not Upon What We Have; A Tub Was Large Enough For Diogenes, But A World Was Too Little For Alexander.

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.

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

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

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

When The Frustration Of My Helplessness Seemed Greatest, I Discovered God's Grace Was More Than Sufficient. And After My Imprisonment, I Could Look Back And See How God Used My Powerlessness For His Purpose. What He Has Chosen For My Most Significant Witness Was Not My Triumphs Or Victories, But My Defeat.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

It May Be Observed Of Good Writing, As Of Good Blood, That It Is Much Easier To Say What It Is Composed Of Than To Compose It.

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.

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.

Self-love, In A Well-regulated Breast, Is As The Steward Of The Household, Superintending The Expenditure, And Seeing That Benevolence Herself Should Be Prudential, In Order To Be Permanent, By Providing That The Reservoir Which Feeds Should Also Be Fed.

Some Indeed There Are Who Profess To Despise All Flattery, But Even These Are Nevertheless To Be Flattered, By Being Told That They Do Despise It.

Constant Success Shows Us But One Side Of The World; Adversity Brings Out The Reverse Of The Picture.

Congratulations

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

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

Of All The Passions, Jealousy Is That Which Exacts The Hardest Service, And Pays The Bitterest Wages. Its Service Is To Watch The Success Of One's Enemy; Its Wages To Be Sure Of It.

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

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

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

Most Of Our Misfortunes Are More Supportable Than The Comments Of Our Friends Upon Them.

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

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

The Sceptic, When He Plunges Into The Depths Of Infidelity, Like The Miser Who Leaps From The Shipwreck, Will Find That The Treasures Which He Bears About Him Will Only Sink Him Deeper In The Abyss.

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.

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

Bigotry Murders Religion To Frighten Fools With Her Ghost.

Religious Bigotry

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

Oppression Cannot Prosper Where None Will Submit To Be Enslaved.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

The Learned Languages Are Indispensable To Form The Gentleman And The Scholar, And Are Well Worth All The Labor That They Have Cost Us, Provided They Are Valued Not For Themselves Alone, Which Would Make A Pedant, But As A Foundation For Further Acquirements.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Love, Like The Cold Bath, Is Never Negative, It Seldom Leaves Us Where It Finds Us; If Once We Plunge Into It, It Will Either Heighten Our Virtues, Or Inflame Our Vices.

Doubt Is The Vestibule Of Faith.

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.

It Was Served Of The Jesuits, That They Constantly Inculcated A Thorough Contempt Of Worldly Things In Their Doctrines, But Eagerly Grasped At Them In Their Lives. They Were Wise In Their Generation; For They Cried Down Worldly Things Because They Wanted To Obtain Them, And Cried Up Spiritual Things, Because They Wanted To Dispose Of Them.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 Temple Of Truth Is Built Indeed Of Stones Of Crystal, But, Inasmuch As Men Have Been Concerned In Rearing It, It Has Been Consolidated By A Cement Composed Of Baser Materials.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

Man Is An Embodied Paradox, A Bundle Of Contradictions.

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

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

If Satan Ever Laughs, It Must Be At Hypocrites; They Are The Greatest Dupes He Has.

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

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

To 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.

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.

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

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

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.

The Truly Great Consider, First, How They May Gain The Approbation Of God, And, Secondly, That Of Their Own Conscience. Having Done This, They Would Then Willingly Conciliate The Good Opinion Of Their Fellow-men. But The Truly Little Reverse The Thing. The Primary Object With Them Is To Secure The Applause Of Their Fellow-men; And Having Effected This, The Approbation Of God And Their Own Conscience May Follow On As They Can.

Vanity Finds In Self-love So Powerful An Ally That It Storms, As It Were, By A Coup De Main,, The Citadel Of Our Heads, Where, Having Blinded The Two Watchmen, It Readily Descends Into The Heart.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

There Are Many That Despise Half The World; But If There Be Any That Despise The Whole Of It, It Is Because The Other Half Despises Them.

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

Justice To My Readers Compels Me To Admit That I Write Because I Have Nothing To Do; Justice To Myself Induces Me To Add That I Will Cease To Write The Moment I Have Nothing To Say.

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

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

Hope Is A Prodigal Young Heir, And Experience Is His Banker; But His Drafts Are Seldom Honoured, Since There Is Often A Heavy Balance Against Him, Because He Draws Largely On A Small Capital, Is Not Yet In Possession, And If He Were, Would Die.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Living Authors, Therefore, Are Usually, Bad Companions. If They Have Not Gained Character, They Seek To Do So By Methods Often Ridiculous, Always Disgusting; And If They Have Established A Character, They Are Silent For Fear Of Losing By Their Tongue What They Have Acquired By Their Pen--for Many Authors Converse Much More Foolishly Than Goldsmith, Who Have Never Written Half So Well.

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

The Man Of Pleasure, By A Vain Attempt To Be More Happy Than Any Man Can Be, Is Often More Miserable Than Most Men Are.

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

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

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!

A Wise Minister Would Rather Preserve Peace Than Gain A Victory, Because He Knows That Even The Most Successful War Leaves Nations Generally More Poor, Always More Profligate, Than It Found Them.

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

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.

Never Join With Your Friend When He Abuses His Horse Or His Wife, Unless The One Is About To Be Sold, The Other To Be Buried.

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

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.

Silence Is Less Injurious Than A Weak Reply.

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

As We Ascend In Society, Like Those Who Climb A Mountain, We Shall Find That The Line Of Perpetual Congelation Commences With The Higher Circles; And The Nearer We Approach To The Grand Luminary The Court, The More Frigidity And Apathy Shall We Experience.

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.

Where We Cannot Invent, We May At Least Improve.

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

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

No Two Things Differ More Than Hurry And Dispatch. Hurry Is The Mark Of A Weak Mind, Dispatch Of A Strong One. A Weak Man In Office, Like A Squirrel In A Cage, Is Laboring Eternally, But To No Purpose, And Is In Constant Motion Without Getting On A Job; Like A Turnstile, He Is In Everybody's Way, But Stops Nobody; He Talks A Great Deal, But Says Very Little; Looks Into Everything But Sees Nothing; And Has A Hundred Irons In The Fire, But Very Few Of Them Are Hot, And With Those Few That Are, He Only Burns His Fingers.

We Hate Some Persons Because We Do Not Know Them; And Will Not Know Them Because We Hate Them.

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

Riches May Enable Us To Confer Favors, But To Confer Them With Propriety And Grace Requires A Something That Riches Cannot Give.

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

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.

Most Men Know What They Hate, Few What They Love.

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.

Hurry Is The Mark Of A Weak Mind, Dispatch Of A Strong One.

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

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.

Of All The Faculties Of The Mind, Memory Is The First That Flourishes, And The First That Dies.

Those Graces Which From Their Presumed Facility Encourage All To Attempt An Imitation Of Them, Are Usually The Most Inimitable.

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.

Religion Has Treated Knowledge Sometimes As An Enemy, Sometimes As A Hostage; Often As A Captive And More Often As A Child; But Knowledge Has Become Of Age, And Religion Must Either Renounce Her Acquaintance, Or Introduce Her As A Companion And Respect Her As A Friend.

It Is Adverse To Talent To Be Consorted And Trained Up With Inferior Minds And Inferior Companions, However High They May Rank. The Foal Of The Racer Neither Finds Out His Speed Nor Calls Out His Powers If Pastured Out With The Common Herd, That Are Destined For The Collar And The Yoke.

Falsehood, Like A Drawing In Perspective, Will Not Bear To Be Examined In Every Point Of View, Because It Is A Good Imitation Of Truth, As A Perspective Is Of The Reality, Only In One. But Truth, Like That Reality Of Which The Perspective Is The Representation, Will Bear To Be Scrutinized In All Points Of View, And Though Examined Under Every Situation, Is One And The Same.

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

Those Who Have Finished By Making All Others Think With Them, Have Usually Been Those Who Began By Daring To Think With Themselves.

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.

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.

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

Nobility Of Birth Does Not Always Insure A Corresponding Unity Of Mind; If It Did, It Would Always Act As A Stimulus To Noble Actions; But It Sometimes Acts As A Clog Rather Than A Spur.

A Public Debt Is A Kind Of Anchor In The Storm; But If The Anchor Be Too Heavy For The Vessel, She Will Be Sunk By That Very Weight Which Was Intended For Her Preservation.

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

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.

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.

Power Will Intoxicate The Best Hearts, As Wine The Strongest Heads. No Man Is Wise Enough, Nor Good Enough To Be Trusted With Unlimited Power.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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