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Of Present Fame Think Little, And Of Future Less; The Praises That We Receive After We Are Buried, Like The Flowers That Are Strewed Over Our Grave, May Be Gratifying To The Living, But They Are Nothing To The Dead.

-Charles Caleb Colton

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Of Present Fame Think

Charles Caleb Colton

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Of Present Fame Think Little, And Of Future Less; The Praises That We Receive After We Are Buried, Like The Flowers That Are Strewed Over Our Grave, May Be Gratifying To The Living, But They Are Nothing To The Dead.

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It Is Not Every Man That Can Afford To Wear A Shabby Coat.

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.

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.

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.

The Greatest And Most Amiable Privilege Which The Rich Enjoy Over The Poor Is That Which They Exercise The Least--the Privilege Of Making Others Happy.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

There Can Be No Christianity Where There Is No Charity

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

He [the Miser] Falls Down And Worships The God Of This World, But Will Have Neither Its Pomps, Its Vanities Nor Its Pleasures For His Trouble.

The Present Time Has One Advantage Over Every Other -- It Is Our Own.

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.

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?

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.

A Cool Blooded And Crafty Politician, When He Would Be Thoroughly Revenged On His Enemy, Makes The Injuries Which Have Been Inflicted, Not On Himself, But On Others, The Pretext Of His Attack. He Thus Engages The World As A Partisan In His Quarrel, And Dignifies His Private Hate, By Giving It The Air Of Disinterested Resentment.

Suicide Sometimes Proceeds From Cowardice, But Not Always; For Cowardice Sometimes Prevents It; Since As Many Live Because They Are Afraid To Die, As Die Because They Are Afraid To Live.

It Is A Common Observation That Any Fool Can Get Money; But They Are Not Wise That Think So.

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

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.

That Theatrical Kind Of Virtue, Which Requires Publicity For Its Stage, And An Applauding World For Its Audience, Could Not Be Depended On, In The Secrecy Of Solitude, Or The Retirement Of A Desert.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

It Is A Mistake, That A Lust For Power Is The Mark Of A Great Mind; For Even The Weakest Have Been Captivated By It; And For Minds Of The Highest Order, It Has No Charms.

No Improvement That Takes Place In Either Sex Can Possibly Be Confined To Itself. Each Is A Universal Mirror To Each, And The Respective Refinement Of The One Will Always Be In Reciprocal Proportion To The Polish Of The Other.

Wealth Is A Relative Thing Since Those Who Have Little And Want Less Are Richer Than Those Who Have Much But Want More.

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

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.

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.

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.

Instead Of Exhibiting Talent In The Hope That The World Would Forgive Their Eccentricities, They Have Exhibited Only Their Eccentricities, In The Hope That The World Would Give Them Credit For Talent.

If Once A Woman Breaks Through The Barriers Of Decency, Her Ease Is Desperate; And If She Goes Greater Lengths Than The Men, And Leaves The Pale Of Propriety Farther Behind Her, It Is Because She Is Aware That All Return Is Prohibited, And By None So Strongly As By Her Own Sex.

We Are Sure To Be Losers When We Quarrel With Ourselves; It Is Civil War.

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.

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!

He That Can Please Nobody Is Not So Much To Be Pitied As He That Nobody Can Please.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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 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.

There Is An Elasticity In The Human Mind, Capable Of Bearing Much, But Which Will Not Show Itself, Until A Certain Weight Of Affliction Be Put Upon It; Its Powers May Be Compared To Those Vehicles Whose Springs Are So Contrived That They Get On Smoothly Enough When Loaded, But Jolt Confoundedly When They Have Nothing To Bear.

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

The Masses Procure Their Opinions Ready Made In Open Market.

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

Faith And Works Are Necessary To Our Spiritual Life As Christians, As Soul And Body Are To Our Natural Life As Men; For Faith Is The Soul Of Religion, And Works The Body.

There Is Nothing More Imprudent Than Excessive Prudence.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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?

Where We Cannot Invent, We May At Least Improve.

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.

Pride Requires Very Costly Food-its Keeper's Happiness.

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.

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

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

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

It Is Far Better To Borrow Experience Than To Buy It.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Genius, In One Respect, Is Like Gold; Numbers Of Persons Are Constantly Writing About Both, Who Have Neither.

Theories Are Private Property, But Truth Is Common Stock.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

He That Is Gone So Far As To Cut The Claws Of The Lion, Will Not Feel Himself Quite Secure, Until He Has Also Drawn His Teeth.

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

There Is A Holy Love And A Holy Rage, And Our Best Virtues Never Glow So Brightly As When Our Passions Are Excited In The Cause. Sloth, If It Has Prevented Many Crimes, Has Also Smothered Many Virtues; And The Best Of Us Are Better When Roused.

It Is More Easy To Forgive The Weak Who Have Injured Us Than The Powerful Whom We Have Injured.

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.

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

No Company Is Preferable To Bad. We Are More Apt To Catch The Vices Of Others Than Virtues, As Disease Is Far More Contagious Than Health.

Despotism Can No More Exist In A Nation Until The Liberty Of The Press Be Destroyed Than The Night Can Happen Before The Sun Is Set.

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.

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.

Great Minds Had Rather Deserve Contemporaneous Applause Without Obtaining It, Than Obtain Without Deserving It. If It Follow Them It Is Well, But They Will Not Deviate To Follow It.

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

Pride, Like The Magnet, Constantly Points To One Object, Self; But, Unlike The Magnet, It Has No Attractive Pole, But At All Points Repels.

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

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.

Light, Whether It Be Material Or Moral, Is The Best Reformer; For It Prevents Those Disorders Which Other Remedies Sometimes Cure, But Sometimes Confirm.

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.

By Privileges, Immunities, Or Prerogatives To Give Unlimited Swing To The Passions Of Individuals, And Then To Hope That They Will Restrain Them, Is About As Reasonable As To Expect That The Tiger Will Spare The Hart To Browse Upon The Herbage.

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

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

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.

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.

It Is Not Every Man That Can Afford To Wear A Shabby Coat; And Worldly Wisdom Dictates To Her Disciples The Propriety Of Dressing Somewhat Beyond Their Means, But Of Living Somewhat Within Them,--for Every One, Sees How We Dress, But None See How We Live, Except We Choose To Let Them. But The Truly Great Are, By Universal Suffrage, Exempted From These Trammels, An May Live Or Dress As They Please.

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.

He That Swells In Prosperity Will Be Sure To Shrink In Adversity.

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

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

Wit May Do Very Well For A Mistress, But [i] Should Prefer Reason For A Wife.

With The Offspring Of Genius, The Law Of Parturition Is Reversed; The Throes Are In The Conception, The Pleasure In The Birth.

Error, When She Retraces Her Steps, Has Farther To Go Before She Can Arrive At Truth Than Ignorance.

As The Rays Of The Sun, Notwithstanding Their Velocity, Injure Not The Eye, By Reason Of Their Minuteness, So The Attacks Of Envy, Notwithstanding Their Number, Ought Not To Wound Our Virtue By Reason Of Their Insignificance.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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

Man Is An Embodied Paradox, A Bundle Of Contradictions.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Some Reputed Saints That Have Been Canonized Ought To Have Been Cannonaded.

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

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.

True Friendship Is Like Sound Health; The Value Of It Is Seldom Known Until It Is Lost.

Deformity Of The Heart I Call The Worst Deformity Of All; For What Is Form, Or What Is Face, But The Soul's Index, Or Its Case?

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

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.

The Victim To Too Severe A Law Is Considered As A Martyr Rather Than A Criminal.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

The Blindness Of Bigotry, The Madness Of Ambition, And The Miscalculations Of Diplomacy Seek Their Victims Principally Amongst The Innocent And The Unoffending. The Cottage Is Sure To Suffer For Every Error Of The Court, The Cabinet, Or The Camp. When Error Sits In The Seat Of Power And Of Authority, And Is Generated In High Places, It May Be Compared To That Torrent Which Originates Indeed In The Mountain, But Commits Its Devastation In The Vale.

Some Authors Write Nonsense In A Clear Style, And Others Sense In An Obscure One; Some Can Reason Without Being Able To Persuade, Others Can Persuade Without Being Able To Reason; Some Dive So Deep That They Descend Into Darkness, And Others Soar So High That They Give Us No Light; And Some, In A Vain Attempt To Be Cutting And Dry, Give Us Only That Which Is Cut And Dried. We Should Labor, Therefore, To Treat With Ease Of Things That Are Difficult; With Familiarity, Of Things That Are Novel; And With Perspicuity, Of Things That Are Profound.

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.

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.

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

Some Persons Will Tell You, With An Air Of The Miraculous, That They Recovered Although They Were Given Over; Whereas They Might With More Reason Have Said, They Recovered Because They Were Given Over.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Some Frauds Succeed From The Apparent Candor, The Open Confidence, And The Full Blaze Of Ingenuousness That Is Thrown Around Them. The Slightest Mystery Would Excite Suspicion And Ruin All. Such Stratagems May Be Compared To The Stars; They Are Discoverable By Darkness And Hidden Only By Light.

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

To Be Continually Subject To The Breath Of Slander, Will Tarnish The Purest Virtue, As A Constant Exposure To The Atmosphere Will Obscure The Brightness Of The Finest Gold; But In Either Case, The Real Value Of Both Continues The Same, Although The Currency May Be Somewhat Impeded.

We Make A Goddess Of Fortune ... And Place Her In The Highest Heaven. But It Is Not Fortune That Is Exalted And Powerful, But We Ourselves That Are Abject And Weak.

That Which We Acquire With The Most Difficulty We Retain The Longest; As Those Who Have Earned A Fortune Are Usually More Careful Of It Than Those Who Have Inherited One.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Doubt Is The Vestibule Of Faith.

A Hug Is Worth A Thousand Words.

Much Too Oft We Make Life Gloomy-- When Happy We Might Be, If We Gathered More Of Sunshine, And Not Dark Shadows See.

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.

Brutes Leave Ingratitude To Man.

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.

Moderation Is The Inseparable Companion Of Wisdom, But With It Genius Has Not Even A Nodding Acquaintance.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

The Acquirements Of Science May Be Termed The Armour Of The Mind; But That Armour Would Be Worse Than Useless, That Cost Us All We Had, And Left Us Nothing To Defend.

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.

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

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.

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

Revenge Is A Much More Punctual Paymaster Than Gratitude

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

There Is No Quality Of The Mind, Or Of The Body, That So Instantaneously And Irresistibly Captivates, As Wit. An Elegant Writer Has Observed That Wit May Do Very Well For A Mistress, But That He Should Prefer Reason For A Wife. He That Deserts The Latter, And Gives Himself Up Entirely To The Guidance Of The Former, Will Certainly Fall Into Many Pitfalls And Quagmires, Like Him Who Walks By Flashes Of Lightning, Rather Than The Steady Beams Of The Sun.

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

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.

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.

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

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