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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.

-Charles Caleb Colton

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Some Persons Will Tell

Charles Caleb Colton

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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.

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

Gold 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.

That Author, However, Who Has Thought More Than He Has Read, Read More Than He Has Written, And Written More Than He Has Published, If He Does Not Command Success, Has At Least Deserved It.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

We Should Have A Glorious Conflagration, If All Who Cannot Put Fire Into Their Works Would Only Consent To Put Their Works Into The Fire.

Imitation Is The Sincerest Of Flattery.

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.

A Youth Without Fire Is Followed By An Old Age Without Experience.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 Male As Well As Female Gossips.

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

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.

Men Spend Their Lives In Anticipations,—in Determining To Be Vastly Happy At Some Period When They Have Time. But The Present Time Has One Advantage Over Every Other—it Is Our Own. Past Opportunities Are Gone, Future Have Not Come. We May Lay In A Stock Of Pleasures, As We Would Lay In A Stock Of Wine; But If We Defer The Tasting Of Them Too Long, We Shall Find That Both Are Soured By Age.

He That Openly Tells, His Friends All That He Thinks Of Them, Must Expect That They Will Secretly Tell His Enemies Much That They Do Not Think Of Him.

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.

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.

War Is A Game In Which Princes Seldom Win, The People Never.

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

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.

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.

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

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

To Know A Man, Observe How He Wins His Object, Rather Than How He Loses It; For When We Fail, Our Pride Supports Us - When We Succeed, It Betrays Us.

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

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?

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

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.

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.

In Civil Jurisprudence It Too Often Happens That There Is So Much Law, That There Is No Room For Justice, And That The Claimant Expires Of Wrong In The Midst Of Right, As Mariners Die Of Thirst In The Midst Of Water.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Mystery Magnifies Danger As The Fog The Sun.

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

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

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

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.

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.

For One Man Who Sincerely Pities Our Misfortunes, There Are A Thousand Who Sincerely Hate Our Success.

Bigotry Murders Religion To Frighten Fools With Her Ghost.

Religious Bigotry

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.

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.

Sleep, The Type Of Death, Is Also, Like That Which It Typifies, Restricted To The Earth. It Flies From Hell And Is Excluded From Heaven.

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

Many Books Require No Thought From Those Who Read Them, And For A Very Simple Reason; They Made No Such Demand Upon Those Who Wrote Them.

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

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

Tyrants Have Not Yet Discovered Any Chains That Can Fetter The Mind.

In Most Quarrels There Is A Fault On Both Sides. A Quarrel May Be Compared To A Spark, Which Cannot Be Produced Without A Flint, As Well As Steel. Either Of Them May Hammer On Wood Forever; No Fire Will Follow.

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

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.

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.

There Is No Cruelty So Inexorable And Unrelenting As That Which Proceeds From A Bigoted And Presumptuous Supposition Of Doing Service To God. The Victim Of The Fanatical Persecutor Will Find That The Stronger The Motives He Can Urge For Mercy Are, The Weaker Will Be His Chance For Obtaining It, For The Merit Of His Destruction Will Be Supposed To Rise In Value In Proportion As It Is Effected At The Expense Of Every Feeling Both Of Justice And Of Humanity.

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.

Pity A Thing Often Avowed, Seldom Felt; Hatred Is A Thing Often Felt, Seldom Avowed.

There Is This Difference Between Happiness And Wisdom; He That Thinks Himself The Happiest Man, Really Is So; But He That Thinks Himself The Wisest, Is Generally The Greatest Fool.

There Are Three Difficulties In Authorship;-to Write Any Thing Worth The Publishing-to Find Honest Men To Publish It -and To Get Sensible Men To Read It. Literature Has Now Become A Game; In Which The Booksellers Are The Kings; The Critics The Knaves; The Public, The Pack; And The Poor Author, The Mere Table, Or The Thing Played Upon.

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

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.

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

Kings And Their Subjects, Masters And Slaves, Find A Common Level In Two Places - At The Foot Of The Cross, And In The Grave.

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.

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

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

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.

Falsehood Is Never So Successful As When She Baits Her Hook With Truth, And No Opinions So Fatally Mislead Us As Those That Are Not Wholly Wrong, As No Watches So Effectively Deceive The Wearer As Those That Are Sometimes Right.

A Thorough-paced Antiquary Not Only Remembers What All Other People Have Thought Proper To Forget, But He Also Forgets What All Other People Think Is Proper To Remember.

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

Few Things Are More Agreeable To Self-love Than Revenge, And Yet No Cause So Effectually Restrains Us From Revenge As Self-love. And This Paradox Naturally Suggests Another; That The Strength Of The Community Is Not Unfrequently Built Upon The Weakness Of Those Individuals That Compose It.

There Are Two Way Of Establishing A Reputation, One To Be Praised By Honest People And The Other To Be Accused By Rogues. It Is Best, However, To Secure The First One, Because It Will Always Be Accompanied By The Latter.

Custom Is The Law Of One Description Of Fools, And Fashion Of Another; But The Two Parties Often Clash--for Precedent Is The Legislator Of The First, And Novelty Of The Last. Custom, Therefore, Looks To Things That Are Past, And Fashion To Things That Are Present.

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.

Books, Like Friends, Should Be Few And Well Chosen. Like Friends, Too, We Should Return To Them Again And Again For, Like True Friends, They Will Never Fail Us - Never Cease To Instruct - Never Cloy.

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.

Men's Arguments Often Prove Nothing But Their Wishes.

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.

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

Where Thou Perceivest Knowledge, Bend The Ear Of Attention And Respect; But Yield Not Further To The Teaching, Than As Thy Mind Is Warranted By Reasons. Better Is An Obstinant Disputant, That Yieldeth Inch By Inch, Than The Shallow Traitor To Himself, Who Surrendereth To Half An Argument.

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.

Most Importantly: Don't Adjust Your Results To Build Up The Ego Of The Chief Strategist. Especially If The Strategist Is You.

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 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.

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.

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.

Avarice Begets More Vices Than Priam Did Children And Like Priam Survives Them All. It Starves Its Keeper To Surfeit Those Who Wish Him Dead, And Makes Him Submit To More Mortifications To Lose Heaven Than The Martyr Undergoes To Gain It.

Too High An Appreciation Of Our Own Talents Is The Chief Cause Why Experience Preaches To Us All In Vain.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

The Mob Is A Monster, With The Hands Of Briareus, But The Head Of Polyphemus,--strong To Execute, But Blind To Perceive.

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

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.

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

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

Habit Will Reconcile Us To Everything But Change

The Worst Thing That Can Be Said Of The Most Powerful Is That They Can Take Your Life; But The Same Can Be Said Of The Most Weak.

Taking Things Not As They Ought To Be, But As They Are, I Fear It Must Be Allowed That Macchiavelli Will Always Have More Disciples Than Jesus.

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!

A Hug Is Worth A Thousand Words.

Revenge Is A Much More Punctual Paymaster Than Gratitude

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

We Devote The Activity Of Our Youth To Revelry And The Decrepitude Of Our Old Age To Repentance: And We Finish The Farce By Bequeathing Our Dead Bodies To The Chancel, Which When Living, We Interdicted From The Church.

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

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

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.

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

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.

All The Poets Are Indebted More Or Less To Those Who Have Gone Before Them; Even Homer's Originality Has Been Questioned, And Virgil Owes Almost As Much To Theocritus, In His Pastorals, As To Homer, In His Heroics; And If Our Own Countryman, Milton, Has Soared Above Both Homer And Virgil, It Is Because He Has Stolen Some Feathers From Their Wings.

War Kills Men, And Men Deplore The Loss; But War Also Crushes Bad Principles And Tyrants, And So Saves Societies.

To Know The Pains Of Power, We Must Go To Those Who Have It; To Know Its Pleasures, We Must Go To Those Who Are Seeking It: The Pains Of Power Are Real, Its Pleasures Imaginary.

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

If We Steal Thoughts From The Moderns, It Will Be Cried Down As Plagiarism; If From The Ancients, It Will Be Cried Up As Erudition.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Villainy That Is Vigilant Will Be An Overmatch For Virtue, If She Slumber At Her Post.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 More Gross The Fraud The More Glibly Will It Go Down, And The More Greedily Be Swallowed, Since Folly Will Always Find Faith Where Impostors Will Find Imprudence.

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.

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.

Theories Are Private Property, But Truth Is Common Stock.

We Ask Advice But We Mean Approbation.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

When A Man Has Displayed Talent In Some Particular Path, And Left All Competitors Behind Him In It, The World Are Too Apt To Give Him Credit For Universality Of Genius, And To Anticipate For Him Success In All That He Undertakes.

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

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

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

Happiness Is Much More Equally Divided Than Some Of Us Imagine. One Man Shall Possess Most Of The Materials, But Little Of The Thing; Another May Possess Much Of The Thing, But Very Few Of The Material. In This Particular View Of It, Happiness Had Been Beautifully Compared To The Man In The Desert--he That Gathered Much Had Nothing Over, And He That Gathered Little Had No Lack.

Many ... Begin To Make Converts From Motives Of Charity, But Continue To Do So From Motives Of Pride. ... Charity Is Contented With Exhortation And Example, But Pride Is Not To Be So Easily Satisfied. ... Whenever We Find Ourselves More Inclined To Persecute Than Persuade, We May Then Be Certain That Our Zeal Has More Of Pride In It Than Of Charity.

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

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

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.

Sturdy Beggars Can Bear Stout Denials.

It Is Astonishing How Much More People Are Interested In Lengthening Life Than Improving It.

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.

Theory Is Worth But Little, Unless It Can Explain Its Own Phenomena, And It Must Effect This Without Contradicting Itself; Therefore, The Facts Are Sometimes Assimilated To The Theory, Rather Than The Theory To The Facts.

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.

A Leveller Has Long Ago Been Set Down As A Ridiculous And Chimerical Being, Who, If He Could Finish His Work To-day, Would Have To Begin It Again Tomorrow.

Mental Pleasures Never Cloy; Unlike Those Of The Body, They Are Increased By Reputation, Approved By Reflection, And Strengthened By Enjoyment.

Brutes Leave Ingratitude To Man.

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.

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