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The Only Things In Which We Can Be Said To Have Any Property Are Our Actions. Our Thoughts May Be Bad, Yet Produce No Poison; They May Be Good, Yet Produce No Fruit. Our Riches May Be Taken Away By Misfortune, Our Reputation By Malice, Our Spirits By Calamity, Our Health By Disease, Our Friends By Death. But Our Actions Must Follow Us Beyond The Grave; With Respect To Them Alone, We Cannot Say That We Shall Carry Nothing With Us When We Die, Neither That We Shall Go Naked Out Of The World.

-Charles Caleb Colton

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The Only Things In

Charles Caleb Colton

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The Only Things In Which We Can Be Said To Have Any Property Are Our Actions. Our Thoughts May Be Bad, Yet Produce No Poison; They May Be Good, Yet Produce No Fruit. Our Riches May Be Taken Away By Misfortune, Our Reputation By Malice, Our Spirits By Calamity, Our Health By Disease, Our Friends By Death. But Our Actions Must Follow Us Beyond The Grave; With Respect To Them Alone, We Cannot Say That We Shall Carry Nothing With Us When We Die, Neither That We Shall Go Naked Out Of The World.

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Truth Can Hardly Be Expected To Adapt Herself To The Crooked Policy And Wily Sinuosities Of Worldly Affairs; For Truth, Like Light, Travels Only In Straight Lines.

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

When Millions Applaud You Seriously Ask Yourself What Harm You Have Done; And When They Disapprove You, What Good.

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.

By Paying Our Other Debts, We Are Equal With All Mankind; But In Refusing To Pay A Debt Of Revenge, We Are Superior.

Ennui Has Made More Gamblers Than Avarice.

If It Be True That Men Of Strong Imaginations Are Usually Dogmatists--and I Am Inclined To Think It Is So--it Ought To Follow That Men Of Weak Imaginations Are The Reverse; In Which Case We Should Have Some Compensation For Stupidity. But It Unfortunately Happens That No Dogmatist Is More Obstinate Or Less Open To Conviction Than A Fool.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 Breast Of A Good Man Is A Little Heaven Commencing On Earth; Where The Deity Sits Enthroned With Unrivaled Influence, Every Subjugated Passion, "like The Wind And Storm, Fulfilling His Word.

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.

Theories Are Private Property, But Truth Is Common Stock.

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

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.

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.

We Often Regret We Did Not Do Otherwise, When That Very Otherwise Would, In All Probability, Have Done For Us.

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.

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

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

The Sun Should Not Set Upon Our Anger, Neither Should He Rise Upon Our Confidence. We Should Forgive Freely, But Forget Rarely. I Will Not Be Revenged, And This I Owe To My Enemy; But I Will Remember, And This I Owe To Myself.

The French Revolution Was A .eune Invented And Constructed For The Purpose Of Manufacturing Liberty; But It Had Neither Lever Cogs, Nor Adjusting Powers, And The Consequences Were That It Worked So Rapidly That It Destroyed Its Own Inventors, And Set Itself On Fire.

Sturdy Beggars Can Bear Stout Denials.

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.

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.

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

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

How Strange It Is That We Of The Present Day Are Constantly Praising That Past Age Which Our Fathers Abused, And As Constantly Abusing That Present Age, Which Our Children Will Praise.

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

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

Atheism Is A System Which Can Communicate Neither Warmth Nor Illumination, Except From Those Fagots Which Your Mistaken Zeal Has Lighted Up For Its Destruction.

Those Who Visit Foreign Nations, But Who Associate Only With Their Own Countrymen, Change Their Climate, But Not Their Customs 'caelum Non Animum Mutant': They See New Meridians, But The Same Men, And With Heads As Empty As Their Pockets.

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

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

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.

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.

Villains Are Usually The Worst Casuists, And Rush Into Crimes To Avoid Less. Henry Viii. Committed Murder To Avoid The Imputation Of Adultery; And In Our Times, Those Who Commit The Latter Crime Attempt To Wash Off The Stain Of Seducing The Wife By Signifying Their Readiness To Shoot The Husband.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Injuries Accompanied With Insults Are Never Forgiven: All Men, On These Occasions, Are Good Haters, And Lay Out Their Revenge At Compound Interest.

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

You Cannot Separate Charity And Religion.

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?

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.

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.

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

Many Books Owe Their Success To The Good Memories Of Their Authors And The Bad Memories Of Their Readers.

The Reign Of Terror To Which France Submitted Has Been More Justly Termed "the Reign Of Cowardice." One Knows Not Which Most To Execrate,--the Nation That Could Submit To Suffer Such Atrocities, Or That Low And Bloodthirsty Demagogue That Could Inflict Them. France, In Succumbing To Such A Wretch As Robespierre, Exhibited, Not Her Patience, But Her Pusillanimity.

We Ask Advice But We Mean Approbation.

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!

It Is Always Easy To Shut A Book, But Not Quite So Easy To Get Rid Of A Lettered Coxcomb.

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.

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

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.

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.

Hope Is A Prodigal Young Heir, And Experience Is His Banker.

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

In Death Itself There Can Be Nothing Terrible, For The Act Of Death Annihilates Sensation; But There Are Many Roads To Death, And Some Of Them Justly Formidable, Even To The Bravest.

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.

The Policy That Can Strike Only While The Iron Is Hot Will Be Overcome By That Perseverance, Which ... Can Make That Iron Hot By Striking And He That Can Only Rule The Storm Must Yield To Him Who Can Both Raise And Rule It.

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.

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.

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.

The Upright, If He Suffer Calumny To Move Him, Fears The Tongue Of Man More Than The Eye Of God.

Sensibility Would Be A Good Portress If She Had But One Hand; With Her Right She Opens The Door To Pleasure, But With Her Left To Pain.

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

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.

The Wisest Man May Be Wiser To-day Than He Was Yesterday, And To-morrow Than He Is To-day. Total Freedom From Change Would Imply Total Freedom From Error; But This Is The Prerogative Of Omniscience Alone.

All Wars Of Interference, Arising From An Officious Intrusion Into The Concerns Of Other States; All Wars Of Ambition, Carried On For The Purposes Of Aggrandizement; And All Wars Of Aggression, Undertaken For The Purpose Of Forcing An Assent To This Or That Set Of Religious Opinions; All Such Wars Are Criminal In Their Very Outset, And Have Hypocrisy For Their Common Base.

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

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

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

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

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.

If You Would Be Known, And Not Know, Vegetate In A Village; If You Would Know, And Not Be Known, Live In A City.

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

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

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

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

There Can Be No Christianity Where There Is No Charity

Shakespeare, Butler And Bacon Have Rendered It Extremely Difficult For All Who Come After Them To Be Sublime, Witty Or Profound.

The Praise Of The Envious Is Far Less Creditable Than Their Censure; They Praise Only That Which They Can Surpass, But That Which Surpasses Them They Censure.

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

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.

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

We Ought Not To Be Over-anxious To Encourage Innovation In Cases Of Doubtful Improvement, For An Old System Must Ever Have Two Advantages Over A New One; It Is Established, And It Is Understood.

Natural Good Is' So Intimately Connected With Moral Good, And Natural Evil With Moral Evil, That I Am As Certain As If I Heard A Voice From Heaven Proclaim It, That God Is On The Side Of Virtue. He Has Learnt Much, And Has Not Lived In Vain, Who Has Practically Discovered That Most Strict And Necessary Connection, That Does And Will Ever Exist Between Vice And Misery, And Virtue And Happiness.

There Are Two Principles Of Established Acceptance In Morals; First, That Self-interest Is The Mainspring Of All Of Our Actions, And Secondly, That Utility Is The Test Of Their Value.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Cruel Men Are The Greatest Lovers Of Mercy, Avaricious Men Of Generosity, And Proud Men Of Humility; That Is To Say, In Other, Not In Themselves.

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

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.

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.

Love Is An Alliance Of Friendship And Animalism; If The Former Predominates It Is Passion Exalted And Refined; If The Latter, Gross And Sensual.

Lost Friendship

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.

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

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

The Inheritance Of A Distinguished And Noble Name Is A Proud Inheritance To Him Who Lives Worthily Of It.

Whenever We Find Ourselves More Inclined To Persecute Than To Persuade, We May Then Be Certain That Our Zeal Has More Of Pride In It Than Of Charity.

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.

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.

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.

Jealousy Is Sustained As Often By Pride As By Affection.

The Mistakes Of The Fool Are Known To The World, But Not To Himself. The Mistakes Of The Wise Man Are Known To Himself, But Not To The World.

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.

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.

Avarice Has Ruined More Men Than Prodigality, And The Blindest Thoughtlessness Of Expenditure Has Not Destroyed So Many Fortunes As The Calculating But Insatiable Lust Of Accumulation.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Doubt Is The Vestibule Which All Must Pass Before They Can Enter Into The Temple Of Wisdom; Therefore, When We Are In Doubt And Puzzle Out The Truth By Our Own Exertions, We Have Gained A Something That Will Stay By Us, And Which Will Serve Us Again. But, If To Avoid The Trouble Of The Search We Avail Ourselves Of The Superior Information Of A Friend, Such Knowledge Will Not Remain With Us; We Have Not Bought But Borrowed It.

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.

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.

The Acquirements Of Science Maybe Termed The Armor Of The Mind.

Men Of Great And Shining Qualities Do Not Always Succeed In Life, But The Fault Lies More Often In Themselves Than In Others.

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

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

When You Have Nothing To Say, Say Nothing.

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

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.

Mystery Magnifies Danger As The Fog The Sun.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Very Great Personages Are Not Likely To Form Very Just Estimates Either Of Others Or Of Themselves; Their Knowledge Of Themselves Is Obscured By The Flattery Of Others; Their Knowledge Of Others Is Equally Clouded By Circumstances Peculiar To Themselves. For In The Presence Of The Great, The Modest Are Sure To Suffer From Too Much Diffidence, And The Confident From Too Much Display.

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.

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

Time Is The Most Undefinable Yet Paradoxical Of Things; The Past Is Gone, The Future Is Not Come, And The Present Becomes The Past, Even While We Attempt To Define It.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

To Despise Our Own Species Is The Price We Must Often Pay For Knowledge Of It.

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 Which Ought To Teach Us To Think But Meanly Of Human Glory; The Very Best Have Had Their Calumniators, The Very Worst Their Panegyrists.

A Hug Is Worth A Thousand Words.

When We Feel A Strong Desire To Thrust Our Advice Upon Others, It Is Usually Because We Suspect Their Weakness; But We Ought Rather To Suspect Our Own.

Insults Are Engendered From Vulgar Minds, Like Toadstools From A Dunghill.

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.

It Is Best, If Possible, To Deceive No One; For He That ... Begins By Deceiving Others, Will End ... By Deceiving Himself.

Deceiving Others

The Most Notorious Swindler Has Not Assumed So Many Names As Self-love, Nor Is So Much Ashamed Of His Own. She Calls Herself Patriotism, When At The Same Time She Is Rejoicing At Just As Much Calamity To Her Native Country As Will Introduce Herself Into Power, And Expel Her Rivals.

As In The Game Of Billiards, The Balls Are Constantly Producing Effects From Mere Chance, Which The Most Skillful Player Could Neither Execute Nor Foresee, But Which, When They Do Happen, Serve Mainly To Teach Him How Much He Has Still To Learn; So It Is In The Most Profound And Complicated Game Of Politics And Diplomacy. In Both Cases, We Can Only Regulate Our Play By What We Have Seen, Rather Than By What We Have Hoped; And By What We Have Experienced, Rather Than By What We Have Expected.

The Press Is The Foe Of Rhetoric, But The Friend Of Reason.

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

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.

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

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

Be Real And Adjust You Strategy According To Honest Results.

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

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.

The Science Of Legislation Is Like That Of Medicine In One Respect: That It Is Far More Easy To Point Out What Will Do Harm Than What Will Do Good.

Light, Whether It Be Material Or Moral, Is The Best Reformer.

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

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.

None Are So Fond Of Secrets As Those Who Do Not Mean To Keep Them.

We Own Almost All Our Knowledge Not To Those Who Have Agreed But To Those Who Have Differed.

None Are So Fond Of Secrets As Those Who Do Not Mean To Keep Them; Such Persons Covet Secrets As A Spendthrift Covets Money, For The Purpose Of Circulation.

Wit In Women Is A Jewel, Which, Unlike All Others, Borrows Lustre From Its Setting, Rather Than Bestows It; Since Nothing Is So Easy As To Fancy A Very Beautiful Woman Extremely Witty.

No One Knows Where He Who Invented The Plow Was Born, Nor Where He Died; Yet He Has Done More For Humanity Than The Whole Race Of Heroes Who Have Drenched The Earth With Blood And Whose Deeds Have Been Handed Down With A Precision Proportionate Only To The Mischief They Wrought.

Men Will Wrangle For Religion, Write For It, Fight For It, Die For It; Anything But Live For It.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

A Wise Man May Be Duped As Well As A Fool; But The Fool Publishes The Triumph Of His Deceiver; The Wise Man Is Silent, And Denies That Triumph To An Enemy Which He Would Hardly Concede To A Friend; A Triumph That Proclaims His Own Defeat.

Mystery Is Not Profoundness.

The Victims Of Ennui Paralyze All The Grosser Feelings By Excess, And Torpify All The Finer By Disuse And Inactivity. Disgusted With This World, And Indifferent About Another, They At Last Lay Violent Hands Upon Themselves, And Assume No Small Credit For The Sang Froid With Which They Meet Death. But, Alas! Such Beings Can Scarcely Be Said To Die, For They Have Never Truly Lived.

It Is Curious That Some Learned Dunces, Because They Can Write Nonsense In Languages That Are Dead, Should Despise Those That Talk Sense In Languages That Are Living.

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.

Revenge Is A Much More Punctual Paymaster Than Gratitude

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.

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