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The Seat Of Perfect Contentment Is In The Head; For Every Individual Is Thoroughly Satisfied With His Own Proportion Of Brains.

-Charles Caleb Colton

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The Seat Of Perfect

Charles Caleb Colton

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The Seat Of Perfect Contentment Is In The Head; For Every Individual Is Thoroughly Satisfied With His Own Proportion Of Brains.

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

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

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.

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

For What Are The Triumphs Of War, Planned By Ambition, Executed By Violence, And Consummated By Devastation? The Means Are The Sacrifice Of Many, The End, The Bloated Aggrandizement Of The Few.

Wars Are To The Body Politic, What Drams Are To The Individual. There Are Times When They May Prevent A Sudden Death, But If Frequently Resorted To, Or Long Persisted In, They Heighten The Energies Only To Hasten The Dissolution.

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.

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.

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

Ambition Is To The Mind What The Cap Is To The Falcon; It Blinds Us First, And Then Compels Us To Tower By Reason Of Our Blindness.

It Has Been Observed That A Dwarf Standing On The Shoulders Of A Giant Will See Farther Than The Giant Himself; And The Moderns, Standing As They Do On The Vantage Ground Of Former Discoveries And Uniting All The Fruits Of The Experience Of Their Forefathers, With Their Own Actual Observation, May Be Admitted To Enjoy A More Enlarged And Comprehensive View Of Things Than The Ancients Themselves.

He That Knows Himself, Knows Others; And He That Is Ignorant Of Himself, Could Not Write A Very Profound Lecture On Other Men's Heads.

What Would You Do If You Knew For Sure That No One Would Ever Find Out?

There Are Two Modes Of Establishing Our Reputation; To Be Praised By Honest Men, And To Be Abused By Rogues.

If You Are Under Obligations To Many, It Is Prudent To Postpone The Recompensing Of One, Until It Be In Your Power To Remunerate All; Otherwise You Will Make More Enemies By What You Give, Than By What You Withhold.

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.

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.

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

There Are Circumstances Of Peculiar Difficulty And Danger, Where A Mediocrity Of Talent Is The Most Fatal Quantum That A Man Can Possibly Possess. Had Charles The First And Louis The Sixteenth Been More Wise Or More Weak, More Firm Or More Yielding, In Either Case They Had Both Of Them Saved Their Heads.

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.

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.

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.

What Is Earthly Happiness? That Phantom Of Which We Hear So Much, And See So Little; Whose Promises Are Constantly Given And Constantly Broken, But As Constantly Believed; That Cheats Us With The Sound Instead Of The Substance, And With The Blossom Instead Of The Fruit. Like Juno, She Is A Goddess In Pursuit, But A Cloud In Possession.

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

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

If Rich, It Is Easy Enough To Conceal Our Wealth; But, If Poor, It Is Not Quite So Easy To Conceal Our Poverty. We Shall Find That It Is Less Difficult To Hide A Thousand Guineas, Than One Hole In Our Coat.

A Hug Is Worth A Thousand Words.

There Is This Paradox In Fear: He Is Most Likely To Inspire It In Others Who Has None Himself!

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.

The Plainest Man That Can Convince A Woman That He Is Really In Love With Her Has Done More To Make Her In Love With Him Than The Handsomest Man, If He Can Produce No Such Conviction. For The Love Of Woman Is A Shoot, Not A Seed, And Flourishes Most Vigorously Only When Ingrafted On That Love Which Is Rooted In The Breast Of Another.

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.

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

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

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.

Death Is The Only Sovereign Whom No Partiality Can Warp, And No Price Corrupt.

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.

When I Meet With Any Persons Who Write Obscurely Or Converse Confusedly, I Am Apt To Suspect Two Things; First, That Such Persons Do Not Understand Themselves; And Secondly, That They Are Not Worthy Of Being Understood By Others.

Custom Looks To Things That Are Past, And Fashion To Things That Are Present, But Both Of Them Are Somewhat Purblind As To Things That Are To Come.

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

Love Is An Alchemist That Can Transmute Poison Into Food.

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

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.

We Must Suit The Flattery To The Mind And Taste Of The Recipient. We Do Not Put Essences Into Hogsheads, Nor Porter Into Phials. Delicate Minds May Be Disgusted By Compliments That Would Please A Grosser Intellect; As Some Fine Ladies Who Would Be Shocked At The Idea Of A Dram Will Not Refuse A Liqueur.

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

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.

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.

That Extremes Beget Extremes Is An Apothegm Built On The Most Profound Observation Of The Human Mind.

For All The Practical Purposes Of Life, Truth Might As Well Be In A Prison As In The Folio Of A Schoolman; And Those Who Release Her From Her Cobwebbed Shelf And Teach Her To Live With Men Have The Merit Of Liberating, If Not Of Discovering, Her.

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

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

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.

Constant Success Shows Us But One Side Of The World. For As It Surrounds Us With Friends Who Will Tell Us Only Our Merits, So It Silences Those Enemies From Whom Alone We Can Learn Our Defects.

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.

Many Speak The Truth When They Say That They Despise Riches, But They Mean The Riches Possessed By Others.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Ennui Has Made More Gamblers Than Avarice.

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.

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.

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

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

Corruption Is Like A Ball Of Snow, Once It's Set A Rolling It Must Increase.

Moral Corruption

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Life Isn't Like A Book. Life Isn't Logical Or Sensible Or Orderly. Life Is A Mess Most Of The Time. And Theology Must Be Lived In The Midst Of That Mess.

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.

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.

He That Studies Books Alone, Will Know How Things Ought To Be; And He That Studies Men, Will Know How Things Are.

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

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

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

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

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

As A Man Of Pleasure, By A Vain Attempt To Be More Happy Than Any Man Can Be, Is Often More Miserable Than Most Men Are, So The Sceptic, In A Vain Attempt To Be Wise Beyond What Is Permitted To Man, Plunges Into A Darkness More Deplorable, And A Blindness More Incurable Than That Of The Common Herd, Whom He Despises, And Would Fain Instruct.

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!

Commerce Flourishes By Circumstances, Precarious, Transitory, Contingent, Almost As The Winds And Waves That Bring It To Our Shores.

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.

No Disorders Have Employed So Many Quacks, As Those That Have No Cure; And No Sciences Have Exercised So Many Quills, As Those That Have No Certainty.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Eloquence, To Produce Her Full Effect, Should Start From The Head Of The Orator, As Pallas From The Brain Of Jove, Completely Armed And Equipped. Diffidence, Therefore, Which Is So Able A Mentor To The Writer, Would Prove A Dangerous Counsellor For The Orator.

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

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.

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.

It Has Been Well Observed That The Tongue Discovers The State Of The Mind No Less Than That Of The Body; But In Either Case, Before The Philosopher Or The Physician Can Judge, The Patient Must Open His Mouth.

Early Rising Not Only Gives Us More Life In The Same Number Of Years, But Adds, Likewise, To Their Number; And Not Only Enables Us To Enjoy More Of Existence In The Same Time, But Increases Also The Measure.

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

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

To Be A Mere Verbal Critic Is What No Man Of Genius Would Be If He Could; But To Be A Critic Of True Taste And Feeling Is What No Man Without Genius Could Be If He Would.

It Has Been Said That Men Carry On A Kind Of Coasting Trade With Religion. In The Voyage Of Life, They Profess To Be In Search Of Heaven, But Take Care Not To Venture So Far In Their Approximations To It, As Entirely To Lose Sight Of The Earth; And Should Their Frail Vessel Be In Danger Of Shipwreck, They Will Gladly Throw Their Darling Vices Overboard, As Other Mariners Their Treasures, Only To Fish Them Up Again When The Storm Is Over.

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

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.

No Two Things Differ More Than Hurry And Despatch. Hurry Is The Mark Of A Weak Mind; Despatch Of A Strong One.

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

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

He That Has Never Known Adversity Is But Half Acquainted With Others, Or With Himself.

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.

The Masses Procure Their Opinions Ready Made In Open Market.

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

Women Generally Consider Consequences In Love, Seldom In Resentment.

Be Very Slow To Believe That You Are Wiser Than All Others; It Is A Fatal But Common Error.

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

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

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

When Young, We Trust Ourselves Too Much, And We Trust Others Too Little When Old. Rashness Is The Error Of Youth, Timid Caution Of Age. Manhood Is The Isthmus Between The Two Extremes; The Ripe And Fertile Season Of Action, When Alone We Can Hope To Find The Head To Contrive, United With The Hand To Execute.

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.

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

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.

Those That Are The Loudest In Their Threats Are The Weakest In Their Actions.

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.

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

Deceiving Others

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

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.

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.

Oppression Cannot Prosper Where None Will Submit To Be Enslaved.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Most Females Will Forgive A Liberty Rather Than A Slight

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.

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.

Others, Again, Give Us The Mere Carcass Of Another Man’s Thoughts, But Deprived Of All Their Life And Spirit, And This Is To Add Murder To Robbery. I Have Somewhere Seen It Observed, That We Should Make The Same Use Of A Book, As A Bee Does Of A Flower; She Steals Sweets From It, But Does Not Injure It; And Those Sweets She Herself Improves And Concocts Into Honey. But Most Plagiarists, Like The Drone, Have Neither Taste To Select, Nor Industry To Acquire, Nor Skill To Improve, But Impudently Pilfer The Honey Ready Prepared From The Hive.

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.

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.

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

Brutes Leave Ingratitude To Man.

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

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

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

When The Air Balloon Was First Discovered, Some One Flippantly Asked Dr. Franklin What Was The Use Of It. The Doctor Answered This Question By Asking Another: "what Is The Use Of A New-born Infant? It May Become A Man."

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.

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

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!

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

Heaven May Have Happiness As Utterly Unknown To Us As The Gift Of Perfect Vision Would Be To A Man Born Blind. If We Consider The Inlets Of Pleasure From Five Senses Only, We May Be Sure That The Same Being Who Created Us Could Have Given Us Five Hundred, If He Had Pleased.

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

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

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.

The True Motives Of Our Actions, Like The Real Pipes Of An Organ, Are Usually Concealed; But The Gilded And Hollow Pretext Is Pompously Placed In The Front For Show.

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

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

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

We Injure Mysteries, Which Are Matters Of Faith, By Any Attempt At Explanation In Order To Make Them Matters Of Reason. Could They Be Explained, They Would Cease To Be Mysteries; And It Has Been Well Said That A Thing Is Not Necessarily Against Reason Because It Happens To Be Above It.

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

We Ask Advice But We Mean Approbation.

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.

Bigotry Murders Religion To Frighten Fools With Her Ghost.

Religious Bigotry

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

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

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.

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

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

Women That Are The Least Bashful Are Often The Most Modest.

Courage Is Generosity Of The Highest Order, For The Brave Are Prodigal Of The Most Precious Things.

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

Style Is Indeed The Valet Of Genius, And An Able One Too; But As The True Gentleman Will Appear, Even In Rags, So True Genius Will Shine, Even Through The Coarsest Style.

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.

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.

That Alliance May Be Said To Have A Double Tie, Where The Minds Are United As Well As The Body; And The Union Will Have All Its Strength When Both The Links Are In Perfection Together.

Marriage Is A Feast Where The Grace Is Sometimes Better Than The Dinner.

There Is But One Pursuit In Life Which It Is In The Power Of All To Follow, And Of All To Attain. It Is Subject To No Disappointments, Since He That Perseveres, Makes Every Difficulty An Advancement, And Every Contest A Victory; And This Is The Pursuit Of Virtue.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

If Martyrdom Is Now On The Decline, It Is Not Because Martyrs Are Less Zealous, But Because Martyr-mongers Are More Wise. The Light Of Intellect Has Put Out The Fire Of Persecution, As Other Fires Are Observed To Smoulder Before The Light Of The Same.

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.

Folly Disgusts Us Less By Her Ignorance Than Pedantry By Her Learning.

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Jacob K. Javits

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