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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.

-Charles Caleb Colton

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There Are Many Who

Charles Caleb Colton

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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.

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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.

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

All Adverse And Depressing Influences Can Be Overcome, Not By Fighting, By By Rising Above Them.

Man Is An Embodied Paradox, A Bundle Of Contradictions.

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.

Alas! What Is Man? Whether He Be Deprived Of That Light Which Is From On High, Of Whether He Discard It, A Frail And Trembling Creature; Standing On Time, That Bleak And Narrow Isthmus Between Two Eternities, He Sees Nothing But Impenetrable Darkness On The One Hand, And Doubt, Distrust, And Conjecture, Still More Perplexing, On The Other. Most Gladly Would He Take An Observation, As To Whence He Has Come, Or Whither He Is Going; Alas, He Has Not The Means: His Telescope Is Too Dim, His Compass Too Wavering, His Plummet Too Short.

The Good Opinion Of Our Fellow Men Is The Strongest, Though Not The Purest Motive To Virtue.

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

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

In Its Primary Signification, All Vice, That Is, All Excess, Brings On Its Own Punishment, Even Here. By Certain Fixed, Settled And Established Laws Of Him Who Is The God Of Nature, Excess Of Every Kind Destroys That Constitution Which Temperance Would Preserve. The Debauchee Offers Up His Body A "living Sacrifice To Sin.

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

Love Is An Alchemist That Can Transmute Poison Into Food.

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.

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 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.

If We Trace The History Of Most Revolutions, We Shall Find That The First Inroads Upon The Laws Have Been Made By The Governors, As Often As By The Governed.

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

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.

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

Eloquence Is The Language Of Nature, And Cannot Be Learned In The Schools; But Rhetoric Is The Creature Of Art, Which He Who Feels Least Will Most Excel In.

It Is Not So Difficult A Task As To Plant New Truths, As To Root Out Old Errors

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

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.

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.

A Hug Is Worth A Thousand Words.

It Is With Nations As With Individuals, Those Who Know The Least Of Others Think The Highest Of Themselves; For The Whole Family Of Pride And Ignorance Are Incestuous, And Mutually Beget Each Other.

Words Are In This Respect Like Water, That They Often Take Their Taste, Flavour, And Character, From The Mouth Out Of Which They Proceed, As The Water From The Channel Through Which It Flows.

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

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

Deceiving Others

Fame Is An Undertaker That Pays But Little Attention To The Living, But Bedizens The Dead, Furnishes Out Their Funerals, And Follows Them To The Grave

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

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.

Friendship Often Ends In Love, But Love In Friendship - Never.

From Its Very Inaction, Idleness Ultimately Becomes The Most Active Cause Of Evil; As A Palsy Is More To Be Dreaded Than A Fever. The Turks Have A Proverb Which Says That The Devil Tempts All Other Men, But That Idle Men Tempt The Devil.

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.

When We Live Habitually With The Wicked, We Become Necessarily Either Their Victim Or Their Disciple; When We Associate, On The Contrary, With Virtuous Men, We Form Ourselves In Imitation Of Their Virtues, Or, At Least, Lose Every Day Something Of Our Faults.

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.

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.

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

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.

Revenge Is Fever In Our Own Blood, To Be Cured Only By Letting The Blood Of Another; But The Remedy Too Often Produces A Relapse, Which Is Remorse--a Malady Far More Dreadful Than The First Disease, Because It Is Incurable.

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.

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

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.

In Politics, As In Religion, It So Happens, That We Have Less Charity For Those Who Believe The Half Of Our Creed, Than For Those That Deny The Whole Of It; Since If Servetus Had Been A Mohammedan, He Would Not Have Been Burnt By Calvin.

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

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

We Are Ruined, Not By What We Really Want, But By What We Think We Do; Therefore Never Go Abroad In Search Of Your Wants; If They Be Real Wants, They Will Come Home In Search Of You; For He That Buys What He Does Not Want, Will Soon Want What He Cannot Buy.

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.

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.

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.

Nothing More Completely Baffles One Who Is Full Of Trick And Duplicity Himself, Than Straight Forward And Simple Integrity In Another.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Theories Are Private Property, But Truth Is Common Stock.

Heroism, Self-denial, And Magnanimity, In All Instances Where They Do Not Spring From A Principle Of Religion, Are But Splendid Altars On Which We Sacrifice One Kind Of Self-love To Another.

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.

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.

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

Neither Can We Admit That Definition Of Genius That Some Would Propose--"a Power To Accomplish All That We Undertake;" For We Might Multiply Examples To Prove That This Definition Of Genius Contains More Than The Thing Defined. Cicero Failed In Poetry, Pope In Painting, Addison In Oratory; Yet It Would Be Harsh To Deny Genius To These Men.

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

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

Five Thousand Years Have Added No Improvement To The Hive Of The Bee, Nor To The House Of The Beaver; But Look At The Habitations And The Achievements Of Men!

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

Ignorance Lies At The Bottom Of All Human Knowledge, And The Deeper We Penetrate The Nearer We Arrive Unto It. For What Do We Truly Know, Or What Can We Clearly Affirm, Of Any One Of Those Important Things Upon Which All Our Reasonings Must Of Necessity Be Built--time And Space, Life And Death, Matter And Mind?

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

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

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

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

In Pulpit Eloquence, The Grand Difficulty Lies Here--to Give The Subject All The Dignity It So Fully Deserves, Without Attaching Any Importance To Ourselves. The Christian Messenger Cannot Think Too Highly Of His Prince, Nor Too Humbly Of Himself.

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

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 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.

From The Preponderance Of Talent, We May Always Infer The Soundness And Vigour Of The Commonwealth; But From The Preponderance Of Riches, Its Dotage And Degeneration.

Money Is The Most Envied, But The Least Enjoyed. Health Is The Most Enjoyed, But The Least Envied.

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

The Society Of Dead Authors Has This Advantage Over That Of The Living: They Never Flatter Us To Our Faces, Nor Slander Us Behind Our Backs, Nor Intrude Upon Our Privacy, Nor Quit Their Shelves Until We Take Them Down.

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

You Cannot Separate Charity And Religion.

A Man's Profundity May Keep Him From Opening On A First Interview, And His Caution On A Second; But I Should Suspect His Emptiness, If He Carried On His Reserve To A Third.

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

Subtract From Many Modern Poets All That May Be Found In Shakespeare, And Trash Will Remain.

The Awkwardness And Embarrassment Which All Feel On Beginning To Write, When They Themselves Are The Theme, Ought To Serve As A Hint To Author's That Self Is A Subject They Ought Very Rarely To Descant Upon.

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

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.

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.

It Is With Antiquity As With Ancestry, Nations Are Proud Of The One, And Individuals Of The Other; But If They Are Nothing In Themselves, That Which Is Their Pride Ought To Be Their Humiliation.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

It Was Observed Of Elizabeth That She Was Weak Herself, But Chose Wise Counsellors; To Which It Was Replied, That To Choose Wise Counsellors Was, In A Prince, The Highest Wisdom.

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.

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.

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

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.

Of Two Evils, It Is Perhaps Less Injurious To Society, That Good Doctrine Should Be Accompanied By A Bad Life, Than That A Good Life Should Lend Its Support To A Bad Doctrine.

Put On The Livery Of The Best Master Only To Serve The Worst.

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.

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.

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.

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

Love May Exist Without Jealousy, Although This Is Rare: But Jealousy May Exist Without Love, And This Is Common; For Jealousy Can Feed On That Which Is Bitter No Less Than On That Which Is Sweet, And Is Sustained By Pride As Often As By Affection.

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

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

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

That Politeness Which We Put On, In Order To Keep The Assuming And The Presumptuous At A Proper Distance Will Generally Succeed. But It Sometimes Happens That These Obtrusive Characters Are On Such Excellent Terms With Themselves That They Put Down This Very Politeness To The Score Of Their Own Great Merits And High Pretensions, Meeting The Coldness Of Our Reserve With A Ridiculous Condescension Of Familiarity, In Order To Set Us At Ease With Ourselves.

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 Better To Meet Danger Than To Wait For It. He That Is On A Lee Shore, And Foresees A Hurricane, Stands Out To Sea And Encounters A Storm To Avoid A Shipwreck.

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.

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

Fortune Has Been Considered The Guardian Divinity Of Fools; And, On This Score, She Has Been Accused Of Blindness; But It Should Rather Be Adduced As A Proof Of Her Sagacity, When She Helps Those Who Cannot Help Themselves.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Pedantry Prides Herself On Being Wrong By Rules; While Common Sense Is Contented To Be Right Without Them.

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.

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

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

Death Is The Liberator Of Him Whom Freedom Cannot Release, The Physician Of Him Whom Medicine Cannot Cure, And The Comforter Of Him Whom Time Cannot Console.

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.

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.

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.

The Three Great Apostles Of Practical Atheism, That Make Converts Without Persecuting, And Retain Them Without Preaching, Are Wealth, Health And Power.

Ignorance Is A Blank Sheet, On Which We May Write; But Error Is A Scribbled One, On Which We Must First Erase.

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

If Merited, No Courage Can Stand Against Its Just Indignation.

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

The Rich Are More Envied By Those Who Have A Little, Than By Those Who Have Nothing.

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.

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

Observation Made In The Cloister Or In The Desert Will Generally Be As Obscure As The One And As Barren As The Other; But He That Would Paint With His Pencil Must Study Originals, And Not Be Over-fearful Of A Little Dust.

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

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.

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

Silence Is Foolish If We Are Wise, But Wise If We Are Foolish.

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.

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.

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

Next To Acquiring Good Friends, The Best Acquisition Is That Of Good Books.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

It Is 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.

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.

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

To Judge By The Event Is An Error All Commit: For In Every Instance Courage, If Crowned With Success, Is Heroism; If Clouded By Defeat, Temerity. When Nelson Fought His Battle In The Sound, It Was The Result Alone That Decided Whether He Was To Kiss A Hand At Court Or A Rod At A Court-martial.

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

Secrecy Is The Soul Of All Great Designs.

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

The Intoxication Of Anger, Like That Of The Grape, Shows Us To Others, But Hides Us From Ourselves.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I Have Somewhere Seen It Observed That We Should Make The Same Use Of A Book That The Bee Does Of A Flower: She Steals Sweets From It, But Does Not Injure It.

Novels May Teach Us As Wholesome A Moral As The Pulpit. There Are "sermons In Stones," In Healthy Books, And "good In Everything.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Public Charities And Benevolent Associations For The Gratuitous Relief Of Every Species Of Distress, Are Peculiar To Christianity; No Other System Of Civil Or Religious Policy Has Originated Them; They Form Its Highest Praise And Characteristic Feature.

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

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

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.

The Code Of Poor Laws Has At Length Grown Up Into A Tree, Which, Like The Fabulous Upas, Overshadows And Poisons The Land; Unwholesome Expedients Were The Bud, Dilemmas And Depravities Have Been The Blossom, And Danger And Despair Are The Bitter Fruit.

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

The Greatest Friend Of Truth Is Time, Her Greatest Enemy Is Prejudice, And Her Constant Companion Is Humility.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

It Is The Briefest Yet Wisest Maxim Which Tells Us To Meddle Not.

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.

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

Memory Is The Friend Of Wit, But The Treacherous Ally Of Invention; There Are Many Books That Owe Their Success To Two Things; Good Memory Of Those Who Write Them, And The Bad Memory Of Those Who Read Them

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 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.

Dreams Ought To Produce No Conviction Whatever On Philosophical Minds. If We Consider How Many Dreams Are Dreamt Every Night, And How Many Events Occur Every Day, We Shall No Longer Wonder At Those Accidental Coincidences Which Ignorance Mistakes For Verifications.

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