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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.

-Charles Caleb Colton

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We Are More Inclined

Charles Caleb Colton

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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.

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The Only Kind Office Performed For Us By Our Friends Of Which We Never Complain Is Our Funeral; And The Only Thing Which We Most Want, Happens To Be The Only Thing We Never Purchase--our Coffin.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Faults Of The Head Are Punished In This World, Those Of The Heart In Another; But As Most Of Our Vices Are Compound, So Also Is Their Punishment.

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.

A Wise Minister Would Rather Preserve Peace Than Gain A Victory, Because He Knows That Even The Most Successful War Leaves Nations Generally More Poor, Always More Profligate, Than It Found Them.

The Gamester, If He Die A Martyr To His Profession, Is Doubly Ruined. He Adds His Soul To Every Other Loss, And By The Act Of Suicide, Renounces Earth To Forfeit Heaven.

A Lady Of Fashion Will Sooner Excuse A Freedom Flowing From Admiration Than A Slight Resulting From Indifference.

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.

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

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

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.

Time Is The Most Subtle Yet The Most Insatiable Of Depredators, And By Appearing To Take Nothing Is Permitted To Take All; Nor Can It Be Satisfied Until It Has Stolen The World From Us, And Us From The World. It Constantly Flies, Yet Overcomes All Things By Flight; And Although It Is The Present Ally, It Will Be The Future Conqueror Of Death.

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

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

As There Are Some Faults That Have Been Termed Faults On The Right Side, So There Are Some Errors That Might Be Denominated Errors On The Safe Side. Thus We Seldom Regret Having Been Too Mild, Too Cautious, Or Too Humble; But We Often Repent Having Been Too Violent, Too Precipitate, Or Too Proud.

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

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

Those Who Bequeath Unto Themselves A Pompous Funeral, Are At Just So Much Expense To Inform The World Of Something That Had Much Better Be Concealed; Namely, That Their Vanity Has Survived Themselves.

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

If Often Happens Too, Both In Courts And In Cabinets, That There Are Two Things Going On Together,--a Main Plot And An Under-plot; And He That Understands Only One Of Them Will, In All Probability, Be The Dupe Of Both. A Mistress May Rule A Monarch, But Some Obscure Favorite May Rule The Mistress.

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?

Emulation Has Been Termed A Spur To Virtue, And Assumes To Be A Spur Of Gold. But It Is A Spur Composed Of Baser Materials, And If Tried In The Furnace Will Be Found To Want That Fixedness Which Is The Characteristic Of Gold. He That Pursues Virtue, Only To Surpass Others, Is Not Far From Wishing Others Less Forward Than Himself; And He That Rejoices Too Much At His Own Perfections Will Be Too Little Grieved At The Defects Of Other Men.

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

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.

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

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

Let Us Not Be Too Prodigal When We Are Young, Nor Too Parsimonious When We Are Old. Otherwise We Shall Fall Into The Common Error Of Those, Who, When They Had The Power To Enjoy, Had Not The Prudence To Acquire; And When They Had The Prudence To Acquire, Had No Longer The Power To Enjoy.

A Hug Is Worth A Thousand Words.

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

Silence Is Less Injurious Than A Weak Reply.

If You Want Enemies, Excel Others; If You Want Friends, Let Others Excel You.

Deliberate With Caution, But Act With Decision And Yield With Graciousness, Or Oppose With Firmness.

Men's Arguments Often Prove Nothing But Their Wishes.

He That Places Himself Neither Higher Nor Lower Than He Ought To Do Exercises The Truest Humility.

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.

Logic And Metaphysics Make Use Of More Tools Than All The Rest Of The Sciences Put Together, And Do The Least Work.

Nothing Is More Durable Than The Dynasty Of Doubt; For He Reigns In The Hearts Of All His People, But Gives Satisfaction To None Of Them, And Yet He Is The Only Despot Who Can Never Die, While Any Of His Subjects Live.

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.

Avarice Has Ruined More Souls Than Extravagance.

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.

Some Men Who Know That They Are Great Are So Very Haughty Withal And Insufferable That Their Acquaintance Discover Their Greatness Only By The Tax Of Humility Which They Are Obliged To Pay As The Price Of Their Friendship.

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.

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.

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

Shining Outward Qualities, Although They May Excite First-rate Expectations, Are Not Unusually Found To Be The Companions Of Second-rate Abilities.

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

Opinions, Like Showers, Are Generated In High Places, But They Invariably Descend Into Lower Ones, And Ultimately Flow Down To The People As Rain Unto The Sea.

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.

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

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.

To Be Satisfied With The Acquittal Of The World, Though Accompanied With The Secret Condemnation Of Conscience, This Is The Mark Of A Little Mind; But It Requires A Soul Of No Common Stamp To Be Satisfied With Its Own Acquittal, And To Despise The Condemnation Of The World.

The Reason Why Great Men Meet With So Little Pity Or Attachment In Adversity, Would Seem To Be This: The Friends Of A Great Man Were Made By His Fortune, His Enemies By Himself, And Revenge Is A Much More Punctual Paymaster Than Gratitude.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

There Is One Passage In The Scriptures To Which All The Potentates Of Europe Seem To Have Given Their Unanimous Assent And Approbation...."there Went Out A Decree In The Days Of Caesar Augustus, That All The World Should Be Taxed."

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

Man, If He Compare Himself With All That He Can See, Is At The Zenith Of Power; But If He Compare Himself With All That He Can Conceive, He Is At The Nadir Of Weakness.

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

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

Tomorrow! It Is A Period Nowhere To Be Found In All The Registers Of Time, Unless, Perchance, In The Fool's Calendar.

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.

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

The Two Most Precious Things This Side Of The Grave Are Our Reputation And Our Life. But It Is To Be Lamented That The Most Contemptible Whisper May Deprive Us Of The One, And The Weakest Weapon Of The Other.

There Is This Of Good In Real Evils; They Deliver Us, While They Last, From The Petty Despotism Of All That Were Imaginary.

All Who Have Been Great And Good Without Christianity Would Have Been Much Greater And Better With It. If There Be, Amongst The Sons Of Men, A Single Exception To This Maxim, The Divine Socrates May Be Allowed To Put In The Strongest Claim. It Was His High Ambition To Deserve, By Deeds, Not By Creeds, An Unrevealed Heaven, And By Works, Not By Faith, To Enter An Unpromised Land.

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.

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.

Love One Another

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.

Miss Edgeworth And Mme. De Stael Have Proved That There Is No Sex In Style; And Mme. La Roche Jacqueline, And The Duchesse D'angouleme Have Proved That There Is No Sex In Courage.

The Benevolent Have The Advantage Of The Envious, Even In This Present Life; For The Envious Man Is Tormented Not Only By All The Ill That Befalls Himself, But By All The Good That Happens To Another; Whereas The Benevolent Man Is The Better Prepared To Bear His Own Calamities Unruffled, From The Complacency And Serenity He Has Secured From Contemplating The Prosperity Of All Around Him.

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.

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

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

In Answering An Opponent, Arrange Your Ideas, But Not Your Words.

If Kings Would Only Determine Not To Extend Their Dominions Until They Had Filled Them With Happiness, They Would Find The Smallest Territories Too Large, But The Longest Life Too Short For The Full Accomplishment Of So Grand And So Noble An Ambition.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Anger Is Practical Awkwardness.

Imitation Is The Sincerest Of Flattery.

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.

The Wealth Is Ultimately Just A Relative Thing. As A Person With Little Money And Little More Needs To Rich Guys Money But Really Wishes

Living Authors, Therefore, Are Usually, Bad Companions. If They Have Not Gained Character, They Seek To Do So By Methods Often Ridiculous, Always Disgusting; And If They Have Established A Character, They Are Silent For Fear Of Losing By Their Tongue What They Have Acquired By Their Pen--for Many Authors Converse Much More Foolishly Than Goldsmith, Who Have Never Written Half So Well.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

If Satan Ever Laughs, It Must Be At Hypocrites; They Are The Greatest Dupes He Has.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

There Are Many Women Who Have Never Intrigued, And Many Men Who Have Never Gamed; But Those Who Have Done Either But Once Are Very Extraordinary Animals.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Attempts At Reform, When They Fail, Strengthen Despotism, As He That Struggles Tightens Those Cords He Does Not Succeed In Breaking.

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

If That Marvellous Microcosm, Man, With All The Costly Cargo Of His Faculties And Powers, Were Indeed A Rich Argosy, Fitted Out And Freighted Only For Shipwreck And Destruction, Who Amongst Us That Tolerate The Present Only From The Hope Of The Future, Who That Have Any Aspirings Of A High And Intellectual Nature About Them, Could Be Brought To Submit To The Disgusting Mortifications Of The Voyage?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

It Is Much Easier To Ruin A Man Of Principle Than A Man Of None, For He May Be Ruined Through His Scruples. Knavery Is Supple And Can Bend; But Honesty Is Firm And Upright, And Yields Not.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Women Generally Consider Consequences In Love, Seldom In Resentment.

There Is Nothing More Imprudent Than Excessive Prudence.

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.

We May Lay In A Stock Of Pleasures, As We Would Lay In A Stock Of Wine, But If Defer Tasting Them Too Long, We Shall Find That Both Are Soured By Age.

To Be Obliged To Beg Our Daily Happiness From Others Bespeaks A More Lamentable Poverty Than That Of Him Who Begs His Daily Bread.

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

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

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

With Books, As With Companions, It Is Of More Consequence To Know Which To Avoid, Than Which To Choose; For Good Books Are As Scarce As Good Companions...

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.

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.

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.

It May Be Observed Of Good Writing, As Of Good Blood, That It Is Much Easier To Say What It Is Composed Of Than To Compose It.

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.

Mystery Is Not Profoundness.

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.

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.

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.

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

Bigotry Murders Religion To Frighten Fools With Her Ghost.

Religious Bigotry

Sir Richard Steele Has Observed, That There Is This Difference Between The Church Of Rome And The Church Of England: The One Professes To Be Infallible, The Other To Be Never In The Wrong.

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.

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."

Posthumous Charities Are The Very Essence Of Selfishness When Bequeathed By Those Who, Even Alive, Would Part With Nothing.

Antithesis May Be The Blossom Of Wit, But It Will Never Arrive At Maturity Unless Sound Sense Be The Trunk And Truth The Root. Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon; Or, Many Things In A Few Words Light, Whether It Be Material Or Moral, Is The Best Reformer; For It Prevents Those Disorders Which Other Remedies Sometimes Cure, But Sometimes Confirm.

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

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.

Justice To My Readers Compels Me To Admit That I Write Because I Have Nothing To Do; Justice To Myself Induces Me To Add That I Will Cease To Write The Moment I Have Nothing To Say.

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

A Thorough-paced Knave Will Rarely Quarrel With One Whom He Can Cheat: His Revenge Is Plunder; Therefore He Is Usually The Most Forgiving Of Beings, Upon The Principle That If He Come To An Open Rupture, He Must Defend Himself; And This Does Not Suit A Man Whose Vocation It Is To Keep His Hands In The Pocket Of Another.

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

If Our Eloquence Be Directed Above The Heads Of Our Hearers, We Shall Do No Execution. By Pointing Our Arguments Low, We Stand A Chance Of Hitting Their Hearts As Well As Their Heads. In Addressing Angels, We Could Hardly Raise Our Eloquence Too High; But We Must Remember That Men Are Not Angels.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

He That Dies A Martyr Proves That He Was Not A Knave, But By No Means That He Was Not A Fool; Since The Most Absurd Doctrines Are Not Without Such Evidence As Martyrdom Can Produce. A Martyr, Therefore, By The Mere Act Of Suffering, Can Prove Nothing But His Own Faith.

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

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

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.

In Great Cities Men Are More Callous Both To The Happiness And The Misery Of Others, Than In The Country; For They Are Constantly In The Habit Of Seeing Both Extremes.

Two Things, Well Considered, Would Prevent Many Quarrels: First, To Have It Well Ascertained Whether We Are Not Disputing About Terms, Rather Than Things; And, Secondly, To Examine Whether That On Which We Differ Is Worth Contending About.

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

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.

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

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Robert A. Heinlein

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