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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.

-Charles Caleb Colton

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We Cannot Think Too

Charles Caleb Colton

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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.

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

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

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

They That Are Loudest In Their Threats Are The Weakest In The Execution Of Them. It Is Probable That He Who Is Killed By Lightning Hears No Noise; But The Thunder-clap Which Follows, And Which Most Alarms The Ignorant, Is The Surest Proof Of Their Safety.

Many A Man May Thank His Talent For His Rank, But No Man Has Ever Been Able To Return The Compliment By Thanking His Rank For His Talent.

That Which We Acquire With The Most Difficulty We Retain The Longest; As Those Who Have Earned A Fortune Are Usually More Careful Of It Than Those Who Have Inherited One.

It Is Sufficiently Humiliating To Our Nature To Reflect That Our Knowledge Is But As She Rivulet, Our Ignorance As The Sea. On Points Of The Highest Interest, The Moment We Quit The Light Of Revelation We Shall Find That Platonism Itself Is Intimately Connected With Pyrrhonism, And The Deepest Inquiry With The Darkest Doubt.

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

Anguish Of Mind Has Driven Thousands To Suicide; Anguish Of Body, None. This Proves That The Health Of The Mind Is Of Far More Consequence To Our Happiness Than The Health Of The Body, Although Both Are Deserving Of Much More Attention Than Either Of Them Receive.

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

The Whole Family Of Pride And Ignorance Are Incestuous, And Mutually Beget Each Other

Our Wealth Is Often A Snare To Ourselves, And Always A Temptation To Others.

If A Horse Has Four Legs, And I'm Riding It, I Think I Can Win.

Nothing More Completely Baffles One Who Is Full Of Trick And Duplicity Than Straigthforward And Simple Integrity In Another. A Knave Would Rather Quarrel With A Brother Knave Than With A Fool, But He Would Rather Avoid A Quarrel With One Honest Man Than With Both. He Can Combat A Fool By Management And Address, And He Can Conquer A Knave By Temptations. But The Honest Man Is Neither To Be Bamboozled Nor Bribed.

We 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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

A Harmless Hilarity And A Buoyant Cheerfulness Are Not Infrequent Concomitants Of Genius; And We Are Never More Deceived Than When We Mistake Gravity For Greatness, Solemnity For Science, And Pomposity For Erudition.

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

Constant Success Shows Us But One Side Of The World; Adversity Brings Out The Reverse Of The Picture.

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

It Is Not So Difficult A Task To Plant New Truths, As To Root Out Old Errors; For There Is This Paradox In Men, They Run After That Which Is New, But Are Prejudiced In Favor Of That Which Is Old.

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.

Doubt Is The Vestibule Of Faith.

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

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

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

It Is Good To Act As If. It Is Even Better To Grow To The Point Where It Is No Longer An Act.

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.

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

Jealousy Is Sustained As Often By Pride As By Affection.

Secrecy Is The Soul Of All Great Designs.

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.

God Is On The Side Of Virtue; For Whoever Dreads Punishment Suffers It, And Whoever Deserves It, Dreads It .

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Honor Is Unstable And Seldom The Same; For She Feeds Upon Opinion, And Is As Fickle As Her Food.

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

Love Is An Alchemist That Can Transmute Poison Into Food--and A Spaniel, That Prefers Even Punishment From One Hand To Caresses From Another. But It Is In Love As In War, We Are Often More Indebted For Our Success To The Weakness Of The Defence Than To The Energy Of The Attack; For Mere Idleness Has Ruined More Women Than Passion; Vanity More Than Idleness, And Credulity More Than Either.

It Has Been Shrewdly Said, That When, Men Abuse Us We Should Suspect Ourselves, And When They Praise Us, Them. It Is A Rare Instance Of Virtue To Despise Which Censure Which We Do Not Deserve; And Still More Rare To Despise Praise Which We Do.

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.

Our Admiration Of Fine Writing Will Always Be In Proportion To Its Real Difficulty And Its Apparent Ease.

We Must Be Careful How We Flatter Fools Too Little, Or Wise Men Too Much, For The Flatterer Must Act The Very Reverse Of The Physician, And Administer The Strongest Dose Only To The Weakest Patient.

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

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.

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.

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.

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It Is Curious That We Pay Statesmen For What They Say, Not For What They Do; And Judge Of Them From What They Do, Not From What They Say. Hence They Have One Code Of Maxims For Profession And Another For Practice, And Make Up Their Consciences As The Neapolitans Do Their Beds, With One Set Of Furniture For Show And Another For Use.

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

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

Happiness ... Leads None Of Us By The Same Route.

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.

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.

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

The Highest Knowledge Can Be Nothing More Than The Shortest And Clearest Road To Truth; All The Rest Is Pretension, Not Performance, Mere Verbiage And Grandiloquence, From Which We Can Learn Nothing.

Some Men Are Very Entertaining For A First Interview, But After That They Are Exhausted, And Run Out; On A Second Meeting We Shall Find Them Flat And Monotonous; Like Hand-organs, We Have Heard All Their Tunes.

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

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."

Idleness Is The Grand Pacific Ocean Of Life, And In That Stagnant Abyss The Most Salutary Things Produce No Good, The Most Noxious No Evil. Vice, Indeed, Abstractedly Considered, May Be, And Often Is Engendered In Idleness; But The Moment It Becomes Efficiently Vice, It Must Quit Its Cradle And Cease To Be Idle.

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.

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

It Is More Easy To Forgive The Weak Who Have Injured Us Than The Powerful Whom We Have Injured.

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

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

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

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!

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

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.

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.

Time, The Cradle Of Hope, But The Grave Of Ambition, Is The Stern Corrector Of Fools, But The Salutary Counselor Of The Wise, Bringing All They Dread To The One, And All They Desire To The Other.

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.

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

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

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.

Fashion ... Has Brought Every Thing Into Vogue, By Turns.

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

The Integrity That Lives Only On Opinion Would Starve Without It.

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.

Genius, When Employed In Works Whose Tendency It Is To Demoralize And To Degrade Us, Should Be Contemplated With Abhorrence Rather Than With Admiration; Such A Monument Of Its Power, May Indeed Be Stamped With Immortality, But Like The Coliseum At Rome, We Deplore Its Magnificence Because We Detest The Purposes For Which It Was Designed.

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

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.

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

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.

We Should Choose Our Books As We Would Our Companions, For Their Sterling And Intrinsic Merit.

It Is Almost As Difficult To Make A Man Unlearn His Errors As His Knowledge.

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

Theories Are Private Property, But Truth Is Common Stock.

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.

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.

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.

Never Join With Your Friend When He Abuses His Horse Or His Wife, Unless The One Is About To Be Sold, The Other To Be Buried.

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

There Are Only Two Things In Which The False Professors Of All Religions Have Agreed--to Persecute All Other Sects And To Plunder Their Own.

Some Philosophers Would Give A Sex To Revenge, And Appropriate It Almost Exclusively To The Female Mind. But, Like Most Other Vices, It Is Of Both Genders; Yet, Because Wounded Vanity And Slighted Love Are The Two Most Powerful Excitements To Revenge, It Has Been Thought, Perhaps, To Rage With More Violence In The Female Heart.

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.

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

Nobility Is A River That Sets With A Constant And Undeviating Current, Directly Into The Great Pacific Ocean Of Time; But, Unlike All Other Rivers, It Is More Grand At Its Source, Than At Its Termination.

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

Oppression Cannot Prosper Where None Will Submit To Be Enslaved.

Antithesis May Be The Blossom Of Wit, But It Will Never Arrive At Maturity Unless Sound Sense Be The Trunk And Truth The Root.

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.

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

Unlike The Sun, Intellectual Luminaries Shine Brightest After They Set.

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.

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.

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

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

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

A Christian Builds His Fortitude On A Better Foundation Than Stoicism; He Is Pleased With Every Thing That Happens, Because He Knows It Could Not Happen Unless It First Pleased God, And That Which Pleases Him Must Be Best.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It Is A Curious Paradox That Precisely In Proportion To Our Own Intellectual Weakness Will Be Our Credulity, To Those Mysterious Powers Assumed By Others; And In Those Regions Of Darkness And Ignorance Where Man Cannot Effect Even Those Things That Are Within The Power Of Man, There We Shall Ever Find That A Blind Belief In Feats That Are Far Beyond Those Powers Has Taken The Deepest Root In The Minds Of The Deceived, And Produced The Richest Harvest To The Knavery Of The Deceiver.

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

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

A Cool Blooded And Crafty Politician, When He Would Be Thoroughly Revenged On His Enemy, Makes The Injuries Which Have Been Inflicted, Not On Himself, But On Others, The Pretext Of His Attack. He Thus Engages The World As A Partisan In His Quarrel, And Dignifies His Private Hate, By Giving It The Air Of Disinterested Resentment.

There Are Both Dull Correctness And Piquant Carelessness; It Is Needless To Say Which Will Command The Most Readers And Have The Most Influence.

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.

When In Reading We Meet With Any Maxim That May Be Of Use, We Should Take It For Our Own, And Make An Immediate Application Of It, As We Would Of The Advice Of A Friend Whom We Have Purposely Consulted.

Were The Life Of Man Prolonged, He Would Become Such A Proficient In Villainy, That It Would Become Necessary Again To Drown Or To Burn The World. Earth Would Become An Hell; For Future Rewards When Put Off To A Great Distance, Would Cease To Encourage, And Future Punishments To Alarm.

Accustom Yourself To Submit On All And Every Occasion, And On The Most Minute, No Less Than On The Most Important Circumstances Of Life, To A Small Present Evil, To Obtain A Greater Distant Good. This Will Give Decision, Tone, And Energy To The Mind, Which, Thus Disciplined, Will Often Reap Victory From Defeat And Honor From Repulse.

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.

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

When Certain Persons Abuse Us, Let Us Ask Ourselves What Description Of Characters It Is That They Admire; We Shall Often Find This A Very Consolatory Question.

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.

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

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.

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?

In Cases Of Doubtful Morality, It Is Usual To Say Is There Any Harm In Doing This? This Question May Sometimes Be Best Answered By Asking Ourselves Another; Is There Any Harm In Letting It Alone?

It Is Doubtful Whether Mankind Are Most Indebted To Those Who Like Bacon And Butler Dig The Gold From The Mine Of Literature, Or To Those Who, Like Paley, Purify It, Stamp It, Fix Its Real Value, And Give It Currency And Utility

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.

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.

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.

Lord Bacon Has Compared Those Who Move In Higher Spheres To Those Heavenly Bodies In The Firmament, Which Have Much Admiration, But Little Rest. And It Is Not Necessary To Invest A Wise Man With Power To Convince Him That It Is A Garment Bedizened With Gold, Which Dazzles The Beholder By Its Splendor, But Oppresses The Wearer By Its Weight.

Most Plagiarists, Like The Drone, Have Neither Taste To Select, Industry To Acquire, Nor Skill To Improve, But Impudently Pilfer The Honey Ready Prepared, From The Hive.

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

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

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.

The Excesses Of Our Youth Are Drafts Upon Our Old Age.

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.

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

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.

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

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!

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

The French Have A Saying That Whatever Excellence A Man May Exhibit In A Public Station He Is Very Apt To Be Ridiculous In A Private One.

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

Posthumous Fame Is A Plant Of Tardy Growth, For Our Body Must Be The Seed Of It; Or We May Liken It To A Torch, Which Nothing But The Last Spark Of Life Can Light Up; Or We May Compare It To The Trumpet Of The Archangel, For It Is Blown Over The Dead; But Unlike That Awful Blast, It Is Of Earth, Not Of Heaven, And Can Neither Rouse Nor Raise Us.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

As That Gallant Can Best Affect A Pretended Passion For One Woman Who Has No True Love For Another, So He That Has No Real Esteem For Any Of The Virtues Can Best Assume The Appearance Of Them All.

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.

Success Seems To Be That Which Forms The Distinction Between Confidence And Conceit.

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

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

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.

Honor Is The Most Capricious In Her Rewards. She Feeds Us With Air, And Often Pulls Down Our House, To Build Our Monument.

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.

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

Charles Fox Said That Restorations Were The Most Bloody Of All Revolutions; And He Might Have Added That Reformations Are The Best Mode Of Preventing The Necessity Of Either.

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

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

There Is Nothing More Imprudent Than Excessive Prudence.

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?

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.

Most Females Will Forgive A Liberty Rather Than A Slight

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

When All Moves Equally (says Pascal), Nothing Seems To Move As In A Vessel Under Sail; And When All Run By Common Consent Into Vice, None Appear To Do So. He That Stops First, Views As From A Fixed Point The Horrible Extravagance That Transports The Rest.

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.

Death Is Like Thunder In Two Particulars; We Are Alarmed, At The Sound Of It; And It Is Formidable Only From That Which Preceded It.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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