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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.

-Charles Caleb Colton

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When We Are In

Charles Caleb Colton

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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.

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Pain May Be Said To Follow Pleasure As Its Shadow.

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.

Wealth Is A Relative Thing Since Those Who Have Little And Want Less Are Richer Than Those Who Have Much But Want More.

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.

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

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.

Great Men, Like Comets, Are Eccentric In Their Courses, And Formed To Do Extensive Good By Modes Unintelligible To Vulgar Minds.

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

The Masses Procure Their Opinions Ready Made In Open Market.

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.

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.

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.

It Is Not Every Man That Can Afford To Wear A Shabby Coat; And Worldly Wisdom Dictates To Her Disciples The Propriety Of Dressing Somewhat Beyond Their Means, But Of Living Somewhat Within Them,--for Every One, Sees How We Dress, But None See How We Live, Except We Choose To Let Them. But The Truly Great Are, By Universal Suffrage, Exempted From These Trammels, An May Live Or Dress As They Please.

Happiness Is That Single And Glorious Thing Which Is The Very Light And Sun Of The Whole Animated Universe; And Where She Is Not It Were Better That Nothing Should Be.

Imitation Is The Highest Form Of Flattery.

We Often Pretend To Fear What We Really Despise, And More Often Despise What We Really Fear.

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

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.

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.

To Dare To Live Alone Is The Rarest Courage; Since There Are Many Who Had Rather Meet Their Bitterest Enemy In The Field, Than Their Own Hearts In Their Closet.

No Improvement That Takes Place In Either Sex Can Possibly Be Confined To Itself. Each Is A Universal Mirror To Each, And The Respective Refinement Of The One Will Always Be In Reciprocal Proportion To The Polish Of The Other.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

There Can Be No Christianity Where There Is No 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.

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.

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

I Question If Epicurus And Hume Have Done Mankind A Greater Service By The Looseness Of Their Doctrines Than By The Purity Of Their Lives. Of Such Men We May More Justly Exclaim, Than Of Caesar, "confound Their Virtues, They've Undone The World!

Jealousy Is Sustained As Often By Pride As By Affection.

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

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

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

Sometimes The Greatest Adversities Turn Out To Be The Greatest Blessings.

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.

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.

Self-denial Is Often The Sacrifice Of One Sort Of Self-love For Another.

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.

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."

When All Run By Common Consent Into Vice, None Appear To Do So.

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

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.

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

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.

If You Cannot Inspire A Woman With Love Of You, Fill Her Above The Brim With Love Of Herself; All That Runs Over Will Be Yours.

True Contentment Depends Not Upon What We Have; A Tub Was Large Enough For Diogenes, But A World Was Too Little For Alexander.

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.

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.

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

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

The Most Consistent Men Are Not More Unlike To Others, Than They Are At Times To Themselves.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Books, Like Friends, Should Be Few And Well Chosen. Like Friends, Too, We Should Return To Them Again And Again For, Like True Friends, They Will Never Fail Us - Never Cease To Instruct - Never Cloy.

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.

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

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

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

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!

She Is Deceitful As The Calm That Precedes The Hurricane, Smooth As The Water On The Verge Of The Cataract, And Beautiful As The Rainbow, That Smiling Daughter Of The Storm; But, Like The Mirage In The Desert, She Tantalizes Us With A Delusion That Distance Creates, And That Contiguity Destroys.

A Society Composed Of None But The Wicked Could Not Exist; It Contains Within Itself The Seeds Of Its Own Destruction, And Without A Flood, Would Be Swept Away From The Earth By The Deluge Of Its Own Iniquity.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Where We Cannot Invent, We May At Least Improve; We May Give Somewhat Of Novelty To That Which Was Old, Condensation To That Which Was Diffuse, Perspicuity To That Which Was Obscure, And Currency To That Which Was Recondite.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Immitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery.

That Is Fine Benevolence, Finely Executed, Which, Like The Nile, Comes From Hidden Sources.

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.

Unity Of Opinion Is Indeed A Glorious And Desirable Thing, And Its Circle Cannot Be Too Strong And Extended, If The Centre Be Truth; But If The Centre Be Error, The Greater The Circumference, The Greater The Evil.

Happiness Is Much More Equally Divided Than Some Of Us Imagine. One Man Shall Possess Most Of The Materials, But Little Of The Thing; Another May Possess Much Of The Thing, But Very Few Of The Material. In This Particular View Of It, Happiness Had Been Beautifully Compared To The Man In The Desert--he That Gathered Much Had Nothing Over, And He That Gathered Little Had No Lack.

The Greatest And Most Amiable Privilege Which The Rich Enjoy Over The Poor Is That Which They Exercise The Least--the Privilege Of Making Others Happy.

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.

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

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.

The Blindness Of Bigotry, The Madness Of Ambition, And The Miscalculations Of Diplomacy Seek Their Victims Principally Amongst The Innocent And The Unoffending. The Cottage Is Sure To Suffer For Every Error Of The Court, The Cabinet, Or The Camp. When Error Sits In The Seat Of Power And Of Authority, And Is Generated In High Places, It May Be Compared To That Torrent Which Originates Indeed In The Mountain, But Commits Its Devastation In The Vale.

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

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

A Man Who Knows The World Will Not Only Make The Most Of Everything He Does Know, But Of Many Things He Does Not Know, And Will Gain More Credit By His Adroit Mode Of Hiding His Ignorance Than The Pedant By His Awkward Attempt To Exhibit His Erudition.

Theory Is Worth But Little, Unless It Can Explain Its Own Phenomena, And It Must Effect This Without Contradicting Itself; Therefore, The Facts Are Sometimes Assimilated To The Theory, Rather Than The Theory To The Facts.

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.

Our Very Best Friends Have A Tincture Of Jealousy Even In Their Friendship; And When They Hear Us Praised By Others, Will Ascribe It To Sinister And Interested Motives If They Can.

Lost Friendship

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

Envy Ought To Have No Place Allowed It In The Hearts Of People; For The Goods Of This Present World Are So Vile And Low That They Are Beneath It; And Those Of The Future World Are So Vast And Exalted That They Are Above It.

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

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.

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

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.

Pride Is Less Ashamed Of Being Ignorant, Than Of Being Instructed, And She Looks Too High To Find That, Which Very Often Lies Beneath Her.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

He That Has Never Suffered Extreme Adversity Knows Not The Full Extent Of His Own Depravation.

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.

Few Things Are More Agreeable To Self-love Than Revenge, And Yet No Cause So Effectually Restrains Us From Revenge As Self-love. And This Paradox Naturally Suggests Another; That The Strength Of The Community Is Not Unfrequently Built Upon The Weakness Of Those Individuals That Compose It.

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.

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.

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

Of All The Faculties Of The Mind, Memory Is The First That Flourishes, And The First That Dies.

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

Many Books Require No Thought From Those Who Read Them, And For A Very Simple Reason; They Made No Such Demand Upon Those Who Wrote Them.

As There Are None So Weak That We May Venture To Injure Them With Impunity, So There Are None So Low That They May Not At Some Time Be Able To Repay An Obligation. Therefore, What Benevolence Would Dictate, Prudence Would Confirm.

Cheerfulness Ought To Be The Viaticum Vitae Of Their Life To The Old; Age Without Cheerfulness Is A Lapland Winter Without A Sun.

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.

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.

It Is Adverse To Talent To Be Consorted And Trained Up With Inferior Minds And Inferior Companions, However High They May Rank. The Foal Of The Racer Neither Finds Out His Speed Nor Calls Out His Powers If Pastured Out With The Common Herd, That Are Destined For The Collar And The Yoke.

Secrecy Of Design, When Combined With Rapidity Of Execution, Like Me Column That Guided Israel In The Deserts, Becomes The Guardian Pillar Of Light And Fire To Our Friends, A Cloud Of Overwhelming And Impenetrable Darkness To Our Enemies.

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

The Learned Languages Are Indispensable To Form The Gentleman And The Scholar, And Are Well Worth All The Labor That They Have Cost Us, Provided They Are Valued Not For Themselves Alone, Which Would Make A Pedant, But As A Foundation For Further Acquirements.

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.

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.

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

Adroit Observers Will Find That Some Who Affect To Dislike Flattery, May Yet Be Flattered Indirectly, By A Well Seasoned Abuse And Ridicule Of Their Rivals.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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

When You Have Nothing To Say, Say Nothing.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Repartee Is Perfect When It Effects Its Purpose With A Double Edge. It Is The Highest Order Of Wit, As It Indicates The Coolest Yet Quickest Exercise Of Genius, At A Moment When The Passions Are Roused.

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

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.

Man Is An Embodied Paradox, A Bundle Of Contradictions.

Our Incomes Should Be Like Our Shoes, If Too Small, They Will Gall And Pinch Us, But If Too Large, They Will Cause Us To Stumble And To Trip. Wealth, After All, Is A Relative Thing, Since He That Has Little And Wants Less Is Richer Than He That Has Much But Wants More. True Contentment Depends Not Upon What We Have; A Tub Was Large Enough For Diogenes, But A World Was Too Little For Alexander.

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

Expect Not Praise Without Envy Until You Are Dead.

Courage Is Like The Diamond,--very Brilliant; Not Changed By Fire, Capable Of High Polish, But Except For The Purpose Of Cutting Hard Bodies Useless.

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

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

He That Can Enjoy The Intimacy Of The Great, And On No Occasion Disgust Them By Familiarity, Or Disgrace Himself By Servility, Proves That He Is As Perfect A Gentleman By Nature As His Companions Are By Rank.

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.

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 Merited, No Courage Can Stand Against Its Just Indignation.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Avarice Has Ruined More Souls Than Extravagance.

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.

Subtlety Will Sometimes Give Safety, No Less Than Strength; And Minuteness Has Sometimes Escaped, Where Magnitude Would Have Been Crushed. The Little Animal That Kills The Boa Is Formidable Chiefly From Its Insignificance, Which Is Incompressible By The Folds Of Its Antagonist.

Despotism Can No More Exist In A Nation Until The Liberty Of The Press Be Destroyed Than The Night Can Happen Before The Sun Is Set.

Forgiveness, That Noblest Of All Self-denial, Is A Virtue Which He Alone Who Can Practise In Himself Can Willingly Believe In Another.

Kings And Their Subjects, Masters And Slaves, Find A Common Level In Two Places - At The Foot Of The Cross, And In The Grave.

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.

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.

Genius In One Grand Particular Is Like Life. We Know Nothing Of Either But By Their Effects.

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.

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.

There Is A Diabolical Trio Existing In The Natural Man, Implacable, Inextinguishable, Co-operative And Consentaneous, Pride, Envy, And Hate; Pride That Makes Us Fancy We Deserve All The Goods That Others Possess; Envy That Some Should Be Admired While We Are Overlooked; And Hate, Because All That Is Bestowed On Others, Diminishes The Sum We Think Due To Ourselves.

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

No Metaphysician Ever Felt The Deficiency Of Language So Much As The Grateful.

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

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

The Worst Thing That Can Be Said Of The Most Powerful Is That They Can Take Your Life; But The Same Can Be Said Of The Most Weak.

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

We Strive As Hard To Hide Our Hearts From Ourselves As From Others, And Always With More Success; For In Deciding Upon Our Own Case We Are Both Judge, Jury, And Executioner, And Where Sophistry Cannot Overcome The First, Or Flattery The Second, Self-love Is Always Ready To Defeat The Sentence By Bribing The Third.

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

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

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Walter Savage Landor

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