To sentence a man of true genius, to the drudgery of a school is to put a racehorse on a treadmill.
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There are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion.
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Constant success shows us but one side of the world; adversity brings out the reverse of the picture.
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We ask advice but we mean approbation.
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The excess of our youth are checks written against our age and they are payable with interest thirty years later.
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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.
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Were we as eloquent as angels we still would please people much more by listening rather than talking.
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The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.
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Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.
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It is the briefest yet wisest maxim which tells us to meddle not.
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Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.
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In all societies, it is advisable to associate if possible with the highest; not that the highest are always the best, but because, if disgusted there, we can descend at any time; but if we begin with the lowest, to ascend is impossible.
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He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a long head or a very short creed.
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Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.
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Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.
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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.
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Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness, when bequeathed by those who. when alive, would not have contributed.
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Did universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven, and hell a fable.
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When millions applaud you seriously ask yourself what harm you have done; and when they disapprove you, what good.
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Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in their actions.
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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.
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Reply to wit with gravity, and to gravity with wit.
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Physical courage, which engages all danger, will make a person brave in one way; and moral courage, which defies all opinion, will make a person brave in another.
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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.
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Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console.
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Deliberate with caution, but act with decision; and yield with graciousness or oppose with firmness.
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My lowest days as a Christian [and There Were Low Ones--Seven Months Worth Of Them In Prison, To Be Exact] have been more fulfilling and rewarding than all the days of glory in the White House.
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When the frustration of my helplessness seemed greatest, I discovered God's grace was more than sufficient. And after my imprisonment, I could look back and see how God used my powerlessness for His purpose. What He has chosen for my most significant witness was not my triumphs or victories, but my defeat.
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Pedantry is the showy display of knowledge which crams our heads with learned lumber and then takes out our brains to make room for it.
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Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.
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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.
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Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.
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Commerce flourishes by circumstances, precarious, transitory, contingent, almost as the winds and waves that bring it to our shores.
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The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm.
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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.
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The family is the most basic unit of government. As the first community to which a person is attached and the first authority under which a person learns to live, the family establishes society's most basic values.
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We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.
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There are some frauds so well conducted that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them.
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Tyrants have not yet discovered any chains that can fetter the mind.
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Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.
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Friendship, of itself a holy tie, is made more sacred by adversity.
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True friendship is like sound health, the value of it is seldom known until it be lost.
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The drafts which true genius draws upon posterity, although they may not always be honored so soon as they are due, are sure to be paid with compound interest in the end.
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None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.
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Avarice has ruined more souls than extravagance.
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There is this difference between happiness and wisdom, that he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he who thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.
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Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meandering, but leads none of us by the same route
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Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed. Health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied.
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Honor is unstable and seldom the same; for she feeds upon opinion, and is as fickle as her food.
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Levity is often less foolish and gravity less wise than each of them appears.
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Where we cannot invent, we may at least improve.
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Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of tricks and duplicity than straight forward and simple integrity in another.
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To despise our own species is the price we must often pay for knowledge of it.
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We own almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed but to those who have differed.
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Law and equity are two things which God has joined, but which man has put asunder.
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Life isn't like a book. Life isn't logical or sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be lived in the midst of that mess.
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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.
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Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship, never.
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Love is an alliance of friendship and animalism; if the former predominates it is passion exalted and refined; if the latter, gross and sensual.
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Never join with your friend when he abuses his horse or his wife, unless the one is to be sold and the other to be buried.
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Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person.
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Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance.
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Our income are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and trip.
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Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it's set a rolling it must increase.
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Mystery is not profoundness.
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Mystery magnifies danger, as a fog the sun, the hand that warned Belshazzar derived its horrifying effect from the want of a body.
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Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely and conciliate those you cannot conquer.
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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.
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Subtract from the great man all that he owes to opportunity, all that he owes to chance, and all that he gained by the wisdom of his friends and the folly of his enemies, and the giant will often be seen to be a pygmy.
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Great minds must be ready not only to take opportunities, but to make them.
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To look back to antiquity is one thing, to go back to it is another.
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Patience is the support of weakness; impatience the ruin of strength
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Philosophy is a bully that talks loud when the danger is at a distant; but, the moment she is pressed hard by an enemy, she is nowhere to be found and leaves the brunt of the battle to be fought by her steady, humble comrade, religion.
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Pity is a thing often vowed, seldom felt; hatred is a thing often felt, seldom avowed.
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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.
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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.
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No man is wise enough, or good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.
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Of all the marvelous works of God, perhaps the one angels view with the most supreme astonishment, is a proud man.
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There is this paradox in pride -- it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so.
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He that is good, will infallibly become better, and he that is bad, will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue and time are three things that never stand still.
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Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.
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There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.
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There are two way of establishing a reputation, one to be praised by honest people and the other to be accused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the first one, because it will always be accompanied by the latter.
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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.
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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.
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Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by other men.
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It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies; seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends.
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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.
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Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.
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Secrecy is the soul of all great designs.
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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.
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When we fail our pride supports us and when we succeed, it betrays us.
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To know a man, observe how he wins his object, rather than how he loses it; for when we fail, our pride supports; when we succeed; it betrays us.
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He that thinks he is the happiest man, really is so. But he that thinks he is the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.
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Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time, which every day produces, and which most men throw away, but which nevertheless will make at the end of it no small deduction for the life of man.
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Time; that black and narrow isthmus between two eternities.
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As no roads are so rough as those that have just been mended, so no sinners are so intolerant as those that have just turned saints.
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If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city.
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Theories are private property, but truth is common stock.
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The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility.
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It is only when the rich are sick that they fully feel the impotence of wealth.
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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.
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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.
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To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author.
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The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces, nor slander us behind our backs, nor intrude upon our privacy, nor quit their shelves until we take them down.
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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.
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