Charles Caleb
Charles Caleb
envy reason instinct
If sensuality be our only happiness we ought to envy the brutes, for instinct is a surer, shorter, safer guide to such happiness than reason.
pain doors hands
Sensibility would be a good portress if she had but one hand; with her right she opens the door to pleasure, but with her left to pain.
past political reform
Reform is a good replete with paradox; it is a cathartic which our political quacks, like our medical, recommend to others, but will not take themselves; it is admired by all who cannot effect it, and abused by all who can; it is thought pregnant with danger, for all time that is present, but would have been extremely profitable for that which is past, and will be highly salutary for that which is to come.
weed strong roots
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.
restoration might revolution
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.
sex mirrors improvement
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.
powerful forgiving easy
It is more easy to forgive the weak who have injured us than the powerful whom we have injured.
men silence may
A man's profundity may keep him from opening on a first interview, and his caution on a second; but I should suspect his emptiness, if he carried on his reserve to a third.
wise men darkness
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.
heart perfect soul
Philosophers have widely differed as to the seat of the soul, and St. Paul has told us that out of the heart proceed murmurings; but there can be no doubt that the seat of perfect contentment is in the head, for every individual is thoroughly satisfied with his own proportion of brains.
act energy expect pray themselves
We should pray with as much earnestness as those who expect everything from God; we should act with as much energy as those who expect everything from themselves
relative richer since wants wealth
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
becoming men others paradox prevents
There is a paradox in pride: it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so.
against knowledge profoundly wise
The profoundly wise do not declaim against superficial knowledge in others, as much as the profoundly ignorant.