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The safest principle through life, instead of reforming others, is to set about perfecting yourself.

Benjamin Haydon

Beware of the beginnings of vice. Do not delude yourself with the belief that it can be argued against in the presence of the exciting cause. Nothing but actual flight can save you.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Belief Causes Vices
Mistrusts sometimes come over one’s mind of the justice of God. But let a real misery come again, and to whom do we fly? To whom do we instinctively and immediately look up?
BENJAMIN HAYDON

God Justice Real
Men of genius are often considered superstitious, but the fact is, the fineness of their nerve renders them more alive to the supernatural than ordinary men.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Men Nerves Ordinary
Some persons are so devotional they have not one bit of true religion in them.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Devotional Persons True Religion
Never suffer youth to be an excuse for inadequacy, nor age and fame to be an excuse for indolence.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Age Reputation Suffering
How difficult it is to get men to believe that any other man can or does act from disinterestedness!
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Believe Disinterestedness Men
There must be more malice than love in the hearts of all wits.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Heart Love Malice Wit
Nothing is difficult; it is only we who are indolent.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Difficult Indolence Indolent
Satan is to be punished eternally in the end, but for a while he triumphs.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Devil Satan Triumph
No man, perhaps, is so wicked as to commit evil for its own sake. Evil is generally committed under the hope of some advantage the pursuit of virtue seldom obtains. Yet the most successful result of the most virtuous heroism is never without its alloy.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Evil Men Successful
The only legitimate artists in England are the architects.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Architecture Artist England
Invention is totally independent of the will.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Independent Invention Totally
Fortunately for serious minds, a bias recognized is a bias sterilized.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Mind Prejudice Serious
The safest principle through life, instead of reforming others, is to set about perfecting yourself.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Improvement Inspirational Life Self
Temperance in everything is requisite for happiness.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Everything Happiness Requisite Temperance
One of the surest evidences of an elevated taste is the power of enjoying works of impassioned terrorism, in poetry, and painting. The man who can look at impassioned subjects of terror with a feeling of exultation may be certain he has an elevated taste.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Feelings Men Pain Poetry
Genius is nothing more than common faculties refined to a greater intensity. There are no astonishing ways of doing astonishing things. All astonishing things are done by ordinary materials.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Astonishing Done Genius Ordinary
It is highly convenient to believe in the infinite mercy of God when you feel the need of mercy, but remember also his infinite justice.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Believe God Justice Mercy
The greatest geniuses have always attributed everything to God, as if conscious of being possessed of a spark of His divinity.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Divinity Genius Sparks
Do your duty, and don’t swerve from it. Do that which your conscience tells you to be right, and leave the consequences to God.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Conscience Duty Swerve
When a man is no longer anxious to do better than well, he is done for.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Better Get Men Quality
We are a compound of both here and hereafter; we shall be made responsible for the actions of both while here. Anything beyond this is beyond our power to prove, and would be of no real value if we could.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Both Real Responsibility Responsible
Newton’s health, and confusion to mathematics.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Confusion Mathematics Newton
Genius in poverty is never feared, because nature, though liberal in her gifts in one instance, is forgetful in another.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Genius Never Fear Poverty
It is better to make friends than adversaries of a conquered race.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Adversaries Friends Race
There surely is in human nature an inherent propensity to extract all the good out of all the evil.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Evil Human Nature Propensity
Danger is the very basis of superstition. It produces a searching after help supernaturally when human means are no longer supposed to be available.
BENJAMIN HAYDON

Helping Mean Superstition

The safest principle through life, instead of reforming others, is to set about perfecting yourself.

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The safest principle through life, instead of reforming others, is to set about perfecting yourself.

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