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We know the effects of many things, but the cause of few; experience, therefore, is a surer guide than imagination, and inquiry than conjecture.

Charles Caleb Colton

If you are under obligations to many, it is prudent to postpone the recompensing of one, until it be in your power to remunerate all; otherwise you will make more enemies by what you give, than by what you withhold.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Enemy Hold Obligation Power
Our actions must clothe us with an immortality loathsome or glorious.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Anand Thakur
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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Avoid Better Dangerous Hurricane Shipwreck Storm Wait
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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Blood Ourselves Remedy Revenge
There are both dull correctness and piquant carelessness; it is needless to say which will command the most readers and have the most influence.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Care Command Influence Reading
Honor is unstable and seldom the same; for she feeds upon opinion, and is as fickle as her food.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Food Herself Honor Stability
It may be observed of good writing, as of good blood, that it is much easier to say what it is composed of than to compose it.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Compose Goodness Observation Writing
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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Grave Precious Reputation Weakness Weapon Whisper
He that has never known adversity is but half acquainted with others, or with himself.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Adversity Himself Known
Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Born Eyes Man Oneself Proverb
He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Death Evidence Fools
Cruel men are the greatest lovers of Mercy, avaricious men of generosity, and proud men of humility; that is to say, in other, not in themselves.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Cruelty Generosity Greatness Humility Lover
There are male as well as female gossips.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Female Gossip Male
We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Fear Human Nature Pretend
Ladies of Fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Fashion Happiness Love Pride Starve
War is a game in which princes seldom win, the people never.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Game People War Win
The awkwardness and embarrassment which all feel on beginning to write, when they themselves are the theme, ought to serve as a hint to author’s that self is a subject they ought very rarely to descant upon.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Awkward Beginning Embarrassment Subject Theme Writing
The true measure of your character is what you do when nobody’s watching.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Character Measurement True Watch
Eloquence is the language of nature, and cannot be learned in the schools; but rhetoric is the creature of art, which he who feels least will most excel in.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Creature Excellence Feeling Language Learning School
Discretion has been termed the better part of valour, and it is more certain, that diffidence is the better part of knowledge.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Better Certain Knowledge Term
A power above all human responsibility ought to be above all human attainment.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Attainment Human Power Responsibility
Tyrants have not yet discovered any chains that can fetter the mind.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Chain Discover Mindset
We are sure to be losers when we quarrel with ourselves; it is civil war.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Civil Lose Ourselves War
An honest man will continue to be so though surrounded on all sides by rogues.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Honesty Man Side Surround
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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Earn Enjoyment Liberty People Raise
Words indeed are but the signs and counters of knowledge, and their currency should be strictly regulated by the capital which they represent.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Capital Knowledge Regulation Representation Sign Word
He that places himself neither higher nor lower than he ought to do exercises the truest humility.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Exercise Humility Low Place True

We know the effects of many things, but the cause of few; experience, therefore, is a surer guide than imagination, and inquiry than conjecture.

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We know the effects of many things, but the cause of few; experience, therefore, is a surer guide than imagination, and inquiry than conjecture.

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