H.W. Charles Quotes

In death itself there can be nothing terrible, for the act of death annihilates sensation; but there are many roads to death, and some of them justly formidable, even to the bravest.

Wit may do very well for a mistress, but [I] should prefer reason for a wife.

There are two things that bestow consequence; great possession, or great debts.

It is far more easy to acquire a fortune like a knave, than to expend it, like a gentleman.

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.

A beautiful woman, if poor, should use double circumspection; for her beauty will tempt others, her poverty herself.

Knavery is supple, and can bend, but honesty is firm and upright and yields not.

The science of mathematics performs more than it promises, but the science of metaphysics promises more than it performs.

Pain may be said to follow pleasure as its shadow.

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.

That alliance may be said to have a double tie, where the minds are united as well as the body; and the union will have all its strength when both the links are in perfection together.

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.

There are some men who are fortune's favorites, and who, like cats, light forever on their legs.

Heroism, self-denial, and magnanimity, in all instances where they do not spring from a principle of religion, are but splendid altars on which we sacrifice one kind of self-love to another.

There is this of good in real evils; they deliver us, while they last, from the petty despotism of all that were imaginary.

All adverse and depressing influences can be overcome, not by fighting, by by rising above them.

We cannot think too highly of our nature, nor too humbly of ourselves.

The most ridiculous of all animals is a proud priest; he cannot use his own tools without cutting his own fingers.

God is on the side of virtue; for whoever dreads punishment suffers it, and whoever deserves it, dreads it .

Too high an appreciation of our own talents is the chief cause why experience preaches to us all in vain.

Those that know the least of others think the highest of themselves.

In all places, and in all times, those religionists who have believed too much have been more inclined to violence and persecution than those who have believed too little.

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.

Habit will reconcile us to everything but change

Fame is an undertaker that pays but little attention to the living, but bedizens the dead, furnishes out their funerals, and follows them to the grave

The whole family of pride and ignorance are incestuous, and mutually beget each other

In cases of doubtful morality, it is usual to say is there any harm in doing this? This question may sometimes be best answered by asking ourselves another; is there any harm in letting it alone?

Secrecy is the soul of all great designs.

The greatest genius is never so great as when it is chastised and subdued by the highest reason.

Ignorance lies at the bottom of all human knowledge, and the deeper we penetrate, the nearer we arrive unto it.

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.

Genius, in one respect, is like gold; numbers of persons are constantly writing about both, who have neither.

Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.

Kings and their subjects, masters and slaves, find a common level in two places - at the foot of the cross, and in the grave.

It is seldom that statesmen have the option of choosing between a good and an evil.

There are two modes of establishing our reputation; to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues.

Most of our misfortunes are more supportable than the comments of our friends upon them.

In order to try whether a vessel be leaky, we first prove it with water before we trust it with wine.

The upright, if he suffer calumny to move him, fears the tongue of man more than the eye of God.

Calumny crosses oceans, scales mountains and traverses deserts, with greater ease than the Scythian Abaris, and like him, rides upon a poisoned arrow.

Avarice has ruined more men than prodigality, and the blindest thoughtlessness of expenditure has not destroyed so many fortunes as the calculating but insatiable lust of accumulation.

I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself.

By paying our other debts, we are equal with all mankind; but in refusing to pay a debt of revenge, we are superior.

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 further we advance in knowledge, the more simplicity shall we discover in those primary rules that regulate all the apparently endless, complicated, and multiform operations of the Godhead.

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!

A lady of fashion will sooner excuse a freedom flowing from admiration than a slight resulting from indifference.

There are two things which ought to teach us to think but meanly of human glory; the very best have had their calumniators, the very worst their panegyrists.

Gaming is the child of avarice, but the parent of prodigality.

Gaming has been resorted to by the affluent as a refuge from ennui. It is a mental dram, and may succeed for a moment; but, like all other stimuli, it produces indirect debility.