Your leaders wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear leveling up to themselves. They would all have some people under them; why not then have some people above them. —Johnson.

Communism possesses a language which every people can understand. Its elements are hunger, envy, death. —Heinrich Heine.

Comparison.– All comparisons are odious. —Cervantes.

If we rightly estimate what we call good and evil, we shall find it lies much in comparison. —Locke.

Compassion.– The dew of compassion is a tear. —Byron.

Compensation.– Cloud and rainbow appear together. There is wisdom in the saying of Feltham, that the whole creation is kept in order by discord, and that vicissitude maintains the world. Many evils bring many blessings. Manna drops in the wilderness – corn grows in Canaan. —Willmott.

It is some compensation for great evils that they enforce great lessons. —Bovée.

Complaining.– We do not wisely when we vent complaint and censure. Human nature is more sensible of smart in suffering than of pleasure in rejoicing, and the present endurances easily take up our thoughts. We cry out for a little pain, when we do but smile for a great deal of contentment. —Feltham.

Our condition never satisfies us; the present is always the worst. Though Jupiter should grant his request to each, we should continue to importune him. —Fontaine.

Conceit.– Wind puffs up empty bladders; opinion, fools. —Socrates.

Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him. —Bible.

Nature has sometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of a man's own making. —Addison.

Everything without tells the individual that he is nothing; everything within persuades him that he is everything. —X. Doudan.

Apes look down on men as degenerate specimens of their own race, just as Hollanders regard the German language as a corruption of the Dutch. —Heinrich Heine.

If its colors were but fast colors, self-conceit would be a most comfortable quality. But life is so humbling, mortifying, disappointing to vanity, that a man's great idea of himself gets washed out of him by the time he is forty. —Charles Buxton.

One's self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property which it is very unpleasant to find depreciated. —George Eliot.

The pious vanity of man makes him adore his own qualities under the pretense of worshiping those of God. —Bulwer-Lytton.

Confidence.– Confidence imparts a wondrous inspiration to its possessor. It bears him on in security, either to meet no danger, or to find matter of glorious trial. —Milton.

Society is built upon trust, and trust upon confidence of one another's integrity. —South.

Conscience.– Conscience is not law; no, God and reason made the law, and have placed conscience within you to determine. —Sterne.

There are moments when the pale and modest star, kindled by God in simple hearts, which men call conscience, illumines our path with truer light than the flaming comet of genius on its magnificent course. —Mazzini.

No thralls like them that inward bondage have. —Sir P. Sidney.

Some people have no perspective in their conscience. Their moral convictions are the same on all subjects. They are like a reader who speaks every word with equal emphasis. —Beecher.

Conscience enables us not merely to learn the right by experiment and induction, but intuitively and in advance of experiment; so, in addition to the experimental way whereby we learn justice from the facts of human history, we have a transcendental way, and learn it from the facts of human nature, and from immediate consciousness. —Theodore Parker.

A man's own conscience is his sole tribunal; and he should care no more for that phantom "opinion" than he should fear meeting a ghost if he cross the churchyard at dark. —Lytton.

Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse. —Goldsmith.

To say that we have a clear conscience is to utter a solecism: had we never sinned we should have had no conscience. —Carlyle.

The most miserable pettifogging in the world is that of a man in the court of his own conscience. —Beecher.

Conscience serves us especially to judge of the actions of others. —J. Petit Senn.

It is astonishing how soon the whole conscience begins to unravel if a single stitch drops; one single sin indulged in makes a hole you could put your head through. —Charles Buxton.

A still small voice. —Bible.

Constancy.– A good man it is not mine to see; could I see a man possessed of constancy, that would satisfy me. —Confucius.

Constancy is the chimera of love. —Vauvenargues.

Constancy is the complement of all the other human virtues. —Mazzini.

Contempt.– No sacred fane requires us to submit to contempt. —Goethe.

There is not in human nature a more odious disposition than a proneness to contempt, which is a mixture of pride and ill-nature. Nor is there any which more certainly denotes a bad mind; for in a good and benign temper there can be no room for this sensation. —Fielding.

Contentment.– That happy state of mind, so rarely possessed, in which we can say, "I have enough," is the highest attainment of philosophy. Happiness consists, not in possessing much, but in being content with what we possess. He who wants little always has enough. —Zimmermann.

It is both the curse and blessing of our American life that we are never quite content. We all expect to go somewhere before we die, and have a better time when we get there than we can have at home. The bane of our life is discontent. We say we will work so long, and then we will enjoy ourselves. But we find it just as Thackeray has expressed it. "When I was a boy," he said, "I wanted some taffy – it was a shilling – I hadn't one. When I was a man, I had a shilling, but I didn't want any taffy." —Robert Collyer.

Submission is the only reasoning between a creature and its Maker; and contentment in his will is the best remedy we can apply to misfortunes. —Sir W. Temple.

Where God hath put exquisite tinge upon the shell washed in the surf, and planted a paradise of bloom in a child's cheek, let us leave it to the owl to hoot, and the frog to croak, and the fault-finder to complain. —De Witt Talmage.

Contrast.– The lustre of diamonds is invigorated by the interposition of darker bodies; the lights of a picture are created by the shades. The highest pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception is that of rest after fatigue. —Johnson.

Controversy.– He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. —Burke.

What Tully says of war may be applied to disputing, – it should be always so managed as to remember that the only true end of it is peace: but generally true disputants are like true sportsmen, – their whole delight is in the pursuit; and a disputant no more cares for the truth than the sportsman for the hare. —Pope.

I am yet apt to think that men find their simple ideas agree, though in discourse they confound one another with different names. —Locke.

A man takes contradiction much more easily than people think, only he will not bear it when violently given, even though it be well-founded. Hearts are flowers; they remain open to the softly-falling dew, but shut up in the violent down-pour of rain. —Richter.

Conversation.– They who have the true taste of conversation enjoy themselves in a communication of each other's excellences, and not in a triumph over their imperfections. —Addison.

It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others. —Montaigne.

Your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. —Shakespeare.

No one will ever shine in conversation who thinks of saying fine things; to please one must say many things indifferent, and many very bad. —Francis Lockier.

Conversation warms the mind, enlivens the imagination, and is continually starting fresh game that is immediately pursued and taken, and which would never have occurred in the duller intercourse of epistolary correspondence. —Franklin.

Coquetry.– The most effective coquetry is innocence. —Lamartine.

God created the coquette as soon as he had made the fool. —Victor Hugo.

Affecting to seem unaffected. —Congreve.

Though 'tis pleasant weaving nets, 'tis wiser to make cages. —Moore.

Beautiful tyrant! Fiend angelical! —Shakespeare.

New vows to plight, and plighted vows to break. —Dryden.

Courage.– God holds with the strong. —Mazzini.

Courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of the most precious things. —Colton.

Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes the man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts in a uniform manner. —Addison.

Courage from hearts, and not from numbers, grows. —Dryden.

As to moral courage, I have very rarely met with the two o'clock in the morning courage. I mean unprepared courage, that which is necessary on an unexpected occasion, and which, in spite of the most unforeseen events, leaves full freedom of judgment and decision. —Napoleon.

Courage our greatest failings does supply. —Waller.

To bear is to conquer our fate. —Campbell.

Moral courage is more worth having than physical; not only because it is a higher virtue, but because the demand for it is more constant. Physical courage is a virtue which is almost always put away in the lumber room. Moral courage is wanted day by day. —Charles Buxton.

It is only in little matters that men are cowards. —William Henry Herbert.

Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. —George Eliot.

He who would arrive at fairy land must face the phantoms. —Bulwer-Lytton.

Courtier.– The court is like a palace built of marble; I mean that it is made up of very hard and very polished people. —La Bruyère.

With the people of court the tongue is the artery of their withered life, the spiral-spring and flag-feather of their souls. —Richter.

Covetousness.– Desire of having is the sin of covetousness. —Shakespeare.

The character of covetousness is what a man generally acquires more through some niggardness or ill grace, in little and inconsiderable things, than in expenses of any consequence. —Pope.

The world itself is too small for the covetous. —Seneca.

Cowardice.– At the bottom of a good deal of the bravery that appears in the world there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion. —Chapin.

Credulity.– Quick believers need broad shoulders. —George Herbert.

Let us believe what we can and hope for the rest. —De Finod.

When credulity comes from the heart it does no harm to the intellect. —Joubert.

What believer sees a disturbing omission or infelicity? The text, whether of prophet or of poet, expands for whatever we can put into it, and even his bad grammar is sublime. —George Eliot.

Observe your enemies for they first find out your faults. —Antishenes.

Action is generally defective, and proves an abortion without previous contemplation. Contemplation generates, action propagates. —Feltham.

Crime.– If poverty is the mother of crimes, want of sense is the father of them. —Bruyère.

Crimes lead into one another. They who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries. —Burke.

Criticism.– Solomon says rightly: "The wounds made by a friend are worth more than the caresses of a flatterer." Nevertheless, it is better that the friend wound not at all. —Joseph de Maistre.

The rule in carving holds good as to criticism, – never cut with a knife what you can cut with a spoon. —Charles Buxton.

The critic eye, that microscope of wit. —Pope.

Men have commonly more pleasure in the criticism which hurts, than in that which is innocuous; and are more tolerant of the severity which breaks hearts and ruins fortunes, than of that which falls impotently on the grave. —Ruskin.

Certain critics resemble closely those people who when they would laugh show ugly teeth. —Joubert.

Every one is eagle-eyed to see another's faults and his deformity. —Dryden.

For I am nothing if not critical. —Shakespeare.

He who stabs you in the dark with a pen would do the same with a penknife, were he equally safe from detection and the law. —Quintilian.

Silence is the severest criticism. —Charles Buxton.

All the other powers of literature are coy and haughty, they must be long courted, and at last are not always gained; but criticism is a goddess easy of access and forward of advance, she will meet the slow and encourage the timorous. The want of meaning she supplies with words, and the want of spirit she recompenses with malignity. —Johnson.

It is a barren kind of criticism which tells you what a thing is not. —Rufus Griswold.

The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention to the excellent. The bad will dig its own grave, and the imperfect may be safely left to that final neglect from which no amount of present undeserved popularity can rescue it. —Bovée.

There are some critics who change everything that comes under their hands to gold, but to this privilege of Midas they join sometimes his ears! —J. Petit Senn.

Cruelty.– Cruelty, the sign of currish kind. —Spenser.

One of the ill effects of cruelty is that it makes the by-standers cruel. How hard the English people grew in the time of Henry VIII. and Bloody Mary. —Charles Buxton.

Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn. —Burns.

Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity. —George Eliot.

Cultivation.– Cultivation is the economy of force. —Liebig.

The highest purpose of intellectual cultivation is to give a man a perfect knowledge and mastery of his own inner self; to render our consciousness its own light and its own mirror. Hence there is the less reason to be surprised at our inability to enter fully into the feelings and characters of others. No one who has not a complete knowledge of himself will ever have a true understanding of another. —Novalis.

Neither the naked hand, nor the understanding, left to itself, can do much; the work is accomplished by instruments and helps of which the need is not less for the understanding than the hand. —Bacon.

… Without art, a nation is a soulless body; without science, a straying wanderer. Without warmth and light, nature cannot thrive, nor humanity increase: the light and warmth of humanity is "art and science." —Kozlay.

Cunning.– Cunning has effect from the credulity of others, rather than from the abilities of those who are cunning. It requires no extraordinary talents to lie and deceive. —Johnson.

Cleverness and cunning are incompatible. I never saw them united. The latter is the resource of the weak, and is only natural to them; children and fools are always cunning, but clever people never. —Byron.

Discourage cunning in a child; cunning is the ape of wisdom. —Locke.

Cunning signifies especially a habit or gift of overreaching, accompanied with enjoyment and a sense of superiority. It is associated with small and dull conceit, and with an absolute want of sympathy or affection. It is the intensest rendering of vulgarity, absolute and utter. —Ruskin.

Curiosity.– A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of the bees, will often be stung for his curiosity. —Pope.

The gratification of curiosity rather frees us from uneasiness than confers pleasure; we are more pained by ignorance than delighted by instruction. Curiosity is the thirst of the soul. —Johnson.

Custom.– The despotism of custom is on the wane; we are not content to know that things are; we ask whether they ought to be. —John Stuart Mill.

Immemorial custom is transcendent law. —Menu.

In this great society wide lying around us, a critical analysis would find very few spontaneous actions. It is almost all custom and gross sense. —Emerson.

Custom doth make dotards of us all. —Carlyle.

Cynics.– It will be very generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature, and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant samples. —Dickens.

Cynicism is old at twenty. —Bulwer-Lytton.