A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius; and we are never more deceived than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity for erudition.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONWit may do very well for a mistress, but I should prefer reason for a wife.
More Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
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Great men, like comets, are eccentric in their courses, and formed to do extensive good by modes unintelligible to vulgar minds.
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The worst thing that can be said of the most powerful is that they can take your life; but the same can be said of the most weak.
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Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
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An Irish man fights before he reasons, a Scotchman reasons before he fights, an Englishman is not particular as to the order of precedence, but will do either to accommodate his customers.
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Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.
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Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than straight forward and simple integrity in another.
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Make no enemies; he is insignificant indeed that can do thee no harm.
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The family is the most basic unit of government. As the first community to which a person is attached and the first authority under which a person learns to live, the family establishes society’s most basic values.
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As no roads are so rough as those that have just been mended, so no sinners are so intolerant as those that have just turned saints.
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That is fine benevolence, finely executed, which, like the Nile, comes from hidden sources.
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The present time has one advantage over every other — it is our own.
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He that places himself neither higher nor lower than he ought to do exercises the truest humility.
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As that gallant can best affect a pretended passion for one woman who has no true love for another, so he that has no real esteem for any of the virtues can best assume the appearance of them all.
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Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, dispatch of a strong one.
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It is with antiquity as with ancestry, nations are proud of the one, and individuals of the other; but if they are nothing in themselves, that which is their pride ought to be their humiliation.
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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.
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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.
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Pain may be said to follow pleasure as its shadow; but the misfortune is that in this particular case, the substance belongs to the shadow, the emptiness to its cause.
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It is doubtful whether mankind are most indebted to those who like Bacon and Butler dig the gold from the mine of literature, or to those who, like Paley, purify it, stamp it, fix its real value, and give it currency and utility.
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None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them; such persons covet secrets as a spendthrift covets money, for the purpose of circulation.
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Falsehood is often rocked by truth, but she soon outgrows her cradle and discards her nurse.
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A fool is often as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and always more incorrigible.
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The man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are.
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He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place.
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We ask advice but we mean approbation.
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Temperate men drink the most, because they drink the longest.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON