True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONTrue friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONRevenge 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 COLTONGreat men, like comets, are eccentric in their courses, and formed to do extensive good by modes unintelligible to vulgar minds.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONFor one man who sincerely pities our misfortunes, there are a thousand who sincerely hate our success.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONPride is less ashamed of being ignorant, than of being instructed, and she looks too high to find that, which very often lies beneath her.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONA 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 COLTONMen’s arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONThe head of dullness, unlike the tail of the torpedo, loses nothing of the benumbing and lethargizing influence by reiterated discharges.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONIt is astonishing how much more people are interested in lengthening life than improving it.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONCheerfulness ought to be the viaticum vitae of their life to the old; age without cheerfulness is a Lapland winter without a sun.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONSome read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONHe that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONLight, whether it be material or moral, is the best reformer.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONButler compared the tongues of these eternal talkers to race-horses, which go the faster the less weight they carry.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONDeliberate with caution, but act with decision and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONBooks, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again for, like true friends, they will never fail us – never cease to instruct – never cloy.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON