If a cause be good, the most violent attack of its enemies will not injure it so much as an injudicious defence of it by its friends.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONIf a cause be good, the most violent attack of its enemies will not injure it so much as an injudicious defence of it by its friends.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONDeliberate with caution, but act with decision and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONWe are sure to be losers when we quarrel with ourselves; it is civil war.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONHe that can enjoy the intimacy of the great, and on no occasion disgust them by familiarity, or disgrace himself by servility, proves that he is as perfect a gentleman by nature as his companions are by rank.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONThe 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 COLTONA man’s profundity may keep him from opening on a first interview, and his caution on a second; but I should suspect his emptiness, if he carried on his reserve to a third.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONTheories are private property, but truth is common stock.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONThe present time has one advantage over every other — it is our own.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONThe true motives of our actions, like the real pipes of an organ, are usually concealed; but the gilded and hollow pretext is pompously placed in the front for show.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONIt is curious that some learned dunces, because they can write nonsense in languages that are dead, should despise those that talk sense in languages that are living.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONWhat would you do if you knew for sure that no one would ever find out?
CHARLES CALEB COLTONWit may do very well for a mistress, but I should prefer reason for a wife.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONIt is the briefest yet wisest maxim which tells us to meddle not.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONThat which we acquire with the most difficulty we retain the longest; as those who have earned a fortune are usually more careful of it than those who have inherited one.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONNone are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONIt 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