Wit may do very well for a mistress, but I should prefer reason for a wife.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONWit may do very well for a mistress, but I should prefer reason for a wife.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONTimes of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONIn 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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONTime is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past, even while we attempt to define it.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONBed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONHe that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONHe that studies only men will get the body of knowledge without the soul; and he that studies only books, the soul without the body.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONImitation is the highest form of flattery.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONKnowledge is two-fold, and consists not only in an affirmation of what is true, but in the negation of that which is false.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONWe are more inclined to hate one another for points on which we differ, than to love one another for points on which we agree.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONHe that places himself neither higher nor lower than he ought to do exercises the truest humility.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONPleasure is to women what the sun is to the flower; if moderately enjoyed, it beautifies, it refreshes, and it improves; if immoderately, it withers, deteriorates and destroys.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONTemperate men drink the most, because they drink the longest.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONPhysicians must discover the weaknesses of the human mind, and even condescend to humor them, or they will never be called in to cure the infirmities of the body.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONIt is easier to pretend to be what you are not than to hide what you really are; but he that can accomplish both has little to learn in hypocrisy.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONAs the gout seems privileged to attack the bodies of the wealthy, so ennui seems to exert a similar prerogative over their minds.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON