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There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.

Charles Caleb Colton

He that places himself neither higher nor lower than he ought to do exercises the truest humility.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Exercise Humility Low Place True
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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Case Empty Follow Misfortune Pain Shadow Substance
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 COLTON

Cheerful Genius Gravity Harm Mistake Science
Fortune, like other females, prefers a lover to a master, and submits with impatience to control; but he that wooes her with opportunity and importunity will seldom court her in vain.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Female Fortune Herself Impatience Lover Master Opportunity Submit
Atheism is a system which can communicate neither warmth nor illumination, except from those fagots which your mistaken zeal has lighted up for its destruction.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Atheist Communication Destruction Light Mistake System Warmth Yourself Zeal
When you have nothing to say, say nothing.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Silence Word Yourself
Men of great and shining qualities do not always succeed in life, but the fault lies more often in themselves than in others.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Greatness Life Lying Man Success
There is this difference between happiness and wisdom; he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Difference Fools Greatness Happiness Wisdom
We know the effects of many things, but the cause of few; experience, therefore, is a surer guide than imagination, and inquiry than conjecture.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Effect Experience Guide Imagination
The present time has one advantage over every other — it is our own.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Advantage Ourselves Present Time
I have somewhere seen it observed that we should make the same use of a book that the bee does of a flower: she steals sweets from it, but does not injure it.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Books Flower Injury Observation Steal
Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one, on which we must first erase.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Blank Erase Errors Ignorance Writing
True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Friendship Health Known Lost Sound True
It 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 COLTON

Accomplishment Easy Hide Hypocrisy Learning Pretend
It may be observed of good writing, as of good blood, that it is much easier to say what it is composed of than to compose it.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Compose Goodness Observation Writing
Physicians 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 COLTON

Body Cure Discover Human Mindset Weakness

There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.

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There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.

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