Quotes from Charles Caleb Colton

Pleasure 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.

Wit in women is a jewel, which, unlike all others, borrows lustre from its setting, rather than bestows it; since nothing is so easy as to fancy a very beautiful woman extremely witty.

None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.

Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time, which every day produces, and which most men throw away, but which nevertheless will make at the end of it, no small deduction from the little life of man. Cicero has termed them intercisiva tempora, and the ancients were not ignorant of their value; nay, it was not unusual with them either to compose or to dictate, while under the operation of rubbing after the bath.

God will excuse our prayers for ourselves whenever we are prevented from them by being occupied in such good works as to entitle us to the prayers of others.

Logic and metaphysics make use of more tools than all the rest of the sciences put together, and do the least work.

A leveller has long ago been set down as a ridiculous and chimerical being, who, if he could finish his work to-day, would have to begin it again tomorrow.

There are two principles of established acceptance in morals; first, that self-interest is the mainspring of all of our actions, and secondly, that utility is the test of their value.

The 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.

Neutrality is no favorite with Providence, for we are so formed that it is scarcely possible for us to stand neuter in our hearts, although we may deem it prudent to appear so in our actions

Our actions must clothe us with an immortality loathsome or glorious.

The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age.

The seeds of repentance are sown in youth by pleasure, but the harvest is reaped in age by pain.

He who studies books alone will know how things ought to be, and he who studies men will know how they are.

We hate some persons because we do not know them; and will not know them because we hate them.

Silence is less injurious than a weak reply.

The art of declamation has been sinking in value from the moment that speakers were foolish enough to publish, and hearers wise enough to read.

The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.

A beautiful woman, if poor, should use double circumspection; for her beauty will tempt others, her poverty herself.

He who knows himself knows others.

When in reading we meet with any maxim that may be of use, we should take it for our own, and make an immediate application of it, as we would of the advice of a friend whom we have purposely consulted.

We ask advice, but we mean approbation.

Courage is like the diamond,--very brilliant; not changed by fire, capable of high polish, but except for the purpose of cutting hard bodies useless.

That cowardice is incorrigible which the love of power cannot overcome.