Quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

Men spend their lives in anticipation in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other-it is our own.... We may lay in a stock of pleasures as we would lay in a stock of wine but if we defer the tasting of them too long we shall find that both are soured by age.

Pure truth like pure gold has been found unfit for circulation because men have discovered that it is far more convenient to adulterate the truth than to refine themselves.

Wealth ... is a relative thing since he that has little and wants less is richer than he that has much but wants more.

Eloquence is the language of nature and cannot be learned in the schools but rhetoric is the creature of art which he who feels least will most excel in.

A windmill is eternally at work to accomplish one end although it shifts with every variation of the weather cock and assumes 10 different positions in a day.

He that has never suffered extreme adversity knows not the full extent of his own depravation.

Friendship often ends in love but love in friendship - never.

Patience is the support of weakness impatience the ruin of strength.

The excess of our youth are checks written against our age and they are payable with interest thirty years later.

Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us by the same route.

Ladies of Fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride.

The present time has one advantage over every other - it is our own.

Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.

Law and equity are two things which God has joined, but which man has put asunder.

We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.

The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility.

Physical courage, which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another.

To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet.

True friendship is like sound health the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.

Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner.