Repartee is perfect when it effects its purpose with a double edge. It is the highest order of wit, as it indicates… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
In order to try whether a vessel be leaky, we first prove it with water before we trust it with wine. — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say. — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
That politeness which we put on, in order to keep the assuming and the presumptuous at a proper distance will generally succeed.… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Men are more readily contented with no intellectual light than with a little; and wherever they have been taught to acquire some… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Self-love, in a well-regulated breast, is as the steward of the household, superintending the expenditure, and seeing that benevolence herself should be… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Perhaps that is nearly the perfection of good writing which is original, but whose truth alone prevents the reader from suspecting that… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
We injure mysteries, which are matters of faith, by any attempt at explanation in order to make them matters of reason. Could… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
We injure mysteries, which are matters of faith by any attempt at explanation in order to make them matters of reason. — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
An Irish man fights before he reasons, a Scotchman reasons before he fights, an Englishman is not particular as to the order… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of the most precious things. — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
It is a mistake, that a lust for power is the mark of a great mind; for even the weakest have been… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Villainy that is vigilant will be an overmatch for virtue, if she slumber at her post. — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
A beautiful woman, if poor, should use double circumspection; for her beauty will tempt others, her poverty herself. — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Were the life of man prolonged, he would become such a proficient in villainy, that it would become necessary again to drown or to… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
It is doubtful whether mankind are most indebted to those who like Bacon and Butler dig the gold from the mine of literature, or… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error. Where one has been saved… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them. — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Mental pleasures never cloy; unlike those of the body, they are increased by reputation, approved by reflection, and strengthened by enjoyment. — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Ignorance lies at the bottom of all human knowledge, and the deeper we penetrate, the nearer we arrive unto it. — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Heroism, self-denial, and magnanimity, in all instances where they do not spring from a principle of religion, are but splendid altars on which we… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
We ought not to be over-anxious to encourage innovation in cases of doubtful improvement, for an old system must ever have two advantages over… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
We owe almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed, but to those who have differed — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
