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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.

Charles Caleb Colton

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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
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Charles Colton
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True friendship is like sound health the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.
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Style is indeed the valet of genius, and an able one too but as the true gentleman will appear, even in rags, so true genius will shine, even through the coarsest style.
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The mob is a monster, with the hands of Briareus, but the head of Polyphemus,--strong to execute, but blind to perceive.
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There is more jealousy between rival wits than rival beauties, for vanity has no sex. But in both cases there must be pretensions, or there will be no jealousy.
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We devote the activity of our youth to revelry and the decrepitude of our old age to repentance: and we finish the farce by bequeathing our dead bodies to the chancel, which when living, we interdicted from the church.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The inheritance of a distinguished and noble name is a proud inheritance to him who lives worthily of it.
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As no roads are so rough as those that have just been mended, so no sinners are so intolerant as those that have just turned saints.
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When certain persons abuse us, let us ask ourselves what description of characters it is that they admire we shall often find this a very consolatory question.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Villains are usually the worst casuists, and rush into crimes to avoid less. Henry VIII. committed murder to avoid the imputation of adultery and in our times, those who commit the latter crime attempt to wash off the stain of seducing the wife by signifying their readiness to shoot the husband.
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Mystery magnifies danger, as a fog the sun, the hand that warned Belshazzar derived its horrifying effect from the want of a body.
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There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.
Charles Caleb Colton
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There is an elasticity in the human mind, capable of bearing much, but which will not show itself, until a certain weight of affliction be put upon it its powers may be compared to those vehicles whose springs are so contrived that they get on smoothly enough when loaded, but jolt confoundedly when they have nothing to bear.
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Times 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 Colton
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If kings would only determine not to extend their dominions until they had filled them with happiness, they would find the smallest territories too large, but the longest life too short for the full accomplishment of so grand and so noble an ambition.
Charles Caleb Colton
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As a man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are, so the sceptic, in a vain attempt to be wise beyond what is permitted to man, plunges into a darkness more deplorable, and a blindness more incurable than that of the common herd, whom he despises, and would fain instruct.
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If you want enemies, excel others if you want friends, let others excel you.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Accustom yourself to submit on all and every occasion, and on the most minute, no less than on the most important circumstances of life, to a small present evil, to obtain a greater distant good. This will give decision, tone, and energy to the mind, which, thus disciplined, will often reap victory from defeat and honor from repulse.
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Wealth after all is a relative thing since he that has little and wants less is richer than he that has much and wants more.
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If a cause be good, the most violent attack of its enemies will not injure it so much as an injudicious defence of it by its friends.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Of all the faculties of the mind, memory is the first that flourishes, and the first that dies.
Charles Caleb Colton