Quote

Repartee is perfect when it effects its purpose with a double edge. It is the highest order of wit, as it indicates the coolest yet quickest exercise of genius, at a moment when the passions are roused.

Charles Caleb Colton

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
Perfect
Edges
Quickest
Moment
Conversation
Coolest
Moments
Exercise
Indicates
Order
Effects
Miscellaneous
Highest
Double
Genius
Passions
Passion
Wit
Repartee
Purpose
Edge
Roused

More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

Image
Persecuting bigots may be compared to those burning lenses which Lenhenboeck and others composed from ice by their chilling apathy they freeze the suppliant by their fiery zeal they burn the sufferer.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
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
Image
Fortune has been considered the guardian divinity of fools and, on this score, she has been accused of blindness but it should rather be adduced as a proof of her sagacity, when she helps those who cannot help themselves.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
You cannot separate charity and religion.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Envy, if surrounded on all sides by the brightness of another's prosperity, like the scorpion confined within a circle of fire, will sting itself to death.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
We ask advice but we mean approbation.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Wit may do very well for a mistress, but [I] should prefer reason for a wife.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Antithesis may be the blossom of wit, but it will never arrive at maturity unless sound sense be the trunk and truth the root.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
To admit that there is any such thing as chance, in the common acceptation of the term, would be to attempt to establish a power independent of God.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
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.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Is there anything more tedious than the often repeated tales of the old and forgetful?
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Those that will not permit their wealth to do any good for others. . . cut themselves off from the truest pleasure here and the highest happiness later.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Nothing is more durable than the dynasty of Doubt for he reigns in the hearts of all his people, but gives satisfaction to none of them, and yet he is the only despot who can never die, while any of his subjects live.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
We hate some persons because we do not know them and will not know them because we hate them.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
The breast of a good man is a little heaven commencing on earth where the Deity sits enthroned with unrivaled influence, every subjugated passion, like the wind and storm, fulfilling his word.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
To judge by the event is an error all commit: for in every instance courage, if crowned with success, is heroism if clouded by defeat, temerity. When Nelson fought his battle in the Sound, it was the result alone that decided whether he was to kiss a hand at court or a rod at a court-martial.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
So blinded are we by our passions, that we suffer more to be damned than to be saved.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
We must be careful how we flatter fools too little, or wise men too much, for the flatterer must act the very reverse of the physician, and administer the strongest dose only to the weakest patient.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Honesty is not only the deepest policy, but the highest wisdom since, however difficult it may be for integrity to get on, it is a thousand times more difficult for knavery to get off and no error is more fatal than that of those who think that Virtue has no other reward because they have heard that she is her own.
Charles Caleb Colton