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The man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are.

Charles Caleb Colton

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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
Miserable
Pleasure
Happy
Often
Men
Attempt
Vain

More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

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I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy but I will remember, and this I owe to myself.
Charles Caleb Colton
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This world cannot explain its own difficulties without the assistance of another.
Charles Caleb Colton
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I have found by experience that they who have spent all their lives in cities, improve their talents but impair their virtues and strengthen their minds but weaken their morals.
Charles Caleb Colton
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If you are under obligations to many, it is prudent to postpone the recompensing of one, until it be in your power to remunerate all otherwise you will make more enemies by what you give, than by what you withhold.
Charles Caleb Colton
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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.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Men pursue riches under the idea that their possession will set them at ease, and above the world. But the law of association often makes those who begin by loving gold as a servant finish by becoming themselves its slaves and independence without wealth is at least as common as wealth without independence.
Charles Caleb Colton
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When the air balloon was first discovered, some one flippantly asked Dr. Franklin what was the use of it. The doctor answered this question by asking another: What is the use of a new-born infant? It may become a man.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Fashions smile has given wit to dullness and grace to deformity, and has brought everything into vogue, by turns, but virtue.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Some reputed saints that have been canonized ought to have been cannonaded.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The firmest of friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Hope is a prodigal young heir, and Experience is his banker but his drafts are seldom honoured, since there is often a heavy balance against him, because he draws largely on a small capital, is not yet in possession, and if he were, would die.
Charles Caleb Colton
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We submit to the society of those that can inform us, but we seek the society of those whom we can inform. And men of genius ought not to be chagrined if they see themselves neglected. For when we communicate knowledge, we are raised in our own estimation but when we receive it, we are lowered.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance.
Charles Caleb Colton
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He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Gaming is the child of avarice, but the parent of prodigality.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Where true religion has prevented one crime, false religions have afforded a pretext for a thousand.
Charles Caleb Colton
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All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay, and present praise. Lord Burleigh is not the only statesman who has thought one hundred pounds too much for a song, though sung by Spenser although Oliver Goldsmith is the only poet who ever considered himself to have been overpaid.
Charles Caleb Colton
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When you have nothing to say, say nothing.
Charles Caleb Colton
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It is with honesty in one particular as with wealth,--those that have the thing care less about the credit of it than those who have it not. No poor man can well afford to be thought so, and the less of honesty a finished rogue possesses the less he can afford to be supposed to want it.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Whenever we find ourselves more inclined to persecute than to persuade, we may then be certain that our zeal has more of pride in it than of charity.
Charles Caleb Colton