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The young fancy that their follies are mistaken by the old for happiness. The old fancy that their gravity is mistaken by the young for wisdom.

Charles Caleb Colton

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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
Gravity
Folly
Fancy
Wisdom
Happiness
Young
Follies
Mistaken

More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

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There are many who say more than the truth on some occasions, and balance the account with their consciences by saying less than the truth on others. But the fact is that they are in both instances as fraudulant as he would be that exacted more than his due from his debtors, and paid less than their due to his creditors.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Shakespeare, Butler and Bacon have rendered it extremely difficult for all who come after them to be sublime, witty or profound.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The more gross the fraud the more glibly will it go down, and the more greedily be swallowed, since folly will always find faith where impostors will find imprudence.
Charles Caleb Colton
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That theatrical kind of virtue, which requires publicity for its stage, and an applauding world for its audience, could not be depended on, in the secrecy of solitude, or the retirement of a desert.
Charles Caleb Colton
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It is not so difficult a task to plant new truths, as to root out old errors for there is this paradox in men, they run after that which is new, but are prejudiced in favor of that which is old.
Charles Caleb Colton
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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.
Charles Caleb Colton
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A power above all human responsibility ought to be above all human attainment.
Charles Caleb Colton
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It is astonishing how much more anxious people are to lengthen life than to improve it and as misers often lose large sums of money in attempting to make more, so do hypochondriacs squander large sums of time in search of nostrums by which they vainly hope they may get more time to squander.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Fame is an undertaker that pays but little attention to the living, but bedizens the dead, furnishes out their funerals, and follows them to the grave
Charles Caleb Colton
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There are male as well as female gossips.
Charles Caleb Colton
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If we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism if from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness when bequeathed by those who, even alive, would part with nothing.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Injuries accompanied with insults are never forgiven: all men, on these occasions, are good haters, and lay out their revenge at compound interest.
Charles Caleb Colton
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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 mob is a monster, with the hands of Briareus, but the head of Polyphemus,--strong to execute, but blind to perceive.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Professors in every branch of the sciences, prefer their own theories to truth: the reason is that their theories are private property, but truth is common stock.
Charles Caleb Colton
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He that aspires to be the head of a party will find it more difficult to please his friends than to perplex his foes. He must often act from false reasons which are weak, because he dares not avow the true reasons which are strong.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Time is the most subtle yet the most insatiable of depredators, and by appearing to take nothing is permitted to take all nor can it be satisfied until it has stolen the world from us, and us from the world. It constantly flies, yet overcomes all things by flight and although it is the present ally, it will be the future conqueror of death.
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