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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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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
May
Air
Balloon
Firsts
Asking
Balloons
First
Asked
Franklin
Men
Question
Infant
Born
Answered
Use
Doctor
Another
Discovered
Become
Doctors

More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

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Time, the cradle of hope, but the grave of ambition, is the stern corrector of fools, but the salutary counselor of the wise, bringing all they dread to the one, and all they desire to the other.
Charles Caleb Colton
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It is a common observation that any fool can get money but they are not wise that think so.
Charles Caleb Colton
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If merited, no courage can stand against its just indignation.
Charles Caleb Colton
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It is far more easy to acquire a fortune like a knave, than to expend it, like a gentleman.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Some persons will tell you, with an air of the miraculous, that they recovered although they were given over whereas they might with more reason have said, they recovered because they were given over.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Avarice begets more vices than Priam did children and like Priam survives them all. It starves its keeper to surfeit those who wish him dead, and makes him submit to more mortifications to lose heaven than the martyr undergoes to gain it.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Precisely in proportion to our own intellectual weakness will be our credulity as to those mysterious powers assumed by others.
Charles Caleb Colton
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In cases of doubtful morality, it is usual to say is there any harm in doing this? This question may sometimes be best answered by asking ourselves another is there any harm in letting it alone?
Charles Caleb Colton
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Anguish of mind has driven thousands to suicide anguish of body, none. This proves that the health of the mind is of far more consequence to our happiness than the health of the body, although both are deserving of much more attention than either of them receive.
Charles Caleb Colton
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In science, reason is the guide in poetry, taste. The object of the one is truth, which is uniform and indivisible the object of the other is beauty, which is multiform and varied.
Charles Caleb Colton
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To be continually subject to the breath of slander, will tarnish the purest virtue, as a constant exposure to the atmosphere will obscure the brightness of the finest gold but in either case, the real value of both continues the same, although the currency may be somewhat impeded.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Happiness ... leads none of us by the same route.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Alas! how has the social spirit of Christianity been perverted by fools at one time, and by knaves and bigots at another by the self-tormentors of the cell, and the all-tormentors of the conclave!
Charles Caleb Colton
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Miss Edgeworth and Mme. de Stael have proved that there is no sex in style and Mme. la Roche Jacqueline, and the Duchesse d'Angouleme have proved that there is no sex in courage.
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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A hug is worth a thousand words.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The avarice of the miser may be termed the grand sepulchral of all his other passions, as they successively decay.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Some indeed there are who profess to despise all flattery, but even these are nevertheless to be flattered, by being told that they do despise it.
Charles Caleb Colton
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There is this difference between happiness and wisdom he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The head of dullness, unlike the tail of the torpedo, loses nothing of the benumbing and lethargizing influence by reiterated discharges.
Charles Caleb Colton