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A wise minister would rather preserve peace than gain a victory, because he knows that even the most successful war leaves nations generally more poor, always more profligate, than it found them.

Charles Caleb Colton

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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
War
Gains
Profligate
Found
Victory
Minister
Even
Wise
Preserve
Always
Successful
Preserves
Would
Nations
Ministers
Poor
Gain
Rather
Leaves
Peace
Generally

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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.
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Memory is the friend of wit, but the treacherous ally of invention there are many books that owe their success to two things good memory of those who write them, and the bad memory of those who read them
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Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write but error is a scribbled one, on which we must first erase.
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Knowledge is two-fold, and consists not only in an affirmation of what is true, but in the negation of that which is false.
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Posthumous fame is a plant of tardy growth, for our body must be the seed of it or we may liken it to a torch, which nothing but the last spark of life can light up or we may compare it to the trumpet of the archangel, for it is blown over the dead but unlike that awful blast, it is of earth, not of heaven, and can neither rouse nor raise us.
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The cynic who twitted Aristippus by observing that the philosopher who could dine on herbs might despise the company of a king, was well replied to by Aristippus, when he remarked that the philosopher who could enjoy the company or a king might also despise a dinner of herbs.
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Never join with your friend when he abuses his horse or his wife, unless the one is about to be sold, the other to be buried.
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If our eloquence be directed above the heads of our hearers, we shall do no execution. By pointing our arguments low, we stand a chance of hitting their hearts as well as their heads. In addressing angels, we could hardly raise our eloquence too high but we must remember that men are not angels.
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A lady of fashion will sooner excuse a freedom flowing from admiration than a slight resulting from indifference.
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Pedantry crams our heads with learned lumber and takes out our brains to make room for it.
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Theory is worth but little, unless it can explain its own phenomena, and it must effect this without contradicting itself therefore, the facts are sometimes assimilated to the theory, rather than the theory to the facts.
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The sceptic, when he plunges into the depths of infidelity, like the miser who leaps from the shipwreck, will find that the treasures which he bears about him will only sink him deeper in the abyss.
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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Fashion ... has brought every thing into vogue, by turns.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The most ridiculous of all animals is a proud priest he cannot use his own tools without cutting his own fingers.
Charles Caleb Colton
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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.
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Evils in the journey of life are like the hills which alarm travelers upon their road they both appear great at a distance, but when we approach them we find that they are far less insurmountable than we had conceived.
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The sun should not set upon our anger, neither should he rise upon our confidence. We should forgive freely, but forget rarely. I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy but I will remember, and this I owe to myself.
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The most zealous converters are always the most rancorous when they fail of producing conversion.
Charles Caleb Colton
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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