Charles Caleb Colton

“Calumny would soon starve and die of itself if nobody took it in.”

“If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city.”

“Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.”

“Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.”

“The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.”

“Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.”

“True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it be lost.”

“Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.”

“To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet.”

“Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.”

“Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it's set a rolling it must increase.”

“Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.”

“The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.”

“We are not more ingenious in searching out bad motives for good actions, when performed by others, than good motives for bad actions, when performed by ourselves.”

“Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past even while we attempt to define it.”

“The present time has one advantage over every other -- it is our own.”

“Of all the passions, jealousy is that which exacts the hardest service, and pays the bitterest wages.”

“Great minds had rather deserve contemporaneous applause without obtaining it, than obtain without deserving it.”

“He that is good will infallibly become better, and he that is bad will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue, and time are three things that never stand still.”