That politeness which we put on, in order to keep the assuming and the presumptuous at a proper distance will generally succeed. But it sometimes happens that these obtrusive characters are on such excellent terms with themselves that they put down this very politeness to the score of their own great merits and high pretensions, meeting the coldness of our reserve with a ridiculous condescension of familiarity, in order to set us at ease with ourselves.
Charles Caleb ColtonSome 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 ColtonAll adverse and depressing influences can be overcome, not by fighting, by by rising above them.
Charles Caleb ColtonSpeaking generally, no man appears great to his contemporaries, for the same reason that no man is great to his servants--both know too much of him.
Charles Caleb Colton