She is deceitful as the calm that precedes the hurricane, smooth as the water on the verge of the cataract, and beautiful as the rainbow, that smiling daughter of the storm; but, like the mirage in the desert, she tantalizes us with a delusion that distance creates, and that contiguity destroys.
Charles Caleb ColtonHe [the miser] falls down and worships the god of this world, but will have neither its pomps, its vanities nor its pleasures for his trouble.
Charles Caleb ColtonIf 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 ColtonThe only things in which we can be said to have any property are our actions. Our thoughts may be bad, yet produce no poison; they may be good, yet produce no fruit. Our riches may be taken away by misfortune, our reputation by malice, our spirits by calamity, our health by disease, our friends by death. But our actions must follow us beyond the grave; with respect to them alone, we cannot say that we shall carry nothing with us when we die, neither that we shall go naked out of the world.
Charles Caleb Colton