When millions applaud you seriously ask yourself what harm you have done; and when they disapprove you, what good.
Charles Caleb ColtonAll poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay and present praise.
Charles Caleb ColtonVillains are usually the worst casuists, and rush into crimes to avoid less. Henry VIII. committed murder to avoid the imputation of adultery; and in our times, those who commit the latter crime attempt to wash off the stain of seducing the wife by signifying their readiness to shoot the husband.
Charles Caleb ColtonThe inheritance of a distinguished and noble name is a proud inheritance to him who lives worthily of it.
Charles Caleb ColtonEmulation has been termed a spur to virtue, and assumes to be a spur of gold. But it is a spur composed of baser materials, and if tried in the furnace will be found to want that fixedness which is the characteristic of gold. He that pursues virtue, only to surpass others, is not far from wishing others less forward than himself; and he that rejoices too much at his own perfections will be too little grieved at the defects of other men.
Charles Caleb Colton