Avarice has ruined more men than prodigality, and the blindest thoughtlessness of expenditure has not destroyed so many fortunes as the calculating but insatiable lust of accumulation.
Charles Caleb ColtonThose that will not permit their wealth to do any good for others. . . cut themselves off from the truest pleasure here and the highest happiness later.
Charles Caleb ColtonIn order to try whether a vessel be leaky, we first prove it with water before we trust it with wine.
Charles Caleb ColtonThose who worship gold in a world so corrupt as this we live in have at least one thing to plead in defense of their idolatry--the power of their idol. It is true that, like other idols, it can neither move, see, hear, feel, nor understand; but, unlike other idols, it has often communicated all these powers to those who had them not, and annihilated them in those who had. This idol can boast of two peculiarities; it is worshipped in all climates, without a single temple, and by all classes, without a single hypocrite.
Charles Caleb ColtonAs a man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are, so the sceptic, in a vain attempt to be wise beyond what is permitted to man, plunges into a darkness more deplorable, and a blindness more incurable than that of the common herd, whom he despises, and would fain instruct.
Charles Caleb Colton