The pride of ancestry is a superstructure of the most imposing height, but resting on the most flimsy foundation. It is ridiculous enough to observe the hauteur with which the old nobility look down on the new. The reason of this puzzled me a little, until I began to reflect that most titles are respectable only because they are old; if new, they would be despised, because all those who now admire the grandeur of the stream would see nothing but the impurity of the source.
Charles Caleb ColtonNo improvement that takes place in either sex can possibly be confined to itself. Each is a universal mirror to each, and the respective refinement of the one will always be in reciprocal proportion to the polish of the other.
Charles Caleb ColtonNo two things differ more than hurry and despatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind; despatch of a strong one.
Charles Caleb ColtonIt is always easy to shut a book, but not quite so easy to get rid of a lettered coxcomb.
Charles Caleb ColtonTime is the measurer of all things, but is itself immeasurable, and the grand discloser of all things, but is itself undisclosed.
Charles Caleb ColtonAs the grand discordant harmony of the celestial bodies may be explained by the simple principles of gravity and impulse, so also in that more wonderful and complicated microcosm, the heart of man, all the phenomena of morals are perhaps resolvable into one single principle, the pursuit of apparent good; for although customs universally vary, yet man in all climates and countries is essentially the same.
Charles Caleb Colton