Charles Caleb Colton (1780 – 1832)
British author, clergyman, and art collector.
Many a man may thank his talent for his rank, but no man has ever been able to return the compliment by thanking his rank for his talent.
No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us.
Wit may do very well for a mistress, but [I] should prefer reason for a wife.
Drunkenness is the vice of a good constitution or of a bad memory—of a constitution so treacherously good that it never bends till it breaks; or of a memory that recollects the pleasures of getting intoxicated, but forgets the pains of getting sober.
If we can advance any propositions that are both true and new, these are indisputably our own, by right of discovery; and if we can repeat what is old more briefly and brightly than others, this also becomes our own, by right of conquest.
Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.
We ask advice, but we mean approbation.