No company is preferable to bad, because we are more apt to catch the vices of others than their virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.
Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.
In religion as in politics it so happens that we have less charity for those who believe half our creed, than for those who deny the whole of it.
We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer tasting them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.
If we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism; if from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition.
Peace is the evening star of the soul, as virtue is its sun; and the two are never far apart.
To look back to antiquity is one thing, to go back to it is another.
In all societies, it is advisable to associate if possible with the highest; not that the highest are always the best, but because, if disgusted there, we can descend at any time; but if we begin with the lowest, to ascend is impossible.
Great minds must be ready not only to take opportunities, but to make them.
Subtract from the great man all that he owes to opportunity, all that he owes to chance, and all that he gained by the wisdom of his friends and the folly of his enemies, and the giant will often be seen to be a pygmy.
