Charles Colton

True friendship is like sound health, the value of it is seldom known until it be lost.

Friendship, of itself a holy tie, Is made more sacred by adversity.

From its very inaction, idleness ultimately becomes the most active cause of evil; as a palsy is more to be dreaded than a fever. The Turks have a proverb which says that the devil tempts all other men, but that idle men tempt the devil.

Imitation is the sincerest flattery.

In civil jurisprudence it too often happens that there is so much law, that there is no room for justice, and that the claimant expires of wrong in the midst of right, as mariners die of thirst in the midst of water.

Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.

The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves. We injure our own cause in the opinion of the world when we too passionately defend it.

To look back to antiquity is one thing, to go back to it is another.

Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.

He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend, must have a very long head or a very short creed.