Charles Caleb Colton quotes:

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  • True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.

  • There are two way of establishing a reputation, one to be praised by honest people and the other to be accused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the first one, because it will always be accompanied by the latter.

  • Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.

  • To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet.

  • Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own country-men, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies, but untravelled minds.

  • The excess of our youth are checks written against our age and they are payable with interest thirty years later.

  • The drafts which true genius draws upon posterity, although they may not always be honored so soon as they are due, are sure to be paid with compound interest in the end.

  • Did universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven, and hell a fable.

  • Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.

  • Physical courage, which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another.

  • Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship - never.

  • Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console.

  • It is better to meet danger than to wait for it. He that is on a lee shore, and foresees a hurricane, stands out to sea and encounters a storm to avoid a shipwreck.

  • Knowledge is two-fold, and consists not only in an affirmation of what is true, but in the negation of that which is false.

  • Ladies of Fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride.

  • To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author.

  • 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.

  • If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city.

  • Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.

  • The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary.

  • To be obliged to beg our daily happiness from others bespeaks a more lamentable poverty than that of him who begs his daily bread.

  • Constant success shows us but one side of the world; adversity brings out the reverse of the picture.

  • No company is preferable to bad. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.

  • The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces, nor slander us behind our backs, nor intrude upon our privacy, nor quit their shelves until we take them down.

  • There is this difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.

  • That writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time.

  • Of present fame think little, and of future less; the praises that we receive after we are buried, like the flowers that are strewed over our grave, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead.

  • Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again for, like true friends, they will never fail us - never cease to instruct - never cloy.

  • Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.

  • Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.

  • If a horse has four legs, and I'm riding it, I think I can win.

  • We hate some persons because we do not know them; and will not know them because we hate them.

  • Life isn't like a book. Life isn't logical or sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be lived in the midst of that mess.

  • We ask advice, but we mean approbation.

  • War kills men, and men deplore the loss; but war also crushes bad principles and tyrants, and so saves societies.

  • When you have nothing to say, say nothing.

  • Justice to my readers compels me to admit that I write because I have nothing to do; justice to myself induces me to add that I will cease to write the moment I have nothing to say.

  • There are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion.

  • If you cannot inspire a woman with love of you, fill her above the brim with love of herself; all that runs over will be yours.

  • Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.

  • The present time has one advantage over every other -- it is our own.

  • 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.

  • The consequences of things are not always proportionate to the apparent magnitude of those events that have produced them. Thus the American Revolution, from which little was expected, produced much; but the French Revolution, from which much was expected, produced little.

  • Love is an alliance of friendship and animalism; if the former predominates it is passion exalted and refined; if the latter, gross and sensual.

  • Subtlety will sometimes give safety, no less than strength; and minuteness has sometimes escaped, where magnitude would have been crushed. The little animal that kills the boa is formidable chiefly from its insignificance, which is incompressible by the folds of its antagonist.

  • Logic is a large drawer, containing some useful instruments, and many more that are superfluous. A wise man will look into it for two purposes, to avail himself of those instruments that are really useful, and to admire the ingenuity with which those that are not so, are assorted and arranged.

  • There is one passage in the Scriptures to which all the potentates of Europe seem to have given their unanimous assent and approbation...."There went out a decree in the days of Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed."

  • There are three difficulties in authorship: to write anything worth publishing, to find honest men to publish it, and to find sensible men to read it.

  • Avarice has ruined more souls than extravagance.

  • The avarice of the miser may be termed the grand sepulchral of all his other passions, as they successively decay.

  • Of two evils, it is perhaps less injurious to society, that good doctrine should be accompanied by a bad life, than that a good life should lend its support to a bad doctrine.

  • Memory is the friend of wit, but the treacherous ally of invention; there are many books that owe their success to two things; good memory of those who write them, and the bad memory of those who read them

  • Bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret.

  • Pride is less ashamed of being ignorant, than of being instructed, and she looks too high to find that, which very often lies beneath her.

  • Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.

  • There are three difficulties in authorship;-to write any thing worth the publishing-to find honest men to publish it -and to get sensible men to read it. Literature has now become a game; in which the Booksellers are the Kings; The Critics the Knaves; the Public, the Pack; and the poor Author, the mere table, or the Thing played upon.

  • It is doubtful whether mankind are most indebted to those who like Bacon and Butler dig the gold from the mine of literature, or to those who, like Paley, purify it, stamp it, fix its real value, and give it currency and utility

  • Afflictions sent by providence melt the constancy of the noble minded, but confirm the obduracy of the vile, as the same furnace that liquefies the gold, hardens the clay Charles Caleb Colton.

  • Antithesis may be the blossom of wit, but it will never arrive at maturity unless sound sense be the trunk and truth the root. CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon; Or, Many Things in a Few Words Light, whether it be material or moral, is the best reformer; for it prevents those disorders which other remedies sometimes cure, but sometimes confirm.

  • The upright, if he suffer calumny to move him, fears the tongue of man more than the eye of God.

  • Calumny crosses oceans, scales mountains and traverses deserts, with greater ease than the Scythian Abaris, and like him, rides upon a poisoned arrow.

  • If that marvellous microcosm, man, with all the costly cargo of his faculties and powers, were indeed a rich argosy, fitted out and freighted only for shipwreck and destruction, who amongst us that tolerate the present only from the hope of the future, who that have any aspirings of a high and intellectual nature about them, could be brought to submit to the disgusting mortifications of the voyage?

  • Criticism is like champagne, nothing more execrable if bad, nothing more excellent if good; if meagre, muddy, vapid and sour, both are fit only to engender colic and wind; but if rich, generous and sparkling, they communicate a genial glow to the spirits, improve the taste, and expand the heart.

  • Genius, when employed in works whose tendency it is to demoralize and to degrade us, should be contemplated with abhorrence rather than with admiration; such a monument of its power, may indeed be stamped with immortality, but like the Coliseum at Rome, we deplore its magnificence because we detest the purposes for which it was designed.

  • Commerce flourishes by circumstances, precarious, transitory, contingent, almost as the winds and waves that bring it to our shores.

  • From the preponderance of talent, we may always infer the soundness and vigour of the commonwealth; but from the preponderance of riches, its dotage and degeneration.

  • Where we cannot invent, we may at least improve; we may give somewhat of novelty to that which was old, condensation to that which was diffuse, perspicuity to that which was obscure, and currency to that which was recondite.

  • The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility.

  • True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.

  • Cruel men are the greatest lovers of Mercy, avaricious men of generosity, and proud men of humility; that is to say, in other, not in themselves.

  • Precisely in proportion to our own intellectual weakness will be our credulity as to those mysterious powers assumed by others.

  • There are some frauds so well conducted that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them.

  • If once a woman breaks through the barriers of decency, her ease is desperate; and if she goes greater lengths than the men, and leaves the pale of propriety farther behind her, it is because she is aware that all return is prohibited, and by none so strongly as by her own sex.

  • The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.

  • The art of declamation has been sinking in value from the moment that speakers were foolish enough to publish, and hearers wise enough to read.

  • Deformity of the heart I call The worst deformity of all; For what is form, or what is face, But the soul's index, or its case?

  • 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 often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.

  • Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by others.

  • Diffidence is the better part of knowledge.

  • Discretion has been termed the better part of valour, and it is more certain, that diffidence is the better part of knowledge.

  • Eloquence, to produce her full effect, should start from the head of the orator, as Pallas from the brain of Jove, completely armed and equipped. Diffidence, therefore, which is so able a mentor to the writer, would prove a dangerous counsellor for the orator.

  • Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner.

  • If all seconds were as averse to duels as their principals, very little blood would be shed in that way.

  • If Satan ever laughs, it must be at hypocrites; they are the greatest dupes he has.

  • Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity, than straightforward and simple integrity in another.

  • Emulation looks out for merits, that she may exalt herself by a victory; envy spies out blemishes that she may lower another by defeat.

  • Time, the cradle of hope.... Wisdom walks before it, opportunity with it, and repentance behind it: he that has made it his friend will have little to fear from his enemies, but he that has made it his enemy will have little to hope from his friends.

  • Friendship often ends in love, but love in friendship - never.

  • As the gout seems privileged to attack the bodies of the wealthy, so ennui seems to exert a similar prerogative over their minds.

  • The victims of ennui paralyze all the grosser feelings by excess, and torpify all the finer by disuse and inactivity. Disgusted with this world, and indifferent about another, they at last lay violent hands upon themselves, and assume no small credit for the sang froid with which they meet death. But, alas! such beings can scarcely be said to die, for they have never truly lived.

  • Law and equity are two things which God has joined, but which man has put asunder.

  • Accustom yourself to submit on all and every occasion, and on the most minute, no less than on the most important circumstances of life, to a small present evil, to obtain a greater distant good. This will give decision, tone, and energy to the mind, which, thus disciplined, will often reap victory from defeat and honor from repulse.

  • Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.

  • To be continually subject to the breath of slander, will tarnish the purest virtue, as a constant exposure to the atmosphere will obscure the brightness of the finest gold; but in either case, the real value of both continues the same, although the currency may be somewhat impeded.

  • Atheism is a system which can communicate neither warmth nor illumination, except from those fagots which your mistaken zeal has lighted up for its destruction.

  • To know a man, observe how he wins his object, rather than how he loses it; for when we fail, our pride supports us - when we succeed, it betrays us.

  • Falsehood is never so successful as when she baits her hook with truth, and no opinions so fatally mislead us as those that are not wholly wrong, as no watches so effectively deceive the wearer as those that are sometimes right.

  • In the pursuit of knowledge, follow it wherever it is to be found; like fern, it is the produce of all climates, and like coin, its circulation is not restricted to any particular class.

  • I'm aiming by the time I'm fifty to stop being an adolescent.

  • Deliberate with caution, but act with decision and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.

  • That profound firmness which enabler a man to regard difficulties but as evils to be surmounted, no matter what shape they may assume.

  • Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed. Health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied.

  • Adroit observers will find that some who affect to dislike flattery, may yet be flattered indirectly, by a well seasoned abuse and ridicule of their rivals.

  • Some indeed there are who profess to despise all flattery, but even these are nevertheless to be flattered, by being told that they do despise it.

  • We must be careful how we flatter fools too little, or wise men too much, for the flatterer must act the very reverse of the physician, and administer the strongest dose only to the weakest patient.

  • Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

  • Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

  • Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.

  • It is adverse to talent to be consorted and trained up with inferior minds and inferior companions, however high they may rank. The foal of the racer neither finds out his speed nor calls out his powers if pastured out with the common herd, that are destined for the collar and the yoke.

  • Human foresight often leaves its proudest possessor only a choice of evils.

  • Is there anything more tedious than the often repeated tales of the old and forgetful?

  • The hand that unnerved Belshazzar derived its most horrifying influence from the want of a body, and death itself is not formidable in what we do know of it, but in what we do not.

  • He that openly tells, his friends all that he thinks of them, must expect that they will secretly tell his enemies much that they do not think of him.

  • 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.

  • The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.

  • Secrecy is the soul of all great designs. Perhaps more has been effected by concealing our own intentions than by discovering those of our enemy.

  • Hope is a prodigal young heir, and experience is his banker.

  • The greatest and most amiable privilege which the rich enjoy over the poor is that which they exercise the least--the privilege of making others happy.

  • When the frustration of my helplessness seemed greatest, I discovered God's grace was more than sufficient. And after my imprisonment, I could look back and see how God used my powerlessness for His purpose. What He has chosen for my most significant witness was not my triumphs or victories, but my defeat.

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