Top 100 Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
#1. If kings would only determine not to extend their dominions until they had filled them with happiness, they would find the smallest territories too large, but the longest life too short for the full accomplishment of so grand and so noble an ambition.
Charles Caleb Colton
#2. He that can please nobody is not so much to be pitied as he that nobody can please.
Charles Caleb Colton
#3. Love is a volcano, the crater of which no wise man will approach too nearly, lest ... he should be swallowed up.
Charles Caleb Colton
#4. We should choose our books as we would our companions, for their sterling and intrinsic merit.
Charles Caleb Colton
#5. All preceptors should have that kind of genius described by Tacitus, "equal to their business, but not above it;" a patient industry, with competent erudition; a mind depending more on its correctness than its originality, and on its memory rather than on its invention.
Charles Caleb Colton
#6. In most quarrels there is a fault on both sides. A quarrel may be compared to a spark, which cannot be produced without a flint, as well as steel. Either of them may hammer on wood forever; no fire will follow.
Charles Caleb Colton
#7. There is more jealousy between rival wits than rival beauties, for vanity has no sex. But in both cases there must be pretensions, or there will be no jealousy.
Charles Caleb Colton
#8. War kills men, and men deplore the loss; but war also crushes bad principles and tyrants, and so saves societies.
Charles Caleb Colton
#9. Human foresight often leaves its proudest possessor only a choice of evils.
Charles Caleb Colton
#10. Love, like the cold bath, is never negative, it seldom leaves us where it finds us; if once we plunge into it, it will either heighten our virtues, or inflame our vices.
Charles Caleb Colton
#11. That theatrical kind of virtue, which requires publicity for its stage, and an applauding world for its audience, could not be depended on, in the secrecy of solitude, or the retirement of a desert.
Charles Caleb Colton
#12. In death itself there can be nothing terrible, for the act of death annihilates sensation; but there are many roads to death, and some of them justly formidable, even to the bravest.
Charles Caleb Colton
#13. Ladies of Fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride.
Charles Caleb Colton
#15. Men are more readily contented with no intellectual light than with a little; and wherever they have been taught to acquire some knowledge in order to please others, they have most generally gone on to acquire more, to please themselves.
Charles Caleb Colton
#16. The sun should not set upon our anger, neither should he rise upon our confidence. We should forgive freely, but forget rarely. I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself.
Charles Caleb Colton
#17. There are only two things in which the false professors of all religions have agreed
to persecute all other sects and to plunder their own.
Charles Caleb Colton
#19. Our very best friends have a tincture of jealousy even in their friendship; and when they hear us praised by others, will ascribe it to sinister and interested motives if they can.
Charles Caleb Colton
#20. A house may draw visitors, but it is the possessor alone that can detain them.
Charles Caleb Colton
#21. It is not so difficult a task as to plant new truths, as to root out old errors
Charles Caleb Colton
#22. Modesty is the richest ornament of a woman ... the want of it is her greatest deformity.
Charles Caleb Colton
#23. A society composed of none but the wicked could not exist; it contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction, and without a flood, would be swept away from the earth by the deluge of its own iniquity.
Charles Caleb Colton
#24. Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live
Charles Caleb Colton
#25. Some reputed saints that have been canonized ought to have been cannonaded.
Charles Caleb Colton
#26. Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but live for it.
Charles Caleb Colton
#27. 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.
Charles Caleb Colton
#29. Few things are more agreeable to self-love than revenge, and yet no cause so effectually restrains us from revenge as self-love. And this paradox naturally suggests another; that the strength of the community is not unfrequently built upon the weakness of those individuals that compose it.
Charles Caleb Colton
#30. The victim to too severe a law is considered as a martyr rather than a criminal.
Charles Caleb Colton
#31. Physicians must discover the weaknesses of the human mind, and even condescend to humor them, or they will never be called in to cure the infirmities of the body.
Charles Caleb Colton
#32. The interests of society often render it expedient not to utter the whole truth, the interests of science never: for in this field we have much more to fear from the deficiency of truth than from its abundance.
Charles Caleb Colton
#33. There are two modes of establishing our reputation; to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues.
Charles Caleb Colton
#34. Error, when she retraces her steps, has farther to go before she can arrive at truth than ignorance.
Charles Caleb Colton
#35. Wars are to the body politic, what drams are to the individual. There are times when they may prevent a sudden death, but if frequently resorted to, or long persisted in, they heighten the energies only to hasten the dissolution.
Charles Caleb Colton
#36. Some read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.
Charles Caleb Colton
#37. Pleasure is to women what the sun is to the flower; if moderately enjoyed, it beautifies, it refreshes, and it improves; if immoderately, it withers, deteriorates and destroys.
Charles Caleb Colton
#38. Nobility of birth does not always insure a corresponding unity of mind; if it did, it would always act as a stimulus to noble actions; but it sometimes acts as a clog rather than a spur.
Charles Caleb Colton
#39. To be satisfied with the acquittal of the world, though accompanied with the secret condemnation of conscience, this is the mark of a little mind; but it requires a soul of no common stamp to be satisfied with its own acquittal, and to despise the condemnation of the world.
Charles Caleb Colton
#40. Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us by the same route.
Charles Caleb Colton
#42. It may be observed of good writing, as of good blood, that it is much easier to say what it is composed of than to compose it.
Charles Caleb Colton
#43. The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.
Charles Caleb Colton
#45. 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.
Charles Caleb Colton
#46. 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.
Charles Caleb Colton
#47. 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.
Charles Caleb Colton
#49. Custom is the law of one description of fools, and fashion of another; but the two parties often clash
for precedent is the legislator of the first, and novelty of the last. Custom, therefore, looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present.
Charles Caleb Colton
#50. The Grecian's maxim would indeed be a sweeping clause in Literature; it would reduce many a giant to a pygmy; many a speech to a sentence; and many a folio to a primer.
Charles Caleb Colton
#51. Nobility is a river that sets with a constant and undeviating current, directly into the great Pacific Ocean of Time; but, unlike all other rivers, it is more grand at its source, than at its termination.
Charles Caleb Colton
#54. Pure truth, like pure gold, has been found unfit for circulation because men have discovered that it is far more convenient to adulterate the truth than to refine themselves.
Charles Caleb Colton
#55. The cynic who twitted Aristippus by observing that the philosopher who could dine on herbs might despise the company of a king, was well replied to by Aristippus, when he remarked that the philosopher who could enjoy the company or a king might also despise a dinner of herbs.
Charles Caleb Colton
#56. The reason why great men meet with so little pity or attachment in adversity, would seem to be this: the friends of a great man were made by his fortune, his enemies by himself, and revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude.
Charles Caleb Colton
#57. It has been shrewdly said, that when, men abuse us we should suspect ourselves, and when they praise us, them. It is a rare instance of virtue to despise which censure which we do not deserve; and still more rare to despise praise which we do.
Charles Caleb Colton
#58. A beautiful woman, if poor, should use double circumspection; for her beauty will tempt others, her poverty herself.
Charles Caleb Colton
#59. When we are in the company of sensible men, we ought to be doubly cautious of talking too much, lest we lose two good things, their good opinion and our own improvement; for what we have to say we know, but what they have to say we know not.
Charles Caleb Colton
#60. Ignorance lies at the bottom of all human knowledge, and the deeper we penetrate, the nearer we arrive unto it.
Charles Caleb Colton
#61. The most ridiculous of all animals is a proud priest; he cannot use his own tools without cutting his own fingers.
Charles Caleb Colton
#62. No one knows where he who invented the plow was born, nor where he died; yet he has done more for humanity than the whole race of heroes who have drenched the earth with blood and whose deeds have been handed down with a precision proportionate only to the mischief they wrought.
Charles Caleb Colton
#63. "Lawyers Are": The only civil delinquents whose judges must of necessity be chosen from (amongst) themselves.
Charles Caleb Colton
#64. Genius in one grand particular is like life. We know nothing of either but by their effects.
Charles Caleb Colton
#65. The good opinion of our fellow men is the strongest, though not the purest motive to virtue.
Charles Caleb Colton
#66. There are too many who reverse both the principles and the practice of the Apostles; they become all things to all men, not to serve others, but themselves; and they try all things only to hold fast that which is bad.
Charles Caleb Colton
#67. With books, as with companions, it is of more consequence to know which to avoid, than which to choose, for good books are as scarce as good companions, and in both instances, all that we can learn from baad ones is, that some much time has been worse than thrown away.
Charles Caleb Colton
#69. The wisest man may be wiser to-day than he was yesterday, and to-morrow than he is to-day. Total freedom from change would imply total freedom from error; but this is the prerogative of Omniscience alone.
Charles Caleb Colton
#70. I have somewhere seen it observed that we should make the same use of a book that the bee does of a flower: she steals sweets from it, but does not injure it.
Charles Caleb Colton
#71. There are some men who are fortune's favorites, and who, like cats, light forever on their legs.
Charles Caleb Colton
#72. 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.
Charles Caleb Colton
#73. 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.
Charles Caleb Colton
#74. Most importantly: Don't adjust your results to build up the ego of the chief strategist. Especially if the strategist is you.
Charles Caleb Colton
#75. The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility.
Charles Caleb Colton
#77. Hannibal knew better how to conquer than how to profit by the conquest; and Napoleon was more skilful in taking positions than in maintaining them. As to reverses, no general cart presume to say that he may not be defeated; but he can, and ought to say, that he will not be surprised.
Charles Caleb Colton
#78. Taking things not as they ought to be, but as they are, I fear it must be allowed that Macchiavelli will always have more disciples than Jesus.
Charles Caleb Colton
#79. Death is the only sovereign whom no partiality can warp, and no price corrupt.
Charles Caleb Colton
#80. For all the practical purposes of life, truth might as well be in a prison as in the folio of a schoolman; and those who release her from her cobwebbed shelf and teach her to live with men have the merit of liberating, if not of discovering, her.
Charles Caleb Colton
#81. There are two principles of established acceptance in morals; first, that self-interest is the mainspring of all of our actions, and secondly, that utility is the test of their value.
Charles Caleb Colton
#82. Five thousand years have added no improvement to the hive of the bee, nor to the house of the beaver; but look at the habitations and the achievements of men!
Charles Caleb Colton
#83. True goodness is not without that germ of greatness that can bear with patience the mistakes of the ignorant.
Charles Caleb Colton
#84. There are two things that bestow consequence; great possession, or great debts.
Charles Caleb Colton
#85. Logic and metaphysics make use of more tools than all the rest of the sciences put together, and do the least work.
Charles Caleb Colton
#86. Religion, like its votaries, while it exists on earth, must have a body as well as a soul. A religion purely spiritual might suit a being as pure, but men are compound animals; and the body too often lords it over the mind.
Charles Caleb Colton
#87. It is with honesty in one particular as with wealth,
those that have the thing care less about the credit of it than those who have it not. No poor man can well afford to be thought so, and the less of honesty a finished rogue possesses the less he can afford to be supposed to want it.
Charles Caleb Colton
#89. Of all the passions, jealousy is that which exacts the hardest service, and pays the bitterest wages. Its service is to watch the success of one's enemy; its wages to be sure of it.
Charles Caleb Colton
#90. The man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are.
Charles Caleb Colton
#91. There is a holy love and a holy rage, and our best virtues never glow so brightly as when our passions are excited in the cause. Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues; and the best of us are better when roused.
Charles Caleb Colton
#92. When we live habitually with the wicked, we become necessarily either their victim or their disciple; when we associate, on the contrary, with virtuous men, we form ourselves in imitation of their virtues, or, at least, lose every day something of our faults.
Charles Caleb Colton
#93. Sincerely to aspire after virtue, is to gain her; and zealously to labour after her wages, is to receive them.
Charles Caleb Colton
#94. In order to try whether a vessel be leaky, we first prove it with water before we trust it with wine.
Charles Caleb Colton
#95. The true motives of our actions, like the real pipes of an organ, are usually concealed; but the gilded and hollow pretext is pompously placed in the front for show.
Charles Caleb Colton
#96. A leveller has long ago been set down as a ridiculous and chimerical being, who, if he could finish his work to-day, would have to begin it again tomorrow.
Charles Caleb Colton
#97. He that gives a portion of his time and talent to the investigation of mathematical truth, will come to all other questions with a decided advantage over his opponents.
Charles Caleb Colton
#98. The gamester, if he die a martyr to his profession, is doubly ruined. He adds his soul to every other loss, and by the act of suicide, renounces earth to forfeit Heaven.
Charles Caleb Colton
#99. We are not more ingenious in searching out bad motives for good actions when performed by others, than good motives for bad actions when performed by ourselves.
Charles Caleb Colton
#100. Shining outward qualities, although they may excite first-rate expectations, are not unusually found to be the companions of second-rate abilities.
Charles Caleb Colton
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