Top 767 Quotes & Sayings by Charles Caleb Colton

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English writer Charles Caleb Colton.
Last updated on October 10, 2024.
Charles Caleb Colton

Charles Caleb Colton was an English cleric, writer and collector, well known for his eccentricities.

English - Writer | 1780 - 1832
When you have nothing to say, say nothing.
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.
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.
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. — © Charles Caleb Colton
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.
There are some frauds so well conducted that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them.
Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it's set a rolling it must increase.
In life we shall find many men that are great, and some that are good, but very few men that are both great and good.
Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.
Constant success shows us but one side of the world; adversity brings out the reverse of the picture.
Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance.
The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary.
Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.
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.
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.
Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner. — © Charles Caleb Colton
Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner.
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.
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.
If a horse has four legs, and I'm riding it, I think I can win.
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.
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.
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.
We own almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed but to those who have differed.
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 study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.
The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility.
True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.
Tyrants have not yet discovered any chains that can fetter the mind.
We hate some persons because we do not know them; and will not know them because we hate them.
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.
Did universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven, and hell a fable.
Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity, than straightforward and simple integrity in another.
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.
None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.
That writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time.
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.
The firmest of friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.
Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.
Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.
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. — © Charles Caleb Colton
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.
He that knows himself, knows others; and he that is ignorant of himself, could not write a very profound lecture on other men's heads.
Wealth after all is a relative thing since he that has little and wants less is richer than he that has much and wants more.
The excess of our youth are checks written against our age and they are payable with interest thirty years later.
Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship - never.
Patience is the support of weakness; impatience the ruin of strength.
If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city.
The present time has one advantage over every other - it is our own.
I'm aiming by the time I'm fifty to stop being an adolescent.
Ladies of Fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride.
Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer. — © Charles Caleb Colton
Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.
Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by others.
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.
Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.
Friendship, of itself a holy tie, is made more sacred by adversity.
Avarice has ruined more souls than extravagance.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
War kills men, and men deplore the loss; but war also crushes bad principles and tyrants, and so saves societies.
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.
Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in their actions.
He who studies books alone will know how things ought to be, and he who studies men will know how they are.
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