Top 767 Quotes & Sayings by Charles Caleb Colton - Page 2
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English writer Charles Caleb Colton.
Last updated on September 16, 2024.
Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person.
It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies; seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends.
He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place.
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.
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.
Law and equity are two things which God has joined, but which man has put asunder.
To be obliged to beg our daily happiness from others bespeaks a more lamentable poverty than that of him who begs his daily bread.
There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.
Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.
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.
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 often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.
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.
Our incomes should be like our shoes; if too small, they will gall and pinch us; but if too large, they will cause us to stumble and to trip.
Mystery is not profoundness.
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.
He that is good, will infallibly become better, and he that is bad, will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue and time are three things that never stand still.
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.
The two most precious things this side of the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other.
We ask advice, but we mean approbation.
Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness when bequeathed by those who, even alive, would part with nothing.
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.
Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.
Commerce flourishes by circumstances, precarious, transitory, contingent, almost as the winds and waves that bring it to our shores.
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.
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.
There are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion.
True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.
Nothing so completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than straightforward and simple integrity in another.
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.
When millions applaud you seriously ask yourself what harm you have done; and when they disapprove you, what good.
Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.
An Irish man fights before he reasons, a Scotchman reasons before he fights, an Englishman is not particular as to the order of precedence, but will do either to accommodate his customers.
Women that are the least bashful are often the most modest.
The victim to too severe a law is considered as a martyr rather than a criminal.
Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past, even while we attempt to define it.
Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, dispatch of a strong one.
Sometimes the greatest adversities turn out to be the greatest blessings.
We are more inclined to hate one another for points on which we differ, than to love one another for points on which we agree.
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.
War is a game in which princes seldom win, the people never.
Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed. Health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied.
When you have nothing to say, say nothing; a weak defense strengthens your opponent, and silence is less injurious than a bad reply.
The poorest man would not part with health for money, but the richest would gladly part with all their money for health.
Bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret.
He that is good will infallibly become better, and he that is bad will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue, and time are three things that never stand still.
Hope is a prodigal young heir, and experience is his banker.
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.
Imitation is the highest form of flattery.
Attempts at reform, when they fail, strengthen despotism, as he that struggles tightens those cords he does not succeed in breaking.
It is better to meet danger than to wait for it.
Eloquence is the language of nature, and cannot be learned in the schools; but rhetoric is the creature of art, which he who feels least will most excel in.
Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.
Some read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.
Most plagiarists, like the drone, have neither taste to select, industry to acquire, nor skill to improve, but impudently pilfer the honey ready prepared, from the hive.
The true measure of your character is what you do when nobody's watching.
Strong as our passions are, they may be starved into submission, and conquered without being killed.
He that studies books alone, will know how things ought to be; and he that studies men, will know how things are.
What would you do if you knew for sure that no one would ever find out?
He that swells in prosperity will be sure to shrink in adversity.
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