Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
More about Charles Caleb Colton
Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
517 Sourced Quotes
Source
Report...
Philosophy is a goddess, whose head indeed is in heaven, but whose feet are upon earth; she attempts more than she accomplishes, and promises more than she performs.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
The praise of the envious is far less creditable than their censure; they praise only that which they can surpass, but that which surpasses them they censure.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
There are two things which ought to teach us to think but meanly of human glory; the very best have had their calumniators, the very worst their panegyrists.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
Style is indeed the valet of genius, and an able one too; but as the true gentleman will appear, even in rags, so true genius will shine, even through the coarsest style.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
The plainest man that can convince a woman that he is really in love with her has done more to make her in love with him than the handsomest man, if he can produce no such conviction. For the love of woman is a shoot, not a seed, and flourishes most vigorously only when ingrafted on that love which is rooted in the breast of another.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
By privileges, immunities, or prerogatives to give unlimited swing to the passions of individuals, and then to hope that they will restrain them, is about as reasonable as to expect that the tiger will spare the hart to browse upon the herbage.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
Oppression cannot prosper where none will submit to be enslaved.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
Persecuting bigots may be compared to those burning lenses which Lenhenboeck and others composed from ice; by their chilling apathy they freeze the suppliant; by their fiery zeal they burn the sufferer.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
Wit in women is a jewel, which, unlike all others, borrows lustre from its setting, rather than bestows it; since nothing is so easy as to fancy a very beautiful woman extremely witty.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
Courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of the most precious things.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
Reform is a good replete with paradox; it is a cathartic which our political quacks, like our medical, recommend to others, but will not take themselves; it is admired by all who cannot effect it, and abused by all who can; it is thought pregnant with danger, for all time that is present, but would have been extremely profitable for that which is past, and will be highly salutary for that which is to come.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
Very great personages are not likely to form very just estimates either of others or of themselves; their knowledge of themselves is obscured by the flattery of others; their knowledge of others is equally clouded by circumstances peculiar to themselves. For in the presence of the great, the modest are sure to suffer from too much diffidence, and the confident from too much display.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
Knavery is supple, and can bend, but honesty is firm and upright and yields not.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
Emulation has been termed a spur to virtue, and assumes to be a spur of gold. But it is a spur composed of baser materials, and if tried in the furnace will be found to want that fixedness which is the characteristic of gold. He that pursues virtue, only to surpass others, is not far from wishing others less forward than himself; and he that rejoices too much at his own perfections will be too little grieved at the defects of other men.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
The learned have often amused themselves by publishing the follies of the dunces; but if the dunces would retaliate by publishing the blunders of the learned, they might for once put forth a volume that would not be dull, although it would be large.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
Observation made in the cloister or in the desert will generally be as obscure as the one and as barren as the other; but he that would paint with his pencil must study originals, and not be over-fearful of a little dust.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
It is always easy to shut a book, but not quite so easy to get rid of a lettered coxcomb.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
Life is the jailer of the soul in this filthy prison, and its only deliverer is death.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
A cool blooded and crafty politician, when he would be thoroughly revenged on his enemy, makes the injuries which have been inflicted, not on himself, but on others, the pretext of his attack. He thus engages the world as a partisan in his quarrel, and dignifies his private hate, by giving it the air of disinterested resentment.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
Two things, well considered, would prevent many quarrels: first, to have it well ascertained whether we are not disputing about terms, rather than things; and, secondly, to examine whether that on which we differ is worth contending about.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
Secrecy of design, when combined with rapidity of execution, like me column that guided Israel in the deserts, becomes the guardian pillar of light and fire to our friends, a cloud of overwhelming and impenetrable darkness to our enemies.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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
Source
Report...
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.
Charles Caleb Colton
1
...
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
...
21
Quote of the day
Yet would we die as some have done: Beating a way for the rising sun.
Arna Bontemps
Charles Caleb Colton
Born:
1780
Died:
1832
(aged 52)
Bio:
Charles Caleb Colton was an English cleric, writer and collector, well known for his eccentricities.
Known for:
Lacon (1820)
Modern Antiquity, and Other Poems
Most used words:
men
truth
time
happiness
mind
power
knowledge
find
life
love
write
body
ignorance
health
wise
Charles Caleb Colton on Wikipedia
Charles Caleb Colton works on Wikisource
Suggest an edit or a new quote
Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
Charles Caleb Colton Short Quotes
British Aphorist Quotes
Aphorist Quotes
18th-century Aphorist Quotes
Featured Authors
Lists
Predictions that didn't happen
If it's on the Internet it must be true
Remarkable Last Words (or Near-Last Words)
Picture Quotes
Confucius
Philip James Bailey
Eleanor Roosevelt
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Popular Topics
life
love
nature
time
god
power
human
mind
work
art
heart
thought
men
day
×
Lib Quotes