Authors
Topics
Lists
Pictures
Resources
More about Charles Caleb Colton
Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
517 Sourced Quotes
Source
Report...
Shakespeare, Butler and Bacon have rendered it extremely difficult for all who come after them to be sublime, witty or profound.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
None are so seldom found alone, and are so soon tired of their own company, as those coxcombs who are on the best terms with themselves.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
He that aspires to be the head of a party will find it more difficult to please his friends than to perplex his foes. He must often act from false reasons which are weak, because he dares not avow the true reasons which are strong.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
When young, we trust ourselves too much, and we trust others too little when old. Rashness is the error of youth, timid caution of age. Manhood is the isthmus between the two extremes; the ripe and fertile season of action, when alone we can hope to find the head to contrive, united with the hand to execute.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
If we look backwards to antiquity it should be as those that are winning a race.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
It is better to have wisdom without learning than learning without wisdom.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
It is a common observation that any fool can get money; but they are not wise that think so.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
It has been well observed that we should treat futurity as an aged friend from whom we expect a rich legacy.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
That an author's work is the mirror of his mind is a position that has led to very false conclusions. If Satan himself were to write a book it would be in praise of virtue, because the good would purchase it for use, and the bad for ostentation.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay and present praise.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
The most ridiculous of all animals is a proud priest; he cannot use his own tools without cutting his own fingers.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
The most zealous converters are always the most rancorous when they fail of producing conversion.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
If all seconds were as averse to duels as their principals, very little blood would be shed in that way.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
We must suit the flattery to the mind and taste of the recipient. We do not put essences into hogsheads, nor porter into phials. Delicate minds may be disgusted by compliments that would please a grosser intellect; as some fine ladies who would be shocked at the idea of a dram will not refuse a liqueur.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
Living authors, therefore, are usually, bad companions. If they have not gained character, they seek to do so by methods often ridiculous, always disgusting; and if they have established a character, they are silent for fear of losing by their tongue what they have acquired by their pen--for many authors converse much more foolishly than Goldsmith, who have never written half so well.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
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.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
Words indeed are but the signs and counters of knowledge, and their currency should be strictly regulated by the capital which they represent.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
When the air balloon was first discovered, some one flippantly asked Dr. Franklin what was the use of it. The doctor answered this question by asking another: "What is the use of a new-born infant? It may become a man."
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
There are some who write, talk, and think, so much about vice and virtue, that they have no time to practice either the one or the other.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
There is an elasticity in the human mind, capable of bearing much, but which will not show itself, until a certain weight of affliction be put upon it; its powers may be compared to those vehicles whose springs are so contrived that they get on smoothly enough when loaded, but jolt confoundedly when they have nothing to bear.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
The sceptic, when he plunges into the depths of infidelity, like the miser who leaps from the shipwreck, will find that the treasures which he bears about him will only sink him deeper in the abyss.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
The hate which we all bear with the most Christian patience is the hate of those who envy us.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
We strive as hard to hide our hearts from ourselves as from others, and always with more success; for in deciding upon our own case we are both judge, jury, and executioner, and where sophistry cannot overcome the first, or flattery the second, self-love is always ready to defeat the sentence by bribing the third.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
Charles Fox said that restorations were the most bloody of all revolutions; and he might have added that reformations are the best mode of preventing the necessity of either.
Charles Caleb Colton
Source
Report...
The greatest miracle that the Almighty could perform would be to make a bad man happy, even in heaven; he must unparadise that blessed place to accomplish it. In its primary signification, all vice--that is, all excess--brings its own punishment even here.
Charles Caleb Colton
1
...
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
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