Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

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Shakespeare, Butler and Bacon have rendered it extremely difficult for all who come after them to be sublime, witty or profound.

Charles Caleb Colton
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
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
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
If we look backwards to antiquity it should be as those that are winning a race.

Charles Caleb Colton
It is better to have wisdom without learning than learning without wisdom.

Charles Caleb Colton
It is a common observation that any fool can get money; but they are not wise that think so.

Charles Caleb Colton
It has been well observed that we should treat futurity as an aged friend from whom we expect a rich legacy.

Charles Caleb Colton
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
All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay and present praise.

Charles Caleb Colton
The most ridiculous of all animals is a proud priest; he cannot use his own tools without cutting his own fingers.

Charles Caleb Colton
The most zealous converters are always the most rancorous when they fail of producing conversion.

Charles Caleb Colton
If all seconds were as averse to duels as their principals, very little blood would be shed in that way.

Charles Caleb Colton
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
It is seldom that statesmen have the option of choosing between a good and an evil.

Charles Caleb Colton
Subtract from many modern poets all that may be found in Shakespeare, and trash will remain.

Charles Caleb Colton
I question if Epicurus and Hume have done mankind a greater service by the looseness of their doctrines than by the purity of their lives. Of such men we may more justly exclaim, than of Caesar, "Confound their virtues, they've undone the world!

Charles Caleb Colton
"Lawyers Are": The only civil delinquents whose judges must of necessity be chosen from (amongst) themselves.

Charles Caleb Colton
Words are in this respect like water, that they often take their taste, flavour, and character, from the mouth out of which they proceed, as the water from the channel through which it flows.

Charles Caleb Colton
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
A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which was intended for her preservation.

Charles Caleb Colton
The victim to too severe a law is considered as a martyr rather than a criminal.

Charles Caleb Colton
Men of great and shining qualities do not always succeed in life, but the fault lies more often in themselves than in others.

Charles Caleb Colton
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
There are circumstances of peculiar difficulty and danger, where a mediocrity of talent is the most fatal quantum that a man can possibly possess. Had Charles the First and Louis the Sixteenth been more wise or more weak, more firm or more yielding, in either case they had both of them saved their heads.

Charles Caleb Colton
Strong as our passions are, they may be starved into submission, and conquered without being killed.

Charles Caleb Colton
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
No men despise physic so much as physicians, because no men so thoroughly understand how little it can perform.

Charles Caleb Colton
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.

Charles Caleb Colton
That alliance may be said to have a double tie, where the minds are united as well as the body; and the union will have all its strength when both the links are in perfection together.

Charles Caleb Colton