Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

517 Sourced Quotes

Put on the livery of the best master only to serve the worst.

Charles Caleb Colton
As in the game of billiards, the balls are constantly producing effects from mere chance, which the most skillful player could neither execute nor foresee, but which, when they do happen, serve mainly to teach him how much he has still to learn...

Charles Caleb Colton
That is true beauty which has not only a substance, but a spirit; a beauty that we must intimately know, justly to appreciate.

Charles Caleb Colton
Let us not be too prodigal when we are young, nor too parsimonious when we are old. Otherwise we shall fall into the common error of those, who, when they had the power to enjoy, had not the prudence to acquire; and when they had the prudence to acquire, had no longer the power to enjoy.

Charles Caleb Colton
The good opinion of our fellow men is the strongest, though not the purest motive to virtue.

Charles Caleb Colton
The wise man has his follies, no less than the fool; but it has been said that herein lies the difference--the follies of the fool are known to the world, but hidden from himself; the follies of the wise are known to himself, but hidden from the world.

Charles Caleb Colton
We should have all our communications with men, as in the presence of God; and with God, as in the presence of men.

Charles Caleb Colton
Some men are very entertaining for a first interview, but after that they are exhausted, and run out; on a second meeting we shall find them flat and monotonous; like hand-organs, we have heard all their tunes.

Charles Caleb Colton
There is but one pursuit in life which it is in the power of all to follow, and of all to attain. It is subject to no disappointments, since he that perseveres, makes every difficulty an advancement, and every contest a victory; and this is the pursuit of virtue.

Charles Caleb Colton
If there be a pleasure on earth which angels cannot enjoy, and which they might almost envy man the possession of, it is the power of relieving distress--if there be a pain which devils might pity man for enduring, it is the death-bed reflection that we have possessed the power of doing good, but that we have abused and perverted it to purposes of ill.

Charles Caleb Colton
Where true religion has prevented one crime, false religions have afforded a pretext for a thousand.

Charles Caleb Colton
As we ascend in society, like those who climb a mountain, we shall find that the line of perpetual congelation commences with the higher circles; and the nearer we approach to the grand luminary the court, the more frigidity and apathy shall we experience.

Charles Caleb Colton
He that can enjoy the intimacy of the great, and on no occasion disgust them by familiarity, or disgrace himself by servility, proves that he is as perfect a gentleman by nature as his companions are by rank.

Charles Caleb Colton
The next thing to having wisdom ourselves, is to profit by that of others.

Charles Caleb Colton
Speaking generally, no man appears great to his contemporaries, for the same reason that no man is great to his servants--both know too much of him.

Charles Caleb Colton
The awkwardness and embarrassment which all feel on beginning to write, when they themselves are the theme, ought to serve as a hint to author's that self is a subject they ought very rarely to descant upon.

Charles Caleb Colton
Hope is a prodigal young heir, and Experience is his banker; but his drafts are seldom honoured, since there is often a heavy balance against him, because he draws largely on a small capital, is not yet in possession, and if he were, would die.

Charles Caleb Colton
Men pursue riches under the idea that their possession will set them at ease, and above the world. But the law of association often makes those who begin by loving gold as a servant finish by becoming themselves its slaves; and independence without wealth is at least as common as wealth without independence.

Charles Caleb Colton
Folly disgusts us less by her ignorance than pedantry by her learning.

Charles Caleb Colton
Hypocrites act by virtue.... They frame many counterfeits of her, with which they make an ostentatious parade, in all public assemblies, and processions; but the original of what they counterfeit, and which may indeed be said to have fallen from heaven, they produce so seldom, that it is cankered by the rust of sloth, and useless from non-application.

Charles Caleb Colton
The martyrs to vice far exceed the martyrs to virtue, both in endurance and in number.

Charles Caleb Colton
Extemporaneous and oral harangues will always have this advantage over those that are read from a in manuscript: every burst of eloquence or spark of genius they may contain, however studied they may have been beforehand, will appear to the audience to be the effect of the sudden inspiration of talent.

Charles Caleb Colton
Sleep, the type of death, is also, like that which it typifies, restricted to the earth. It flies from hell and is excluded from heaven.

Charles Caleb Colton
It is with diseases of the mind as with those of the body:.we are half dead before we understand our disorder, and half cured when we do.

Charles Caleb Colton
Time is the most subtle yet the most insatiable of depredators, and by appearing to take nothing is permitted to take all; nor can it be satisfied until it has stolen the world from us, and us from the world. It constantly flies, yet overcomes all things by flight; and although it is the present ally, it will be the future conqueror of death.

Charles Caleb Colton
In most quarrels there is a fault on both sides. A quarrel may be compared to a spark, which cannot be produced without a flint, as well as steel. Either of them may hammer on wood forever; no fire will follow.

Charles Caleb Colton
If Satan ever laughs, it must be at hypocrites; they are the greatest dupes he has.

Charles Caleb Colton
We submit to the society of those that can inform us, but we seek the society of those whom we can inform. And men of genius ought not to be chagrined if they see themselves neglected. For when we communicate knowledge, we are raised in our own estimation; but when we receive it, we are lowered.

Charles Caleb Colton
Butler compared the tongues of these eternal talkers to race-horses, which go the faster the less weight they carry.

Charles Caleb Colton
There is a holy love and a holy rage, and our best virtues never glow so brightly as when our passions are excited in the cause. Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues; and the best of us are better when roused.

Charles Caleb Colton