Charles Caleb Colton - Lacon (1820)

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He that has never suffered adversity is but half acquainted with others, or with himself.

Charles Caleb Colton
Were we as eloquent as angels, yet should we please some men, some women, and some children, much more by listening, than by talking.

Charles Caleb Colton
It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors as his knowledge. Mal-information is more hopeless than non-information; for error is always more busy than ignorance. Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one, on which we must first erase. Ignorance is contented to stand still with her back to the truth; but error is more presumptuous, and proceeds in the same direction. Ignorance has no light, but error follows a false one. The consequence is, that error, when she retraces her footsteps, has further to go, before she can arrive at the truth, than ignorance.

Charles Caleb Colton
Professors in every branch of the sciences, prefer their own theories to truth: the reason is that their theories are private property, but truth is common stock.

Charles Caleb Colton
None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them; such persons covet secrets as a spendthrift covets money, for the purpose of circulation.

Charles Caleb Colton
True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.

Charles Caleb Colton
Opinions, like showers, are generated in high places, but they invariably descend into lower ones, and ultimately flow down to the people as rain unto the sea.

Charles Caleb Colton
When certain persons abuse us, let us ask ourselves what description of characters it is that they admire; we shall often find this a very consolatory question.

Charles Caleb Colton
From the preponderance of talent, we may always infer the soundness and vigour of the commonwealth; but from the preponderance of riches, its dotage and degeneration.

Charles Caleb Colton
Doubt is the vestibule which all must pass, before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.

Charles Caleb Colton
We are sure to be losers when we quarrel with ourselves; it is a civil war, and in all such contentions, triumphs are defeats.

Charles Caleb Colton
Some reputed saints that have been canonized ought to have been cannonaded.

Charles Caleb Colton
We are more apt to catch the vices of others than their virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.

Charles Caleb Colton
We should have a glorious conflagration, if all who cannot put fire into their works would only consent to put their works into the fire.

Charles Caleb Colton
Pedantry crams our heads with learned lumber, and takes out our brains to make room for it.

Charles Caleb Colton
Criticism is like champagne, nothing more execrable if bad, nothing more excellent if good.

Charles Caleb Colton
Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.

Charles Caleb Colton
Constant success shows us but one side of the world. For, as it surrounds us with friends who will tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we can learn our defects.

Charles Caleb Colton
The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves. We injure our own cause in the opinion of the world when we too passionately defend it.

Charles Caleb Colton
Drunkenness is the vice of a good constitution or of a bad memory—of a constitution so treacherously good that it never bends till it breaks; or of a memory that recollects the pleasures of getting intoxicated, but forgets the pains of getting sober.

Charles Caleb Colton
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.

Charles Caleb Colton
Analogy, although it is not infallible, is yet that telescope of the mind by which it is marvellously assisted in the discovery of both physical and moral truth.

Charles Caleb Colton
With books, as with companions, it is of more consequence to know which to avoid, than which to choose; for good books are as scarce as good companions.

Charles Caleb Colton
Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but live for it.

Charles Caleb Colton
The acquirements of science may be termed the armour of the mind; but that armour would be worse than useless, that cost us all we had, and left us nothing to defend.

Charles Caleb Colton
Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.

Charles Caleb Colton
The victims of ennui paralyze all the grosser feelings by excess, and torpify all the finer by disuse and inactivity. Disgusted with this world, and indifferent about another, they at last lay violent hands upon themselves, and assume no small credit for the sang froid with which they meet death. But, alas! such beings can scarcely be said to die, for they have never truly lived.

Charles Caleb Colton
In civil jurisprudence it too often happens that there is so much law, that there is no room for justice, and that the claimant expires of wrong in the midst of right, as mariners die of thirst in the midst of water.

Charles Caleb Colton
A power above all human responsibility ought to be above all human attainment.

Charles Caleb Colton
No two things differ more than hurry and despatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind; despatch of a strong one.

Charles Caleb Colton