Charles Caleb Colton Quotes (143 Quotes)



    Nobility of birth does not always insure a corresponding unity of mind if it did, it would always act as a stimulus to noble actions but it sometimes acts as a clog rather than a spur.


    Evils in the journey of life are like the hills which alarm travelers on their road.- Both appear great at a distance, but when we approach them we find they are far less insurmountable than we had conceived.

    Tomorrow It is a period nowhere to be found in all the registers of time, unless, perchance, in the fools calendar.


    If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city.

    Commerce flourishes by circumstances, precarious, transitory, contingent, almost as the winds and waves that bring it to our shores.

    Peace is the evening star of the soul, as virtue is its sun and the two are never far apart.


    Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person.


    The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.

    Genius, in one respect, is like gold numbers of persons are constantly writing about both, who have neither.

    If we can advance propositions both true and new, these are our own by right of discovery and if we can repeat what is old, more briefly and brightly than others, this also Becomes our own, by right of conquest.

    We own almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed but to those who have differed.

    There are some frauds so well conducted that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them.

    Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.

    Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us by the same route.

    From its very inaction, idleness ultimately becomes the most active cause of evil as a palsy is more to be dreaded than a fever. The Turks have a proverb which says that the devil tempts all other men, but that idle men tempt the devil.

    It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies; seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends.

    Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.

    Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.

    Ladies of Fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride.

    Our very best friends have a tincture of jealousy even in their friendship and when they hear us praised by others will ascribe it to sinister and interested motives if they can.

    Death is like thunder in two particulars, we are alarmed at the sound of it, and it is formidable only from that which has prceded it.

    Law and equity are two things which God has joined, but which man has put asunder.

    The only things in which we can be said to have any property are our actions. Our thoughts may be bad, yet produce no poison they may be good, yet produce no fruit. Our riches may be taken away by misfortune, our reputation by malice, our spirits by calamity, our health by disease, our friends by death. But our actions must follow us beyond the grave with respect to them alone, we cannot say that we shall carry nothing with us when we die, neither that we shall go naked out of the world.

    We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.

    Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely and conciliate those you cannot conquer.


    No company is preferable to bad. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.

    Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.

    Where we cannot invent, we may at least improve we may give somewhat of novelty to that which was old, condensation to that which was diffuse, perspicuity to that which was obscure, and currency to that which was recondite.

    He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place.


    In life we shall find many men that are great, and some that are good, but very few men that are both great and good.

    Knowledge is two-fold, and consists not only in an affirmation of what is true, but in the negation of that which is false.

    The excess of our youth are checks written against our age and they are payable with interest thirty years later.

    Logic and metaphysics make use of more tools than all the rest of the sciences put together, and they do the least work.

    When millions applaud you seriously ask yourself what harm you have done; and when they disapprove you, what good.

    The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.

    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.


    As no roads are so rough as those that have just been mended, so no sinners are so intolerant as those that have just turned saints.

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

    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.

    To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it to know its pleasures, we must go to those who seek it the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary.

    The firmest of friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.

    It is better to meet danger than to wait for it. He that is on a lee shore, and foresees a hurricane, stands out to sea and encounters a storm to avoid a shipwreck.

    Pain may be said to follow pleasure, as its shadow but the misfortune is, that the substance belongs to the shadow, and the emptiness to its cause.


    More Charles Caleb Colton Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Man - Time - Wisdom & Knowledge - Fool - Mind - Friendship - Money & Wealth - Life - World - Vice & Virtue - Power - Truth - Death & Dying - Medicine & Medical - Enemy - Future - Youth - Courage - Adversity - View All Charles Caleb Colton Quotations

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