Charles Caleb Colton Quotes (143 Quotes)

Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live.

Falsehood is never so successful as when she baits her hook with truth, and no opinions so fastly misled us as those that are not wholly wrong, as no timepieces so effectually deceive the wearer as those that are sometimes right.

That is indeed twofold knowledge, which profits alike By the folly of the foolish, and the wisdom of the wise. It is both a shield and a sword it borrows its security from the darkness, and its confidence from the light.

The two most precious things this side of the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other.

The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility.

Our income are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and trip.

If a horse has four legs, and I'm riding it, I think I can win.

It is far more easy to acquire fortune like a knave than to expend it like a gentleman.

The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary.

In religion as in politics it so happens that we have less charity for those who believe half our creed, than for those who deny the whole of it.

Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power that avarice makes concerning wealth. She begins by accumulating power as a means to happiness, And she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an.

Man, if he compare himself with all that he can see, is at the zenith of power But if he compare himself with all that he can conceive, he is at the nadir of weakness.

Of present fame think little, and of future less; the praises that we receive after we are buried, like the flowers that are strewed over our grave, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead.

Of all the faculties of the mind, memory is the first that flourishes, and the first that dies.

True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.

Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.

War kills men, and men deplore the loss; but war also crushes bad principles and tyrants, and so saves societies.

Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.

Friendship, of itself a holy tie, is made more sacred by adversity.

The consequences of things are not always proportionate to the apparent magnitude of those events that have produced them. Thus the American Revolution, from which little was expected, produced much; but the French Revolution, from which much was expected, produced little.

There is this good in real evils, - they deliver us, while they last, from the petty despotism of all that were imaginary.

Most men know what they hate, few know what they love.

To know a man, observe how he wins his object, rather than how he loses it; for when we fail, our pride supports us - when we succeed, it betrays us.

Justice to my readers compels me to admit that I write because I have nothing to do; justice to myself induces me to add that I will cease to write the moment I have nothing to say.

There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.

He that is good, will infallibly become better, and he that is bad, will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue and time are three things that never stand still.

Time is the most indefinable yet paradoxical of things the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past, even while we attempt to define it, and, like the flash of the lightning, at once exists and expires.

To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet.

Man is an embodied paradox, A bundle of contradictions.

Envy ought to have no place allowed it in the heart of man for the goods of this present world are so vile and low that they are beneath it and those of the future world are so vast and exalted that they are above it.

We ask advice, but we mean approbation.

Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console.

There are two way of establishing a reputation, one to be praised by honest people and the other to be accused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the first one, because it will always be accompanied by the latter.

Life isn't like a book. Life isn't logical or sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be lived in the midst of that mess.

The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age, payable with interest, about thirty years after the date.

Wealth after all is a relative thing since he that has little and wants less is richer than he that has much and wants more.

No one knows where he who invented the plow was born, nor where he died yet he has done more for humanity than the whole race of heroes who have drenched the earth with blood and whose deeds have been handed down with a precision proportionate only to the mischief they wrought.

It is with disease of the mind, as with those of the body we are half dead before we understand our disorder, And half cured when we do.

Revenge - A debt in the paying of which the greatest knave is honest and sincere, and, so far as he is able, punctual.

Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship - never.

We hate some persons because we do not know them; and will not know them because we hate them.

Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in their actions.

Early rising not only gives us more life in the same number of years, but adds, likewise, to their number and not only enables us to enjoy more of existence in the same time, but increases also the measure.