Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

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.

Life often presents us with a choice of evils, rather than of goods.

Ambition is to the mind what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower by reason of our blindness.

Physical courage, which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another.

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

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

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

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

Mystery magnifies danger as the fog the sun.

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

Envy is the coward side of Hate, And all her ways are bleak and desolate.

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.

Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.

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

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

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.

The present time has one advantage over every other -- it is our own.

It is much easier to ruin a man of principle than a man of none, for he may be ruined through his scruples. Knavery is supple and can bend; but honesty is firm and upright, and yields not.

Gold is worshipped in all climates, without a single temple, and by all classes, without a single hypocrite.

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

A fool is often as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and always more incorrigible.

He that openly tells, his friends all that he thinks of them, must expect that they will secretly tell his enemies much that they do not think of him.

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

Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance.

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

Patience is the support of weakness; impatience the ruin of strength.

The greatest and most amiable privilege which the rich enjoy over the poor is that which they exercise the least--the privilege of making others happy.

Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness when bequeathed by those who, even alive, would part with nothing.

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

Expect not praise without envy until you are dead.

There are two principles of established acceptance in morals; first, that self-interest is the mainspring of all of our actions, and secondly, that utility is the test of their value.

Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues.

He that places himself neither higher nor lower than he ought to do exercises the truest humility.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

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

Cruel men are the greatest lovers of Mercy, avaricious men of generosity, and proud men of humility; that is to say, in other, not in themselves.

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

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

Human foresight often leaves its proudest possessor only a choice of evils.

Some read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.

There are three modes of bearing the ills of life; by indifference, which is the most common; by philosophy, which is the most ostentatious; and by religion, which is the most effectual.

Theories are private property, but truth is common stock.

That writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time.

Envy, if surrounded on all sides by the brightness of another's prosperity, like the scorpion confined within a circle of fire, will sting itself to death.

Constant success shows us but one side of the world; adversity brings out the reverse of the picture.

An Irish man fights before he reasons, a Scotchman reasons before he fights, an Englishman is not particular as to the order of precedence, but will do either to accommodate his customers.

If we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism; if from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition.

Pure truth, like pure gold, has been found unfit for circulation because men have discovered that it is far more convenient to adulterate the truth than to refine themselves.

Man is an embodied paradox, a bundle of contradictions.

Vanity finds in self-love so powerful an ally that it storms, as it were, by a coup de main,, the citadel of our heads, where, having blinded the two watchmen, it readily descends into the heart.