Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
Some indeed there are who profess to despise all flattery, but even these are nevertheless to be flattered, by being told that they do despise it.
No disorders have employed so many quacks, as those that have no cure; and no sciences have exercised so many quills, as those that have no certainty.
When millions applaud you seriously ask yourself what harm you have done; and when they disapprove you, what good.
War kills men, and men deplore the loss; but war also crushes bad principles and tyrants, and so saves societies.
There are two things which ought to teach us to think but meanly of human glory; the very best have had their calumniators, the very worst their panegyrists.
By paying our other debts, we are equal with all mankind; but in refusing to pay a debt of revenge, we are superior.
Gaming has been resorted to by the affluent as a refuge from ennui. It is a mental dram, and may succeed for a moment; but, like all other stimuli, it produces indirect debility.
Logic and metaphysics make use of more tools than all the rest of the sciences put together, and do the least work.
That alliance may be said to have a double tie, where the minds are united as well as the body; and the union will have all its strength when both the links are in perfection together.
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.
That extremes beget extremes is an apothegm built on the most profound observation of the human mind.
That profound firmness which enabler a man to regard difficulties but as evils to be surmounted, no matter what shape they may assume.
I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself.
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.
There are some men who are fortune's favorites, and who, like cats, light forever on their legs.
It is more easy to forgive the weak who have injured us than the powerful whom we have injured.
Avarice has ruined more men than prodigality, and the blindest thoughtlessness of expenditure has not destroyed so many fortunes as the calculating but insatiable lust of accumulation.
Calumny crosses oceans, scales mountains and traverses deserts, with greater ease than the Scythian Abaris, and like him, rides upon a poisoned arrow.
The upright, if he suffer calumny to move him, fears the tongue of man more than the eye of God.
Gross and vulgar minds will always pay a higher respect to wealth than to talent; for wealth, although it be a far less efficient source of power than talent, happens to be far more intelligible.
There is this paradox in fear: he is most likely to inspire it in others who has none himself!
The most ridiculous of all animals is a proud priest; he cannot use his own tools without cutting his own fingers.
The whole family of pride and ignorance are incestuous, and mutually beget each other
When we feel a strong desire to thrust our advice upon others, it is usually because we suspect their weakness; but we ought rather to suspect our own.
In all places, and in all times, those religionists who have believed too much have been more inclined to violence and persecution than those who have believed too little.
In cases of doubtful morality, it is usual to say is there any harm in doing this? This question may sometimes be best answered by asking ourselves another; is there any harm in letting it alone?
The greatest genius is never so great as when it is chastised and subdued by the highest reason.
Antithesis may be the blossom of wit, but it will never arrive at maturity unless sound sense be the trunk and truth the root.
He that knows himself, knows others; and he that is ignorant of himself, could not write a very profound lecture on other men's heads.
Too high an appreciation of our own talents is the chief cause why experience preaches to us all in vain.
Ignorance lies at the bottom of all human knowledge, and the deeper we penetrate, the nearer we arrive unto it.
God is on the side of virtue; for whoever dreads punishment suffers it, and whoever deserves it, dreads it .
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.
Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.
In order to try whether a vessel be leaky, we first prove it with water before we trust it with wine.
Most of our misfortunes are more supportable than the comments of our friends upon them.
There are two modes of establishing our reputation; to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues.
It is seldom that statesmen have the option of choosing between a good and an evil.
Kings and their subjects, masters and slaves, find a common level in two places - at the foot of the cross, and in the grave.
Wit in women is a jewel, which, unlike all others, borrows lustre from its setting, rather than bestows it; since nothing is so easy as to fancy a very beautiful woman extremely witty.
Heroism, self-denial, and magnanimity, in all instances where they do not spring from a principle of religion, are but splendid altars on which we sacrifice one kind of self-love to another.
We often regret we did not do otherwise, when that very otherwise would, in all probability, have done for us.
