Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
Ignorance lies at the bottom of all human knowledge, and the deeper we penetrate, the nearer we arrive unto 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.
Genius, in one respect, is like gold; numbers of persons are constantly writing about both, who have neither.
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.
Kings and their subjects, masters and slaves, find a common level in two places - at the foot of the cross, and in the grave.
It is seldom that statesmen have the option of choosing between a good and an evil.
There are two modes of establishing our reputation; to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues.
Most of our misfortunes are more supportable than the comments of our friends upon them.
In order to try whether a vessel be leaky, we first prove it with water before we trust it with wine.
The upright, if he suffer calumny to move him, fears the tongue of man more than the eye of God.
Calumny crosses oceans, scales mountains and traverses deserts, with greater ease than the Scythian Abaris, and like him, rides upon a poisoned arrow.
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.
I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself.
By paying our other debts, we are equal with all mankind; but in refusing to pay a debt of revenge, we are superior.
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.
The further we advance in knowledge, the more simplicity shall we discover in those primary rules that regulate all the apparently endless, complicated, and multiform operations of the Godhead.
Five thousand years have added no improvement to the hive of the bee, nor to the house of the beaver; but look at the habitations and the achievements of men!
A lady of fashion will sooner excuse a freedom flowing from admiration than a slight resulting from indifference.
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.
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.
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.
There is this paradox in fear: he is most likely to inspire it in others who has none himself!
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.
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.
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.
Logic and metaphysics make use of more tools than all the rest of the sciences put together, and do the least work.
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.
It is more easy to forgive the weak who have injured us than the powerful whom we have injured.
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.
We make a goddess of Fortune ... and place her in the highest heaven. But it is not fortune that is exalted and powerful, but we ourselves that are abject and weak.
Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error.
Antithesis may be the blossom of wit, but it will never arrive at maturity unless sound sense be the trunk and truth the root.
We often regret we did not do otherwise, when that very otherwise would, in all probability, have done for us.
The gamester, if he die a martyr to his profession, is doubly ruined. He adds his soul to every other loss, and by the act of suicide, renounces earth to forfeit Heaven.
Sincerely to aspire after virtue, is to gain her; and zealously to labour after her wages, is to receive them.
Adroit observers will find that some who affect to dislike flattery, may yet be flattered indirectly, by a well seasoned abuse and ridicule of their rivals.
We injure mysteries, which are matters of faith by any attempt at explanation in order to make them matters of reason.
Revenge is a debt, in the paying of which the greatest knave is honest and sincere, and, so far as he is able, punctual.
Pity a thing often avowed, seldom felt; hatred is a thing often felt, seldom avowed.
No two things differ more than hurry and despatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind; despatch of a strong one.
We should have all our communications with men, as in the presence of God; and with God, as in the presence of men.