Charles caleb colton quotes

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.

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

Fortune, like other females, prefers a lover to a master, and submits with impatience to control; but he that wooes her with opportunity and importunity will seldom court her in vain.

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

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.

It is best, if possible, to deceive no one; for he that ... begins by deceiving others, will end ... by deceiving himself.

The more gross the fraud the more glibly will it go down, and the more greedily be swallowed, since folly will always find faith where impostors will find imprudence.

The reason why great men meet with so little pity or attachment in adversity, would seem to be this: the friends of a great man were made by his fortune, his enemies by himself, and revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude.

Pride is less ashamed of being ignorant, than of being instructed, and she looks too high to find that, which very often lies beneath her.

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

Pleasure is to women what the sun is to the flower; if moderately enjoyed, it beautifies, it refreshes, and it improves; if immoderately, it withers, deteriorates and destroys.

What would you do if you knew for sure that no one would ever find out?

Attempts at reform, when they fail, strengthen despotism, as he that struggles tightens those cords he does not succeed in breaking.

There are three kinds of praise, that which we yield, that which we lend, and that which we pay. We yield it to the powerful from fear, we lend it to the weak from interest, and we pay it to the deserving from gratitude.

When the frustration of my helplessness seemed greatest, I discovered God's grace was more than sufficient. And after my imprisonment, I could look back and see how God used my powerlessness for His purpose. What He has chosen for my most significant witness was not my triumphs or victories, but my defeat.

Some frauds succeed from the apparent candor, the open confidence, and the full blaze of ingenuousness that is thrown around them. The slightest mystery would excite suspicion and ruin all. Such stratagems may be compared to the stars; they are discoverable by darkness and hidden only by light.

War is a game in which princes seldom win, the people never.

Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.

I'm aiming by the time I'm fifty to stop being an adolescent.

Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.

He that studies only men will get the body of knowledge without the soul; and he that studies only books, the soul without the body.

Great men, like comets, are eccentric in their courses, and formed to do extensive good by modes unintelligible to vulgar minds.

God is as great in minuteness as He is in magnitude.

Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.

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.

The man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are.

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

Eloquence is the language of nature, and cannot be learned in the schools; but rhetoric is the creature of art, which he who feels least will most excel in.

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

Bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret.

Honor is unstable and seldom the same; for she feeds upon opinion, and is as fickle as her food.

Theories are private property, but truth is common stock.

For one man who sincerely pities our misfortunes, there are a thousand who sincerely hate our success.

Deliberate with caution, but act with decision and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.

Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.

To cure us of our immoderate love of gain, we should seriously consider how many goods there are that money will not purchase, and these the best; and how many evils there are that money will not remedy, and these the worst.

The victims of ennui paralyze all the grosser feelings by excess, and torpify all the finer by disuse and inactivity. Disgusted with this world, and indifferent about another, they at last lay violent hands upon themselves, and assume no small credit for the sang froid with which they meet death. But, alas! such beings can scarcely be said to die, for they have never truly lived.

It is astonishing how much more people are interested in lengthening life than improving it.

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.

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

Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than straight forward and simple integrity in another.

A youth without fire is followed by an old age without experience.

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

The true measure of your character is what you do when nobody's watching.

It is better to meet danger than to wait for it.

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.

He that swells in prosperity will be sure to shrink in adversity.

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.

We know the effects of many things, but the cause of few; experience, therefore, is a surer guide than imagination, and inquiry than conjecture.

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

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

Be real and adjust you strategy according to honest results.

Taking things not as they ought to be, but as they are, I fear it must be allowed that Macchiavelli will always have more disciples than Jesus.

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

It is the briefest yet wisest maxim which tells us to meddle not.

Our minds are as different as our faces. We are all traveling to one destination: happiness, but few are going by the same road.

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.

A wise man may be duped as well as a fool; but the fool publishes the triumph of his deceiver; the wise man is silent, and denies that triumph to an enemy which he would hardly concede to a friend; a triumph that proclaims his own defeat.

He that studies books alone, will know how things ought to be; and he that studies men, will know how things are.

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

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.

Make no enemies; he is insignificant indeed that can do thee no harm.

The worst thing that can be said of the most powerful is that they can take your life; but the same can be said of the most weak.

Time, the cradle of hope, but the grave of ambition, is the stern corrector of fools, but the salutary counselor of the wise, bringing all they dread to the one, and all they desire to the other.

The poorest man would not part with health for money, but the richest would gladly part with all their money for health.

If a cause be good, the most violent attack of its enemies will not injure it so much as an injudicious defence of it by its friends.

The victim to too severe a law is considered as a martyr rather than a criminal.

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

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.

Sometimes the greatest adversities turn out to be the greatest blessings.

There is a diabolical trio existing in the natural man, implacable, inextinguishable, co-operative and consentaneous, pride, envy, and hate; pride that makes us fancy we deserve all the goods that others possess; envy that some should be admired while we are overlooked; and hate, because all that is bestowed on others, diminishes the sum we think due to ourselves.

Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, dispatch of a strong one.

The good opinion of our fellow men is the strongest, though not the purest motive to virtue.

Self-denial is often the sacrifice of one sort of self-love for another.

It is not every man that can afford to wear a shabby coat.

Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one, on which we must first erase.

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.

Time is the most undefinable 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.

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.

Ennui has made more gamblers than avarice.

Most plagiarists, like the drone, have neither taste to select, industry to acquire, nor skill to improve, but impudently pilfer the honey ready prepared, from the hive.

If you cannot inspire a woman with love of you, fill her above the brim with love of herself; all that runs over will be yours.

A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which was intended for her preservation.

Unlike the sun, intellectual luminaries shine brightest after they set.

Avarice has ruined more souls than extravagance.

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.

We are sure to be losers when we quarrel with ourselves; it is civil war.

All the poets are indebted more or less to those who have gone before them; even Homer's originality has been questioned, and Virgil owes almost as much to Theocritus, in his Pastorals, as to Homer, in his Heroics; and if our own countryman, Milton, has soared above both Homer and Virgil, it is because he has stolen some feathers from their wings.

We are more inclined to hate one another for points on which we differ, than to love one another for points on which we agree.

There are many who say more than the truth on some occasions, and balance the account with their consciences by saying less than the truth on others. But the fact is that they are in both instances as fraudulant as he would be that exacted more than his due from his debtors, and paid less than their due to his creditors.

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

When you have nothing to say, say nothing; a weak defense strengthens your opponent, and silence is less injurious than a bad reply.

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

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.

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

When you have nothing to say, say nothing.

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.

Women that are the least bashful are often the most modest.

Temperate men drink the most, because they drink the longest.

Silence is less injurious than a weak reply.

The wise man has his follies, no less than the fool; but it has been said that herein lies the difference--the follies of the fool are known to the world, but hidden from himself; the follies of the wise are known to himself, but hidden from the world.

To diminish envy, let us consider not what others possess, but what they enjoy; mere riches may be the gift of lucky accident or blind chance, but happiness must be the result of prudent preference and rational design; the highest happiness then can have no other foundation than the deepest wisdom; and the happiest fool is only as happy as he knows how to be.

There is this difference between the two temporal blessings - health and money; money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed; health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied; and this superiority of the latter is still more obvious when we reflec.

The seeds of repentance are sown in youth by pleasure, but the harvest is reaped in age by pain.

That which we acquire with the most difficulty we retain the longest; as those who have earned a fortune are usually more careful of it than those who have inherited one.

Is there anything more tedious than the often repeated tales of the old and forgetful?

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.

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

Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again for, like true friends, they will never fail us - never cease to instruct - never cloy.

Man is an embodied paradox, a bundle of contradictions.

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

A hug is worth a thousand words.

Let us not be too prodigal when we are young, nor too parsimonious when we are old. Otherwise we shall fall into the common error of those, who, when they had the power to enjoy, had not the prudence to acquire; and when they had the prudence to acquire, had no longer the power to enjoy.

Hope is a prodigal young heir, and experience is his banker.

All adverse and depressing influences can be overcome, not by fighting, by by rising above them.

Tyrants have not yet discovered any chains that can fetter the mind.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed. Health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied.

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.

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.

The family is the most basic unit of government. As the first community to which a person is attached and the first authority under which a person learns to live, the family establishes society's most basic values.

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

Strong as our passions are, they may be starved into submission, and conquered without being killed.

There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.