Caleb Colton Quotes & Sayings

As the rays of the sun, notwithstanding their velocity, injure not the eye, by reason of their minuteness, so the attacks of envy, notwithstanding their number, ought not to wound our virtue by reason of their insignificance. — Charles Caleb Colton

Those who have finished by making all others think with them, have usually been those who began by daring to think with themselves. — Charles Caleb Colton

Posthumous fame is a plant of tardy growth, for our body must be the seed of it; or we may liken it to a torch, which nothing but the last spark of life can light up; or we may compare it to the trumpet of the archangel, for it is blown over the dead; but unlike that awful blast, it is of earth, not of heaven, and can neither rouse nor raise us. — Charles Caleb Colton

When you have nothing to say, say nothing. — Charles Caleb Colton

Friendship, of itself a holy tie, is made more sacred by adversity. — Charles Caleb Colton

Whenever we find ourselves more inclined to persecute than to persuade, we may then be certain that our zeal has more of pride in it than of charity. — Charles Caleb Colton

Wars of opinion, as they have been the most destructive, are also the most disgraceful of conflicts. — Charles Caleb Colton

The praise of the envious is far less creditable than their censure; they praise only that which they can surpass, but that which surpasses them they censure. — Charles Caleb Colton

He that can please nobody is not so much to be pitied as he that nobody can please. — Charles Caleb Colton

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

Some philosophers would give a sex to revenge, and appropriate it almost exclusively to the female mind. But, like most other vices, it is of both genders; yet, because wounded vanity and slighted love are the two most powerful excitements to revenge, it has been thought, perhaps, to rage with more violence in the female heart. — Charles Caleb Colton

Men pursue riches under the idea that their possession will set them at ease, and above the world. But the law of association often makes those who begin by loving gold as a servant finish by becoming themselves its slaves; and independence without wealth is at least as common as wealth without independence. — Charles Caleb Colton

Total freedom from error is what none of us will allow to our neighbors; however we may be inclined to flirt a little with such spotless perfection ourselves. — Charles Caleb Colton

A semi-civilized state of society, equally removed from the extremes of barbarity and of refinement, seems to be that particular meridian under which all the reciprocities and gratuities of hospitality do most readily flourish and abound. For it so happens that the ease, the luxury, and the abundance of the highest state of civilization, are as productive of selfishness, as the difficulties, the privations, and the sterilities of he lowest. — Charles Caleb Colton

A leveller has long ago been set down as a ridiculous and chimerical being, who, if he could finish his work to-day, would have to begin it again tomorrow. — Charles Caleb Colton

Logic is a large drawer, containing some useful instruments, and many more that are superfluous. A wise man will look into it for two purposes, to avail himself of those instruments that are really useful, and to admire the ingenuity with which those that are not so, are assorted and arranged. — Charles Caleb Colton

It is far more easy to acquire a fortune like a knave, than to expend it, like a gentleman. — Charles Caleb Colton

To be satisfied with the acquittal of the world, though accompanied with the secret condemnation of conscience, this is the mark of a little mind; but it requires a soul of no common stamp to be satisfied with its own acquittal, and to despise the condemnation of the world. — Charles Caleb Colton

In order to try whether a vessel be leaky, we first prove it with water before we trust it with wine. — Charles Caleb Colton

Courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of the most precious things. — Charles Caleb Colton

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

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

Calumny crosses oceans, scales mountains and traverses deserts, with greater ease than the Scythian Abaris, and like him, rides upon a poisoned arrow. — Charles Caleb Colton

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. — Charles Caleb Colton

There is this paradox in pride - it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so. — Charles Caleb Colton

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. — Charles Caleb Colton

The hand that unnerved Belshazzar derived its most horrifying influence from the want of a body, and death itself is not formidable in what we do know of it, but in what we do not. — Charles Caleb Colton

Neither can we admit that definition of genius that some would propose
"a power to accomplish all that we undertake;" for we might multiply examples to prove that this definition of genius contains more than the thing defined. Cicero failed in poetry, Pope in painting, Addison in oratory; yet it would be harsh to deny genius to these men. — Charles Caleb Colton

Men spend their lives in anticipations, - in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other - it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age. — Charles Caleb Colton

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. — Charles Caleb Colton

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. — Charles Caleb Colton

Nothing is more durable than the dynasty of Doubt; for he reigns in the hearts of all his people, but gives satisfaction to none of them, and yet he is the only despot who can never die, while any of his subjects live. — Charles Caleb Colton

If rich, it is easy enough to conceal our wealth; but, if poor, it is not quite so easy to conceal our poverty. We shall find that it is less difficult to hide a thousand guineas, than one hole in our coat. — Charles Caleb Colton

Short as life is, some find it long enough to outlive their characters, their constitutions and their estates. — Charles Caleb Colton

To be continually subject to the breath of slander, will tarnish the purest virtue, as a constant exposure to the atmosphere will obscure the brightness of the finest gold; but in either case, the real value of both continues the same, although the currency may be somewhat impeded. — Charles Caleb Colton

True friendhip is like sound health: the value of it is seldom know until it is lost. — Charles Caleb Colton

Religion, like its votaries, while it exists on earth, must have a body as well as a soul. A religion purely spiritual might suit a being as pure, but men are compound animals; and the body too often lords it over the mind. — Charles Caleb Colton

It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies; seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends. — Charles Caleb Colton

Mathematicians have sought knowledge in figures, Philosophers in systems, Logicians in subtleties, and Metaphysicians in sounds. It is not in any nor in all of these. 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. — Charles Caleb Colton

Secrecy of design, when combined with rapidity of execution, like me column that guided Israel in the deserts, becomes the guardian pillar of light and fire to our friends, a cloud of overwhelming and impenetrable darkness to our enemies. — Charles Caleb Colton

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. — Charles Caleb Colton

It is good to act as if. It is even better to grow to the point where it is no longer an act. — Charles Caleb Colton

We should have a glorious conflagration, if all who cannot put fire into their works would only consent to put their works into the fire. — Charles Caleb Colton

From the preponderance of talent, we may always infer the soundness and vigour of the commonwealth; but from the preponderance of riches, its dotage and degeneration. — Charles Caleb Colton

Were we as eloquent as angels we still would please people much more by listening rather than talking. — Charles Caleb Colton

A cool blooded and crafty politician, when he would be thoroughly revenged on his enemy, makes the injuries which have been inflicted, not on himself, but on others, the pretext of his attack. He thus engages the world as a partisan in his quarrel, and dignifies his private hate, by giving it the air of disinterested resentment. — Charles Caleb Colton

Doubt is the vestibule of faith. — Charles Caleb Colton

Love is an alchemist that can transmute poison into food
and a spaniel, that prefers even punishment from one hand to caresses from another. But it is in love as in war, we are often more indebted for our success to the weakness of the defence than to the energy of the attack; for mere idleness has ruined more women than passion; vanity more than idleness, and credulity more than either. — Charles Caleb Colton

Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own country-men, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies, but untravelled minds. — Charles Caleb Colton

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. — Charles Caleb Colton

The Grecian's maxim would indeed be a sweeping clause in Literature; it would reduce many a giant to a pygmy; many a speech to a sentence; and many a folio to a primer. — Charles Caleb Colton

We ask advice, but we mean approbation. — Charles Caleb Colton

A high degree of intellectual refinement in the female is the surest pledge society can have for the improvement of the male. — Charles Caleb Colton

Of all the faculties of the mind, memory is the first that flourishes, and the first that dies. — Charles Caleb Colton

There are prating coxcombs in the world who would rather talk than listen, although Shakespeare himself were the orator, and human nature the theme! — Charles Caleb Colton

No metaphysician ever felt the deficiency of language so much as the grateful. — Charles Caleb Colton

Hope is a prodigal young heir, and experience is his banker. — Charles Caleb Colton

If that marvellous microcosm, man, with all the costly cargo of his faculties and powers, were indeed a rich argosy, fitted out and freighted only for shipwreck and destruction, who amongst us that tolerate the present only from the hope of the future, who that have any aspirings of a high and intellectual nature about them, could be brought to submit to the disgusting mortifications of the voyage? — Charles Caleb Colton

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. — Charles Caleb Colton

There is this of good in real evils; they deliver us, while they last, from the petty despotism of all that were imaginary. — Charles Caleb Colton

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. — Charles Caleb Colton

Love, like the cold bath, is never negative, it seldom leaves us where it finds us; if once we plunge into it, it will either heighten our virtues, or inflame our vices. — Charles Caleb Colton

It is doubtful whether mankind are most indebted to those who like Bacon and Butler dig the gold from the mine of literature, or to those who, like Paley, purify it, stamp it, fix its real value, and give it currency and utility — Charles Caleb Colton

The breast of a good man is a little heaven commencing on earth; where the Deity sits enthroned with unrivaled influence, every subjugated passion, like the wind and storm, fulfilling his word. — Charles Caleb Colton

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. — Charles Caleb Colton

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. — Charles Caleb Colton

We injure mysteries, which are matters of faith, by any attempt at explanation in order to make them matters of reason. Could they be explained, they would cease to be mysteries; and it has been well said that a thing is not necessarily against reason because it happens to be above it. — Charles Caleb Colton

Dreams ought to produce no conviction whatever on philosophical minds. If we consider how many dreams are dreamt every night, and how many events occur every day, we shall no longer wonder at those accidental coincidences which ignorance mistakes for verifications. — Charles Caleb Colton

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. — Charles Caleb Colton

If it be true that men of strong imaginations are usually dogmatists
and I am inclined to think it is so
it ought to follow that men of weak imaginations are the reverse; in which case we should have some compensation for stupidity. But it unfortunately happens that no dogmatist is more obstinate or less open to conviction than a fool. — Charles Caleb Colton

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. — Charles Caleb Colton

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

Folly disgusts us less by her ignorance than pedantry by her learning. — Charles Caleb Colton

The press is the foe of rhetoric, but the friend of reason. — Charles Caleb Colton

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. — Charles Caleb Colton

In all societies, it is advisable to associate if possible with the highest; not that the highest are always the best, but because, if disgusted there, we can descend at any time; but if we begin with the lowest, to ascend is impossible. — Charles Caleb Colton

We should choose our books as we would our companions, for their sterling and intrinsic merit. — Charles Caleb Colton

A hug is worth a thousand words. — Charles Caleb Colton

There is a holy love and a holy rage, and our best virtues never glow so brightly as when our passions are excited in the cause. Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues; and the best of us are better when roused. — Charles Caleb Colton

The cynic who twitted Aristippus by observing that the philosopher who could dine on herbs might despise the company of a king, was well replied to by Aristippus, when he remarked that the philosopher who could enjoy the company or a king might also despise a dinner of herbs. — Charles Caleb Colton

When young, we trust ourselves too much, and we trust others too little when old. Rashness is the error of youth, timid caution of age. Manhood is the isthmus between the two extremes; the ripe and fertile season of action, when alone we can hope to find the head to contrive, united with the hand to execute. — Charles Caleb Colton

In death itself there can be nothing terrible, for the act of death annihilates sensation; but there are many roads to death, and some of them justly formidable, even to the bravest. — Charles Caleb Colton

Fortune has been considered the guardian divinity of fools; and, on this score, she has been accused of blindness; but it should rather be adduced as a proof of her sagacity, when she helps those who cannot help themselves. — Charles Caleb Colton

When we live habitually with the wicked, we become necessarily either their victim or their disciple; when we associate, on the contrary, with virtuous men, we form ourselves in imitation of their virtues, or, at least, lose every day something of our faults. — Charles Caleb Colton

He that abuses his own profession will not patiently bear with any one else who does so. And this is one of our most subtle operations of self-love. For when we abuse our own profession, we tacitly except ourselves; but when another abuses it, we are far from being certain that this is the case. — Charles Caleb Colton

It is better to have wisdom without learning than learning without wisdom. — Charles Caleb Colton

It was observed of Elizabeth that she was weak herself, but chose wise counsellors; to which it was replied, that to choose wise counsellors was, in a prince, the highest wisdom. — Charles Caleb Colton

It has been observed that a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant will see farther than the giant himself; and the moderns, standing as they do on the vantage ground of former discoveries and uniting all the fruits of the experience of their forefathers, with their own actual observation, may be admitted to enjoy a more enlarged and comprehensive view of things than the ancients themselves. — Charles Caleb Colton

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

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. — Charles Caleb Colton

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. — Charles Caleb Colton

It has been said that men carry on a kind of coasting trade with religion. In the voyage of life, they profess to be in search of heaven, but take care not to venture so far in their approximations to it, as entirely to lose sight of the earth; and should their frail vessel be in danger of shipwreck, they will gladly throw their darling vices overboard, as other mariners their treasures, only to fish them up again when the storm is over. — Charles Caleb Colton

If sensuality be our only happiness we ought to envy the brutes, for instinct is a surer, shorter, safer guide to such happiness than reason. — Charles Caleb Colton

He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool. — Charles Caleb Colton

Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost. — Charles Caleb Colton

Fashions smile has given wit to dullness and grace to deformity, and has brought everything into vogue, by turns, but virtue. — Charles Caleb Colton

Sir Richard Steele has observed, that there is this difference between the Church of Rome and the Church of England: the one professes to be infallible, the other to be never in the wrong. — Charles Caleb Colton

Perhaps that is nearly the perfection of good writing which is original, but whose truth alone prevents the reader from suspecting that it is so; and which effects that for knowledge which the lens effects for the sunbeam, when it condenses its brightness in order to increase its force. — Charles Caleb Colton

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. — Charles Caleb Colton

Honor is the most capricious in her rewards. She feeds us with air, and often pulls down our house, to build our monument. — Charles Caleb Colton