Charles Caleb Colton
English cleric and writer, 1780-1832
66 quotes.
Quotes by Charles Caleb Colton
- A good character is a coat of triple steel, giving security to the wearer, protection to the oppressed, and inspiring the oppressor with awe.
- Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power that avarice makes concerning wealth. She begins by accumulating power as a mean to happiness, and she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end.
- Applause is the spur of noble minds, the aim and end of weak ones.
- Avarice has ruined more men than prodigality.
- Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error. Where one has been saved by a true estimation of another's weakness, thousands have been destroyed by a false appreciation of their own strength.
- Courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of the most precious things.
- Deliberate with caution, but act with decision; and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.
- Deliberate with caution, but act with decision and promptness.
- Emulation looks out for merits, that she may exalt herself by a victory; envy spies out blemishes, that she may lower another by a defeat.
- Evils in the journey of life are like the hills which alarm travellers upon their road; they both appear great at a distance, but when we approach them we find that they are far less insurmountable than we had conceived.
- Great minds must be ready not only to take opportunities, but to make them.
- He that is warned by all the folly of others, has attained the soundest wisdom.
- He that places himself neither higher nor lower than he ought to do, exercises the truest humility.
- He that studies books alone, will know how things ought to be; and he that studies men will know how things are.
- He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a very long head or a very short creed.
- 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.
- If you want enemies, excel others; if friends, let others excel you.
- Imitation is the sincerest flattery.
- 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 at any time descend; but if we begin with the lowest, to ascend is impossible.
- In most quarrels there is a fault on both sides. A quarrel may be compared to a spark, which cannot be produced without a flint, as well as steel. Either of them, may hammer on wood forever; no fire will follow.
- It is better to meet danger than to wait for it. He that is on a lee shore, and foresees a hurricane, stands out to sea, and encounters a storm to avoid a shipwreck.
- It is not until we have passed through the furnace that we are made to know how much dross there is in our composition.
- Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to it. Liberty must be earned before it can be enjoyed.
- Make no enemies; he is insignificant indeed that can do thee no harm.
- Man, if he compare himself with all he can see, is at the zenith of his power; but if he compare himself with all he can conceive, he is at the nadir of his weakness.
- Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.
- 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.
- Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period or other, when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other, it is our own.
- Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it--anything but live for it.
- Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed; health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied.
- Murmur at nothing; if our ills are reparable, it is ungrateful; if remediless, it is in vain.
- Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.
- No man is wise enough or good enough to be intrusted with unlimited power.
- No two things differ more than hurry and despatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind; despatch of a strong one.
- None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them. Such persons covet secrets as spendthrifts do money, for the purpose of circulation.
- Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity, than straightforward and simple integrity in another.
- Patience is the support of weakness; impatience is the ruin of strength.
- Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, no man good enough, to be trusted with unlimited power.
- The drafts which true genius draws upon posterity, although they may not always be honored so soon as they are due, are sure to be paid with compound interest in the end.
- The excesses of our youth are draughts upon our old age, payable with interest, about thirty years after date.