Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
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Of present fame think little, and of future less; the praises that we receive after we are buried, like the flowers that are strewed over our grave, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead.
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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.
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Drunkenness is the vice of a good constitution or of a bad memory-of a constitution so treacherously good that it never bends till it breaks; or of a memory that recollects the pleasures of getting intoxicated, but forgets the pains of getting sober.
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Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship - never.
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Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it's set a rolling it must increase.
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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.
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The firmest of friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.
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Ladies of Fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride.
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Mystery is not profoundness.
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To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author.
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It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies; seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends.
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He who studies books alone will know how things ought to be, and he who studies men will know how they are.
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When millions applaud you seriously ask yourself what harm you have done; and when they disapprove you, what good.
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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.
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There is this difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.
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Friendship, of itself a holy tie, is made more sacred by adversity.
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Instead of exhibiting talent in the hope that the world would forgive their eccentricities, they have exhibited only their eccentricities, in the hope that the world would give them credit for talent.
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Patience is the support of weakness; impatience the ruin of strength.
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Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance.
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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.
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Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person.
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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.
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Commerce flourishes by circumstances, precarious, transitory, contingent, almost as the winds and waves that bring it to our shores.
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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.