Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
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Knowledge is two-fold, and consists not only in an affirmation of what is true, but in the negation of that which is false.
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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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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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The firmest of friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.
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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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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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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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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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Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it's set a rolling it must increase.
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Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
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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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The two most precious things this side of the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other.
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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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Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner.
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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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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.
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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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To be obliged to beg our daily happiness from others bespeaks a more lamentable poverty than that of him who begs his daily bread.
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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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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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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.