Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
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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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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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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.
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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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We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.
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With books, as with companions, it is of more consequence to know which to avoid, than which to choose; for good books are as scarce as good companions.
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Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.
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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.
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Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity, than straightforward and simple integrity in another.
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Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.
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Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by others.
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The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary.
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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.
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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.
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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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Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.
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Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in their actions.
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We ask advice, but we mean approbation.
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Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.
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No company is preferable to bad. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.
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We own almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed but to those who have differed.
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Deliberate with caution, but act with decision; and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.
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There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.
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Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.