Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

“There are three modes of bearing the ills of life; by indifference, which is the most common; by philosophy, which is the most ostentatious; and by religion, which is the most effectual.”

Philosophy Three Literature Indifference

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“Avarice has ruined more souls than extravagance.”

Soul Literature Greed Ruined Avarice Extravagant Extravagance Avarice Greed

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.”

Literature Doubt Optimism Temples Doubted Overcoming Doubt

Book:Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

“If a horse has four legs, and I'm riding it, I think I can win.”

Ifs Thinking I Can Literature Winning Four Horse Legs Riding

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance.”

Literature Genius Companion Moderation Acquaintance Inseparable Nodding

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“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.”

Company Virtue Health Disease Vices Health Care Contagious

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.”

Writing Real Literature Fine Difficulty Ease Proportion Admiration Editing Aeroplanes

Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

“The excess of our youth are checks written against our age and they are payable with interest thirty years later.”

Years Age Time Interest Written Youth Aging Checks Cute Thirty Excess Thirty Years 30th Birthday Age 30

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“To be obliged to beg our daily happiness from others bespeaks a more lamentable poverty than that of him who begs his daily bread.”

Happiness Poverty Bread Obliged Daily Bread Our Daily Bread

Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

“Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.”

Literature Fool Murder Ghost Bigotry Religious Bigotry

Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

“Commerce flourishes by circumstances, precarious, transitory, contingent, almost as the winds and waves that bring it to our shores.”

Literature Wind Circumstances Economics Wave Shore Commerce Transitory Precarious Economy And Economics

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“Constant success shows us but one side of the world; adversity brings out the reverse of the picture.”

World Shows Success Sides Adversity Constant Reverse Congratulations

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person.”

Persons Literature Memories Appreciate Regard Merit Posterity

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place.”

Should Trying Enough Energy Change Virtue Integrity Ethics Roots Plant Vices Positive Energy Vice And Virtue

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“In politics, as in religion, it so happens, that we have less charity for those who believe the half of our creed, than for those that deny the whole of it; since if Servetus had been a Mohammedan, he would not have been burnt by Calvin.”

Believe Whole Happens Literature Half Charity Deny Creeds

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies; seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends.”

Literature Enemy Learning Safe Venture

Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

“Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by others.”

Inspirational Mean Literature Speak Wealth Rich Riches Despise Possessed Speak The Truth

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“Mystery is not profoundness.”

Wisdom Literature Mystery Intelligence

Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

“Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness when bequeathed by those who, even alive, would part with nothing.”

Literature Alive Essence Charity Generosity Selfishness Transcendentalism Posthumous

Book:Lacon: or, Many things in few words

Source: Lacon: or, Many things in few words

“That writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time.”

Giving Doe Literature Reader Comeback Authorship

Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

“There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.”

Literature Prudence

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“Tyrants have not yet discovered any chains that can fetter the mind.”

Mind Freedom Democracy Chains Tyrants Fetters

Book:Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

“War kills men, and men deplore the loss; but war also crushes bad principles and tyrants, and so saves societies.”

Men War Literature Loss Principles Crush Tyrants Waging War

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“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.”

Want Littles Wealth Money Making Money Relative Greatest Wealth

Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

“When millions applaud you seriously ask yourself what harm you have done; and when they disapprove you, what good.”

Done Asks Literature Millions Harm

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“Those who visit foreign nations, but who associate only with their own countrymen, change their climate, but not their customs 'caelum non animum mutant': they see new meridians, but the same men, and with heads as empty as their pockets.”

Men Mind Country Home Body Literature Nations Return Travel Empty Climate Pockets Customs Traveled Associates New Home Foreign Lands

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console.”

Death Literature Medicine Medical Cures Release Physicians Console Comforter Liberators

Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

“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.”

Thinking May Littles Flower Fame Praise Graves Buried

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces, nor slander us behind our backs, nor intrude upon our privacy, nor quit their shelves until we take them down.”

Writing Faces Behinds Advantage Quitting Privacy Shelves Slander

Book:Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan

Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan

“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.”

May Two Literature Sides Our Lives Weapons Graves Reputation Precious Things Good Reputation Character And Reputation

Book:Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

“There are three difficulties in authorship; to write any thing worth the publishing — to find honest men to publish it — and to get sensible men to read it.”

Men Writing Three Literature Honest Difficulty Sensible Publishing Publish Honest Man Authorship Successful Writing

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“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.”

Love Dream Happiness Inner Peace Routes Ceremony Mistress Great Happiness Mazes Inner Happiness Happiness And Love Life And Happiness Real Happiness

Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

“Justice to my readers compels me to admit that I write because I have nothing to do; justice to myself induces me to add that I will cease to write the moment I have nothing to say.”

Writing Moments Literature Justice Reader Add Cease

Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

“The consequences of things are not always proportionate to the apparent magnitude of those events that have produced them. Thus the American Revolution, from which little was expected, produced much; but the French Revolution, from which much was expected, produced little.”

Littles Events Revolution Consequence Expected Rebellion Rebellious Magnitude American Revolution French Revolution

Book:Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

“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.”

May Ends Literature Interest Genius Draws Paid Dues Honored Posterity Compounds True Genius Compound Interest

Book:Lacon: or, Many things in few words

Source: Lacon: or, Many things in few words

“Philosophy is a bully that talks loud when the danger is at a distant; but, the moment she is pressed hard by an enemy, she is nowhere to be found and leaves the brunt of the battle to be fought by her steady, humble comrade, religion.”

Hard Philosophy Moments Religion Found Enemy Danger Battle Philosopher Humble Loud Steady Bully Comrade

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“The sun should not set upon our anger, neither should he rise upon our confidence. We should forgive freely, but forget rarely. I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself.”

Should Remember Forget Enemy Sun Forgiveness Forgiving

Book:Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan

Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan

“It is the briefest yet wisest maxim which tells us to meddle not.”

Wise Argument Maxims Wisest

Author: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.”

People Giving Heart Dies Doubt Subjects Satisfaction Reign Dynasty Despots

Book:Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan

Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan

“Levity is often less foolish and gravity less wise than each of them appears.”

Wise Foolish Gravity Levity

Book:Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

“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.”

Thinking Men Wise Fool Wisest Happiest Man

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“Anguish of mind has driven thousands to suicide; anguish of body, none. This proves that the health of the mind is of far more consequence to our happiness than the health of the body, although both are deserving of much more attention than either of them receive.”

Mind Body Care Attention Health Prove Consequence Suicide Driven Health Care Anguish Deserving

Book:Lacon: or, Many things in few words

Source: Lacon: or, Many things in few words

“It is a mortifying truth, and ought to teach the wisest of us humility, that many of the most valuable discoveries have been the result of chance rather than of contemplation, and of accident rather than of design.”

Has Beens Chance Results Teach Design Humility Ought Discovery Valuable Accidents Contemplation Wisest

Book:Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

“Shrewd and crafty politicians, when they wish to bring about an unpopular measure, must not go straight forward to work, if they do they will certainly fail; and failures to men in power, are like defeats to a general, they shake their popularity. Therefore, since they cannot sail in the teeth of the wind, they must tack, and ultimately gain their object, by appearing at times to be departing from it.”

Ifs Men Political Wish Failing Objects Wind Politician Gains Defeat Teeth Shakes Popularity Sail Appearing Crafty Departing

Book:Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

“The French revolution was a .eune invented and constructed for the purpose of manufacturing liberty; but it had neither lever cogs, nor adjusting powers, and the consequences were that it worked so rapidly that it destroyed its own inventors, and set itself on fire.”

Purpose Liberty Fire Revolution Consequence Destroyed Inventor Manufacturing French Revolution Adjusting Levers Cogs

Author:Charles Caleb Colton

“The interests of society often render it expedient not to utter the whole truth, the interests of science never: for in this field we have much more to fear from the deficiency of truth than from its abundance.”

Whole Truth Fear Interest Fields Abundance Deficiency Whole Truth

Book:Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

“Nobility of birth does not always insure a corresponding unity of mind; if it did, it would always act as a stimulus to noble actions; but it sometimes acts as a clog rather than a spur.”

Ifs Mind Doe Sometimes Action Birth Unity Noble Nobility Stimulus Spurs Corresponding

Book:Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words : Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words : Addressed to Those who Think

“If you want enemies, excel others; if you want friends, let others excel you.”

Ifs Want Enemy

Book:Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think

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