Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

A thorough-paced knave will rarely quarrel with one whom he can cheat: his revenge is plunder; therefore he is usually the most forgiving of beings, upon the principle that if he come to an open rupture, he must defend himself; and this does not suit a man whose vocation it is to keep his hands in the pocket of another.

If often happens too, both in courts and in cabinets, that there are two things going on together,--a main plot and an under-plot; and he that understands only one of them will, in all probability, be the dupe of both. A mistress may rule a monarch, but some obscure favorite may rule the mistress.

The greatest genius is never so great as when it is chastised and subdued by the highest reason.

The blindness of bigotry, the madness of ambition, and the miscalculations of diplomacy seek their victims principally amongst the innocent and the unoffending. The cottage is sure to suffer for every error of the court, the cabinet, or the camp. When error sits in the seat of power and of authority, and is generated in high places, it may be compared to that torrent which originates indeed in the mountain, but commits its devastation in the vale.

Let those who would affect singularity with success first determine to be very virtuous, and they will be sure to be very singular.

Mental pleasures never cloy; unlike those of the body, they are increased by reputation, approved by reflection, and strengthened by enjoyment.

Pride, like the magnet, constantly points to one object, self; but, unlike the magnet, it has no attractive pole, but at all points repels.

Criticism is like champagne, nothing more execrable if bad, nothing more excellent if good; if meagre, muddy, vapid and sour, both are fit only to engender colic and wind; but if rich, generous and sparkling, they communicate a genial glow to the spirits, improve the taste, and expand the heart.

Diffidence is the better part of knowledge.

Brutes leave ingratitude to man.

Ignorance lies at the bottom of all human knowledge, and the deeper we penetrate, the nearer we arrive unto it.

There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.

Like the rainbow, peace rests upon the earth, but its arch is lost in heaven. Heaven bathes it in hues of light--it springs up amid tears and clouds--it is a reflection of the eternal sun--it is an assurance of calm--it is the sign of a great covenant between God and man--it is an emanation from the distant orb of immortal light.

We are not more ingenious in searching out bad motives for good actions when performed by others, than good motives for bad actions when performed by ourselves.

The most ridiculous of all animals is a proud priest; he cannot use his own tools without cutting his own fingers.

Time,- that black and narrow isthmus between two eternities.

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

If you cannot avoid a quarrel with a blackguard, let your lawyer manage it, rather than yourself. No man sweeps his own chimney, but employs a chimney-sweeper, who has no objection to dirty work, because it is his trade.

There are circumstances of peculiar difficulty and danger, where a mediocrity of talent is the most fatal quantum that a man can possibly possess. Had Charles the First and Louis the Sixteenth been more wise or more weak, more firm or more yielding, in either case they had both of them saved their heads.

Of all the marvelous works of God, perhaps the one angels view with the most supreme astonishment, is a proud man.

It is always easy to shut a book, but not quite so easy to get rid of a lettered coxcomb.

As that gallant can best affect a pretended passion for one woman who has no true love for another, so he that has no real esteem for any of the virtues can best assume the appearance of them all.

The seeds of repentance are sown in youth by pleasure, but the harvest is reaped in age by pain.

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

We devote the activity of our youth to revelry and the decrepitude of our old age to repentance: and we finish the farce by bequeathing our dead bodies to the chancel, which when living, we interdicted from the church.

All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay, and present praise. Lord Burleigh is not the only statesman who has thought one hundred pounds too much for a song, though sung by Spenser; although Oliver Goldsmith is the only poet who ever considered himself to have been overpaid.

Evils in the journey of life are like the hills which alarm travelers 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.

Knavery is supple, and can bend, but honesty is firm and upright and yields not.

There were moments of despondency when Shakespeare thought himself no poet, and Raphael no painter; when the greatest wits have doubted the excellence of their happiest efforts.

Hannibal knew better how to conquer than how to profit by the conquest; and Napoleon was more skilful in taking positions than in maintaining them. As to reverses, no general cart presume to say that he may not be defeated; but he can, and ought to say, that he will not be surprised.

Ambition is to the mind what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower by reason of our blindness.

It is not every man that can afford to wear a shabby coat.

If we trace the history of most revolutions, we shall find that the first inroads upon the laws have been made by the governors, as often as by the governed.

No two things differ more than hurry and despatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind; despatch of a strong one.

The seat of perfect contentment is in the head; for every individual is thoroughly satisfied with his own proportion of brains.

Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than straight forward and simple integrity in another.

Temperate men drink the most, because they drink the longest.

We may anticipate bliss, but who ever drank of that enchanted cup unalloved?

If merited, no courage can stand against its just indignation.

There are truths which some men despise because they have not examined, and which they will not examine because they despise. There is one signal instance on record where this kind of prejudice was overcome by a miracle; but the age of miracles is past, while that of prejudice remains.

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.

It is with nations as with individuals, those who know the least of others think the highest of themselves; for the whole family of pride and ignorance are incestuous, and mutually beget each other.

When all moves equally (says Pascal), nothing seems to move as in a vessel under sail; and when all run by common consent into vice, none appear to do so. He that stops first, views as from a fixed point the horrible extravagance that transports the rest.

If the prodigal quits life in debt to others, the miser quits it still deeper in debt to himself.

Expect not praise without envy until you are dead.

Falsehood, like a drawing in perspective, will not bear to be examined in every point of view, because it is a good imitation of truth, as a perspective is of the reality, only in one. But truth, like that reality of which the perspective is the representation, will bear to be scrutinized in all points of view, and though examined under every situation, is one and the same.

We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine, but if defer tasting them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.

The wealth is ultimately just a relative thing. As a person with little money and little more needs to rich guys money but really wishes