Colton, Charles Caleb quotes

1780-1832 British Sportsman Writer

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.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Death and Dying

My lowest days as a Christian [and There Were Low Ones--Seven Months Worth Of Them In Prison, To Be Exact] have been more fulfilling and rewarding than all the days of glory in the White House.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Defeat

When the frustration of my helplessness seemed greatest, I discovered God s grace was more than sufficient. And after my imprisonment, I could look back and see how God used my powerlessness for His purpose. What He has chosen for my most significant witness was not my triumphs or victories, but my defeat.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Defeat

Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Difficulties

Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Books - Reading

Deliberate with caution, but act with decision; and yield with graciousness or oppose with firmness.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Decisions

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.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Books - Reading

When millions applaud you seriously ask yourself what harm you have done; and when they disapprove you, what good.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Compliments

Pedantry is the showy display of knowledge which crams our heads with learned lumber and then takes out our brains to make room for it.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Detail

It is with disease of the mind, as with those of the body; we are half dead before we understand our disorder, and half cured when we do.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Disease

Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness, when bequeathed by those who. when alive, would not have contributed.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Charity

Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Doubt

Did universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven, and hell a fable.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Charity

Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed. Health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Health

Never join with your friend when he abuses his horse or his wife, unless the one is to be sold and the other to be buried.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Marriage

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.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Genius

We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Fear

The family is the most basic unit of government. As the first community to which a person is attached and the first authority under which a person learns to live, the family establishes society s most basic values.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Family

Where we cannot invent, we may at least improve.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Improvement

Avarice has ruined more souls than extravagance.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Greed

Tyrants have not yet discovered any chains that can fetter the mind.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Freedom

Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Freedom

The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Extremes and Extremists

There is this difference between happiness and wisdom, that he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he who thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Happiness

Levity is often less foolish and gravity less wise than each of them appears.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Humor

There are some frauds so well conducted that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Fraud

Friendship, of itself a holy tie, is made more sacred by adversity.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Friends and Friendship

True friendship is like sound health, the value of it is seldom known until it be lost.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Friends and Friendship

Honor is unstable and seldom the same; for she feeds upon opinion, and is as fickle as her food.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Honor

Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meandering, but leads none of us by the same route
Colton, Charles Caleb
Happiness

Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Memory

Mystery is not profoundness.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Mystery

If you cannot inspire a woman with love of you, fill her above the brim with love of herself; all that runs over will be yours.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Love

To despise our own species is the price we must often pay for knowledge of it.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Knowledge

We own almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed but to those who have differed.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Knowledge

Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship, never.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Love

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.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Power

Law and equity are two things which God has joined, but which man has put asunder.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Law and Lawyers

Love is an alliance of friendship and animalism; if the former predominates it is passion exalted and refined; if the latter, gross and sensual.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Love

Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Power

Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of tricks and duplicity than straight forward and simple integrity in another.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Integrity

No man is wise enough, or good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Power

Mystery magnifies danger, as a fog the sun, the hand that warned Belshazzar derived its horrifying effect from the want of a body.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Mystery

Life isn t like a book. Life isn t logical or sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be lived in the midst of that mess.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Life and Living

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

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.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Progress

Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it s set a rolling it must increase.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Morality

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.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Philosophers and Philosophy

Pity is a thing often vowed, seldom felt; hatred is a thing often felt, seldom avowed.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Pity

Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Moderation

Our income are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and trip.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Money

Patience is the support of weakness; impatience the ruin of strength
Colton, Charles Caleb
Patience

Subtract from the great man all that he owes to opportunity, all that he owes to chance, and all that he gained by the wisdom of his friends and the folly of his enemies, and the giant will often be seen to be a pygmy.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Opportunity

Great minds must be ready not only to take opportunities, but to make them.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Opportunity

Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely and conciliate those you cannot conquer.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Negotiation

There is this paradox in pride -- it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Pride

Opinions, like showers, are generated in high places, but they invariably descend into lower ones, and ultimately flow down to the people as rain unto the sea.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Opinions

As no roads are so rough as those that have just been mended, so no sinners are so intolerant as those that have just turned saints.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Tolerance

To look back to antiquity is one thing, to go back to it is another.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Past

Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Prudence

He that knows himself, knows others; and he that is ignorant of himself, could not write a very profound lecture on other men s heads.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Self-knowledge

Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time, which every day produces, and which most men throw away, but which nevertheless will make at the end of it no small deduction for the life of man.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Time and Time Management

There are two way of establishing a reputation, one to be praised by honest people and the other to be accused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the first one, because it will always be accompanied by the latter.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Reputation

Theories are private property, but truth is common stock.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Truth

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.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Reputation

Time; that black and narrow isthmus between two eternities.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Time and Time Management

There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Prudence

They that are loudest in their threats are the weakest in the execution of them. It is probable that he who is killed by lightning hears no noise; but the thunder-clap which follows, and which most alarms the ignorant, is the surest proof of their safety.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Speech

When we fail our pride supports us and when we succeed, it betrays us.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Success

If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Town and Country

To know a man, observe how he wins his object, rather than how he loses it; for when we fail, our pride supports; when we succeed; it betrays us.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Success

Secrecy is the soul of all great designs.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Soul

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.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Results

Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by other men.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Riches

It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies; seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends.
Colton, Charles Caleb
School

He that thinks he is the happiest man, really is so. But he that thinks he is the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Thoughts and Thinking

The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Truth

Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Silence

The excess of our youth are checks written against our age and they are payable with interest thirty years later.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Age and Aging

He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a long head or a very short creed.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Belief

Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in their actions.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Conflict

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.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Fame

It is the briefest yet wisest maxim which tells us to meddle not.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Argument

Men s arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Argument

The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Anger

Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power that avarice makes concerning wealth. She begins by accumulating power as a means to happiness, and she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Ambition

Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Bigotry

Were we as eloquent as angels we still would please people much more by listening rather than talking.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Angels

There are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Adversity

To sentence a man of true genius, to the drudgery of a school is to put a racehorse on a treadmill.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Ability

None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Gossip

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Applause

It is better to meet danger than to wait for it. He that is on a lee shore, and foresees a hurricane, stands out to sea and encounters a storm to avoid a shipwreck.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Danger

Physical courage, which engages all danger, will make a person brave in one way; and moral courage, which defies all opinion, will make a person brave in another.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Courage

Commerce flourishes by circumstances, precarious, transitory, contingent, almost as the winds and waves that bring it to our shores.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Economy and Economics

In all societies, it is advisable to associate if possible with the highest; not that the highest are always the best, but because, if disgusted there, we can descend at any time; but if we begin with the lowest, to ascend is impossible.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Association

Constant success shows us but one side of the world; adversity brings out the reverse of the picture.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Adversity

We ask advice but we mean approbation.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Advice

Repartee is perfect when it effects its purpose with a double edge. It is the highest order of wit, as it indicates the coolest yet quickest exercise of genius, at a moment when the passions are roused.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Conversation

Reply to wit with gravity, and to gravity with wit.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Conversation

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.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Writers and Writing

It is only when the rich are sick that they fully feel the impotence of wealth.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Wealth

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.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Wealth

The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Wisdom

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.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Writers and Writing

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.
Colton, Charles Caleb
Writers and Writing