It is curious that some learned dunces, because they can write nonsense in languages that are dead, should despise those that talk sense in languages that are living.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONSilence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.
More Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
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Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one, on which we must first erase.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
He that is gone so far as to cut the claws of the lion, will not feel himself quite secure, until he has also drawn his teeth.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
Atheism is a system which can communicate neither warmth nor illumination, except from those fagots which your mistaken zeal has lighted up for its destruction.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
Hope is a prodigal young heir, and experience is his banker.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
Fame is an undertaker that pays but little attention to the living, but bedizens the dead, furnishes out their funerals, and follows them to the grave
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Self-denial is often the sacrifice of one sort of self-love for another.
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When you have nothing to say, say nothing; a weak defense strengthens your opponent, and silence is less injurious than a bad reply.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
It is not every man that can afford to wear a shabby coat.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
Cruel men are the greatest lovers of Mercy, avaricious men of generosity, and proud men of humility; that is to say, in other, not in themselves.
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Pain may be said to follow pleasure as its shadow; but the misfortune is that in this particular case, the substance belongs to the shadow, the emptiness to its cause.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
There are two principles of established acceptance in morals; first, that self-interest is the mainspring of all of our actions, and secondly, that utility is the test of their value.
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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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Constant success shows us but one side of the world. For as it surrounds us with friends who will tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we can learn our defects.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON