The art of declamation has been sinking in value from the moment that speakers were foolish enough to publish, and hearers wise enough to read.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONThe Grecian’s maxim would indeed be a sweeping clause in Literature; it would reduce many a giant to a pygmy; many a speech to a sentence; and many a folio to a primer.
More Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
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Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.
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I have found by experience that they who have spent all their lives in cities, improve their talents but impair their virtues; and strengthen their minds but weaken their morals.
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He that places himself neither higher nor lower than he ought to do exercises the truest humility.
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The acquirements of science maybe termed the armor of the mind.
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We should not be too niggardly in our praise, for men will do more to support a character than to raise one.
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It is not every man that can afford to wear a shabby coat.
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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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Make no enemies; he is insignificant indeed that can do thee no harm.
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Eloquence is the language of nature, and cannot be learned in the schools; but rhetoric is the creature of art, which he who feels least will most excel in.
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A house may draw visitors, but it is the possessor alone that can detain them.
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We ask advice but we mean approbation.
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Pride is less ashamed of being ignorant, than of being instructed, and she looks too high to find that, which very often lies beneath her.
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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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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.
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Women that are the least bashful are often the most modest.
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The rich are more envied by those who have a little, than by those who have nothing.
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We know the effects of many things, but the cause of few; experience, therefore, is a surer guide than imagination, and inquiry than conjecture.
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Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely and conciliate those you cannot conquer.
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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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Most females will forgive a liberty rather than a slight.
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He that studies books alone, will know how things ought to be; and he that studies men, will know how things are.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
Imitation is the highest form of flattery.
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The good opinion of our fellow men is the strongest, though not the purest motive to virtue.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age.
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Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than straight forward and simple integrity in another.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
The present time has one advantage over every other — it is our own.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON