We know the effects of many things, but the cause of few; experience, therefore, is a surer guide than imagination, and inquiry than conjecture.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONSilence is less injurious than a weak reply.
More Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
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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.
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Discretion has been termed the better part of valour, and it is more certain, that diffidence is the better part of knowledge.
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 -
Wit may do very well for a mistress, but I should prefer reason for a wife.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
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Most females will forgive a liberty rather than a slight.
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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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
The awkwardness and embarrassment which all feel on beginning to write, when they themselves are the theme, ought to serve as a hint to author’s that self is a subject they ought very rarely to descant upon.
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An Irish man fights before he reasons, a Scotchman reasons before he fights, an Englishman is not particular as to the order of precedence, but will do either to accommodate his customers.
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We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.
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Silence is less injurious than a weak reply.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
There are three kinds of praise, that which we yield, that which we lend, and that which we pay. We yield it to the powerful from fear, we lend it to the weak from interest, and we pay it to the deserving from gratitude.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
Pleasure is to women what the sun is to the flower; if moderately enjoyed, it beautifies, it refreshes, and it improves; if immoderately, it withers, deteriorates and destroys.
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A power above all human responsibility ought to be above all human attainment.
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Oppression cannot prosper where none will submit to be enslaved.
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Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, dispatch of a strong one.
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That is fine benevolence, finely executed, which, like the Nile, comes from hidden sources.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
Deliberate with caution, but act with decision and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.
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I have somewhere seen it observed that we should make the same use of a book that the bee does of a flower: she steals sweets from it, but does not injure it.
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Some persons will tell you, with an air of the miraculous, that they recovered although they were given over; whereas they might with more reason have said, they recovered because they were given over.
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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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Strong as our passions are, they may be starved into submission, and conquered without being killed.
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If a cause be good, the most violent attack of its enemies will not injure it so much as an injudicious defence of it by its friends.
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Sometimes the greatest adversities turn out to be the greatest blessings.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON