The 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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONIf 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.
More Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
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The avarice of the miser may be termed the grand sepulchral of all his other passions, as they successively decay.
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True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.
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The acquirements of science maybe termed the armor of the mind.
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Women that are the least bashful are often the most modest.
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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.
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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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None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.
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Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past, even while we attempt to define it.
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In death itself there can be nothing terrible, for the act of death annihilates sensation; but there are many roads to death, and some of them justly formidable, even to the bravest.
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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.
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It is not so difficult a task to plant new truths, as to root out old errors; for there is this paradox in men, they run after that which is new, but are prejudiced in favor of that which is old.
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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.
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There are prating coxcombs in the world who would rather talk than listen, although Shakespeare himself were the orator, and human nature the theme!
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Man is an embodied paradox, a bundle of contradictions.
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Honor is the most capricious in her rewards. She feeds us with air, and often pulls down our house, to build our monument.
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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.
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That which we acquire with the most difficulty we retain the longest; as those who have earned a fortune are usually more careful of it than those who have inherited one.
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He that has never known adversity is but half acquainted with others, or with himself.
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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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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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The good opinion of our fellow men is the strongest, though not the purest motive to virtue.
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The man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are.
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Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.
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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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Total freedom from error is what none of us will allow to our neighbors; however we may be inclined to flirt a little with such spotless perfection ourselves.
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God will excuse our prayers for ourselves whenever we are prevented from them by being occupied in such good works as to entitle us to the prayers of others.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON