Theories are private property, but truth is common stock.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONAn 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.
More Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
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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.
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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.
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We ask advice but we mean approbation.
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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.
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We are sure to be losers when we quarrel with ourselves; it is civil war.
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Self-denial is often the sacrifice of one sort of self-love for another.
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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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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.
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As that gallant can best affect a pretended passion for one woman who has no true love for another, so he that has no real esteem for any of the virtues can best assume the appearance of them all.
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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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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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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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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.
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It is easier to pretend to be what you are not than to hide what you really are; but he that can accomplish both has little to learn in hypocrisy.
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The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.
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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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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.
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Man is an embodied paradox, a bundle of contradictions.
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Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.
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Body and mind, like man and wife, do not always agree to die together.
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The worst thing that can be said of the most powerful is that they can take your life; but the same can be said of the most weak.
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Wit may do very well for a mistress, but I should prefer reason for a wife.
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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.
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None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them; such persons covet secrets as a spendthrift covets money, for the purpose of circulation.
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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.
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Make no enemies; he is insignificant indeed that can do thee no harm.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON