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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.

Charles Caleb Colton

Pure truth, like pure gold, has been found unfit for circulation because men have discovered that it is far more convenient to adulterate the truth than to refine themselves.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Adult Convinience Finding Purity Truth
We may anticipate bliss, but who ever drank of that enchanted cup unalloved?
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Anticipate Bliss Drink Enchant Love
The present time has one advantage over every other — it is our own.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Advantage Ourselves Present Time
Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Away Man Production Throw Time
If merited, no courage can stand against its just indignation.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Anand Thakur
Happiness leads none of us by the same route.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Happiness Leadership Route
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

Atheist Communication Destruction Light Mistake System Warmth Yourself Zeal
Pedantry prides herself on being wrong by rules; while common sense is contented to be right without them.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Pride Right Rule Satisfaction Wrong
That cowardice is incorrigible which the love of power cannot overcome.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Coward Love Power
There are prating coxcombs in the world who would rather talk than listen, although Shakespeare himself were the orator, and human nature the theme!
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Himself Human Listening Nature World
Life isn’t like a book. Life isn’t logical or sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be lived in the midst of that mess.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Book Life Logic Mess Midst Time
Men of great and shining qualities do not always succeed in life, but the fault lies more often in themselves than in others.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Greatness Life Lying Man Success
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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Attack Defense Enemy Friendship Goodness Violence
Honor is unstable and seldom the same; for she feeds upon opinion, and is as fickle as her food.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Food Herself Honor Stability
Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely and conciliate those you cannot conquer.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Conquer Grace Grant Refusal Safety Yourself
Man is an embodied paradox, a bundle of contradictions.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Bundle Contradiction Man Paradox
Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Flattery Imitation One Liner Sincere
Imitation is the highest form of flattery.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Flattery Form High Imitation
Attempts at reform, when they fail, strengthen despotism, as he that struggles tightens those cords he does not succeed in breaking.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Break Failure Strength Success
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 COLTON

Literature Sentence Speech Talk
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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Money Person Purpose Secret
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

Bad Better Goodness Himself Stand Vice Virtue Worst
A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius; and we are never more deceived than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity for erudition.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Cheerful Genius Gravity Harm Mistake Science
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 COLTON

Curiosity Death Language Live Talk
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

Case Empty Follow Misfortune Pain Shadow Substance
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

Defect Enemy Learning Ourselves Side Success Surround World
Silence is less injurious than a weak reply.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Injurious Reply Silence Weakness

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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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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