black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

If you are under obligations to many, it is prudent to postpone the recompensing of one, until it be in your power to remunerate all; otherwise you will make more enemies by what you give, than by what you withhold.

Charles Caleb Colton

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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Grave Precious Reputation Weakness Weapon Whisper
There are three modes of bearing the ills of life; by indifference, which is the most common; by philosophy, which is the most ostentatious; and by religion, which is the most effectual.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Difference Effect Life Philosophy Religion
The family is the most basic unit of government. As the first community to which a person is attached and the first authority under which a person learns to live, the family establishes society’s most basic values.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Attachment Authority Basic Establishment Family Government Person Value
Women do not transgress the bounds of decorum so often as men; but when they do, they go greater lengths.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Bound Greatness Length Man Woman
To cure us of our immoderate love of gain, we should seriously consider how many goods there are that money will not purchase, and these the best; and how many evils there are that money will not remedy, and these the worst.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Cure Goodness Immoderate Remedy Willing Worst
War is a game in which princes seldom win, the people never.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Game People War Win
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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Accomplishment Easy Hide Hypocrisy Learning Pretend
Imitation is the highest form of flattery.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Flattery Form High Imitation
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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Creature Excellence Feeling Language Learning School
It is best, if possible, to deceive no one; for he that begins by deceiving others, will end by deceiving himself.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Beginning Best End Himself Possible
Butler compared the tongues of these eternal talkers to race-horses, which go the faster the less weight they carry.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Carry Compare Talk Weight
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
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

Deserve Fear Gratitude Kind Pay Powerful Praise
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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Dance Grand Happiness Life Mistress Route
The good opinion of our fellow men is the strongest, though not the purest motive to virtue.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Goodness Man Motive Opinion Ourselves Strong Virtue
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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Book Friendship Instruction Return True
The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Beginning End Magnificiant Mathematics Study
It is with nations as with individuals, those who know the least of others think the highest of themselves; for the whole family of pride and ignorance are incestuous, and mutually beget each other.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Each Other Family Ignorance Nation Pride
It is good to act as if. It is even better to grow to the point where it is no longer an act.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Act Goodness Growth Point
Revenge is fever in our own blood, to be cured only by letting the blood of another; but the remedy too often produces a relapse, which is remorse–a malady far more dreadful than the first disease, because it is incurable.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Blood Ourselves Remedy Revenge
To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Bitter Dare Enemy Live Rare
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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Miracle Person Reason Recover
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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Affect Appearance Assume Best Woman
That writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Himself Knowledge Reading Time Writing
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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Road Rough Saint
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
Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Doubt Pass Temple Wisdom

If you are under obligations to many, it is prudent to postpone the recompensing of one, until it be in your power to remunerate all; otherwise you will make more enemies by what you give, than by what you withhold.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

If you are under obligations to many, it is prudent to postpone the recompensing of one, until it be in your power to remunerate all; otherwise you will make more enemies by what you give, than by what you withhold.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Charles Caleb Colton Quotes