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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONHe that studies only men will get the body of knowledge without the soul; and he that studies only books, the soul without the body.
More Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
-
-
Most plagiarists, like the drone, have neither taste to select, industry to acquire, nor skill to improve, but impudently pilfer the honey ready prepared, from the hive.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
Taking things not as they ought to be, but as they are, I fear it must be allowed that Macchiavelli will always have more disciples than Jesus.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
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
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
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 -
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 -
It is best, if possible, to deceive no one; for he that begins by deceiving others, will end by deceiving himself.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
A power above all human responsibility ought to be above all human attainment.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
A society composed of none but the wicked could not exist; it contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction, and without a flood, would be swept away from the earth by the deluge of its own iniquity.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it: the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
There are both dull correctness and piquant carelessness; it is needless to say which will command the most readers and have the most influence.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
Attempts at reform, when they fail, strengthen despotism, as he that struggles tightens those cords he does not succeed in breaking.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely and conciliate those you cannot conquer.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
Butler compared the tongues of these eternal talkers to race-horses, which go the faster the less weight they carry.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
Physicians must discover the weaknesses of the human mind, and even condescend to humor them, or they will never be called in to cure the infirmities of the body.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
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 -
Knowledge is two-fold, and consists not only in an affirmation of what is true, but in the negation of that which is false.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
The French have a saying that whatever excellence a man may exhibit in a public station he is very apt to be ridiculous in a private one.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
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 -
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 -
Pride requires very costly food-its keeper’s happiness.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which was intended for her preservation.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
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 -
Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one, on which we must first erase.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON -
It may be observed of good writing, as of good blood, that it is much easier to say what it is composed of than to compose it.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON