To admit that there is any such thing as chance, in the common acceptation of the term, would be to attempt to establish a power independent of God.
CHARLES CALEB COLTONGrant graciously what you cannot refuse safely and conciliate those you cannot conquer.
More Charles Caleb Colton Quotes
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Deliberate with caution, but act with decision and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.
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Fortune, like other females, prefers a lover to a master, and submits with impatience to control; but he that wooes her with opportunity and importunity will seldom court her in vain.
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Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.
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What would you do if you knew for sure that no one would ever find out?
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Pride requires very costly food-its keeper’s happiness.
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Hope is a prodigal young heir, and experience is his banker.
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A fool is often as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and always more incorrigible.
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That is true beauty which has not only a substance, but a spirit; a beauty that we must intimately know, justly to appreciate.
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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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He that studies books alone, will know how things ought to be; and he that studies men, will know how things are.
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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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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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Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
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Man is an embodied paradox, a bundle of contradictions.
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There are two way of establishing a reputation, one to be praised by honest people and the other to be accused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the first one, because it will always be accompanied by the latter.
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The rich are more envied by those who have a little, than by those who have nothing.
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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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None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.
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The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.
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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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Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than straight forward and simple integrity in another.
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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.
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Silence is less injurious than a weak reply.
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A man’s profundity may keep him from opening on a first interview, and his caution on a second; but I should suspect his emptiness, if he carried on his reserve to a third.
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It is the briefest yet wisest maxim which tells us to meddle not.
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Pedantry prides herself on being wrong by rules; while common sense is contented to be right without them.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON