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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

It is doubtful whether mankind are most indebted to those who like Bacon and Butler dig the gold from the mine of literature, or to those who, like Paley, purify it, stamp it, fix its real value, and give it currency and utility.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Current Doubt Kind Man Utility
I have somewhere seen it observed that we should make the same use of a book that the bee does of a flower: she steals sweets from it, but does not injure it.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Books Flower Injury Observation Steal
Ladies of Fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Fashion Happiness Love Pride Starve
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.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Avoid Better Dangerous Hurricane Shipwreck Storm Wait
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
The acquirements of science maybe termed the armor of the mind.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Mindset Science
He that studies books alone, will know how things ought to be; and he that studies men, will know how things are.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Alone Book Himself Man Study
He that places himself neither higher nor lower than he ought to do exercises the truest humility.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Exercise Humility Low Place True
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

Blank Erase Errors Ignorance Writing
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

Excellence Himself Privacy Station Talk
Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Born Eyes Man Oneself Proverb
A high degree of intellectual refinement in the female is the surest pledge society can have for the improvement of the male.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Female Improvement Intellectual Male Pledge
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
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

Enemy Hold Obligation Power
Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Flattery Imitation One Liner Sincere
Men’s arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Anand Thakur
That is fine benevolence, finely executed, which, like the Nile, comes from hidden sources.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Execution Fine Hide Source
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
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
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

Death Evidence Fools
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
We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Fear Human Nature Pretend
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

Attention Fame Follow Funeral Grave Pay
War is a game in which princes seldom win, the people never.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Game People War Win
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
Doubt is the vestibule of faith.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Doubt Faith
Oppression cannot prosper where none will submit to be enslaved.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Oppression Prosperity Submit

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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