Charles Caleb Colton Quotes About Virtue

Quotes about: Virtue

• 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

  Wisdom, Progress, Three Things

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.214

• He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Change, Integrity, Roots

• Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Sloth, Laziness, Virtue

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.173

• No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us. Our integrity is never worth so much as when we have parted with our all to keep it.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Integrity, Men, Cost

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.27

• Forgiveness, that noblest of all self-denial, is a virtue which he alone who can practise in himself can willingly believe in another.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Believe, Self, Denial

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.101

• No company is preferable to bad. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Health, Vices, Disease

• I have found by experience that they who have spent all their lives in cities, improve their talents but impair their virtues; and strengthen their minds but weaken their morals.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Cities, Mind, Moral

• That theatrical kind of virtue, which requires publicity for its stage, and an applauding world for its audience, could not be depended on, in the secrecy of solitude, or the retirement of a desert.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Retirement, Solitude, Desert

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.135

• Natural good is' so intimately connected with moral good, and natural evil with moral evil, that I am as certain as if I heard a voice from heaven proclaim it, that God is on the side of virtue. He has learnt much, and has not lived in vain, who has practically discovered that most strict and necessary connection, that does and will ever exist between vice and misery, and virtue and happiness.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Voice, Evil, Heaven

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.145

• God is on the side of virtue; for whoever dreads punishment suffers it, and whoever deserves it, dreads it .

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Punishment, Suffering, Sides

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.181

• The martyrs to vice far exceed the martyrs to virtue, both in endurance and in number.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Numbers, Endurance, Vices

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.174

• There is but one pursuit in life which it is in the power of all to follow, and of all to attain. It is subject to no disappointments, since he that perseveres, makes every difficulty an advancement, and every contest a victory; and this is the pursuit of virtue.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Disappointment, Victory, Advancement

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.40

• There is a holy love and a holy rage, and our best virtues never glow so brightly as when our passions are excited in the cause. Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues; and the best of us are better when roused.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Passion, Sloth, Causes

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.173

• It is in the middle classes of society that all the finest feeling, and the most amiable propensities of our nature do principally nourish and abound. For the good opinion of our fellow-men is the strongest though not the purest motive to virtue. The privations of poverty render us too cold and callous, and the privileges of property too arrogant and confidential, to feel; the first places us beneath the influence of opinion--the second, above it.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Class, Feelings

• Villainy that is vigilant will be an overmatch for virtue, if she slumber at her post.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Slumber, Virtue, Posts

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.226

• Sincerely to aspire after virtue, is to gain her; and zealously to labour after her wages, is to receive them.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Wages, Gains, Virtue

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.36

• Peace is the evening star of the soul, as virtue is its sun, and the two are never far apart.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Peace, Stars, Two

• Those who have resources within themselves, who can dare to live alone, want friends the least, but, at the same time, best know how to prize them the most. But no company is far preferable to bad, because we are more apt to catch the vices of others than their virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Society, Vices, Disease

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.128

• Hypocrites act by virtue.... They frame many counterfeits of her, with which they make an ostentatious parade, in all public assemblies, and processions; but the original of what they counterfeit, and which may indeed be said to have fallen from heaven, they produce so seldom, that it is cankered by the rust of sloth, and useless from non-application.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Hypocrite, Hypocrisy, Heaven

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.32

• There are some who write, talk, and think, so much about vice and virtue, that they have no time to practice either the one or the other.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Writing, Thinking, Practice

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.52

• Emulation has been termed a spur to virtue, and assumes to be a spur of gold. But it is a spur composed of baser materials, and if tried in the furnace will be found to want that fixedness which is the characteristic of gold. He that pursues virtue, only to surpass others, is not far from wishing others less forward than himself; and he that rejoices too much at his own perfections will be too little grieved at the defects of other men.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Perfection, Gold

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.113

• Fashions smile has given wit to dullness and grace to deformity, and has brought everything into vogue, by turns, but virtue.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Fashion, Grace, Virtue

• Love, like the cold bath, is never negative, it seldom leaves us where it finds us; if once we plunge into it, it will either heighten our virtues, or inflame our vices.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Love, Vices, Negative

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.184

• Honesty is not only the deepest policy, but the highest wisdom; since, however difficult it may be for integrity to get on, it is a thousand times more difficult for knavery to get off; and no error is more fatal than that of those who think that Virtue has no other reward because they have heard that she is her own.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Honesty, Integrity, Thinking

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”

• As the rays of the sun, notwithstanding their velocity, injure not the eye, by reason of their minuteness, so the attacks of envy, notwithstanding their number, ought not to wound our virtue by reason of their insignificance.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Eye, Numbers, Envy

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.190

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