Charles Caleb Colton Quotes - Page 17

• You cannot separate charity and religion.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Charity

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• Very great personages are not likely to form very just estimates either of others or of themselves; their knowledge of themselves is obscured by the flattery of others; their knowledge of others is equally clouded by circumstances peculiar to themselves. For in the presence of the great, the modest are sure to suffer from too much diffidence, and the confident from too much display.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Character, Suffering, Peculiar

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.75

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• 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

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• The blindness of bigotry, the madness of ambition, and the miscalculations of diplomacy seek their victims principally amongst the innocent and the unoffending. The cottage is sure to suffer for every error of the court, the cabinet, or the camp. When error sits in the seat of power and of authority, and is generated in high places, it may be compared to that torrent which originates indeed in the mountain, but commits its devastation in the vale.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Ambition, Errors, Suffering

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.19

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• He that will often put eternity and the world before him, and who will dare to look steadfastly at both of them, will find that the more often he contemplates them, the former will grow greater, and the latter less.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Looks, World, Eternity

  Charles Caleb Colton (1821). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.198

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• I question if Epicurus and Hume have done mankind a greater service by the looseness of their doctrines than by the purity of their lives. Of such men we may more justly exclaim, than of Caesar, "Confound their virtues, they've undone the world!

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Example, Doctrine

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• If a horse has four legs, and I'm riding it, I think I can win.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Horse, Winning, Thinking

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• Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Memories, Appreciate, Literature

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• In politics, as in religion, it so happens, that we have less charity for those who believe the half of our creed, than for those that deny the whole of it; since if Servetus had been a Mohammedan, he would not have been burnt by Calvin.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Believe, Half, Literature

  "Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think".

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• There are three difficulties in authorship; to write any thing worth the publishing — to find honest men to publish it — and to get sensible men to read it.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Writing, Men, Three

  "Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think".

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• The drafts which true genius draws upon posterity, although they may not always be honored so soon as they are due, are sure to be paid with compound interest in the end.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Genius, Literature, May

  Charles Caleb Colton (1866). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.123

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• Men spend their lives in anticipations,—in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other—it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Inspirational, Happiness, Happy

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• The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Anger, Hatred, Rage

  Philip Dormer Stanhope (4th earl of Chesterfield.), Charles Caleb Colton (1861). “Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son on men and manners. To which are added, selections from Colton's 'Lacon'.”, p.125

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• Time is the measurer of all things, but is itself immeasurable, and the grand discloser of all things, but is itself undisclosed.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Time, All Things

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.290

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• Time,- that black and narrow isthmus between two eternities.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Time, Two, Black

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 582, 1895.

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• A Christian builds his fortitude on a better foundation than stoicism; he is pleased with every thing that happens, because he knows it could not happen unless it first pleased God, and that which pleases Him must be best.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Christian, Courage, Foundation

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.88

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• Ambition is to the mind what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower by reason of our blindness.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Ambition, Mind, Towers

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.35

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• There is this paradox in pride - it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Pride, Men, Becoming

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.112

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• To despise our own species is the price we must often pay for knowledge of it.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Knowledge, Pay, Despise

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• Pride, like the magnet, constantly points to one object, self; but, unlike the magnet, it has no attractive pole, but at all points repels.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Pride, Self, Attractive

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.72

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• True goodness is not without that germ of greatness that can bear with patience the mistakes of the ignorant.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Mistake, Greatness, Ignorant

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

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• Pity a thing often avowed, seldom felt; hatred is a thing often felt, seldom avowed.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Hate, Hatred, Pity

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.200

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• Public charities and benevolent associations for the gratuitous relief of every species of distress, are peculiar to Christianity; no other system of civil or religious policy has originated them; they form its highest praise and characteristic feature.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Religious, Relief, Peculiar

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.205

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• Precisely in proportion to our own intellectual weakness will be our credulity as to those mysterious powers assumed by others.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Intellectual, Atheism, Weakness

  Charles Caleb Colton (1828). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words Addressed to Those who Think”, p.76

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• Criticism is like champagne, nothing more execrable if bad, nothing more excellent if good.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Criticism, Excellent, Champagne

  Charles Caleb Colton (1866). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.55

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