Charles Caleb Colton Quotes - Page 20

• Emulation looks out for merits, that she may exalt herself by a victory; envy spies out blemishes that she may lower another by defeat.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Envy, Victory, Spy

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.436

  6 Copy quote

• Pain may be said to follow pleasure as its shadow.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Pain, Shadow, May

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.83

  7 Copy quote

• The wealth is ultimately just a relative thing. As a person with little money and little more needs to rich guys money but really wishes

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Guy, Wish, Needs

  4 Copy quote

• Ignorance lies at the bottom of all human knowledge, and the deeper we penetrate the nearer we arrive unto it. For what do we truly know, or what can we clearly affirm, of any one of those important things upon which all our reasonings must of necessity be built--time and space, life and death, matter and mind?

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Lying, Ignorance, Space

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

  9 Copy quote

• Error, when she retraces her steps, has farther to go before she can arrive at truth than ignorance.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Ignorance, Errors, Steps

  4 Copy quote

• The enthusiast has been compared to a man walking in a fog; everything immediately around him, or in contact with him, appears sufficiently clear and luminous; but beyond the little circle of which he himself is the centre, all is mist and error and confusion.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Circles, Errors

  Charles Caleb Colton (1821). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.22

  7 Copy quote

• Faith and works are necessary to our spiritual life as Christians, as soul and body are to our natural life as men; for faith is the soul of religion, and works the body.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Faith, Christian, Spiritual

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.188

  9 Copy quote

• Habit will reconcile us to everything but change

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Habit, Reconcile

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.260

  7 Copy quote

• Memory is the friend of wit, but the treacherous ally of invention; there are many books that owe their success to two things; good memory of those who write them, and the bad memory of those who read them

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Memories, Book, Writing

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.160

  5 Copy quote

• Subtlety will sometimes give safety, no less than strength; and minuteness has sometimes escaped, where magnitude would have been crushed. The little animal that kills the boa is formidable chiefly from its insignificance, which is incompressible by the folds of its antagonist.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Animal, Safety, Giving

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

  25 Copy quote

• There are some men who are fortune's favorites, and who, like cats, light forever on their legs.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Cat, Men, Light

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  10 Copy quote

• Fashion is the veriest goddess of semblance and of shade; to be happy is of far less consequence to her worshippers than to appear so; even pleasure itself they sacrifice to parade, and enjoyment to ostentation.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Fashion, Sacrifice, Shade

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.255

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  22 Copy quote

• Posthumous fame is a plant of tardy growth, for our body must be the seed of it; or we may liken it to a torch, which nothing but the last spark of life can light up; or we may compare it to the trumpet of the archangel, for it is blown over the dead; but unlike that awful blast, it is of earth, not of heaven, and can neither rouse nor raise us.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Light, Heaven, Growth

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.365

  7 Copy quote

• No propagation or multiplication is more rapid that that of evil, unless it be checked; no growth more certain.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Evil, Growth, Rapids

  7 Copy quote

• A leveller has long ago been set down as a ridiculous and chimerical being, who, if he could finish his work to-day, would have to begin it again tomorrow.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Equality, Long Ago, Ridiculous

  7 Copy quote

• If all seconds were as averse to duels as their principals, very little blood would be shed in that way.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Blood, Dueling, Would Be

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.44

  16 Copy quote

• Love is an alchemist that can transmute poison into food--and a spaniel, that prefers even punishment from one hand to caresses from another. But it is in love as in war, we are often more indebted for our success to the weakness of the defence than to the energy of the attack; for mere idleness has ruined more women than passion; vanity more than idleness, and credulity more than either.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Love, War, Passion

  7 Copy quote

• Falsehood is never so successful as when she baits her hook with truth, and no opinions so fatally mislead us as those that are not wholly wrong, as no watches so effectively deceive the wearer as those that are sometimes right.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Successful, Mislead Us, Bait

  9 Copy quote

• Dreams ought to produce no conviction whatever on philosophical minds. If we consider how many dreams are dreamt every night, and how many events occur every day, we shall no longer wonder at those accidental coincidences which ignorance mistakes for verifications.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Dream, Mistake, Philosophical

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.211

  4 Copy quote

• Despotism can no more exist in a nation until the liberty of the press be destroyed than the night can happen before the sun is set.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Night, Liberty, Sun

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.198

  7 Copy quote

• We strive as hard to hide our hearts from ourselves as from others, and always with more success; for in deciding upon our own case we are both judge, jury, and executioner, and where sophistry cannot overcome the first, or flattery the second, self-love is always ready to defeat the sentence by bribing the third.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Heart, Love Is, Self

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

  4 Copy quote

• Deformity of the heart I call
  The worst deformity of all;
  For what is form, or what is face,
  But the soul's index, or its case?

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Heart, Soul, Faces

  7 Copy quote

• Our very best friends have a tincture of jealousy even in their friendship; and when they hear us praised by others, will ascribe it to sinister and interested motives if they can.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Lost Friendship, Sinister, Motive

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.72

  7 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

John Churton Collins

George William Curtis

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Sun Tzu

O. Henry

Clarence Budington Kelland

James Ramsey Ullman

Soren Kierkegaard