Charles Caleb Colton Quotes - Page 21

• Were the life of man prolonged, he would become such a proficient in villainy, that it would become necessary again to drown or to burn the world. Earth would become an hell; for future rewards when put off to a great distance, would cease to encourage, and future punishments to alarm.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Distance, Men, World

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.201

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• The integrity that lives only on opinion would starve without it.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Integrity, Opinion

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.125

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• The learned languages are indispensable to form the gentleman and the scholar, and are well worth all the labor that they have cost us, provided they are valued not for themselves alone, which would make a pedant, but as a foundation for further acquirements.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Gentleman, Foundation, Cost

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.123

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• The code of poor laws has at length grown up into a tree, which, like the fabulous Upas, overshadows and poisons the land; unwholesome expedients were the bud, dilemmas and depravities have been the blossom, and danger and despair are the bitter fruit.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Law, Land, Tree

  Charles Caleb Colton (1821). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.221

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• Light, whether it be material or moral, is the best reformer; for it prevents those disorders which other remedies sometimes cure, but sometimes confirm.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Light, Moral, Sometimes

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.421

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• Love is an alchemist that can transmute poison into food.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Love, Love Is, Alchemist

  Charles Caleb Colton (1866). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.195

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• Love is a volcano, the crater of which no wise man will approach too nearly, lest ... he should be swallowed up.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Love, Wise, Men

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.358

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• Princes rule the people, and their own passions rule Princes; but Providence can over-rule the whole, and draw the instruments of his inscrutable purposes from the vices, no less than the virtues of Kings.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Kings, Passion, People

  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.206

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• False reasoners are often best confuted by giving them the full swing of their own absurdities.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Swings, Giving, Reason

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.57

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• To be continually subject to the breath of slander, will tarnish the purest virtue, as a constant exposure to the atmosphere will obscure the brightness of the finest gold; but in either case, the real value of both continues the same, although the currency may be somewhat impeded.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Real, Atmosphere, Gold

  Charles Caleb COLTON (1849). “L.P.”, p.181

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• Some men of a secluded and studious life, have sent forth from their closet or their cloister, rays of intellectual light that have agitated courts, and revolutionized kingdoms; like the moon, that far removed from the ocean, and shining upon it with a serene and sober light, is the chief cause of all those ebbings and flowings which incessantly disturb that world of waters.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Ocean, Moon, Men

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• There are truths which some men despise because they have not examined, and which they will not examine because they despise.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Truth, Men, Despise

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.63

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• The moral cement of all society is virtue; it unites and preserves, while vice separates and destroys.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Vices, Moral, Virtue

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.103

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• 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

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• 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

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• The next thing to having wisdom ourselves, is to profit by that of others.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Wisdom, Next, Profit

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

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• There is no quality of the mind, or of the body, that so instantaneously and irresistibly captivates, as wit. An elegant writer has observed that wit may do very well for a mistress, but that he should prefer reason for a wife. He that deserts the latter, and gives himself up entirely to the guidance of the former, will certainly fall into many pitfalls and quagmires, like him who walks by flashes of lightning, rather than the steady beams of the sun.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Fall, Giving, Wife

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.49

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• Antithesis may be the blossom of wit, but it will never arrive at maturity unless sound sense be the trunk and truth the root.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Maturity, Roots, Style

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.164

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• The plainest man who pays attention to women, will sometimes succeed as well as the handsomest man who does not.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Women, Doe, Attention

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.137

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• Pleasure is to a woman what the sun is to the flower: if moderately enjoyed, it beautifies, it refreshes, and it improves; if immoderately, it withers, deteriorates, and destroys. But the duties of domestic life, exercised as they must be in retirement, and calling forth all the sensibilities of the female, are perhaps as necessary to the full development of her charms, as the shade and the shower are to the rose, confirming its beauty, and increasing its fragrance.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Retirement, Women, Flower

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.81

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• Words are in this respect like water, that they often take their taste, flavour, and character, from the mouth out of which they proceed, as the water from the channel through which it flows.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Character, Water, Mouths

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.464

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• Power. like the diamond, dazzles the beholder, and also the wearer; it dignifies meanness; it magnifies littleness; to what is contemptible, it gives authority; to what is low, exaltation. To acquire it, appears not more difficult than to be dispossessed of it when acquired, since it enables the holder to shift his own errors on dependents, and to take their merits to himself. But the miracle of losing it vanishes, when we reflect that we are as liable to fall as to rise, by the treachery of others; and that to say "I am" is language that has been appropriated exclusively to God!

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Fall, Errors, Giving

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.23

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• An honest man will continue to be so though surrounded on all sides by rogues.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Rogues, Sides

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.30

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• Oppression cannot prosper where none will submit to be enslaved.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Oppression, Submit

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.67

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• A society composed of none but the wicked could not exist; it contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction, and without a flood, would be swept away from the earth by the deluge of its own iniquity.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Wicked, Would Be, Earth

  Charles Caleb COLTON (1849). “L.P.”, p.116

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