Quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

"We ask advice, but we mean approbation."

"Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom."

"Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance."

"The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility."

"Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say."

"That writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time."

"Knowledge is two-fold, and consists not only in an affirmation of what is true, but in the negation of that which is false."

"We own almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed but to those who have differed."

"Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer."

"Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books."

"Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power."

"There is a paradox in pride: it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so."

"Imitation is the sincerest flattery."

"Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by others."

"Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner."

"There are two way of establishing a reputation, one to be praised by honest people and the other to be accused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the first one, because it will always be accompanied by the latter."

"The excess of our youth are checks written against our age and they are payable with interest thirty years later."

"If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city."

"Most of our misfortunes are more supportable than the comments of our friends upon them."

"Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes."

"In life we shall find many men that are great, and some that are good, but very few men that are both great and good."

"Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us by the same route."

"There is this difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool."

"Ladies of Fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride."

"The rich are more envied by those who have a little, than by those who have nothing."

"None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them; such persons covet secrets as a spendthrift covets money, for the purpose of circulation."

"If rich, it is easy enough to conceal our wealth but, if poor, it is not quite so easy to conceal our poverty. We shall find it is less difficult to hide a thousand guineas, than one hole in our coat."

"Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost."

"There are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion."

"In religion as in politics it so happens that we have less charity for those who believe half our creed, than for those who deny the whole of it."

"To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it: the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary."

"Patience is the support of weakness impatience the ruin of strength."

"He who studies books alone will know how things ought to be, and he who studies men will know how they are."

"To dare to live alone is the rarest courage since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet."

"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."

"True friendship is like sound health the value of it is seldom known until it is lost."

"Friendship, of itself a holy tie, is made more sacred by adversity."

"Friendship often ends in love but love in friendship - never."

"The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces, nor slander us behind our backs, nor intrude upon our privacy, nor quit their shelves until we take them down."

"Of present fame think little, and of future less the praises that we receive after we are buried, like the flowers that are strewed over our grave, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead."

"Constant success shows us but one side of the world adversity brings out the reverse of the picture."

"The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary."

"Physical courage, which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another."

"Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own country-men, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies, but untravelled minds."

"Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but live for it."

"To be obliged to beg our daily happiness from others bespeaks a more lamentable poverty than that of him who begs his daily bread."

"Habit will reconcile us to everything but change."

"We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear."

"Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console."

"Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away."

"War kills men, and men deplore the loss but war also crushes bad principles and tyrants, and so saves societies."

"If you cannot inspire a woman with love of you, fill her above the brim with love of herself all that runs over will be yours."