Quotes from Charles Caleb Colton

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

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.

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

The smiling daughter of the storm.

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

We are sure to be losers when we quarrel with ourselves; it is civil war.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.

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.

Deliberate with caution, but act with decision; and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.

He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool.