Quotes from Charles Caleb Colton

The hate which we all bear with the most Christian patience is the hate of those who envy us.

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

Philosophy is a goddess, whose head indeed is in heaven, but whose feet are upon earth; she attempts more than she accomplishes, and promises more than she performs.

It is good to act as if. It is even better to grow to the point where it is no longer an act.

He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further and try to plant a virtue in its place.

Man, if he compare himself with all that he can see, is at the zenith of power; but if he compare himself with all that he can conceive, he is at the nadir of weakness.

Of all the marvelous works of God, perhaps the one angels view with the most supreme astonishment, is a proud man.

To admit that there is any such thing as chance, in the common acceptation of the term, would be to attempt to establish a power independent of God.

God is on the side of virtue; for whoever dreads punishment suffers it, and whoever deserves it, dreads it .

So long as lust, whether of the world or flesh, smells sweet in our nostrils, so long we are loathsome to God.

God is as great in minuteness as He is in magnitude.

He that is good will infallibly become better, and he that is bad will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue, and time are three things that never stand still.

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

It may be observed of good writing, as of good blood, that it is much easier to say what it is composed of than to compose it.

We are not more ingenious in searching out bad motives for good actions when performed by others, than good motives for bad actions when performed by ourselves.

Many books owe their success to the good memories of their authors and the bad memories of their readers.

Happiness ... leads none of us by the same route.

The present time has one advantage over every other -- it is our own.

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

If sensuality be our only happiness we ought to envy the brutes, for instinct is a surer, shorter, safer guide to such happiness than reason.

Those that will not permit their wealth to do any good for others. . . cut themselves off from the truest pleasure here and the highest happiness later.

Happiness is that single and glorious thing which is the very light and sun of the whole animated universe; and where she is not it were better that nothing should be.

He that sympathizes in all the happiness of others, perhaps himself enjoys the safest happiness.

It is with disease of the mind, as with those of the body; we are half dead before we understand our disorder, and half cured when we do.