Quotes from Charles Caleb Colton

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

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

Discretion has been termed the better part of valour, and it is more certain, that diffidence is the better part of knowledge.

Diffidence is the better part of knowledge.

The seat of perfect contentment is in the head; for every individual is thoroughly satisfied with his own proportion of brains.

To despise our own species is the price we must often pay for knowledge of it.

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

Times of great calamity and confusion have been productive for the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace. The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.

It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies; seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends.

There are some frauds so well conducted that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them.

Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again for, like true friends, they will never fail us - never cease to instruct - never cloy.

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

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.

No disorders have employed so many quacks, as those that have no cure; and no sciences have exercised so many quills, as those that have no certainty.

The acquirements of science maybe termed the armor of the mind.

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.

Some are cursed with the fullness of satiety; and how can they bear the ills of life when its very pleasures fatigue them?

The two most precious things this side of the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other.

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

Life isn't like a book. Life isn't logical or sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be lived in the midst of that mess.

Life often presents us with a choice of evils, rather than of goods.

There are three modes of bearing the ills of life; by indifference, which is the most common; by philosophy, which is the most ostentatious; and by religion, which is the most effectual.

Purity lives and derives its life solely from the Spirit of God.

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.