Quotes from Charles Caleb Colton

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.

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

Times of general calamity and confusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storms.

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

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

Men spend their lives in anticipation, in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other-it is our own.... We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.

Wealth ... is a relative thing since he that has little and wants less is richer than he that has much but wants more.

Eloquence is the language of nature, and cannot be learned in the schools; but rhetoric is the creature of art, which he who feels least will most excel in.

A windmill is eternally at work to accomplish one end, although it shifts with every variation of the weather cock, and assumes 10 different positions in a day.

He that has never suffered extreme adversity knows not the full extent of his own depravation.

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

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

The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.

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.

Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error.

What would you do if you knew for sure that no one would ever find out?

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

It was observed of Elizabeth that she was weak herself, but chose wise counsellors; to which it was replied, that to choose wise counsellors was, in a prince, the highest wisdom.

Worldly wisdom dictates to her disciples the propriety of dressing somewhat beyond their means, but of living somewhat within them.

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

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.

The young fancy that their follies are mistaken by the old for happiness. The old fancy that their gravity is mistaken by the young for wisdom.

It is much easier to ruin a man of principle than a man of none, for he may be ruined through his scruples. Knavery is supple and can bend; but honesty is firm and upright, and yields not.

Cruel men are the greatest lovers of Mercy, avaricious men of generosity, and proud men of humility; that is to say, in other, not in themselves.