Charles Caleb Colton

To sentence a man of true genius, to the drudgery of a school is to put a racehorse on a treadmill.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

We ask advice but we mean approbation.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power that avarice makes concerning wealth. She begins by accumulating power as a means to happiness, and she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Were we as eloquent as angels we still would please people much more by listening rather than talking.

— Charles Caleb Colton

The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

It is the briefest yet wisest maxim which tells us to meddle not.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.

— Charles Caleb Colton

In all societies, it is advisable to associate if possible with the highest; not that the highest are always the best, but because, if disgusted there, we can descend at any time; but if we begin with the lowest, to ascend is impossible.

— Charles Caleb Colton

He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a long head or a very short creed.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

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.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness, when bequeathed by those who. when alive, would not have contributed.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Did universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven, and hell a fable.

— Charles Caleb Colton

When millions applaud you seriously ask yourself what harm you have done; and when they disapprove you, what good.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in their actions.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Repartee is perfect when it effects its purpose with a double edge. It is the highest order of wit, as it indicates the coolest yet quickest exercise of genius, at a moment when the passions are roused.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Reply to wit with gravity, and to gravity with wit.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Physical courage, which engages all danger, will make a person brave in one way; and moral courage, which defies all opinion, will make a person brave in another.

— Charles Caleb Colton

It is better to meet danger than to wait for it. He that is on a lee shore, and foresees a hurricane, stands out to sea and encounters a storm to avoid a shipwreck.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

My lowest days as a Christian [and There Were Low Ones--Seven Months Worth Of Them In Prison, To Be Exact] have been more fulfilling and rewarding than all the days of glory in the White House.

— Charles Caleb Colton

When the frustration of my helplessness seemed greatest, I discovered God's grace was more than sufficient. And after my imprisonment, I could look back and see how God used my powerlessness for His purpose. What He has chosen for my most significant witness was not my triumphs or victories, but my defeat.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Pedantry is the showy display of knowledge which crams our heads with learned lumber and then takes out our brains to make room for it.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Commerce flourishes by circumstances, precarious, transitory, contingent, almost as the winds and waves that bring it to our shores.

— Charles Caleb Colton

The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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.

— Charles Caleb Colton

The family is the most basic unit of government. As the first community to which a person is attached and the first authority under which a person learns to live, the family establishes society's most basic values.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Tyrants have not yet discovered any chains that can fetter the mind.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

The drafts which true genius draws upon posterity, although they may not always be honored so soon as they are due, are sure to be paid with compound interest in the end.

— Charles Caleb Colton

None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Avarice has ruined more souls than extravagance.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed. Health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Honor is unstable and seldom the same; for she feeds upon opinion, and is as fickle as her food.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Levity is often less foolish and gravity less wise than each of them appears.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Where we cannot invent, we may at least improve.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of tricks and duplicity than straight forward and simple integrity in another.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Law and equity are two things which God has joined, but which man has put asunder.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship, never.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Love is an alliance of friendship and animalism; if the former predominates it is passion exalted and refined; if the latter, gross and sensual.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Never join with your friend when he abuses his horse or his wife, unless the one is to be sold and the other to be buried.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Our income are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and trip.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it's set a rolling it must increase.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Mystery is not profoundness.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Mystery magnifies danger, as a fog the sun, the hand that warned Belshazzar derived its horrifying effect from the want of a body.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely and conciliate those you cannot conquer.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Opinions, like showers, are generated in high places, but they invariably descend into lower ones, and ultimately flow down to the people as rain unto the sea.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Subtract from the great man all that he owes to opportunity, all that he owes to chance, and all that he gained by the wisdom of his friends and the folly of his enemies, and the giant will often be seen to be a pygmy.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Great minds must be ready not only to take opportunities, but to make them.

— Charles Caleb Colton

To look back to antiquity is one thing, to go back to it is another.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Philosophy is a bully that talks loud when the danger is at a distant; but, the moment she is pressed hard by an enemy, she is nowhere to be found and leaves the brunt of the battle to be fought by her steady, humble comrade, religion.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Pity is a thing often vowed, seldom felt; hatred is a thing often felt, seldom avowed.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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.

— Charles Caleb Colton

No man is wise enough, or good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

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.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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.

— Charles Caleb Colton

The consequences of things are not always proportionate to the apparent magnitude of those events that have produced them. Thus the American Revolution, from which little was expected, produced much; but the French Revolution, from which much was expected, produced little.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

He that knows himself, knows others; and he that is ignorant of himself, could not write a very profound lecture on other men's heads.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Secrecy is the soul of all great designs.

— Charles Caleb Colton

They that are loudest in their threats are the weakest in the execution of them. It is probable that he who is killed by lightning hears no noise; but the thunder-clap which follows, and which most alarms the ignorant, is the surest proof of their safety.

— Charles Caleb Colton

When we fail our pride supports us and when we succeed, it betrays us.

— Charles Caleb Colton

To know a man, observe how he wins his object, rather than how he loses it; for when we fail, our pride supports; when we succeed; it betrays us.

— Charles Caleb Colton

He that thinks he is the happiest man, really is so. But he that thinks he is the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time, which every day produces, and which most men throw away, but which nevertheless will make at the end of it no small deduction for the life of man.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Time; that black and narrow isthmus between two eternities.

— Charles Caleb Colton

As no roads are so rough as those that have just been mended, so no sinners are so intolerant as those that have just turned saints.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Theories are private property, but truth is common stock.

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton