Charles Caleb Colton

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

"Se couper le nez pour faire dépit à son visage."

"We should have a glorious conflagration, if all who cannot put fire into their works would only consent to put their works into the fire."

"Style is indeed the valet of genius, and an able one too; but as the true gentleman will appear, even in rags, so true genius will shine, even through the coarsest style."

"That author, however, who has thought more than he has read, read more than he has written, and written more than he published, if he does not command success, has at least deserved it."

"A volume, therefore, that contains more words than ideas, like a tree that has more foliage than fruit, may suit those to resort to, who want not to feast, but to dream and to slumber."

"With books, as with companions, it is of more consequence to know which to avoid, than which to choose; for good books are as scarce as good companions."

"That writer does the most, who gives his reader the most knowledge, and takes from him the least time."

"It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors as his knowledge. Mal-information is more hopeless than non-information; for error is always more busy than ignorance. Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one, on which we must first erase. Ignorance is contented to stand still with her back to the truth; but error is more presumptuous, and proceeds in the same direction. Ignorance has no light, but error follows a false one. The consequence is, that error, when she retraces her footsteps, has further to go, before she can arrive at the truth, than ignorance."

"Great minds had rather deserve contemporaneous applause, without obtaining it, than obtain, without deserving it; if it follow them, it is well, but they will not deviate to follow it. With inferior minds the reverse is observable."

"From the preponderance of talent, we may always infer the soundness and vigour of the commonwealth; but from the preponderance of riches, its dotage and degeneration."

"Many a man may thank his talent for his rank, but no man has ever been able to return the compliment by thanking his rank for his talent."

"Cicero observed to a degenerate patrician, "I am the first of my family, but you are the last of yours" And since his time, those who value themselves merely on their ancestry, have been compared to potatoes, all that is good of them is under the ground."

"The first consideration with a knave, is how to help himself, and the second, how to do it, with an appearance of helping you. Dionysius the tyrant, stripped the statue of Jupiter Olympius, of a robe of massy gold, and substituted a cloak of wool, saying, gold is too cold in winter, and too heavy in summer; — It behoves us to take care of Jupiter"

"Instead of exhibiting talent in the hope that the world would forgive their eccentricities, they have exhibited only their eccentricities, in the hope that the world would give them credit for talent."

"Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but live for it."

"No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us."

"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 storm."

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

""Defendit numerus," is the maxim of the foolish; "Deperdit numerus," of the wise. The fact is, that an honest man will continue to be so, though surrounded on all sides by rogues. The whole world is turned upside down once in twenty-four hours; yet no one thinks of standing upon his head, rather than on his heels. He that can be honest, only because every one else is honest, or good, only because all around him are good, might have continued an angel, if he had been born one, but being a man, he will only add to that number, numberless, who go to hell for the bad things they have done, and for the good things which they intended to do."

"Ambition is to the mind, what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower, by reason of our blindness. But alas, when we are at the summit of a vain ambition, we are also at the depth of real misery. We are placed where time cannot improve, but must impair us; where chance and change cannot befriend, but may betray us; in short, by attaining all we wish, and gaining all we want, we have only reached a pinnacle, where we have nothing to hope, but every thing to fear."

"None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them; such persons covet secrets as a spendthrift covets money, for the purpose of circulation."

"Pedantry prides herself on being wrong by rules; while common sense is contented to be right, without them."

"An elegant writer has observed, that wit may do very well for a mistress, but that he should prefer reason for a wife."

"When you have nothing to say, say nothing; a weak defense strengthens your opponent, and silence is less injurious than a bad reply."

"We hate some persons because we do not know them; and we will not know them, because we hate them. Those friendships that succeed to such aversions are usually firm, for those qualities must be sterling that could not only gain our hearts, but conquer our prejudices. But the misfortune is, that we carry these prejudices into things far more serious than our friendships. Thus, there are truths which some men despise, because they have not examined, and which they will not examine, because they despise."

"As in literature we shall find many things that are true, and some things that are new, but very few things that are both true and new, so also in life, we shall find many men that are great, and some men that are good, but very few men that are both great and good."

"We ask advice, but we mean approbation."

"Our incomes should be like our shoes, if too small, they will gall and pinch us, but, if too large, they will cause us to stumble, and to trip. But wealth, after all, is a relative thing, since he that has little, and wants less, is richer than he that has much, but wants more. True contentment depends not upon what we have, but upon what we would have; a tub was large enough for Diogenese, but a world was too little for Alexander."

"Imitation is the sincerest of flattery."

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

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

"Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live."

"To sentence a man of true genius to the drudgery of a school, is to put a race horse in a mill."

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

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

"This tendency, however, to ascribe an universality of genius to great men, led Dryden to affirm, on the strength of two smart satyrical lines, that Virgil could have written a satire equal to Juvenal. But, with all due deference to Dryden, I conceive it much more manifest, that Juvenal could have written a better epic than Virgil, than that Virgil could have written a satire equal to Juvenal. Juvenal has many passages of the moral sublime far superior to any that can be found in Virgil, who, indeed, seldom attempts a higher flight than the sublime of description. Had Lucan lived, he might have rivalled them both, as he has all the vigour of the one, and time might have furnished him with the taste and elegance of the other."

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

"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."

"Those illustrious men, who, like torches, have consumed themselves, in order to enlighten others, have often lived unrewarded, and died unlamented. But the tongues of aftertimes have done them justice in one sense, but injustice in another. They have honoured them with their praise, but they have disgraced them with their pity. They pity them forsooth, because they missed of present praise, and temporal emolument; things great indeed to the little, but little to the great."

"A feast is more fatal to love than a fast, and a surfeit than a starvation."

"With the offspring of genius, the law of parturition is reversed; the throes are in the conception, the pleasure in the birth."

"Pedantry crams our heads with learned lumber, and takes out our brains to make room for it."

"Drunkenness is the vice of a good constitution or of a bad memory—of a constitution so treacherously good that it never bends till it breaks; or of a memory that recollects the pleasures of getting intoxicated, but forgets the pains of getting sober."

"Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship—never."

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

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

"A free press is the parent of much good in a state. But even a licentious press is a far less evil than a press that is enslaved, because both sides may be heard in the former case, but not in the latter. A licentious press may be an evil, an enslaved press must be so; for an enslaved press may cause error to be more current than wisdom, and wrong more powerful than right; a licentious press cannot efiect these things, for if it give the poison, it gives also the antidote, which an enslaved press withholds. An enslaved press is doubly fatal, it not only takes away the true light, for in that case we might stand still, but it sets up a false one, that decoys us to our destruction."

"Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them."

"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."