Charles Caleb Colton Quotes:

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

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.295

Topics: Motivational, Friendship, Best Friend, New Friendship, Sound Doctrine

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

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.120

Topics: Fitness, Flower, Fitness Motivational, Envied

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.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.214

Topics: Vices, Three, Virtue, Good Will

Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past, even while we attempt to define it.

Topics: Time, Past, Gone, Times Gone By, Passing It

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

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.113

Topics: Money, Want, Littles, Greatest Wealth

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

Topics: Time, Advantage, Always Happy, Key To Happiness, Others Happiness

Time, the cradle of hope.... Wisdom walks before it, opportunity with it, and repentance behind it: he that has made it his friend will have little to fear from his enemies, but he that has made it his enemy will have little to hope from his friends.

Topics: Time, Opportunity, Enemy, Concept Of Time

Ladies of Fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.454

Topics: Fashion, Pride, Vanity, Vanity And Pride

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.

Topics: Leadership, Hope, Encouragement, Hottest

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

Topics: Fear, Despise

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

Topics: Freedom, Tyrants, Mind

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

Topics: Giving, Doe, Literature

Body and mind, like man and wife, do not always agree to die together.

Topics: Inspiration, Men, Wife, Mind And Body, Healing The Body

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

Topics: Happiness, Real Happiness

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

Topics: Change, Integrity, Roots, Vice And Virtue

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

Topics: Success, Congratulations, Adversity

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

Topics: Wind, Literature, Wave, Economy And Economics, Transitory

There is this difference between the two temporal blessings - health and money; money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed; health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied; and this superiority of the latter is still more obvious when we reflec.

Topics: Blessing, Two, Differences, Happiest Man

Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

Topics: Flattery, Imitation, Form, Flattered

Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.

Topics: Real, Writing, Editing, Aeroplanes

Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.114

Topics: Flattery, Imitation

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

Topics: Optimism, Doubt, Literature, Overcoming Doubt

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

Topics: Love, Friendship, Heartbreak, Eternal Friendship, Meaningful Friendship

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.

Topics: Friends, True Friend, Book

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.

Topics: Two, Literature, May, Character And Reputation, Good Reputation

Constant success shows us but one side of the world. For as it surrounds us with friends who will tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we can learn our defects.

Topics: Success, Silence, Achievement

Immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Topics: Flattery, Form

He that places himself neither higher nor lower than he ought to do exercises the truest humility.

Topics: Humility, Exercise, Higher

That which we acquire with the most difficulty we retain the longest; as those who have earned a fortune are usually more careful of it than those who have inherited one.

Topics: Fortune, Difficulty, Careful

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

Topics: War, Self Esteem, Loser

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

Topics: Grows

Logic is a large drawer, containing some useful instruments, and many more that are superfluous. A wise man will look into it for two purposes, to avail himself of those instruments that are really useful, and to admire the ingenuity with which those that are not so, are assorted and arranged.

Topics: Wise, Men, Two, Reason And Logic, Assorted

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.

Topics: Wise, Mistake, Men, Foolish Man, Fools And Foolishness

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

Topics: Conquer, Negotiation, Grants

A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius; and we are never more deceived than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity for erudition.

Topics: Mistake, Creativity, Science, Solemnity, Pomposity

Justice to my readers compels me to admit that I write because I have nothing to do; justice to myself induces me to add that I will cease to write the moment I have nothing to say.

Topics: Writing, Justice, Add

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.

Topics: Love, Happiness, Dream, Real Happiness, Routes

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

Topics: Philosophy, Three, Literature

The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.

Topics: Math, Magnificence, Study, Mathematics And Science, Learning Math

When you have nothing to say, say nothing.

Topics: Teaching, Silence, Statistics, Communication Skills

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.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”

Topics: Freedom, Blessing, People, Character Education

An act by which we make one friend and one enemy is a losing game; because revenge is a much stronger principle than gratitude

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.60

Topics: Gratitude, Revenge, Games, One Friend

It is astonishing how much more people are interested in lengthening life than improving it.

Topics: Life, People, Improving, Hypochondriac

The true measure of your character is what you do when nobody's watching.

Topics: Wisdom, Character

We are more inclined to hate one another for points on which we differ, than to love one another for points on which we agree.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”

Topics: Hate, Love One Another, Despise

We hate some persons because we do not know them; and will not know them because we hate them.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.63

Topics: Hate, Anger, Racism, Love Not Hate, Hate The World

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

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.5

Topics: Funny, Wise, Humor, Fools And Wise

He that studies books alone, will know how things ought to be; and he that studies men, will know how things are.

source: - "Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think".

Topics: Education, Book, Men

Sometimes the greatest adversities turn out to be the greatest blessings.

Topics: Adversity, Blessing, Sometimes, Greatest Blessings

It is better to meet danger than to wait for it.

source: - Charles Caleb COLTON (1849). “L.P.”, p.142

Topics: Waiting, Encounters, Danger, Shipwreck

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

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.69

Topics: Clever, Eye, Men

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.

Topics: Independent, Would Be, Chance

War is a game in which princes seldom win, the people never.

source: - Philip Dormer Stanhope (4th earl of Chesterfield.), Charles Caleb Colton (1861). “Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son on men and manners. To which are added, selections from Colton's 'Lacon'.”, p.246

Topics: War, Winning, Games

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

source: - 'Lacon' (1820) vol. 1, no. 322

Topics: Education, Teaching, Knowledge, Formidable, Funny Exam

Some read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.235

Topics: Book, Reading, Writing, Book Lover, Business Planning

He that swells in prosperity will be sure to shrink in adversity.

Topics: Adversity, Prosperity, Shrinks

The poorest man would not part with health for money, but the richest would gladly part with all their money for health.

source: - Lacon Vol. I, Ch. 225

Topics: Health, Men, Poverty

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

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.131

Topics: Literature, Action, Conflict

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

source: - Charles Caleb COLTON (1849). “L.P.”, p.157

Topics: Funny, Sarcastic, Yield, Firmness, Decisiveness

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

Topics: Wisdom, Ifs

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.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.69

Topics: Greatness, Men

Let us not be too prodigal when we are young, nor too parsimonious when we are old. Otherwise we shall fall into the common error of those, who, when they had the power to enjoy, had not the prudence to acquire; and when they had the prudence to acquire, had no longer the power to enjoy.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.52

Topics: Fall, Errors, Common, Prodigals

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

Topics: God, Magnitude

Fortune, like other females, prefers a lover to a master, and submits with impatience to control; but he that wooes her with opportunity and importunity will seldom court her in vain.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”

Topics: Opportunity, Female, Lovers

Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.

Topics: Men, Wish, Argument

Hope is a prodigal young heir, and experience is his banker.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.72

Topics: Hope, Expectations, Bankers, Prodigals

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.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.187

Topics: Pain, Real, Power, Power And Control, Real Power

Silence is less injurious than a weak reply.

Topics: Silence, Argument, Weak

There are three kinds of praise, that which we yield, that which we lend, and that which we pay. We yield it to the powerful from fear, we lend it to the weak from interest, and we pay it to the deserving from gratitude.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.188

Topics: Gratitude, Powerful, Yield

Women that are the least bashful are often the most modest.

Topics: Women, Modest, Bashful

Time, the cradle of hope, but the grave of ambition, is the stern corrector of fools, but the salutary counselor of the wise, bringing all they dread to the one, and all they desire to the other.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1849). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words: Address--to Those who Think”, p.292

Topics: Wise, Time, Ambition

The worst thing that can be said of the most powerful is that they can take your life; but the same can be said of the most weak.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.195

Topics: Powerful, Weak, Said

I have found by experience that they who have spent all their lives in cities, improve their talents but impair their virtues; and strengthen their minds but weaken their morals.

Topics: Cities, Mind, Moral

Bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”

Topics: Regret, Sleep, Insomnia, Going To Sleep, Bundles

We ask advice but we mean approbation.

source: - Charles Caleb COLTON (1849). “L.P.”, p.116

Topics: Mean, Advice, Asks

There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.

Topics: Literature, Prudence

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

source: - "Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think".

Topics: Truth, Honesty, Integrity, Being Straightforward, Trust And Honesty

For one man who sincerely pities our misfortunes, there are a thousand who sincerely hate our success.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.216

Topics: Success, Hate, Men

Pleasure is to women what the sun is to the flower; if moderately enjoyed, it beautifies, it refreshes, and it improves; if immoderately, it withers, deteriorates and destroys.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.85

Topics: Women, Flower, Sun

We know the effects of many things, but the cause of few; experience, therefore, is a surer guide than imagination, and inquiry than conjecture.

source: - Lacon: or many things in a few words (p. 111)

Topics: Imagination, Inquiry, Causes, Conjecture

Be real and adjust you strategy according to honest results.

Topics: Real, Honest, Strategy

It is best, if possible, to deceive no one; for he that ... begins by deceiving others, will end ... by deceiving himself.

Topics: Deceiving Others, Deception, Ends

To cure us of our immoderate love of gain, we should seriously consider how many goods there are that money will not purchase, and these the best; and how many evils there are that money will not remedy, and these the worst.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1828). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words Addressed to Those who Think”, p.191

Topics: Money, Evil, Gains

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.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.145

Topics: Sad, Death, Suicide, Suicide Inspirational

A house may draw visitors, but it is the possessor alone that can detain them.

source: - Philip Dormer Stanhope (4th earl of Chesterfield.), Charles Caleb Colton (1861). “Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son on men and manners. To which are added, selections from Colton's 'Lacon'.”, p.184

Topics: Home, House, May

A fool is often as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and always more incorrigible.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.188

Topics: Knaves, Fool, Dangerous, Incorrigible

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

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.102

Topics: Knowledge, Science, Two, Negation, Scientific Knowledge

Men of great and shining qualities do not always succeed in life, but the fault lies more often in themselves than in others.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.58

Topics: Lying, Men, Shining

A hug is worth a thousand words.

Topics: Hug, Thousand

No company is preferable to bad. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.

Topics: Health, Vices, Disease

A youth without fire is followed by an old age without experience.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.57

Topics: Fire, Age, Youth

Theories are private property, but truth is common stock.

source: - Lacon: or many things in a few words (p. 189)

Topics: Truth, Business, Common

Words indeed are but the signs and counters of knowledge, and their currency should be strictly regulated by the capital which they represent.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.12

Topics: Currency, Should

Revenge is fever in our own blood, to be cured only by letting the blood of another; but the remedy too often produces a relapse, which is remorse--a malady far more dreadful than the first disease, because it is incurable.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.169

Topics: Revenge, Blood, Fever, Malady, Relapse

It is not every man that can afford to wear a shabby coat.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.112

Topics: Men, Coats, Every Man, Worldly Wisdom, Shabby

Great men, like comets, are eccentric in their courses, and formed to do extensive good by modes unintelligible to vulgar minds.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.130

Topics: Greatness, Men, Mind

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

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.146

Topics: Success, Pride, Winning

Our minds are as different as our faces. We are all traveling to one destination: happiness, but few are going by the same road.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1849). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words: Address--to Those who Think”, p.67

Topics: Inspirational, Happiness, Motivation

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

Topics: Book, Healing, Good Friend

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.

Topics: Two, People, Way, Image And Reputation

Attempts at reform, when they fail, strengthen despotism, as he that struggles tightens those cords he does not succeed in breaking.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.204

Topics: Struggle, Succeed, Revolution

Pure truth, like pure gold, has been found unfit for circulation because men have discovered that it is far more convenient to adulterate the truth than to refine themselves.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.367

Topics: Truth, Fear, Men

The reason why great men meet with so little pity or attachment in adversity, would seem to be this: the friends of a great man were made by his fortune, his enemies by himself, and revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.297

Topics: Gratitude, Revenge, Adversity, Punctual

Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, dispatch of a strong one.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1821). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.174

Topics: Strong, Mind, Haste, Weak Minds

An Irish man fights before he reasons, a Scotchman reasons before he fights, an Englishman is not particular as to the order of precedence, but will do either to accommodate his customers.

source: - Philip Dormer Stanhope (4th earl of Chesterfield.), Charles Caleb Colton (1861). “Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son on men and manners. To which are added, selections from Colton's 'Lacon'.”, p.188

Topics: Business, Fighting, Men, Precedence, Accommodate

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

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.32

Topics: Mean, Gossip, Secret, Circulation, Spendthrift

Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one, on which we must first erase.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.17

Topics: Mistake, Writing, Ignorance

There are two principles of established acceptance in morals; first, that self-interest is the mainspring of all of our actions, and secondly, that utility is the test of their value.

source: - "Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think". Book by Charles Caleb Colton, 1820.

Topics: Acceptance, Self, Two

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.

Topics: Frustration, Power, Grace, Imprisonment, Powerlessness

He that studies only men will get the body of knowledge without the soul; and he that studies only books, the soul without the body.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.416

Topics: Book, Men, Soul

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.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.203

Topics: Art, School, Speech

The man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.108

Topics: Men, Miserable, Pleasure

The more gross the fraud the more glibly will it go down, and the more greedily be swallowed, since folly will always find faith where impostors will find imprudence.

Topics: Down And, Fraud, Gross, Credulity

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

Topics: Crush, War, Loss, Waging War

Pride is less ashamed of being ignorant, than of being instructed, and she looks too high to find that, which very often lies beneath her.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.113

Topics: Lying, Pride, Ignorant, Being Ignorant

It is easier to pretend to be what you are not than to hide what you really are; but he that can accomplish both has little to learn in hypocrisy.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.150

Topics: Hypocrisy, Littles, Easier

Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.185

Topics: Time, Journey, Men, Time Away, Little Time

I have somewhere seen it observed that we should make the same use of a book that the bee does of a flower: she steals sweets from it, but does not injure it.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.232

Topics: Sweet, Flower, Book

There is a diabolical trio existing in the natural man, implacable, inextinguishable, co-operative and consentaneous, pride, envy, and hate; pride that makes us fancy we deserve all the goods that others possess; envy that some should be admired while we are overlooked; and hate, because all that is bestowed on others, diminishes the sum we think due to ourselves.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1828). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words Addressed to Those who Think”, p.216

Topics: Hate, Pride, Men, Trios, Diabolical

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.

Topics: Family, Home, Government, Large Family

The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1821). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.51

Topics: Age, Excess, Waste

The French have a saying that whatever excellence a man may exhibit in a public station he is very apt to be ridiculous in a private one.

Topics: Men, Excellence, May

Atheism is a system which can communicate neither warmth nor illumination, except from those fagots which your mistaken zeal has lighted up for its destruction.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.42

Topics: Illumination, Atheism, Fagots

Temperate men drink the most, because they drink the longest.

source: - Charles Caleb COLTON (1849). “L.P.”, p.182

Topics: Men, Drink

Is there anything more tedious than the often repeated tales of the old and forgetful?

Topics: Tales, Forgetful, Tedious

To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.211

Topics: Sad, Broken Heart, Lonely, Self Discovery, Feeling Alone

Strong as our passions are, they may be starved into submission, and conquered without being killed.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.178

Topics: Strong, Passion, May

Unlike the sun, intellectual luminaries shine brightest after they set.

Topics: Shining, Intellectual, Sun

Most plagiarists, like the drone, have neither taste to select, industry to acquire, nor skill to improve, but impudently pilfer the honey ready prepared, from the hive.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.232

Topics: Skills, Drones, Honey

The victim to too severe a law is considered as a martyr rather than a criminal.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.403

Topics: Law, Justice, Criminals, Criminal Justice

A wise man may be duped as well as a fool; but the fool publishes the triumph of his deceiver; the wise man is silent, and denies that triumph to an enemy which he would hardly concede to a friend; a triumph that proclaims his own defeat.

source: - "Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think".

Topics: Wise, Men, Triumph, Deceiver

All the poets are indebted more or less to those who have gone before them; even Homer's originality has been questioned, and Virgil owes almost as much to Theocritus, in his Pastorals, as to Homer, in his Heroics; and if our own countryman, Milton, has soared above both Homer and Virgil, it is because he has stolen some feathers from their wings.

Topics: Wings, Gone, Originality

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

Topics: Honor, Fickle, Opinion

Man is an embodied paradox, a bundle of contradictions.

source: - 'Lacon' (1820) vol. 1, no. 408

Topics: Men, Humanity, Paradox

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.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1828). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words Addressed to Those who Think”, p.80

Topics: Love, Running, Self Esteem

There are many who say more than the truth on some occasions, and balance the account with their consciences by saying less than the truth on others. But the fact is that they are in both instances as fraudulant as he would be that exacted more than his due from his debtors, and paid less than their due to his creditors.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”

Topics: Saying Less, Balance, Debtors

Some frauds succeed from the apparent candor, the open confidence, and the full blaze of ingenuousness that is thrown around them. The slightest mystery would excite suspicion and ruin all. Such stratagems may be compared to the stars; they are discoverable by darkness and hidden only by light.

Topics: Stars, Light, Darkness

Self-denial is often the sacrifice of one sort of self-love for another.

Topics: Sacrifice, Self, Denial

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.

Topics: Life, Book, Logical, Orderly

Professors in every branch of the sciences, prefer their own theories to truth: the reason is that their theories are private property, but truth is common stock.

source: - Lacon: or many things in a few words (p. 189)

Topics: Science, Branches, Common

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

Topics: Snow, Rolling Along, Moral Corruption

Insults are engendered from vulgar minds, like toadstools from a dunghill.

Topics: Mind, Toadstools, Insult

A wise minister would rather preserve peace than gain a victory, because he knows that even the most successful war leaves nations generally more poor, always more profligate, than it found them.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.20

Topics: Wise, War, Successful

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

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”

Topics: Evil, Choices, Goods

The seeds of repentance are sown in youth by pleasure, but the harvest is reaped in age by pain.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.210

Topics: Pain, Age, Youth

Avarice has ruined more souls than extravagance.

Topics: Greed, Soul, Extravagance, Extravagant, Avarice Greed

In answering an opponent, arrange your ideas, but not your words.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.76

Topics: Ideas, Opponents

Our wealth is often a snare to ourselves, and always a temptation to others.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.187

Topics: Temptation, Wealth, Snares

Ennui has made more gamblers than avarice.

Topics: Boredom, Made, Ennui, Drunkards

The wise man has his follies, no less than the fool; but it has been said that herein lies the difference--the follies of the fool are known to the world, but hidden from himself; the follies of the wise are known to himself, but hidden from the world.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.108

Topics: Wise, Wisdom, Lying

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

Topics: Strength, Patience, Support, Great Patience, Short Patience

The victims of ennui paralyze all the grosser feelings by excess, and torpify all the finer by disuse and inactivity. Disgusted with this world, and indifferent about another, they at last lay violent hands upon themselves, and assume no small credit for the sang froid with which they meet death. But, alas! such beings can scarcely be said to die, for they have never truly lived.

Topics: Hands, Feelings, World

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.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.200

Topics: Humility, Men, Generosity, Proud Man

Where true religion has prevented one crime, false religions have afforded a pretext for a thousand.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.103

Topics: Religion, Crime, Thousand

I'm aiming by the time I'm fifty to stop being an adolescent.

Topics: Funny, Age, Fifty

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

Topics: Wise, Argument, Maxims

Human foresight often leaves its proudest possessor only a choice of evils.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.210

Topics: Evil, Decision, Choices

Honesty is not only the deepest policy, but the highest wisdom; since, however difficult it may be for integrity to get on, it is a thousand times more difficult for knavery to get off; and no error is more fatal than that of those who think that Virtue has no other reward because they have heard that she is her own.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”

Topics: Honesty, Integrity, Thinking

The good opinion of our fellow men is the strongest, though not the purest motive to virtue.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.365

Topics: Men, Fellow Man, Opinion

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

Topics: God, Men, Law

If a cause be good, the most violent attack of its enemies will not injure it so much as an injudicious defence of it by its friends.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.215

Topics: Enemy, Causes, Violent

A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which was intended for her preservation.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1821). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.92

Topics: Anchors, Storm, Debt

Taking things not as they ought to be, but as they are, I fear it must be allowed that Macchiavelli will always have more disciples than Jesus.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”

Topics: Jesus, Cunning, Disciple

That is true beauty which has not only a substance, but a spirit; a beauty that we must intimately know, justly to appreciate.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.137

Topics: Beauty, Appreciate, Substance

The greatest and most amiable privilege which the rich enjoy over the poor is that which they exercise the least--the privilege of making others happy.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1866). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.268

Topics: Exercise, Privilege, Wealth, Helpfulness

Falsehood is often rocked by truth, but she soon outgrows her cradle and discards her nurse.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.10

Topics: Lying, Nurse, Cradle

If you are under obligations to many, it is prudent to postpone the recompensing of one, until it be in your power to remunerate all; otherwise you will make more enemies by what you give, than by what you withhold.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.115

Topics: Giving, Enemy, Prudent

It is seldom that statesmen have the option of choosing between a good and an evil.

source: - Philip Dormer Stanhope (4th earl of Chesterfield.), Charles Caleb Colton (1861). “Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son on men and manners. To which are added, selections from Colton's 'Lacon'.”, p.230

Topics: Evil, Statesmen, Statesmanship

It is a mortifying truth, and ought to teach the wisest of us humility, that many of the most valuable discoveries have been the result of chance rather than of contemplation, and of accident rather than of design.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.82

Topics: Humility, Discovery, Design

Men pursue riches under the idea that their possession will set them at ease, and above the world. But the law of association often makes those who begin by loving gold as a servant finish by becoming themselves its slaves; and independence without wealth is at least as common as wealth without independence.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1821). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.171

Topics: Men, Law, Ideas

Men are more readily contented with no intellectual light than with a little; and wherever they have been taught to acquire some knowledge in order to please others, they have most generally gone on to acquire more, to please themselves.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.247

Topics: Knowledge, Men, Light

Mental pleasures never cloy; unlike those of the body, they are increased by reputation, approved by reflection, and strengthened by enjoyment.

Topics: Reflection, Body, Reputation

The benevolent have the advantage of the envious, even in this present life; for the envious man is tormented not only by all the ill that befalls himself, but by all the good that happens to another; whereas the benevolent man is the better prepared to bear his own calamities unruffled, from the complacency and serenity he has secured from contemplating the prosperity of all around him.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”

Topics: Gratitude, Men, Serenity

As the rays of the sun, notwithstanding their velocity, injure not the eye, by reason of their minuteness, so the attacks of envy, notwithstanding their number, ought not to wound our virtue by reason of their insignificance.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.190

Topics: Eye, Numbers, Envy

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

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.169

Topics: Wise, Foolish, Gravity, Levity

Perfection doesn't exist... only good attempts.

Topics: Wisdom, Perfection

The sun should not set upon our anger, neither should he rise upon our confidence. We should forgive freely, but forget rarely. I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.31

Topics: Forgiveness, Forgiving, Enemy

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.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.292

Topics: Discovery, Atheism, Action, Bad Actions

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.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”

Topics: Book, Reading, Writing, Writing And Thinking

The three great apostles of practical atheism, that make converts without persecuting, and retain them without preaching, are wealth, health and power.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”

Topics: Atheism, Three, Wealth

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

Topics: Genius, Literature, Nodding

When certain persons abuse us, let us ask ourselves what description of characters it is that they admire; we shall often find this a very consolatory question.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.305

Topics: Character, Abuse, Criticism

Women generally consider consequences in love, seldom in resentment.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.215

Topics: Women, Resentment, Consequence

Men of strong minds and who think for themselves, should not be discouraged on finding occasionally that some of their best ideas have been anticipated by former writers; they will neither anathematize others nor despair themselves. They will rather go on discovering things before discovered, until they are rewarded with a land hitherto unknown, an empire indisputably their own, both right of conquest and of discovery.

Topics: Strong, Men, Thinking, Strong Mind, Discovering Things

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

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.154

Topics: Learning, Enemy, Literature

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.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.391

Topics: Rain, Sea, People

He [the miser] falls down and worships the god of this world, but will have neither its pomps, its vanities nor its pleasures for his trouble.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.26

Topics: Fall, Vanity, World, Misers

Where we cannot invent, we may at least improve; we may give somewhat of novelty to that which was old, condensation to that which was diffuse, perspicuity to that which was obscure, and currency to that which was recondite.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.14

Topics: Giving, May, Novelty, Condensation

In the pursuit of knowledge, follow it wherever it is to be found; like fern, it is the produce of all climates, and like coin, its circulation is not restricted to any particular class.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.113

Topics: Knowledge, Class, Ferns, Pursuit Of Knowledge

If we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism; if from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.231

Topics: Literature, Stealing, Plagiarism, Erudition

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

Topics: Inspirational, Mean, Literature

The road to glory would cease to be arduous if it were trite and trodden; and great minds must be ready not only to take opportunities but to make them.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.46

Topics: Opportunity, Mind, Glory

Fame is an undertaker that pays but little attention to the living, but bedizens the dead, furnishes out their funerals, and follows them to the grave

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.219

Topics: Funeral, Attention, Littles, Undertaker

Ignorance lies at the bottom of all human knowledge, and the deeper we penetrate, the nearer we arrive unto it.

source: - Charles Caleb COLTON (1849). “L.P.”, p.480

Topics: Lying, Ignorance, Deeper, Human Knowledge

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. 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; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.

Topics: Shoes, Contentment, Income

When the air balloon was first discovered, some one flippantly asked Dr. Franklin what was the use of it. The doctor answered this question by asking another: "What is the use of a new-born infant? It may become a man."

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.177

Topics: Men, Doctors, Air, Air Balloons

There are some who write, talk, and think, so much about vice and virtue, that they have no time to practice either the one or the other.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.52

Topics: Writing, Thinking, Practice, Vice And Virtue

Love, like the cold bath, is never negative, it seldom leaves us where it finds us; if once we plunge into it, it will either heighten our virtues, or inflame our vices.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.184

Topics: Love, Vices, Negative

Life is the jailer of the soul in this filthy prison, and its only deliverer is death.

source: - Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.344

Topics: Life, Soul, Prison

Where thou perceivest knowledge, bend the ear of attention and respect; But yield not further to the teaching, than as thy mind is warranted by reasons. Better is an obstinant disputant, that yieldeth inch by inch, Than the shallow traitor to himself, who surrendereth to half an argument.

Topics: Teaching, Knowledge, Yield, Attention And Respect