Quotes By Charles Caleb Colton

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

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

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.

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

There are three difficulties in authorship: to write anything worth publishing, to find honest men to publish it, and to find sensible men to read it.

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

We ask advice, but we mean approbation.

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.

Nothing so completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than straightforward and simple integrity in another.

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.

If a horse has four legs, and I'm riding it, I think I can win.

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.

When you have nothing to say, say nothing.

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

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

There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.

True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.

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

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

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

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

Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner.

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

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.

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

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

Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own country-men, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies, but untravelled minds.

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.

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

To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author.