Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832): British priest and writer. The library holds 236 quotes by Charles Caleb Colton, drawn from The Lacon. The 60 below are the most quoted; search the library in the maker for the rest.
Gross and vulgar minds will always pay a higher respect to wealth than to talent; for wealth, although it is a far less efficient source of power than talent, happens to be far more intelligible.
There are two metals, one of which is omnipotent in the cabinet, and the other in the camp,—gold and iron. He that knows how to apply them both may indeed attain the highest station.
There are three difficulties in authorship—to write anything worth the publishing, to find honest men to publish it, and to get sensible men to read it.
Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period or other, when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other—it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future are not come.
Drunkenness is the vice of a good constitution or of a bad memory;—of a constitution so treacherously good than it never bends till it breaks; or of a memory that recollects the pleasures of getting intoxicated, but forgets the pains of getting sober.
We are ruined, not by what we really want, but by what we think we do; therefore never go abroad in search of your wants; if they be real wants, they will come home in search of you; for he that buys what he does not want, will soon want what he cannot buy.
Physical courage, which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage, which defies all opinion, will make a man brave in another.
In cases of doubtful morality, it is usual to say, Is there any harm in doing this? This question may sometimes be best answered by asking ourselves another: Is there any harm in letting it alone?
Analogy, although it is not infallible, is yet that telescope of the mind by which it is marvelously assisted in the discovery of both physical and moral truth.
Shakespeare stands alone. His want of erudition was a most happy and productive ignorance; it forced him back upon his own resources, which were exhaustless.
Falsehood, like a drawing in perspective, will not bear to be examined in every point of view, because it is a good imitation of truth, as a perspective is of the reality.
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.
When in reading we meet with any maxim that may be of use, we should take it for our own, and make an immediate application of it, as we would of the advice of a friend whom we have purposely consulted.
That is indeed a twofold knowledge which profits alike by the folly of the foolish and the wisdom of the wise. It is both a shield and a sword; it borrows its security from the darkness, and its confidence from the light.
Conscience raises its voice in the breast of every man, a witness for his Creator. We should have all our communications with men, as in the presence of God; and with God, as in the presence of men.
The wisest man may be wiser to-day than he was yesterday, and to-morrow than he is to-day. Total freedom from change would imply total freedom from error; but this is the prerogative of Omniscience alone.
Nobility is a river that sets with a constant and undeviating current directly into the great Pacific Ocean of Time; but, unlike all other rivers, it is more grand at its source than at its termination.
Flattery is often a traffic of mutual meanness, where, although both parties intend deception, neither are deceived, since words that cost little are exchanged for hopes that cost less.