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Charles Caleb Colton Quotes - Page 21

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

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

Charles Caleb Colton
Knowledge, Pay, Despise

If Satan ever laughs, it must be at hypocrites; they are the greatest dupes he has.

Charles Caleb Colton
Hypocrite, Laughing, Hypocrisy
Charles Caleb COLTON (1849). “L.P.”, p.221

Idleness is the grand Pacific Ocean of life, and in that stagnant abyss the most salutary things produce no good, the most noxious no evil. Vice, indeed, abstractedly considered, may be, and often is engendered in idleness; but the moment it becomes efficiently vice, it must quit its cradle and cease to be idle.

Charles Caleb Colton
Ocean, Often Is, Evil
Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.312

Brutes leave ingratitude to man.

Charles Caleb Colton
Men, Brutes, Ingratitude

Knavery is supple, and can bend, but honesty is firm and upright and yields not.

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

A thorough-paced knave will rarely quarrel with one whom he can cheat: his revenge is plunder; therefore he is usually the most forgiving of beings, upon the principle that if he come to an open rupture, he must defend himself; and this does not suit a man whose vocation it is to keep his hands in the pocket of another.

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

Secrecy is the soul of all great designs. Perhaps more has been effected by concealing our own intentions than by discovering those of our enemy.

Charles Caleb Colton
Design, Soul, Enemy
Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.170

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

Charles Caleb Colton
Gravity, Wit

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

Charles Caleb Colton
Enjoy
Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.33

Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.

Charles Caleb Colton
Heart, Punishment, Vices
Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.189

No man can promise himself even fifty years of life, but any man may, if he please, live in the proportion of fifty years in forty-let him rise early, that he may have the day before him, and let him make the most of the day, by determining to expend it on two sorts of acquaintance only-those by whom something may be got, and those from whom something maybe learned.

Charles Caleb Colton
Men, Years, Two
Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.347

She is deceitful as the calm that precedes the hurricane, smooth as the water on the verge of the cataract, and beautiful as the rainbow, that smiling daughter of the storm; but, like the mirage in the desert, she tantalizes us with a delusion that distance creates, and that contiguity destroys.

Charles Caleb Colton
Daughter, Rainbow, Storm
"Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan".

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
Health, Medicine, Understanding
Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.424

In civil jurisprudence it too often happens that there is so much law, that there is no room for justice, and that the claimant expires of wrong in the midst of right, as mariners die of thirst in the midst of water.

Charles Caleb Colton
Law, Justice, Water
Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.303

Envy ought to have no place allowed it in the hearts of people; for the goods of this present world are so vile and low that they are beneath it; and those of the future world are so vast and exalted that they are above it.

Charles Caleb Colton
Heart, People, Envy

Fashions smile has given wit to dullness and grace to deformity, and has brought everything into vogue, by turns, but virtue.

Charles Caleb Colton
Fashion, Grace, Virtue

It is far more easy to acquire a fortune like a knave, than to expend it, like a gentleman.

Charles Caleb Colton
Gentleman, Knaves, Wealth
Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.213

Flattery is often a traffic of mutual meanness, where although both parties intend deception, neither are deceived.

Charles Caleb Colton
Party, Deception, Flattery
Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.439

It is astonishing how much more anxious people are to lengthen life than to improve it; and as misers often lose large sums of money in attempting to make more, so do hypochondriacs squander large sums of time in search of nostrums by which they vainly hope they may get more time to squander.

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

Total freedom from error is what none of us will allow to our neighbors; however we may be inclined to flirt a little with such spotless perfection ourselves.

Charles Caleb Colton
Mistake, Flirting, Errors
Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.25

If you cannot avoid a quarrel with a blackguard, let your lawyer manage it, rather than yourself. No man sweeps his own chimney, but employs a chimney-sweeper, who has no objection to dirty work, because it is his trade.

Charles Caleb Colton
Dirty, Men, Lawyer
Charles Caleb COLTON (1849). “L.P.”, p.168

It is far better to borrow experience than to buy it.

Charles Caleb Colton
Experience
Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.30

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
Safety, Ignorant, Execution

Secrecy is the soul of all great designs.

Charles Caleb Colton
Design, Soul, Secrecy
Charles Caleb Colton (1812). “Hypocrisy: A Satire”, p.167

Whenever we find ourselves more inclined to persecute than to persuade, we may then be certain that our zeal has more of pride in it than of charity.

Charles Caleb Colton
Pride, May, Charity
Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.25

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