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Charles Caleb Colton Quotes about Writing

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

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

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

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

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

It is curious that some learned dunces, because they can write nonsense in languages that are dead, should despise those that talk sense in languages that are living.

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

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.

Charles Caleb Colton
Writing, Justice, Add
Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.4

The awkwardness and embarrassment which all feel on beginning to write, when they themselves are the theme, ought to serve as a hint to author's that self is a subject they ought very rarely to descant upon.

Charles Caleb Colton
Writing, Self, Hints
Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.69

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

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

It may be observed of good writing, as of good blood, that it is much easier to say what it is composed of than to compose it.

Charles Caleb Colton
Writing, Blood, May
Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.9

That an author's work is the mirror of his mind is a position that has led to very false conclusions. If Satan himself were to write a book it would be in praise of virtue, because the good would purchase it for use, and the bad for ostentation.

Charles Caleb Colton
Book, Writing, Mirrors
Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.141

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.

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

Memory is the friend of wit, but the treacherous ally of invention; there are many books that owe their success to two things; good memory of those who write them, and the bad memory of those who read them

Charles Caleb Colton
Memories, Book, Writing
Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.160

Genius, in one respect, is like gold; numbers of persons are constantly writing about both, who have neither.

Charles Caleb Colton
Writing, Numbers, Gold
Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.395

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...

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

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.

Charles Caleb Colton
Writing, Fire, Should Have
Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.9

There are three difficulties in authorship;-to write any thing worth the publishing-to find honest men to publish it -and to get sensible men to read it. Literature has now become a game; in which the Booksellers are the Kings; The Critics the Knaves; the Public, the Pack; and the poor Author, the mere table, or the Thing played upon.

Charles Caleb Colton
Kings, Writing, Men

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

Charles Caleb Colton
Inspirational, War, Writing
Charles Caleb COLTON (1849). “L.P.”, p.30

All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay and present praise.

Charles Caleb Colton
Writing, Pay, Tribes
Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.25

All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay, and present praise. Lord Burleigh is not the only statesman who has thought one hundred pounds too much for a song, though sung by Spenser; although Oliver Goldsmith is the only poet who ever considered himself to have been overpaid.

Charles Caleb Colton
Song, Writing, Pay
Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.24

When I meet with any persons who write obscurely or converse confusedly, I am apt to suspect two things; first, that such persons do not understand themselves; and secondly, that they are not worthy of being understood by others.

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

Some authors write nonsense in a clear style, and others sense in an obscure one; some can reason without being able to persuade, others can persuade without being able to reason; some dive so deep that they descend into darkness, and others soar so high that they give us no light; and some, in a vain attempt to be cutting and dry, give us only that which is cut and dried. We should labor, therefore, to treat with ease of things that are difficult; with familiarity, of things that are novel; and with perspicuity, of things that are profound.

Charles Caleb Colton
Writing, Cutting, Light
Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.307

Perhaps that is nearly the perfection of good writing which is original, but whose truth alone prevents the reader from suspecting that it is so; and which effects that for knowledge which the lens effects for the sunbeam, when it condenses its brightness in order to increase its force.

Charles Caleb Colton
Writing, Order, Perfection
Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.9

He that knows himself, knows others; and he that is ignorant of himself, could not write a very profound lecture on other men's heads.

Charles Caleb Colton
Writing, Men, Profound
Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.235

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.

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

There are three difficulties in authorship; to write any thing worth the publishing — to find honest men to publish it — and to get sensible men to read it.

Charles Caleb Colton
Writing, Men, Three
"Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think".

The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces, nor slander us behind our backs, nor intrude upon our privacy, nor quit their shelves until we take them down.

Charles Caleb Colton
Writing, Faces, Privacy
Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.158

No men deserve the title of infidels so little as those to whom it has been usually applied; let any of those who renounce Christianity, write fairly down in a book all the absurdities that they believe instead of it, and they will find that it requires more faith to reject Christianity than to embrace it.

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

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