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Charles Caleb Colton

41 quotes

English cleric, writer and collector Charles Caleb Colton has a gift for language that makes complex ideas feel instantly clear. Celebrated for his eccentricities, Charles Caleb Colton brought that same intensity to the written and spoken word. Explore 52 quotes by Charles Caleb Colton on subjects including Men, Happiness, Best, Wisdom, and Religion — each one a window into a distinctive way of seeing the world. Among their most shared lines: "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."

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Wisdom

All Quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

“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.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Men

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Religion

“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.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Alone

“In religion as in politics it so happens that we have less charity for those who believe half our creed, than for those who deny the whole of it.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Politics

“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.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Change

“To be obliged to beg our daily happiness from others bespeaks a more lamentable poverty than that of him who begs his daily bread.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Happiness

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Best

“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.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Best

“Patience is the support of weakness impatience the ruin of strength.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Patience

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Wisdom

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Friendship

“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

Society

“Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Men

“Of present fame think little, and of future less the praises that we receive after we are buried, like the flowers that are strewed over our grave, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Future

“Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Best

“Friendship often ends in love but love in friendship - never.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Friendship

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Success

“He who studies books alone will know how things ought to be, and he who studies men will know how they are.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Alone

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Age

“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.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Love