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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."

“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

All Quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Marriage

“Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Best

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Men

“That writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Knowledge

“Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Religion

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Friendship

“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

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Wisdom

“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

“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

“Friendship, of itself a holy tie, is made more sacred by adversity.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Friendship

“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

“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.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Happiness

“We own almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed but to those who have differed.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Knowledge

“Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Men

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

Success

“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

“No company is preferable to bad. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Health

“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