Famous Quotes & Sayings

Charles Caleb Colton

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

Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person.

Charles Caleb Colton

Of all the faculties of the mind, memory is the first that flourishes, and the first that dies.

Charles Caleb Colton

Many books owe their success to the good memories of their authors and the bad memories of their readers.

Charles Caleb Colton

All preceptors should have that kind of genius described by Tacitus, "equal to their business, but not above it;" a patient industry, with competent erudition; a mind depending more on its correctness than its originality, and on its memory rather than on its invention.

Charles Dickens

Lord, keep my memory green.

Charles Dickens

I revere the memory of Mr. F. as an estimable man and most indulgent husband, only necessary to mention Asparagus and it appeared or to hint at any little delicate thing to drink and it came like magic in a pint bottle; it was not ecstasy but it was comfort.

Charles Stross

Where would dictators be without our compliant amnesia? Make the collective lose its memory, you can conceal anything.

Charles Stross

If I forget, then it might as well never have happened. Memory is liberty.

Charles Dickens

If her eyes had no expression, it was probably because they had nothing to express. If she had few wrinkles, it was because her mind had never traced its name or any other inscription on her face.

Charles Dickens

"My comfort is," said Susan, looking back at Mr. Dombey, "that I have told a piece of truth this day which ought to have been told long before and can't be told too often or too plain..."

Charles Dickens

"You are a boy," said Mr. Dombey, suddenly and almost fiercely; "and what you think of, or affect to think of, is of little consequence. You have done well, Sir. Don't undo it."

Charles Caleb Colton

Living authors, therefore, are usually, bad companions. If they have not gained character, they seek to do so by methods often ridiculous, always disgusting; and if they have established a character, they are silent for fear of losing by their tongue what they have acquired by their pen--for many authors converse much more foolishly than Goldsmith, who have never written half so well.

Charles Caleb Colton

When certain persons abuse us, let us ask ourselves what description of characters it is that they admire; we shall often find this a very consolatory question.

Charles Caleb Colton

We should not be too niggardly in our praise, for men will do more to support a character than to raise one.

Charles Caleb Colton

Very great personages are not likely to form very just estimates either of others or of themselves; their knowledge of themselves is obscured by the flattery of others; their knowledge of others is equally clouded by circumstances peculiar to themselves. For in the presence of the great, the modest are sure to suffer from too much diffidence, and the confident from too much display.

Charles Caleb Colton

Words are in this respect like water, that they often take their taste, flavour, and character, from the mouth out of which they proceed, as the water from the channel through which it flows.

Charles Caleb Colton

Short as life is, some find it long enough to outlive their characters, their constitutions and their estates.

Louis C. K.

Every year white people add 100 years to how long ago slavery was. I've heard educated white people say, 'slavery was 400 years ago.' No it very wasn't. It was 140 years ago...that's two 70-year-old ladies living and dying back to back. That's how recently you could buy a guy.

Kurt Vonnegut

This world is not a vale of sorrows if you will recognize discriminatingly what is truly excellent in it; and if you will avail yourself of it for mutual happiness and well-being. Therefore, let us explain as often as possible, and particularly at the departure of life, that we base our faith on firm foundations, on Truth for putting into action our ideas which do not depend on fables and ideas which Science has long ago proven to be false.

Charles Lyell

I long ago suggested the hypothesis, that in the basin of the Thames there are indications of a meeting in the Pleistocene period of a northern and southern fauna.

Betty White

Long ago, I did a five-and-a-half-hour-a-day, six-day-a-week talk show for four years, early on, in Los Angeles - local show. And when you are on that many hours with no script, you know, you get very comfortable, maybe overly comfortable with that small audience.

Edward Hoagland

We New Yorkers see more death and violence than most soldiers do, grow a thick chitin on our backs, grimace like a rat and learn to do a disappearing act. Long ago we outgrew the need to be blowhards about our masculinity; we leave that to the Alaskans and Texans, who have more time for it.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

There was a time when Patience ceased to be a virtue. It was long ago.

Charles M. Schulz

I gave up trying to understand people long ago. Now I let them try to understand me!

Arthur C. Clarke

. . . the newspapers of Utopia, he had long ago decided, would be terribly dull.

Ayumi Hamasaki

I was forgiven by forgiving many things Including my long-ago childhood I was healed, but I intended [ to ] heal I've just noticed, the way I was saved by love Though I tried to keep love away.