Charles Caleb Colton
Charles Caleb Colton
Charles Caleb Coltonwas an English cleric, writer and collector, well known for his eccentricities...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
thinking vanity
None of us are so much praised or censured as we think.
men fellow-man opinion
The good opinion of our fellow men is the strongest, though not the purest motive to virtue.
running vices common
When all run by common consent into vice, none appear to do so.
men suffering vices
Vice has more martyrs than virtue; and it often happens that men suffer more to be lost than to be saved.
women resentment consequence
Women generally consider consequences in love, seldom in resentment.
war ambition mean
For what are the triumphs of war, planned by ambition, executed by violence, and consummated by devastation? The means are the sacrifice of many, the end, the bloated aggrandizement of the few.
war winning games
War is a game in which princes seldom win, the people never.
fire age youth
A youth without fire is followed by an old age without experience.
stars light darkness
Some frauds succeed from the apparent candor, the open confidence, and the full blaze of ingenuousness that is thrown around them. The slightest mystery would excite suspicion and ruin all. Such stratagems may be compared to the stars; they are discoverable by darkness and hidden only by light.
real passion deceit
As that gallant can best affect a pretended passion for one woman who has no true love for another, so he that has no real esteem for any of the virtues can best assume the appearance of them all.
real deceit our-actions
The true motives of our actions, like the real pipes of an organ, are usually concealed; but the gilded and hollow pretext is pompously placed in the front for show.
honesty yield knavery
Knavery is supple, and can bend, but honesty is firm and upright and yields not.
revenge men hands
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.
wise light fire
If martyrdom is now on the decline, it is not because martyrs are less zealous, but because martyr-mongers are more wise. The light of intellect has put out the fire of persecution, as other fires are observed to smoulder before the light of the same.