Charles Caleb Colton
Charles Caleb Colton
Charles Caleb Coltonwas an English cleric, writer and collector, well known for his eccentricities...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
talking world human-nature
There are prating coxcombs in the world who would rather talk than listen, although Shakespeare himself were the orator, and human nature the theme!
memories teaching should-have
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.
tales forgetful tedious
Is there anything more tedious than the often repeated tales of the old and forgetful?
thinking daring finished
Those who have finished by making all others think with them, have usually been those who began by daring to think with themselves.
time world overcoming
Time is the most subtle yet the most insatiable of depredators, and by appearing to take nothing is permitted to take all; nor can it be satisfied until it has stolen the world from us, and us from the world. It constantly flies, yet overcomes all things by flight; and although it is the present ally, it will be the future conqueror of death.
wise time ambition
Time, the cradle of hope, but the grave of ambition, is the stern corrector of fools, but the salutary counselor of the wise, bringing all they dread to the one, and all they desire to the other.
sex vanity rivals
There is more jealousy between rival wits than rival beauties, for vanity has no sex. But in both cases there must be pretensions, or there will be no jealousy.
women decorum length
Women do not transgress the bounds of decorum so often as men; but when they do, they go greater lengths.
men fog circles
The enthusiast has been compared to a man walking in a fog; everything immediately around him, or in contact with him, appears sufficiently clear and luminous; but beyond the little circle of which he himself is the centre, all is mist and error and confusion.
order matter mystery
We injure mysteries, which are matters of faith, by any attempt at explanation in order to make them matters of reason. Could they be explained, they would cease to be mysteries; and it has been well said that a thing is not necessarily against reason because it happens to be above it.
book healthy may
Novels may teach us as wholesome a moral as the pulpit. There are "sermons in stones," in healthy books, and "good in everything.
promise mathematics metaphysics
The science of mathematics performs more than it promises, but the science of metaphysics promises more than it performs.
dust desert littles
Observation made in the cloister or in the desert will generally be as obscure as the one and as barren as the other; but he that would paint with his pencil must study originals, and not be over-fearful of a little dust.
strong men thinking
If it be true that men of strong imaginations are usually dogmatists--and I am inclined to think it is so--it ought to follow that men of weak imaginations are the reverse; in which case we should have some compensation for stupidity. But it unfortunately happens that no dogmatist is more obstinate or less open to conviction than a fool.