Charles Caleb Colton
Charles Caleb Colton
Charles Caleb Coltonwas an English cleric, writer and collector, well known for his eccentricities...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
gratitude circles fire
Envy, if surrounded on all sides by the brightness of another's prosperity, like the scorpion confined within a circle of fire, will sting itself to death.
gratitude men serenity
The benevolent have the advantage of the envious, even in this present life; for the envious man is tormented not only by all the ill that befalls himself, but by all the good that happens to another; whereas the benevolent man is the better prepared to bear his own calamities unruffled, from the complacency and serenity he has secured from contemplating the prosperity of all around him.
wise money thinking
It is a common observation that any fool can get money; but they are not wise that think so.
brother integrity simple
Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity than straigthforward and simple integrity in another. A knave would rather quarrel with a brother knave than with a fool, but he would rather avoid a quarrel with one honest man than with both. He can combat a fool by management and address, and he can conquer a knave by temptations. But the honest man is neither to be bamboozled nor bribed.
tasks advertising easy
It is an easy and vulgar thing to please the mob, and no very arduous task to astonish them.
life people astonishing
It is astonishing how much more people are interested in lengthening life than improving it.
judging lawyer chosen
"Lawyers Are": The only civil delinquents whose judges must of necessity be chosen from (amongst) themselves.
adversity blessing sometimes
Sometimes the greatest adversities turn out to be the greatest blessings.
gratitude dross made
It is not until we have passed through the furnace that we are made to know how much dross there is in our composition.
writing numbers gold
Genius, in one respect, is like gold; numbers of persons are constantly writing about both, who have neither.
genius reason highest
The greatest genius is never so great as when it is chastised and subdued by the highest reason.
cutting lions teeth
He that has cut the claws of the lion will not feel quite secure until he has also drawn his teeth.
successful mislead-us watches
Falsehood is never so successful as when she baits her hook with truth, and no opinions so fatally mislead us as those that are not wholly wrong, as no watches so effectively deceive the wearer as those that are sometimes right.
strong jobs men
No two things differ more than hurry and dispatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, dispatch of a strong one. A weak man in office, like a squirrel in a cage, is laboring eternally, but to no purpose, and is in constant motion without getting on a job; like a turnstile, he is in everybody's way, but stops nobody; he talks a great deal, but says very little; looks into everything but sees nothing; and has a hundred irons in the fire, but very few of them are hot, and with those few that are, he only burns his fingers.