Inspirational Quotes by Charles Caleb Colton (English Clergyman, Aphorist)

Baseness of character or conduct not only sears the conscience, but deranges the intellect.—Right conduct is connected with right views of truth.
—Charles Caleb Colton

A windmill is eternally at work to accomplish one end, although it shifts with every variation of the weathercock, and assumes ten different positions in a day.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Aspirations, Work, Goals

Logic and metaphysics make use of more tools than all the rest of the sciences put together, and they do the least work.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Logic

By reading, we enjoy the dead; by conversation, the living; and by contemplation, ourselves. Reading enriches the memory; conversation polishes the wit; and contemplation improves the judgment. Of these, reading is the most important, as it furnishes both the others.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Reading

Envy ought to have no place allowed it in the heart of man; for the goods of this present world are so vile and low that they are beneath it, and those of the future world are so vast and exalted that they are above it.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Envy

The proportion of those who think is extremely small; yet every individual flatters himself that he is one of the number.
—Charles Caleb Colton

Pickpockets and beggars are the best practical physiognomists, without having read a line of Lavater, who, it is notorious, mistook a philosopher for a highwayman.
—Charles Caleb Colton

The greatest genius is never so great as when it is chastised and subdued by the highest reason.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Genius

Neutrality is no favorite with Providence, for we are so formed that it is scarcely possible for us to stand neuter in our hearts, although we may deem it prudent to appear so in our actions.
—Charles Caleb Colton

There are two things that declare, as with a voice from heaven, that he that fills that eternal throne must be on the side of virtue, and that which he befriends must finally prosper and prevail. The first is that the bad are never completely happy and at ease, although possessed of everything that this world can bestow; and that the good are never completely miserable, although deprived of everything that this world can take away. The second is that we are so framed and constituted that the most vicious cannot but pay a secret though unwilling homage to virtue, inasmuch as the worst men cannot bring themselves thoroughly to esteem a bad man, although he may be their dearest friend, nor can they thoroughly despise a good man, although he may be their bitterest enemy.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Virtue

When Mandeville maintained that private vices were public benefits, he did not calculate the widely destructive influence of bad example. To affirm that a vicious man is only his own enemy is about as wise as to affirm that a virtuous man is only his own friend.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Vice

The man of pleasure should more properly be termed the man of pain; like Diogenes, he purchases repentance at the highest price, and sells the richest reversion for the poorest reality.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Pleasure

The hypocrite shows the excellence of virtue by the necessity he thinks himself under of seeming to be virtuous.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Hypocrisy

Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in the execution of them.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Conflict

Did universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven, and hell a fable.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Charity, Service, Giving, Kindness

Tomorrow! It is a period nowhere to be found in all the hoary registers of time, unless, perchance, in the fool’s calendar.—Wisdom disclaims the word, nor holds society with those who own it.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Procrastination

The seeds of repentance are sown in youth by pleasure, but the harvest is reaped in age by suffering.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Pleasure

Of all marvelous things, perhaps there is nothing that angels behold with such supreme astonishment as a proud man.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Pride

There is this good in real evils,—they deliver us, while they last, from the petty despotism of all that were imaginary.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Evils

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.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Envy

Discretion has been termed the better part of valour, and it is more certain, that diffidence is the better part of knowledge.
—Charles Caleb Colton

He that can please nobody is not so much to be pitied as he that nobody can please.
—Charles Caleb Colton

The good make a better bargain, and the bad a worse, than is usually supposed; for the rewards of the one, and the punishments of the other not unfrequently begin on this side of the grave; for vice has more martyrs than virtue; and it often happens that men suffer more to be damned than to be saved.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Vice

The two most precious things this side the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other. A wise man, therefore, will be more anxious to deserve a fair name than to possess it, and this will teach him so to live, as not to be afraid to die.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Reputation

If you cannot avoid a quarrel with a blackguard, let your lawyer manage it rather than yourself. No man sweeps his own chimney, but employs a chimney-sweeper who has no objection to dirty work because it is his trade.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Quarrels

Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again—for, like true friends, they will never fail us—never cease to instruct—never cloy—Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Books, Libraries, Reading, Literature

He that has never known adversity, is but half acquainted with others, or with himself. Constant success shows us but one side of the world. For, as it surrounds us with friends, who will tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we can learn our defects.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Success

Two things are necessary to a modern martyr,—some to pity, and some to persecute, some to regret, and some to roast him. If martyrdom is now on the decline, it is not because martyrs are less zealous, but because martyr-mongers are more wise.
—Charles Caleb Colton

We strive as hard to hide our hearts from ourselves as from others, and always with more success; for in deciding upon our own case we are both judge, jury, and executioner, and where sophistry cannot overcome the first, or flattery the second, self-love is always ready to defeat the sentence by bribing the third.
—Charles Caleb Colton

True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.
—Charles Caleb Colton

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