Charles Caleb Colton (1780–1832) was an English cleric, aphorist, writer, and collector.
Born possibly in Shrivenham, Berkshire, Colton was educated at Eton College and King’s College, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1801 and a Master of Arts in 1804. He served as vicar of Kew and Petersham 1812–28 before fleeing England to dodge creditors.
Colton traveled all over the United States for two years and settled in Paris. There, he became an art collector, and wine collector, but lost much of his fortune in gambling. Following the discovery of an illness that necessitated surgery, Colton killed himself instead of undergoing the procedure.
Colton’s literary work includes compendiums of epigrammatic aphorisms and short essays on behavior and manners. His Lacon, or Many Things in Few Words (1820, 1822) gained full acceptance. He also published The Conflagration of Moscow (1826,) a work on Napoleon, and An Ode on the Death of Lord Byron (1831.) A 600 line-poem called ‘Modern Antiquity’ was never published.
One of Colton’s most famous quotes is, “Imitation is the sincerest [form] of flattery.”
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Charles Caleb Colton
Wars of opinion, as they have been the most destructive, are the most disgraceful of conflicts, being appeals from right to might and from argument to artillery
—Charles Caleb Colton
The envious praise only that which they can surpass; that which surpasses them they censure.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Envy
He that swells in prosperity will be sure to shrink in adversity.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Prosperity
Instead of exhibiting talent in the hope that the world would forgive their eccentricities, they have exhibited only their eccentricities, in the hope that the world would give them credit for talent.
—Charles Caleb Colton
The inheritance of a distinguished and noble name is a proud inheritance to him who lives worthily of it.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Ancestry
A few drops of oil will set the political machine at work, when a ton of vinegar would only corrode the wheels and canker the movements.
—Charles Caleb Colton
The masses procure their opinions ready made in open market.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Opinion
There are many things that are thorns to our hopes until we have attained them, and envenomed arrows to our hearts when we have.
—Charles Caleb Colton
To sentence a man of true genius, to the drudgery of a school is to put a racehorse on a treadmill.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Ability
Gambling is the child of avarice, but the parent of prodigality.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Gambling
To cure us of our immoderate love of gain, we should seriously consider how many goods, there are that money will not purchase, and these the best; and how many evils there are that money will not remedy, and these the worst.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Times of general calamity and collusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the lightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Determination, Adversity, Difficulties, Greatness
My lowest days as a Christian [and There Were Low Ones—Seven Months Worth Of Them In Prison, To Be Exact] have been more fulfilling and rewarding than all the days of glory in the White House.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Defeat
In most quarrels there is a fault on both sides. A quarrel may be compared to a spark, which cannot be produced without a flint as well as steel. Either of them may hammer on wood forever; no fire will follow.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Quarrels
There are three modes of bearing the ills of life: by indifference, which is the most common; by philosophy, which is the most ostentatious; and by religion, which is the most effectual.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Adversity, Problems, Evils, Difficulties
It is curious that we pay statesmen for what they say, not for what they do, and judge them from what they do, not from what they say.—Hence they have one code of maxims for professions, and another for practice, and make up their consciences as the Neapolitans do their beds, with one set of furniture for show, and another for use.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Life is the jailer of the soul in this filthy prison, and its only deliverer is death.—What we call life is a journey to death, and what we call death is a passport to life.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Life
When the Roman people had listened to the diffuse and polished discourses of Cicero, they departed, saying one to another, “What a splendid speech our orator has made!” But when the Athenians heard Demosthenes, he so filled them with the subject-matter of his oration that they quite forgot the orator, and left him at the finish of his harangue, breathing revenge, and exclaiming, “Let us go and fight against Philip!”
—Charles Caleb Colton
Adroit observers will find that some who affect to dislike flattery may yet be flattered indirectly by a well-seasoned abuse and ridicule of their rivals.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Flattery
The study of the mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness, but ends in magnificence.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Agur said, “Give me neither poverty nor riches”; and this will ever be the prayer of the wise. Our incomes should be like our shoes: if too small, they will gall and pinch us, but if too large, they will cause us to stumble and to trip. But wealth, after all, is a relative thing, since he that has little, and wants less, is richer than he that has much, but wants more. True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Gratitude, Attitude, Appreciation, Money, Blessings, Riches, Wealth, Contentment
Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future has not come, and the present becomes the past even while we attempt to define it, and, like the flash of the lightning, at once exists and expires.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Time
If you cannot inspire a woman with love of yourself, fill her above the brim with love of herself; all that runs over will be yours.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Vanity, Love
There are two principles of established acceptance in morals; first, that self-interest is the mainspring of all of our actions, and secondly, that utility is the test of their value.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Morals
He that places himself neither higher nor lower than he ought to do exercises the truest humility.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Humility
He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a long head or a very short creed.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Belief
The profoundly wise do not declaim against superficial knowledge in others, so much as the profoundly ignorant; on the contrary, they would rather assist it with their advice than overwhelm it with their contempt; for they know that there was a period when even a Bacon or a Newton were superficial, and that he who has a little knowledge is far more likely to get more than he that has none.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Knowledge
The firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Friendship
Truth can hardly be expected to adapt herself to the crooked policy and wily sinuosities of worldly affairs; for truth, like light, travels only in straight lines!
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Truth
When the million applaud you, seriously ask what harm you have done; when they censure you, what good!
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Compliments, Applause, Praise
He that has no resources of mind, is more to be pitied than he who is in want of necessaries for the body; to be obliged to beg our daily happiness from others, bespeaks a more lamentable poverty than that of him who begs his daily bread.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Self-reliance, Happiness, Mind, Confidence
The slightest sorrow for sin is sufficient if it produce amendment, and the greatest insufficient if it do not.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Repentance
It is far more easy to pull down than to build up, and to destroy than to preserve. Revolutions have on this account been falsely supposed to be fertile of great talent; as the dregs rise to the top during a fermentation, and the lightest things are carried highest by the whirlwind.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Revolution
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
Great minds had rather deserve contemporaneous applause, without obtaining it, than obtain, without deserving it; if it follow them, it is well, but they will not deviate to follow it. With inferior minds the reverse is observable.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Applause, Greatness
They who worship gold in a world so corrupt as this, have at least one thing to plead in defence of their idolatry—the power of their idol.—This idol can boast of two peculiarities; it is worshipped in all climates, without a single temple, and by all classes, without a single hypocrite.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Gold
No man is wise enough, nor good enough, to be trusted with unlimited power.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Power, Trust
Did universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven, and hell a fable.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Charity, Giving, Service, Kindness
The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Arguments, Reason, Argument
Metaphysicians have been learning their lesson for the last four thousand years; and it is now high time that they should begin to teach us something: Can any of the tribe inform us why all the operations of the mind are carried on with undiminished strength and activity in dreams, except the judgment, which alone is suspended and dormant?
—Charles Caleb Colton
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Richard Hooker English Theologian, Political Theorist
Henri Nouwen Dutch Catholic Priest
Thomas Aquinas Italian Catholic Priest
Sam Shoemaker American Episcopal Priest
Jerome Greek Priest
Desmond Tutu South African Clergyman
Benjamin Whichcote British Anglican Priest
John Vianney French Catholic Priest
E. Stanley Jones American Methodist Priest
Virginia Woolf English Novelist