Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

"If we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism; if from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition."

"Mystery is not profoundness."

"Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books."

"Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say."

"Law and equity are two things which God has joined, but which man has put asunder."

"To look back to antiquity is one thing, to go back to it is another."

"Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes."

"In life we shall find many men that are great, and some that are good, but very few men that are both great and good."

"There is this paradox in pride -- it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so."

"Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away."

"Deliberate with caution, but act with decision; and yield with graciousness or oppose with firmness."

"It is with disease of the mind, as with those of the body; we are half dead before we understand our disorder, and half cured when we do."

"That writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time."

"Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own country-men, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies, but untravelled minds."

"Patience is the support of weakness; impatience the ruin of strength."

"There are three difficulties in authorship: to write anything worth publishing, to find honest men to publish it, and to find sensible men to read it."

"If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city."

"Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live."

"The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility."

"Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner."