Charles Caleb Colton Quotes - Page 14

• Those graces which from their presumed facility encourage all to attempt an imitation of them, are usually the most inimitable.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Grace, Imitation, Facility

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.261

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• Many a man may thank his talent for his rank, but no man has ever been able to return the compliment by thanking his rank for his talent.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, May, Able

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.17

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• 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

  Giving, Credit, World

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.24

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• Injuries accompanied with insults are never forgiven: all men, on these occasions, are good haters, and lay out their revenge at compound interest.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Revenge, Men, Insult

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.215

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• Theory is worth but little, unless it can explain its own phenomena, and it must effect this without contradicting itself; therefore, the facts are sometimes assimilated to the theory, rather than the theory to the facts.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Littles, Facts, Sometimes

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.69

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• To judge by the event is an error all commit: for in every instance courage, if crowned with success, is heroism; if clouded by defeat, temerity. When Nelson fought his battle in the Sound, it was the result alone that decided whether he was to kiss a hand at court or a rod at a court-martial.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Success, Kissing, Errors

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.231

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• A thorough-paced antiquary not only remembers what all other people have thought proper to forget, but he also forgets what all other people think is proper to remember.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Thinking, People, Remember

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”

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• Anger is practical awkwardness.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Anger, Practicals, Awkwardness

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• The pride of ancestry is a superstructure of the most imposing height, but resting on the most flimsy foundation. It is ridiculous enough to observe the hauteur with which the old nobility look down on the new. The reason of this puzzled me a little, until I began to reflect that most titles are respectable only because they are old; if new, they would be despised, because all those who now admire the grandeur of the stream would see nothing but the impurity of the source.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Pride, Foundation, Titles

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”

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• Gross and vulgar minds will always pay a higher respect to wealth than to talent; for wealth, although it be a far less efficient source of power than talent, happens to be far more intelligible.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Mind, Pay, Talent

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.311

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• It has been well observed that the tongue discovers the state of the mind no less than that of the body; but in either case, before the philosopher or the physician can judge, the patient must open his mouth.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Talking, Judging, Mind

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.157

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• 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. 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

  Shoes, Contentment, Income

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• He that has never known adversity is but half acquainted with others, or with himself.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Adversity, Half, Known

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.238

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• Perhaps that is nearly the perfection of good writing which is original, but whose truth alone prevents the reader from suspecting that it is so; and which effects that for knowledge which the lens effects for the sunbeam, when it condenses its brightness in order to increase its force.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Writing, Order, Perfection

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.9

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• Subtlety will sometimes give safety, no less than strength; and minuteness has sometimes escaped, where magnitude would have been crushed. The little animal that kills the boa is formidable chiefly from its insignificance, which is incompressible by the folds of its antagonist.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Animal, Safety, Giving

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”

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• Some authors write nonsense in a clear style, and others sense in an obscure one; some can reason without being able to persuade, others can persuade without being able to reason; some dive so deep that they descend into darkness, and others soar so high that they give us no light; and some, in a vain attempt to be cutting and dry, give us only that which is cut and dried. We should labor, therefore, to treat with ease of things that are difficult; with familiarity, of things that are novel; and with perspicuity, of things that are profound.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Writing, Cutting, Light

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.307

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• There are some who write, talk, and think, so much about vice and virtue, that they have no time to practice either the one or the other.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Writing, Thinking, Practice

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.52

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• All wars of interference, arising from an officious intrusion into the concerns of other states; all wars of ambition, carried on for the purposes of aggrandizement; and all wars of aggression, undertaken for the purpose of forcing an assent to this or that set of religious opinions; all such wars are criminal in their very outset, and have hypocrisy for their common base.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Religious, War, Ambition

  Charles Caleb Colton (1828). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words Addressed to Those who Think”, p.228

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• Ambition is to the mind what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower by reason of our blindness.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Ambition, Mind, Towers

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.35

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• Time,- that black and narrow isthmus between two eternities.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Time, Two, Black

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 582, 1895.

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• Style is indeed the valet of genius, and an able one too; but as the true gentleman will appear, even in rags, so true genius will shine, even through the coarsest style.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Shining, Gentleman, Style

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.10

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• When I meet with any persons who write obscurely or converse confusedly, I am apt to suspect two things; first, that such persons do not understand themselves; and secondly, that they are not worthy of being understood by others.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Writing, Two, Style

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.114

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• The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces, nor slander us behind our backs, nor intrude upon our privacy, nor quit their shelves until we take them down.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Writing, Faces, Privacy

  Charles Caleb Colton (1823). “Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan”, p.158

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• A Christian builds his fortitude on a better foundation than stoicism; he is pleased with every thing that happens, because he knows it could not happen unless it first pleased God, and that which pleases Him must be best.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Christian, Courage, Foundation

  Charles Caleb Colton (1824). “Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think”, p.88

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• We shall at all times chance upon men of recondite acquirements, but whose qualifications, from the incommunicative and inactive habits of their owners, are as utterly useless to others as though the possessors had them not.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Useless, Chance

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.313

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