Charles Caleb Colton
45 quotations
Mystery is not profoundness.
Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely and conciliate those you cannot conquer.
Great minds must be ready not only to take opportunities, but to make them.
To look back to antiquity is one thing, to go back to it is another.
Patience is the support of weakness; impatience the ruin of strength
Pity is a thing often vowed, seldom felt; hatred is a thing often felt, seldom avowed.
No man is wise enough, or good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.
There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.
Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.
Secrecy is the soul of all great designs.
When we fail our pride supports us and when we succeed, it betrays us.
Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.
He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a long head or a very short creed.
Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.
Did universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven, and hell a fable.
Time; that black and narrow isthmus between two eternities.
Theories are private property, but truth is common stock.
It is only when the rich are sick that they fully feel the impotence of wealth.
Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in their actions.
Reply to wit with gravity, and to gravity with wit.