843 Quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

  • Author Charles Caleb Colton
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    Avarice begets more vices than Priam did children and like Priam survives them all. It starves its keeper to surfeit those who wish him dead, and makes him submit to more mortifications to lose heaven than the martyr undergoes to gain it.

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  • Author Charles Caleb Colton
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    Courage is like the diamond,--very brilliant; not changed by fire, capable of high polish, but except for the purpose of cutting hard bodies useless.

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  • Author Charles Caleb Colton
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    Honesty is not only the deepest policy, but the highest wisdom; since, however difficult it may be for integrity to get on, it is a thousand times more difficult for knavery to get off; and no error is more fatal than that of those who think that Virtue has no other reward because they have heard that she is her own.

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  • Author Charles Caleb Colton
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    Shrewd and crafty politicians, when they wish to bring about an unpopular measure, must not go straight forward to work, if they do they will certainly fail; and failures to men in power, are like defeats to a general, they shake their popularity. Therefore, since they cannot sail in the teeth of the wind, they must tack, and ultimately gain their object, by appearing at times to be departing from it.

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  • Author Charles Caleb Colton
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    The man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are.

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

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  • Author Charles Caleb Colton
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    Calumny crosses oceans, scales mountains and traverses deserts, with greater ease than the Scythian Abaris, and like him, rides upon a poisoned arrow.

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  • Author Charles Caleb Colton
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    Women who are the least bashful are not unfrequently the most modest; and we are never more deceived than when we would infer any laxity of principle from that freedom of demeanor which often arises from a total ignorance of vice.

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