Charles Caleb Colton

“To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet.”

“He who studies books alone will know how things ought to be, and he who studies men will know how they are.”

“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”

“We own almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed but to those who have differed.”

“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.”

“No company is preferable to bad. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.”

“Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship - never.”

“True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.”

“Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship - never.”

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

“True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.”

“We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.”

“Discretion has been termed the better part of valour, and it is more certain, that diffidence is the better part of knowledge.”

“If we can advance any propositions that are both true and new, these are indisputably our own, by right of discovery; and if we can repeat what is old more briefly and brightly than others, this also becomes our own, by right of conquest.”

“We should have a glorious conflagration, if all who cannot put fire into their works would only consent to put their works into the fire.”

“That author, however, who has thought more than he has read, read more than he has written, and written more than he published, if he does not command success, has at least deserved it.”

“With books, as with companions, it is of more consequence to know which to avoid, than which to choose; for good books are as scarce as good companions.”

“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.”

“From the preponderance of talent, we may always infer the soundness and vigour of the commonwealth; but from the preponderance of riches, its dotage and degeneration.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but live for it.”

“No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us.”

“He that sympathizes in all the happiness of others, perhaps himself enjoys the safest happiness.”

“He who studies books alone will know how things ought to be, and he who studies men will know how they are.”

“None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them; such persons covet secrets as a spendthrift covets money, for the purpose of circulation.”

“Pedantry prides herself on being wrong by rules; while common sense is contented to be right, without them.”

“An elegant writer has observed, that wit may do very well for a mistress, but that he should prefer reason for a wife.”

“When you have nothing to say, say nothing; a weak defense strengthens your opponent, and silence is less injurious than a bad reply.”

“We ask advice, but we mean approbation.”

“Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.”

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

“It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies, seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends.”

“Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.”

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

“Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.”

“To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it; the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary.”

“Those illustrious men, who, like torches, have consumed themselves, in order to enlighten others, have often lived unrewarded, and died unlamented. But the tongues of aftertimes have done them justice in one sense, but injustice in another. They have honoured them with their praise, but they have disgraced them with their pity. They pity them forsooth, because they missed of present praise, and temporal emolument; things great indeed to the little, but little to the great.”

“Knowledge is two-fold, and consists not only in an affirmation of what is true, but in the negation of that which is false.”

“A feast is more fatal to love than a fast, and a surfeit than a starvation.”

“With the offspring of genius, the law of parturition is reversed; the throes are in the conception, the pleasure in the birth.”

“Pedantry crams our heads with learned lumber, and takes out our brains to make room for it.”

“Drunkenness is the vice of a good constitution or of a bad memory—of a constitution so treacherously good that it never bends till it breaks; or of a memory that recollects the pleasures of getting intoxicated, but forgets the pains of getting sober.”

“There is this difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.”

“Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship—never.”

“Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.”

“Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.”

“Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.”

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

“There is this difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.”

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

“Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console.”