Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

Charles Caleb Colton was an English cleric, writer and collector, well known for his eccentricities.

Colton was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, graduating with a B.A. in 1801 and an M.A. in 1804. In 1801, he was presented by the college with the perpetual curacy of Tiverton's Prior's Quarter in Devon, where he lived for many years. He was appointed to the vicarage of Kew and Petersham in 1812. His performance of church-related functions at both locations was erratic: at times conscientious and brilliant while at other times cursory and indulgent. He left formal church service, and England, in 1828. Contemporaries believed that he had fled from his creditors, who took out a legal "docket" against him, identifying him as a wine-merchant.

For two years Colton traveled throughout the United States. He later established a modest residence in Paris. There he invested in an art gallery and had a large private collection of valuable paintings. Other pastimes included wine collecting and partridge-shooting. He also frequented the gaming salons of the "Palais Royal" and was so successful that in a year or two he acquired the equivalent of 25,000 English pounds. He continued gambling, however, and lost his French fortune. At the time of his death, Colton was living on funds received from his immediate family. An illness required surgery, but Colton dreaded the operation. He eventually killed himself rather than undergo the procedure. Wikipedia

✵ 1777 – 1832  •  Other names Charle Caleb Colton

Charles Caleb Colton: 38 quotes6 likes

Famous Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

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

Charles Caleb Colton

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

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. II; LXXXIII
Lacon

“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.”

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. II; XXXVIII
Lacon (1820)

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

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; CCCXXII
Lacon (1820)

“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.”

Charles Caleb Colton

Source: Lacon (1820) Vol. I; CCCCXXVII (7th Edition, published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, in 1821)

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

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. II; XVII
Lacon (1820)

Charles Caleb Colton Quotes about men

“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.”

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; DLXXV
Lacon (1820)

“This tendency, however, to ascribe an universality of genius to great men, led Dryden to affirm, on the strength of two smart satyrical lines, that Virgil could have written a satire equal to Juvenal. But, with all due deference to Dryden, I conceive it much more manifest, that Juvenal could have written a better epic than Virgil, than that Virgil could have written a satire equal to Juvenal. Juvenal has many passages of the moral sublime far superior to any that can be found in Virgil, who, indeed, seldom attempts a higher flight than the sublime of description. Had Lucan lived, he might have rivalled them both, as he has all the vigour of the one, and time might have furnished him with the taste and elegance of the other.”

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; CCCCXII
Lacon (1820)

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

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; XXV
Lacon (1820)
Variant: Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but live for it.

Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

“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;”

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; CCCCXXVII (7th Edition, published by Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, in 1821)
Lacon
Context: 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.

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

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; CLXXXIII
Lacon

“It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors as his knowledge. Mal-information is more hopeless than non-information; for error is always more busy than ignorance. Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one, on which we must first erase. Ignorance is contented to stand still with her back to the truth; but error is more presumptuous, and proceeds in the same direction. Ignorance has no light, but error follows a false one. The consequence is, that error, when she retraces her footsteps, has further to go, before she can arrive at the truth, than ignorance.”

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; I
Lacon (1820)

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

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; CCLXXXIV
Lacon (1820)

“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.”

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; VI
Lacon (1820)

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

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; XXXIII
Lacon (1820)

“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.”

Charles Caleb Colton

Preface
Lacon (1820)

“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

Vol. I; VIII
Lacon (1820)

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

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; CCCCXXIV
Lacon

“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.”

Charles Caleb Colton

Source: Lacon (1820) Vol. II; CCXLVIII

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

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; LXXI
Lacon (1820)

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

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. II; VIII
Lacon (1820)

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

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; CCCXXXIV
Lacon (1820)

“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.”

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. II; CLXXVIII
Lacon (1820)

“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.”

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; XXVI
Lacon (1820)

“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.”

Charles Caleb Colton

Preface
Lacon (1820)

“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.”

Charles Caleb Colton

Preface
Lacon (1820)

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

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. II; XX
Lacon (1820)

“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

Vol. I; XVI
Lacon (1820)

“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.”

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; VIII
Lacon (1820)

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

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; CCLXXXVI
Lacon (1820)

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

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; XLVIII
Lacon (1820)

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

Charles Caleb Colton

Preface
Lacon (1820)

“We ask advice, but we mean approbation.”

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; CXC
Lacon (1820)

“Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.”

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; CCXVII
Lacon (1820)

“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.”

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; XL
Lacon (1820)

“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.”

Charles Caleb Colton

Preface
Lacon (1820)

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

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol. I; CLXXXIII
Lacon (1820)

“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. But alas, when we are at the summit of a vain ambition, we are also at the depth of real misery. We are placed where time cannot improve, but must impair us; where chance and change cannot befriend, but may betray us; in short, by attaining all we wish, and gaining all we want, we have only reached a pinnacle, where we have nothing to hope, but every thing to fear.”

Charles Caleb Colton

Vol I; XXXVII
Lacon (1820)

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