Charles Caleb Colton
Charles Caleb Colton
Charles Caleb Coltonwas an English cleric, writer and collector, well known for his eccentricities...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
real deceit our-actions
The true motives of our actions, like the real pipes of an organ, are usually concealed; but the gilded and hollow pretext is pompously placed in the front for show.
real character mean
Duke Chartres used to boast that no man could have less real value for character than himself, yet he would gladly give twenty thousand pounds for a good one, because he could immediately make double that sum by means of it.
real writing editing
Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.
regret sleep insomnia
Bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret.
fog sun mystery
Mystery magnifies danger as the fog the sun.
winning race looks
If we look backwards to antiquity it should be as those that are winning a race.
safety ignorant lightning
They that are loudest in their threats are the weakest in the execution of them. It is probable that he who is killed by lightning hears no noise; but the thunder-clap which follows, and which most alarms the ignorant, is the surest proof of their safety.
mean secret purpose
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.
heart envy people
Envy ought to have no place allowed it in the hearts of people; for the goods of this present world are so vile and low that they are beneath it; and those of the future world are so vast and exalted that they are above it.
fashion grace virtue
Fashions smile has given wit to dullness and grace to deformity, and has brought everything into vogue, by turns, but virtue.
wise men may
A wise man may be duped as well as a fool; but the fool publishes the triumph of the deceiver.
medicine easy harm
The science of legislation is like that of medicine in one respect: that it is far more easy to point out what will do harm than what will do good.
grace imitation facility
Those graces which from their presumed facility encourage all to attempt an imitation of them, are usually the most inimitable.
men evil temptation
From its very inaction, idleness ultimately becomes the most active cause of evil; as a palsy is more to be dreaded than a fever. The Turks have a proverb which says that the devil tempts all other men, but that idle men tempt the devil.