Charles Caleb Colton
Charles Caleb Colton
Charles Caleb Coltonwas an English cleric, writer and collector, well known for his eccentricities...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
war winning games
War is a game in which princes seldom win, the people never.
crush war loss
War kills men, and men deplore the loss; but war also crushes bad principles and tyrants, and so saves societies.
wise war successful
A wise minister would rather preserve peace than gain a victory, because he knows that even the most successful war leaves nations generally more poor, always more profligate, than it found them.
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.
men years two
No man can promise himself even fifty years of life, but any man may, if he please, live in the proportion of fifty years in forty-let him rise early, that he may have the day before him, and let him make the most of the day, by determining to expend it on two sorts of acquaintance only-those by whom something may be got, and those from whom something maybe learned.
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.
men two rogues
There are two modes of establishing our reputation; to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues.
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.