Charles Caleb Colton
Charles Caleb Colton
Charles Caleb Coltonwas an English cleric, writer and collector, well known for his eccentricities...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
memories book writing
Memory is the friend of wit, but the treacherous ally of invention; there are many books that owe their success to two things; good memory of those who write them, and the bad memory of those who read them
book reading writing
Some read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.
kings writing men
There are three difficulties in authorship;-to write any thing worth the publishing-to find honest men to publish it -and to get sensible men to read it. Literature has now become a game; in which the Booksellers are the Kings; The Critics the Knaves; the Public, the Pack; and the poor Author, the mere table, or the Thing played upon.
book writing companion
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, and in both instances, all that we can learn from baad ones is, that some much time has been worse than thrown away.
writing thinking practice
There are some who write, talk, and think, so much about vice and virtue, that they have no time to practice either the one or the other.
book writing mirrors
That an author's work is the mirror of his mind is a position that has led to very false conclusions. If Satan himself were to write a book it would be in praise of virtue, because the good would purchase it for use, and the bad for ostentation.
song writing pay
All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay, and present praise. Lord Burleigh is not the only statesman who has thought one hundred pounds too much for a song, though sung by Spenser; although Oliver Goldsmith is the only poet who ever considered himself to have been overpaid.
real writing editing
Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.
dull influence authorship
There are both dull correctness and piquant carelessness; it is needless to say which will command the most readers and have the most influence.
law justice water
In civil jurisprudence it too often happens that there is so much law, that there is no room for justice, and that the claimant expires of wrong in the midst of right, as mariners die of thirst in the midst of water.
regret sleep insomnia
Bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret.
men talking two
When we are in the company of sensible men, we ought to be doubly cautious of talking too much, lest we lose two good things, their good opinion and our own improvement; for what we have to say we know, but what they have to say we know not.
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.