Top 500 Charles Caleb Colton Quotes (2026 Update)
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251. “Ignorance lies at the bottom of all human knowledge, and the deeper we penetrate, the nearer we arrive unto it.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

252. “Law and equity are two things which God has joined, but which man has put asunder.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

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

— Charles Caleb Colton

254. “Most men know what they hate, few what they love.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

255. “Any one can give advice, such as it is, but only a wise man knows how to profit by it.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

256. “Revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

257. “Courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of the most precious things.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

258. “Human foresight often leaves its proudest possessor only a choice of evils.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

259. “Jealousy is sustained as often by pride as by affection.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

260. “True goodness is not without that germ of greatness that can bear with patience the mistakes of the ignorant.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

261. “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.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

262. “The three great apostles of practical atheism, that make converts without persecuting, and retain them without preaching, are wealth, health and power.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

263. “Worldly wisdom dictates to her disciples the propriety of dressing somewhat beyond their means, but of living somewhat within them.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

264. “Women who are the least bashful are not unfrequently the most modest; and we are never more deceived than when we would infer any laxity of principle from that freedom of demeanor which often arises from a total ignorance of vice.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

265. “He that places himself neither higher nor lower than he ought to do exercises the truest humility.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

266. “There is this of good in real evils; they deliver us, while they last, from the petty despotism of all that were imaginary.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

267. “Avarice begets more vices than Priam did children and like Priam survives them all. It starves its keeper to surfeit those who wish him dead, and makes him submit to more mortifications to lose heaven than the martyr undergoes to gain it.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

268. “In death itself there can be nothing terrible, for the act of death annihilates sensation; but there are many roads to death, and some of them justly formidable, even to the bravest.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

269. “Women do not transgress the bounds of decorum so often as men; but when they do, they go greater lengths.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

270. “It is not every man that can afford to wear a shabby coat.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

271. “Unity of opinion is indeed a glorious and desirable thing, and its circle cannot be too strong and extended, if the centre be truth; but if the centre be error, the greater the circumference, the greater the evil.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

Featured in: Strong Quotes

272. “Vanity finds in self-love so powerful an ally that it storms, as it were, by a coup de main,, the citadel of our heads, where, having blinded the two watchmen, it readily descends into the heart.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

273. “When millions applaud you seriously ask yourself what harm you have done; and when they disapprove you, what good.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

274. “Whenever we find ourselves more inclined to persecute than to persuade, we may then be certain that our zeal has more of pride in it than of charity.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

275. “He that will only believe what he can fully comprehend must either have a very long head, or a very short creed.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

276. “The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

277. “It is easier to pretend to be what you are not than to hide what you really are; but he that can accomplish both has little to learn in hypocrisy.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

278. “The greatest miracle that the Almighty could perform would be to make a bad man happy, even in heaven; he must unparadise that blessed place to accomplish it. In its primary signification, all vice – that is, all excess – brings its own punishment even here.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

279. “We injure mysteries, which are matters of faith, by any attempt at explanation in order to make them matters of reason. Could they be explained, they would cease to be mysteries; and it has been well said that a thing is not necessarily against reason because it happens to be above it.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

280. “There are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

281. “An Irish man fights before he reasons, a Scotchman reasons before he fights, an Englishman is not particular as to the order of precedence, but will do either to accommodate his customers.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

282. “Love is an alliance of friendship and animalism; if the former predominates it is passion exalted and refined; if the latter, gross and sensual.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

283. “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.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

284. “Villainy that is vigilant will be an overmatch for virtue, if she slumber at her post.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

285. “The young fancy that their follies are mistaken by the old for happiness. The old fancy that their gravity is mistaken by the young for wisdom.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

286. “Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

287. “Falsehood is often rocked by truth, but she soon outgrows her cradle and discards her nurse.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

288. “If a horse has four legs, and I’m riding it, I think I can win.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

289. “The gamester, if he die a martyr to his profession, is doubly ruined. He adds his soul to every other loss, and by the act of suicide, renounces earth to forfeit Heaven.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

290. “For one man who sincerely pities our misfortunes, there are a thousand who sincerely hate our success.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

291. “Criticism is like champagne, nothing more execrable if bad, nothing more excellent if good.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

292. “Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

293. “Public charities and benevolent associations for the gratuitous relief of every species of distress, are peculiar to Christianity; no other system of civil or religious policy has originated them; they form its highest praise and characteristic feature.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

294. “If we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism; if from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

295. “The greatest and most amiable privilege which the rich enjoy over the poor is that which they exercise the least – the privilege of making others happy.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

296. “Words are in this respect like water, that they often take their taste, flavour, and character, from the mouth out of which they proceed, as the water from the channel through which it flows.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

297. “He that is good will infallibly become better, and he that is bad will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue, and time are three things that never stand still.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

298. “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.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

299. “The drafts which true genius draws upon posterity, although they may not always be honored so soon as they are due, are sure to be paid with compound interest in the end.”

— Charles Caleb Colton

300. “An honest man will continue to be so though surrounded on all sides by rogues.”

— Charles Caleb Colton