Top 60 Charles Churchill Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Fame is nothing but an empty name.”

— Charles Churchill

2. “A joke’s a very serious thing.”

— Charles Churchill

3. “Keep up appearances; there lies the test. The world will give thee credit for the rest.”

— Charles Churchill

4. “Be England what she will, With all her faults she is my country still.”

— Charles Churchill

5. “Genius is nothing more than inflamed enthusiasm.”

— Charles Churchill

6. “When satire flies abroad on falsehood’s wing, Short is her life, and impotent her sting; But when to truth allied, the wound she gives Sinks deep, and to remotest ages lives.”

— Charles Churchill

7. “Knaves starve not in the land of fools.”

— Charles Churchill

8. “The more haste, ever the worst speed.”

— Charles Churchill

9. “The laws I love; the lawyers I suspect.”

— Charles Churchill

10. “Patience is sorrow’s salve.”

— Charles Churchill

11. “Man and wife, Coupled together for the sake of strife.”

— Charles Churchill

12. “The rigid saint, by whom no mercy’s shown To saints whose lives are better than his own.”

— Charles Churchill

13. “Wherever waves can roll, and winds can blow.”

— Charles Churchill

14. “On the four aces doom’d to roll.”

— Charles Churchill

15. “Who often, but without success, have prayed for apt Alliteration’s artful aid.”

— Charles Churchill

16. “By different methods different men excel, but where is he who can do all things well?”

— Charles Churchill

17. “The best things carried to excess are wrong.”

— Charles Churchill

18. “With curious art the brain, too finely wrought, Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought.”

— Charles Churchill

19. “The Scots are poor, cries surly English pride; True is the charge, nor by themselves denied. Are they not then in strictest reason clear, Who wisely come to mend their fortunes here?”

— Charles Churchill

20. “When fiction rises pleasing to the eye, men will believe, because they love the lie; but truth herself, if clouded with a frown, must have some solemn proof to pass her down.”

— Charles Churchill

21. “A servile race Who, in mere want of fault, all merit place; Who blind obedience pay to ancient schools, Bigots to Greece, and slaves to musty rules.”

— Charles Churchill

22. “Men the most infamous are fond of fame, And those who fear not guilt yet start at shame.”

— Charles Churchill

23. “The proud will sooner lose than ask their way.”

— Charles Churchill

24. “Nor waste their sweetness in the desert air.”

— Charles Churchill

25. “All hunt for fame, but most mistake the way.”

— Charles Churchill

26. “England a fortune-telling host, As num’rous as the stars, could boast; Matrons, who toss the cup, and see The grounds of Fate in grounds of tea...”

— Charles Churchill

27. “He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.”

— Charles Churchill

28. “No tribute is laid on castles in the air.”

— Charles Churchill

29. “With that malignant envy which turns pale, And sickens, even if a friend prevail.”

— Charles Churchill

30. “The surest way to health, say what they will, Is never to suppose we shall be ill; Most of the ills which we poor mortals know From doctors and imagination flow.”

— Charles Churchill

31. “Constant attention wears the active mind, Blots out our pow’rs, and leaves a blank behind.”

— Charles Churchill

32. “Though folly, robed in purple, shines, Though vice exhausts Peruvian mines, Yet shall they tremble and turn pale When satire wields her mighty flail.”

— Charles Churchill

33. “To copy beauty forfeits all pretense to fame; to copy faults is want of sense.”

— Charles Churchill

34. “Truth! why shall every wretch of letters Dare to speak truth against his betters! Let ragged virtue stand aloof, Nor mutter accents of reproof; Let ragged wit a mute become, When wealth and power would have her dumb.”

— Charles Churchill

35. “Those who raise envy will easily incur censure.”

— Charles Churchill

36. “Fool beckons fool, and dunce awakens dunce.”

— Charles Churchill

37. “Fashion – a word which knaves and fools may use, Their knavery and folly to excuse.”

— Charles Churchill

38. “Genius is independent of situation.”

— Charles Churchill

39. “Genius is of no country; her pure ray Spreads all abroad, as general as the day.”

— Charles Churchill

40. “Wit, who never once Forgave a brother, shall forgive a dunce.”

— Charles Churchill

41. “Genius is of no country.”

— Charles Churchill

42. “With various readings stored his empty skull, Learn’d without sense, and venerably dull.”

— Charles Churchill

Featured in: Reading Quotes

43. “The oak, when living, monarch of the wood; The English oak, which, dead, commands the flood.”

— Charles Churchill

44. “To copy faults is want of sense.”

— Charles Churchill

45. “Those who would make us feel must feel themselves.”

— Charles Churchill

46. “Amongst the sons of men how few are known Who dare be just to merit not their own.”

— Charles Churchill

47. “Though by whim, envy, or resentment led, they damn those authors whom they never read.”

— Charles Churchill

48. “If you mean to profit, learn to praise.”

— Charles Churchill

49. “The danger chiefly lies in acting well; no crime’s so great as daring to excel.”

— Charles Churchill

50. “He hurts me most who lavishly commends.”

— Charles Churchill