Charles Caleb Colton (1780–1832) was an English cleric, writer and collector, well known for his eccentricities. Colton was educated at Eton and King’s College, graduating with a B.A. in 1801 and an M.A. in 1804. In 1801, he was presented by the college with the perpetual curacy of Tiverton’s Prior’s Quarter in Devon, where he lived for many years. He was appointed to the vicarage of Kew and Petersham in 1812. His performance of church-related functions at both locations was erratic: at times conscientious and brilliant while at other times cursory and indulgent. He left formal church service, and England, in 1828. Contemporaries believed that he had fled from his creditors, who took out a legal “docket” against him, identifying him as a wine-merchant.
More: Wikipedia (via CC-BY-SA license) • READ: Works by Charles Caleb Colton
Subtract from the great man all that he owes to opportunity, all that he owes to chance, and all that he has gained by the wisdom of his friends and the folly of his enemies, and the giant will often be seen to be a pigmy.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Greatness, Opportunity
Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Praise, Motivation, Applause
There are two modes of establishing our reputation—to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the former, because it will invariably be accompanied by the latter.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Praise, Reputation
Hope is a prodigal young heir, and experience is his banker, but his drafts are seldom honored since there is often a heavy balance against him, because he draws largely on a small capital and is not yet in possession.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Hope
No two things differ more than hurry and dispatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, dispatch of a strong one. A weak man in office, like a squirrel in a cage, is laboring eternally, but to no purpose, and is in constant motion without getting on a job; like a turnstile, he is in everybody’s way, but stops nobody; he talks a great deal, but says very little; looks into everything but sees nothing; and has a hundred irons in the fire, but very few of them are hot, and with those few that are, he only burns his fingers.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Action
Doubt is the vestibule which all must pass before they can enter the temple of wisdom. — When we are in doubt and puzzle out the truth by our own exertions, we have gained something that will stay by us and will serve us again. — But if to avoid the trouble of the search we avail ourselves of the superior information of a friend, such knowledge will not remain with us; we have not bought, but borrowed it.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Success, Success & Failure, Doubt
The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age, payable with interest, about thirty years after date.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Youth
True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.
—Charles Caleb Colton
See that your character is right, and in the long run your reputation will be right.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Reputation
Justice to my readers compels me to admit that I write because I have nothing to do; justice to myself induces me to add that I will cease to write the moment I have nothing to say.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing, Writing
All adverse and depressing influences can be overcome, not by fighting, but by rising above them.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Adversity
Short as life is, some find it long enough to outlive their characters, their constitutions and their estates.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Aging
To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Solitude, Self-Discovery
Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Time Management, Time, Spending time wisely, Value of Time
Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Living, One liners, Flattery
He who studies books alone will know how things ought to be, and he who studies men will know how they are.
—Charles Caleb Colton
War kills men, and men deplore the loss; but war also crushes bad principles and tyrants, and so saves societies.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other — it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future are not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: The Present, Present
Ambition is to the mind what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower by reason of our blindness.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Ambition
He that has never suffered extreme adversity, knows not the full extent of his own depravation.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Adversity, Difficulties
The gambler is a moral suicide.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: One liners, Gambling
There is this difference between the two temporal blessings — health and money; money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed; health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied; and this superiority of the latter is still more obvious when we reflect that the poorest man would not part with health for money, but that the richest would gladly part with all his money for health.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Blessings, Health
Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason: they made no such demand upon those who wrote them. Those works, therefore, are the most valuable, that set our thinking faculties in the fullest operation. understand them.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Books, Writing, Reading
Physical courage, which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another. The former would seem most necessary for the camp; the latter for the council; but to constitute a great man, both are necessary.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Courage, Bravery
There is this difference between happiness and wisdom, that he that thinks himself the happiest man really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Happiness, Thoughts, Thought, Thinking, Wisdom, Home
We are sure to be losers when we quarrel with ourselves; it is civil war.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Being Ourselves, Self-Discovery
Related Authors
- Richard Hooker English Theologian, Political Theorist
- Henri Nouwen Dutch Catholic Priest
- John Vianney French Catholic Priest
- E. Stanley Jones American Methodist Priest
- Benjamin Whichcote British Anglican Priest
- Sam Shoemaker American Episcopal Priest
- Jerome Greek Priest
- Thomas Aquinas Italian Catholic Priest
- Desmond Tutu South African Clergyman
- Virginia Woolf English Novelist