Charles Caleb Colton (1780–1832) was an English cleric, aphorist, writer, and collector.
Born possibly in Shrivenham, Berkshire, Colton was educated at Eton College and King’s College, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1801 and a Master of Arts in 1804. He served as vicar of Kew and Petersham 1812–28 before fleeing England to dodge creditors.
Colton traveled all over the United States for two years and settled in Paris. There, he became an art collector, and wine collector, but lost much of his fortune in gambling. Following the discovery of an illness that necessitated surgery, Colton killed himself instead of undergoing the procedure.
Colton’s literary work includes compendiums of epigrammatic aphorisms and short essays on behavior and manners. His Lacon, or Many Things in Few Words (1820, 1822) gained full acceptance. He also published The Conflagration of Moscow (1826,) a work on Napoleon, and An Ode on the Death of Lord Byron (1831.) A 600 line-poem called ‘Modern Antiquity’ was never published.
One of Colton’s most famous quotes is, “Imitation is the sincerest [form] of flattery.”
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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: Present, The Present
All adverse and depressing influences can be overcome, not by fighting, but by rising above them.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Adversity
Man is an embodied paradox, a bundle of contradictions.
—Charles Caleb Colton
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: Reading, Writing, Books
Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Praise, Applause, Motivation
See that your character is right, and in the long run your reputation will be right.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Reputation
Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Living, One liners, Flattery
True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.
—Charles Caleb Colton
The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age, payable with interest, about thirty years after date.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Youth
Short as life is, some find it long enough to outlive their characters, their constitutions and their estates.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Aging
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: Reputation, Praise
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: Bravery, Courage
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
We are sure to be losers when we quarrel with ourselves; it is civil war.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Being Ourselves, Self-Discovery
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
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
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
War kills men, and men deplore the loss; but war also crushes bad principles and tyrants, and so saves societies.
—Charles Caleb Colton
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, Spending time wisely, Time Management, Value of Time
The gambler is a moral suicide.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: One liners, Gambling
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
He that has never suffered extreme adversity, knows not the full extent of his own depravation.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Adversity, Difficulties
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
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
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: Thought, Thoughts, Home, Thinking, Happiness, Wisdom
When you have nothing to say, say nothing.
—Charles Caleb Colton
Topics: Communication
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
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
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