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Ability
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To sentence a man of true genius, to the drudgery of a school is to put a racehorse on a treadmill.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Adversity
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There are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Constant success shows us but one side of the world; adversity brings out the reverse of the picture.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Advice
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We ask advice but we mean approbation.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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It is with disease of the mind, as with those of the body; we are half dead before we understand our disorder, and half cured when we do.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Age
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The excess of our youth are checks written against our age and they are payable with interest thirty years later.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Ambition
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Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power that avarice makes concerning wealth. She begins by accumulating power as a means to happiness, and she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Angels
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Were we as eloquent as angels we still would please people much more by listening rather than talking.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Anger
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The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Argument & Debate
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It is the briefest yet wisest maxim which tells us to meddle not.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Authors & Writing
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To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces, nor slander us behind our backs, nor intrude upon our privacy, nor quit their shelves until we take them down.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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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
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Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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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.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Belief
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He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a long head or a very short creed.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Bravery
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Physical courage, which engages all danger, will make a person brave in one way; and moral courage, which defies all opinion, will make a person brave in another.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Business
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Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely and conciliate those you cannot conquer.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Charity
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Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness, when bequeathed by those who. when alive, would not have contributed.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Did universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven, and hell a fable.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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City Life, Cities
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If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Conflict
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Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in their actions.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Conversation
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Repartee is perfect when it effects its purpose with a double edge. It is the highest order of wit, as it indicates the coolest yet quickest exercise of genius, at a moment when the passions are roused.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Reply to wit with gravity, and to gravity with wit.
-Charles Caleb Colton
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Books by and about Charles Caleb Colton