Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

“A hug is worth a thousand words. A friend is worth more.”

“Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again for, like true friends, they will never fail us - never cease to instruct - never cloy.”

“Friendship often ends in love. But love in friendship; never.”

“Gold is worshipped in all climates, without a single temple, and by all classes, without a single hypocrite.”

“If you cannot inspire a woman with love of you, fill her above the brim with love of herself ~ all that runs over will be yours.”

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

“Men are born with two eyes but only one tongue in order that they should see twice as much as they say.”

“Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed. Health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied.”

“Most men know what they hate; few what they love.”

“Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.”

“Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of a good book.”

“No company is preferable to bad. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.”

“Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.”

“Our incomes are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and trip.”

“Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live.”

“The firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.”

“True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it be lost.”

“We hate some persons because we do not know them; and we will not know them because we hate them.”

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

“When you have nothing to say, say nothing.”

“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.”

“Discretion has been termed the better part of valour, and it is more certain, that diffidence is the better part of knowledge.”

“If we can advance any propositions that are both true and new, these are indisputably our own, by right of discovery; and if we can repeat what is old more briefly and brightly than others, this also becomes our own, by right of conquest.”

“Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but live for it.”