We should choose our books as we would our companions, for their sterling and intrinsic merit. — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
For all the practical purposes of life, truth might as well be in a prison as in the folio of a schoolman;… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Constant success shows us but one side of the world. For as it surrounds us with friends who will tell us only… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Power. like the diamond, dazzles the beholder, and also the wearer; it dignifies meanness; it magnifies littleness; to what is contemptible, it… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
That politeness which we put on, in order to keep the assuming and the presumptuous at a proper distance will generally succeed.… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person. — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Criticism discloses that which it would fain conceal, but conceals that which it professes to disclose; it is therefore, read by the… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Emulation looks out for merits, that she may exalt herself by a victory; envy spies out blemishes that she may lower another… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
There is no cruelty so inexorable and unrelenting as that which proceeds from a bigoted and presumptuous supposition of doing service to… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Villainy that is vigilant will be an overmatch for virtue, if she slumber at her post. — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
A beautiful woman, if poor, should use double circumspection; for her beauty will tempt others, her poverty herself. — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Were the life of man prolonged, he would become such a proficient in villainy, that it would become necessary again to drown or to… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
It is doubtful whether mankind are most indebted to those who like Bacon and Butler dig the gold from the mine of literature, or… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error. Where one has been saved… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them. — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Mental pleasures never cloy; unlike those of the body, they are increased by reputation, approved by reflection, and strengthened by enjoyment. — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Ignorance lies at the bottom of all human knowledge, and the deeper we penetrate, the nearer we arrive unto it. — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
Heroism, self-denial, and magnanimity, in all instances where they do not spring from a principle of religion, are but splendid altars on which we… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
We ought not to be over-anxious to encourage innovation in cases of doubtful improvement, for an old system must ever have two advantages over… — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image
We owe almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed, but to those who have differed — Charles Caleb Colton Copy Share Image