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Life isn't like a book. Life isn't logical or sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be lived in the midst of that mess.

Charles Caleb Colton

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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
Book
Must
Orderly
Time
Theology
Life
Sensible
Like
Logical
Midst
Mess
Lived

More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

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The most ridiculous of all animals is a proud priest he cannot use his own tools without cutting his own fingers.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Time, the cradle of hope, but the grave of ambition, is the stern corrector of fools, but the salutary counselor of the wise, bringing all they dread to the one, and all they desire to the other.
Charles Caleb Colton
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From the preponderance of talent, we may always infer the soundness and vigour of the commonwealth but from the preponderance of riches, its dotage and degeneration.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Body and mind, like man and wife, do not always agree to die together.
Charles Caleb Colton
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We should not be too niggardly in our praise, for men will do more to support a character than to raise one.
Charles Caleb Colton
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When a man has displayed talent in some particular path, and left all competitors behind him in it, the world are too apt to give him credit for universality of genius, and to anticipate for him success in all that he undertakes.
Charles Caleb Colton
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To judge by the event is an error all commit: for in every instance courage, if crowned with success, is heroism if clouded by defeat, temerity. When Nelson fought his battle in the Sound, it was the result alone that decided whether he was to kiss a hand at court or a rod at a court-martial.
Charles Caleb Colton
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A man's profundity may keep him from opening on a first interview, and his caution on a second but I should suspect his emptiness, if he carried on his reserve to a third.
Charles Caleb Colton
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We submit to the society of those that can inform us, but we seek the society of those whom we can inform. And men of genius ought not to be chagrined if they see themselves neglected. For when we communicate knowledge, we are raised in our own estimation but when we receive it, we are lowered.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The French have a saying that whatever excellence a man may exhibit in a public station he is very apt to be ridiculous in a private one.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Where we cannot invent, we may at least improve we may give somewhat of novelty to that which was old, condensation to that which was diffuse, perspicuity to that which was obscure, and currency to that which was recondite.
Charles Caleb Colton
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A lady of fashion will sooner excuse a freedom flowing from admiration than a slight resulting from indifference.
Charles Caleb Colton
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There are truths which some men despise because they have not examined, and which they will not examine because they despise.
Charles Caleb Colton
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There are prating coxcombs in the world who would rather talk than listen, although Shakespeare himself were the orator, and human nature the theme!
Charles Caleb Colton
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There are two things that bestow consequence great possession, or great debts.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Five thousand years have added no improvement to the hive of the bee, nor to the house of the beaver but look at the habitations and the achievements of men!
Charles Caleb Colton
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Of all the marvelous works of God, perhaps the one angels view with the most supreme astonishment, is a proud man.
Charles Caleb Colton
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What is earthly happiness? that phantom of which we hear so much, and see so little whose promises are constantly given and constantly broken, but as constantly believed that cheats us with the sound instead of the substance, and with the blossom instead of the fruit. Like Juno, she is a goddess in pursuit, but a cloud in possession.
Charles Caleb Colton
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If we look backwards to antiquity it should be as those that are winning a race.
Charles Caleb Colton