Quote

Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person.

Charles Caleb Colton

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
Merit
Regard
Appreciate
Memories
Literature
Rather
Persons
Contemporaries
Person
Posterity

More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

Image
It is a mortifying truth, and ought to teach the wisest of us humility, that many of the most valuable discoveries have been the result of chance rather than of contemplation, and of accident rather than of design.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
It is not every man that can afford to wear a shabby coat.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
The seeds of repentance are sown in youth by pleasure, but the harvest is reaped in age by pain.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
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
Image
The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Despotism can no more exist in a nation until the liberty of the press be destroyed than the night can happen before the sun is set.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write but error is a scribbled one, on which we must first erase.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Pride requires very costly food-its keeper's happiness.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Genius, in one respect, is like gold numbers of persons are constantly writing about both, who have neither.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
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.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Nobility of birth does not always insure a corresponding unity of mind if it did, it would always act as a stimulus to noble actions but it sometimes acts as a clog rather than a spur.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
We injure mysteries, which are matters of faith, by any attempt at explanation in order to make them matters of reason. Could they be explained, they would cease to be mysteries and it has been well said that a thing is not necessarily against reason because it happens to be above it.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
That is true beauty which has not only a substance, but a spirit a beauty that we must intimately know, justly to appreciate.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
It is better to have wisdom without learning than learning without wisdom.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Philosophers have widely differed as to the seat of the soul, and St. Paul has told us that out of the heart proceed murmurings but there can be no doubt that the seat of perfect contentment is in the head, for every individual is thoroughly satisfied with his own proportion of brains.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
The family is the most basic unit of government. As the first community to which a person is attached and the first authority under which a person learns to live, the family establishes society's most basic values.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
The most notorious swindler has not assumed so many names as self-love, nor is so much ashamed of his own. She calls herself patriotism, when at the same time she is rejoicing at just as much calamity to her native country as will introduce herself into power, and expel her rivals.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Words are in this respect like water, that they often take their taste, flavour, and character, from the mouth out of which they proceed, as the water from the channel through which it flows.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
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