Quote

The two most precious things this side of the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other.

Charles Caleb Colton

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
Grave
Two
May
Graves
Lamented
Things
Precious
Contemptible
Life
Reputation
Weakest
Weapons
Deprive
Side
Whisper
Sides
Weapon
Literature

More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

Image
In all places, and in all times, those religionists who have believed too much have been more inclined to violence and persecution than those who have believed too little.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Insults are engendered from vulgar minds, like toadstools from a dunghill.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
God is on the side of virtue for whoever dreads punishment suffers it, and whoever deserves it, dreads it .
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
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
Image
Words indeed are but the signs and counters of knowledge, and their currency should be strictly regulated by the capital which they represent.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
The more gross the fraud the more glibly will it go down, and the more greedily be swallowed, since folly will always find faith where impostors will find imprudence.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
No improvement that takes place in either sex can possibly be confined to itself. Each is a universal mirror to each, and the respective refinement of the one will always be in reciprocal proportion to the polish of the other.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
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
Image
He that is good will infallibly become better, and he that is bad will as certainly become worse for vice, virtue, and time are three things that never stand still.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
War is a game in which princes seldom win, the people never.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy but I will remember, and this I owe to myself.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
The upright, if he suffer calumny to move him, fears the tongue of man more than the eye of God.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
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
Image
The highest knowledge can be nothing more than the shortest and clearest road to truth all the rest is pretension, not performance, mere verbiage and grandiloquence, from which we can learn nothing.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
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
Image
In pulpit eloquence, the grand difficulty lies here--to give the subject all the dignity it so fully deserves, without attaching any importance to ourselves. The Christian messenger cannot think too highly of his prince, nor too humbly of himself.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Memory is the friend of wit, but the treacherous ally of invention there are many books that owe their success to two things good memory of those who write them, and the bad memory of those who read them
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Our admiration of fine writing will always be in proportion to its real difficulty and its apparent ease.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Some men who know that they are great are so very haughty withal and insufferable that their acquaintance discover their greatness only by the tax of humility which they are obliged to pay as the price of their friendship.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
He that can enjoy the intimacy of the great, and on no occasion disgust them by familiarity, or disgrace himself by servility, proves that he is as perfect a gentleman by nature as his companions are by rank.
Charles Caleb Colton