Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
Ignorance
Mistake
Scribbled
Write
Sheet
May
Erase
Firsts
Sheets
First
Blank
Must
Error
Writing
Errors

More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

Image
It is better to have wisdom without learning than learning without wisdom.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Some indeed there are who profess to despise all flattery, but even these are nevertheless to be flattered, by being told that they do despise it.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
If our eloquence be directed above the heads of our hearers, we shall do no execution. By pointing our arguments low, we stand a chance of hitting their hearts as well as their heads. In addressing angels, we could hardly raise our eloquence too high but we must remember that men are not angels.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Where true religion has prevented one crime, false religions have afforded a pretext for a thousand.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Those that will not permit their wealth to do any good for others. . . cut themselves off from the truest pleasure here and the highest happiness later.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Pride requires very costly food-its keeper's happiness.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
The young fancy that their follies are mistaken by the old for happiness. The old fancy that their gravity is mistaken by the young for wisdom.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
We strive as hard to hide our hearts from ourselves as from others, and always with more success for in deciding upon our own case we are both judge, jury, and executioner, and where sophistry cannot overcome the first, or flattery the second, self-love is always ready to defeat the sentence by bribing the third.
Charles Caleb Colton
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 to those who, like Paley, purify it, stamp it, fix its real value, and give it currency and utility
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Genius, when employed in works whose tendency it is to demoralize and to degrade us, should be contemplated with abhorrence rather than with admiration such a monument of its power, may indeed be stamped with immortality, but like the Coliseum at Rome, we deplore its magnificence because we detest the purposes for which it was designed.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
To look back to antiquity is one thing, to go back to it is another.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
The firmest of friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.
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
Bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Flattery is often a traffic of mutual meanness, where although both parties intend deception, neither are deceived.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
There is this difference between the two temporal blessings - health and money money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied and this superiority of the latter is still more obvious when we reflec.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
There are two way of establishing a reputation, one to be praised by honest people and the other to be accused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the first one, because it will always be accompanied by the latter.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
It is adverse to talent to be consorted and trained up with inferior minds and inferior companions, however high they may rank. The foal of the racer neither finds out his speed nor calls out his powers if pastured out with the common herd, that are destined for the collar and the yoke.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
When we feel a strong desire to thrust our advice upon others, it is usually because we suspect their weakness but we ought rather to suspect our own.
Charles Caleb Colton