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Genius in one grand particular is like life. We know nothing of either but by their effects.

Charles Caleb Colton

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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
Nothing
Life
Like
Grand
Effects
Genius
Talent
Particular
Either

More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

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Fortune, like other females, prefers a lover to a master, and submits with impatience to control but he that wooes her with opportunity and importunity will seldom court her in vain.
Charles Caleb Colton
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If we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism if from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition.
Charles Caleb Colton
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If it be true that men of strong imaginations are usually dogmatists--and I am inclined to think it is so--it ought to follow that men of weak imaginations are the reverse in which case we should have some compensation for stupidity. But it unfortunately happens that no dogmatist is more obstinate or less open to conviction than a fool.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Light, whether it be material or moral, is the best reformer.
Charles Caleb Colton
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He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool since the most absurd doctrines are not without such evidence as martyrdom can produce. A martyr, therefore, by the mere act of suffering, can prove nothing but his own faith.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Neither can we admit that definition of genius that some would propose--a power to accomplish all that we undertake for we might multiply examples to prove that this definition of genius contains more than the thing defined. Cicero failed in poetry, Pope in painting, Addison in oratory yet it would be harsh to deny genius to these men.
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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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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There are two principles of established acceptance in morals first, that self-interest is the mainspring of all of our actions, and secondly, that utility is the test of their value.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Tyrants have not yet discovered any chains that can fetter the mind.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Some reputed saints that have been canonized ought to have been cannonaded.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.
Charles Caleb Colton
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He that dies a martyr proves that he was not a knave, but by no means that he was not a fool.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The temple of truth is built indeed of stones of crystal, but, inasmuch as men have been concerned in rearing it, it has been consolidated by a cement composed of baser materials.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Knowledge is two-fold, and consists not only in an affirmation of what is true, but in the negation of that which is false.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Logic is a large drawer, containing some useful instruments, and many more that are superfluous. A wise man will look into it for two purposes, to avail himself of those instruments that are really useful, and to admire the ingenuity with which those that are not so, are assorted and arranged.
Charles Caleb Colton
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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
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When I meet with any persons who write obscurely or converse confusedly, I am apt to suspect two things first, that such persons do not understand themselves and secondly, that they are not worthy of being understood by others.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Those who have finished by making all others think with them, have usually been those who began by daring to think with themselves.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The good opinion of our fellow men is the strongest, though not the purest motive to virtue.
Charles Caleb Colton