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We ought not to be over-anxious to encourage innovation in cases of doubtful improvement, for an old system must ever have two advantages over a new one it is established, and it is understood.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
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Charles Colton
Ever
Innovation
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More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton
The most ridiculous of all animals is a proud priest he cannot use his own tools without cutting his own fingers.
Charles Caleb Colton
Style is indeed the valet of genius, and an able one too but as the true gentleman will appear, even in rags, so true genius will shine, even through the coarsest style.
Charles Caleb Colton
In science, reason is the guide in poetry, taste. The object of the one is truth, which is uniform and indivisible the object of the other is beauty, which is multiform and varied.
Charles Caleb Colton
He that has energy enough in his constitution to root out a vice should go a little further, and try to plant a virtue in its place otherwise he will have his labor to renew. A strong soil that has produced weeds may be made to produce wheat with far less difficulty than it would cost to make it produce nothing.
Charles Caleb Colton
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
He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place.
Charles Caleb Colton
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
Women do not transgress the bounds of decorum so often as men but when they do, they go greater lengths.
Charles Caleb Colton
There are male as well as female gossips.
Charles Caleb Colton
My lowest days as a Christian have been more fulfilling and rewarding than all the days of glory in the White House.
Charles Caleb Colton
Avarice begets more vices than Priam did children and like Priam survives them all. It starves its keeper to surfeit those who wish him dead, and makes him submit to more mortifications to lose heaven than the martyr undergoes to gain it.
Charles Caleb Colton
Pleasure is to women what the sun is to the flower if moderately enjoyed, it beautifies, it refreshes, and it improves if immoderately, it withers, deteriorates and destroys.
Charles Caleb Colton
Pedantry crams our heads with learned lumber and takes out our brains to make room for it.
Charles Caleb Colton
Men are more readily contented with no intellectual light than with a little and wherever they have been taught to acquire some knowledge in order to please others, they have most generally gone on to acquire more, to please themselves.
Charles Caleb Colton
As the gout seems privileged to attack the bodies of the wealthy, so ennui seems to exert a similar prerogative over their minds.
Charles Caleb Colton
For one man who sincerely pities our misfortunes, there are a thousand who sincerely hate our success.
Charles Caleb Colton
It is best, if possible, to deceive no one for he that ... begins by deceiving others, will end ... by deceiving himself.
Charles Caleb Colton
Time is the most subtle yet the most insatiable of depredators, and by appearing to take nothing is permitted to take all nor can it be satisfied until it has stolen the world from us, and us from the world. It constantly flies, yet overcomes all things by flight and although it is the present ally, it will be the future conqueror of death.
Charles Caleb Colton
The learned languages are indispensable to form the gentleman and the scholar, and are well worth all the labor that they have cost us, provided they are valued not for themselves alone, which would make a pedant, but as a foundation for further acquirements.
Charles Caleb Colton
Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power that avarice makes concerning wealth. She begins by accumulating power as a means to happiness, and she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end.
Charles Caleb Colton