Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
Understood
Doubtful
Cases
Advantages
Ought
Established
System
Anxious
Inspirational
Encourage
Two
Improvement
Ever
Innovation
Must
Advantage

More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

Image
Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us by the same route.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
We are sure to be losers when we quarrel with ourselves it is civil war.
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
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
Image
We must be careful how we flatter fools too little, or wise men too much, for the flatterer must act the very reverse of the physician, and administer the strongest dose only to the weakest patient.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Observation made in the cloister or in the desert will generally be as obscure as the one and as barren as the other but he that would paint with his pencil must study originals, and not be over-fearful of a little dust.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
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
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
We ask advice but we mean approbation.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
The breast of a good man is a little heaven commencing on earth where the Deity sits enthroned with unrivaled influence, every subjugated passion, like the wind and storm, fulfilling his word.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Women do not transgress the bounds of decorum so often as men but when they do, they go greater lengths.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Opinions, like showers, are generated in high places, but they invariably descend into lower ones, and ultimately flow down to the people as rain unto the sea.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
It is always easy to shut a book, but not quite so easy to get rid of a lettered coxcomb.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Philosophy is a goddess, whose head indeed is in heaven, but whose feet are upon earth she attempts more than she accomplishes, and promises more than she performs.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
There is this difference between happiness and wisdom he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
A power above all human responsibility ought to be above all human attainment.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Secrecy is the soul of all great designs. Perhaps more has been effected by concealing our own intentions than by discovering those of our enemy.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Pride is less ashamed of being ignorant, than of being instructed, and she looks too high to find that, which very often lies beneath her.
Charles Caleb Colton
Image
Love, like the cold bath, is never negative, it seldom leaves us where it finds us if once we plunge into it, it will either heighten our virtues, or inflame our vices.
Charles Caleb Colton