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Attempts at reform, when they fail, strengthen despotism, as he that struggles tightens those cords he does not succeed in breaking.

Charles Caleb Colton

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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
Struggle
Attempts
Doe
Rebellion
Breaking
Reform
Tightens
Fail
Cords
Revolution
Despotism
Succeed
Strengthen
Failing
Struggles

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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.
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The three great apostles of practical atheism, that make converts without persecuting, and retain them without preaching, are wealth, health and power.
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True friendship is like sound health the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.
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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.
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Peace is the evening star of the soul, as virtue is its sun, and the two are never far apart.
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Accustom yourself to submit on all and every occasion, and on the most minute, no less than on the most important circumstances of life, to a small present evil, to obtain a greater distant good. This will give decision, tone, and energy to the mind, which, thus disciplined, will often reap victory from defeat and honor from repulse.
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He that has energy enough to root out a vice should go further, and try to plant a virtue in its place.
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Wealth is a relative thing since those who have little and want less are richer than those who have much but want more.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Ignorance lies at the bottom of all human knowledge, and the deeper we penetrate the nearer we arrive unto it. For what do we truly know, or what can we clearly affirm, of any one of those important things upon which all our reasonings must of necessity be built--time and space, life and death, matter and mind?
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It is astonishing how much more anxious people are to lengthen life than to improve it and as misers often lose large sums of money in attempting to make more, so do hypochondriacs squander large sums of time in search of nostrums by which they vainly hope they may get more time to squander.
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None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.
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The most zealous converters are always the most rancorous when they fail of producing conversion.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Of all the marvelous works of God, perhaps the one angels view with the most supreme astonishment, is a proud man.
Charles Caleb Colton
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You cannot separate charity and religion.
Charles Caleb Colton
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This world cannot explain its own difficulties without the assistance of another.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others it is a fatal but common error. Where one has been saved by a true estimation of another's weakness, thousands have been destroyed by a false appreciation of their own strength.
Charles Caleb Colton
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A man's profundity may keep him from opening on a first interview, and his caution on a second but I should suspect his emptiness, if he carried on his reserve to a third.
Charles Caleb Colton
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No company is preferable to bad. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.
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By paying our other debts, we are equal with all mankind but in refusing to pay a debt of revenge, we are superior.
Charles Caleb Colton
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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