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Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.

Charles Caleb Colton

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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
Nothing
Men
Arguments
Wishes
Argument
Prove
Wish
Often

More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

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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
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Diffidence is the better part of knowledge.
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He [the miser] falls down and worships the god of this world, but will have neither its pomps, its vanities nor its pleasures for his trouble.
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He that can enjoy the intimacy of the great, and on no occasion disgust them by familiarity, or disgrace himself by servility, proves that he is as perfect a gentleman by nature as his companions are by rank.
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Contemporaries appreciate the person rather than their merit, posterity will regard the merit rather than the person.
Charles Caleb Colton
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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
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Sincerely to aspire after virtue, is to gain her and zealously to labour after her wages, is to receive them.
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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
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It is always easy to shut a book, but not quite so easy to get rid of a lettered coxcomb.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Few things are more agreeable to self-love than revenge, and yet no cause so effectually restrains us from revenge as self-love. And this paradox naturally suggests another that the strength of the community is not unfrequently built upon the weakness of those individuals that compose it.
Charles Caleb Colton
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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.
Charles Caleb Colton
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We are sure to be losers when we quarrel with ourselves it is civil war.
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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When the air balloon was first discovered, some one flippantly asked Dr. Franklin what was the use of it. The doctor answered this question by asking another: What is the use of a new-born infant? It may become a man.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Pain may be said to follow pleasure as its shadow.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues.
Charles Caleb Colton
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It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors as his knowledge.
Charles Caleb Colton
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A wise minister would rather preserve peace than gain a victory, because he knows that even the most successful war leaves nations generally more poor, always more profligate, than it found them.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Were the life of man prolonged, he would become such a proficient in villainy, that it would become necessary again to drown or to burn the world. Earth would become an hell for future rewards when put off to a great distance, would cease to encourage, and future punishments to alarm.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.
Charles Caleb Colton