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It is a mortifying truth, and ought to teach the wisest of us humility, that many of the most valuable discoveries have been the result of chance rather than of contemplation, and of accident rather than of design.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
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Charles Colton
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More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton
Most importantly: Don't adjust your results to build up the ego of the chief strategist. Especially if the strategist is you.
Charles Caleb Colton
The mob is a monster, with the hands of Briareus, but the head of Polyphemus,--strong to execute, but blind to perceive.
Charles Caleb Colton
If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village if you would know, and not be known, live in a city.
Charles Caleb Colton
There is an elasticity in the human mind, capable of bearing much, but which will not show itself, until a certain weight of affliction be put upon it its powers may be compared to those vehicles whose springs are so contrived that they get on smoothly enough when loaded, but jolt confoundedly when they have nothing to bear.
Charles Caleb Colton
To admit that there is any such thing as chance, in the common acceptation of the term, would be to attempt to establish a power independent of God.
Charles Caleb Colton
Fortune has been considered the guardian divinity of fools and, on this score, she has been accused of blindness but it should rather be adduced as a proof of her sagacity, when she helps those who cannot help themselves.
Charles Caleb Colton
Flattery is often a traffic of mutual meanness, where although both parties intend deception, neither are deceived.
Charles Caleb Colton
It is an easy and vulgar thing to please the mob, and no very arduous task to astonish them.
Charles Caleb Colton
The Grecian’s maxim would indeed be a sweeping clause in Literature it would reduce many a giant to a pygmy many a speech to a sentence and many a folio to a primer.
Charles Caleb Colton
That author, however, who has thought more than he has read, read more than he has written, and written more than he has published, if he does not command success, has at least deserved 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
No two things differ more than hurry and despatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind despatch of a strong one.
Charles Caleb Colton
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
Charles Caleb Colton
Courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of the most precious things.
Charles Caleb Colton
Diffidence is the better part of knowledge.
Charles Caleb Colton
You cannot separate charity and religion.
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
Hope is a prodigal young heir, and experience is his banker.
Charles Caleb Colton
To be a mere verbal critic is what no man of genius would be if he could but to be a critic of true taste and feeling is what no man without genius could be if he would.
Charles Caleb Colton
As we ascend in society, like those who climb a mountain, we shall find that the line of perpetual congelation commences with the higher circles and the nearer we approach to the grand luminary the court, the more frigidity and apathy shall we experience.
Charles Caleb Colton