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The interests of society often render it expedient not to utter the whole truth, the interests of science never: for in this field we have much more to fear from the deficiency of truth than from its abundance.

Charles Caleb Colton

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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
Truth
Interests
Whole
Field
Much
Fields
Never
Interest
Expedient
Society
Deficiency
Fear
Render
Often
Utter
Science
Abundance

More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

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A leveller has long ago been set down as a ridiculous and chimerical being, who, if he could finish his work to-day, would have to begin it again tomorrow.
Charles Caleb Colton
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We may anticipate bliss, but who ever drank of that enchanted cup unalloved?
Charles Caleb Colton
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Time,- that black and narrow isthmus between two eternities.
Charles Caleb Colton
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They that are loudest in their threats are the weakest in the execution of them. It is probable that he who is killed by lightning hears no noise but the thunder-clap which follows, and which most alarms the ignorant, is the surest proof of their safety.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The most notorious swindler has not assumed so many names as self-love, nor is so much ashamed of his own. She calls herself patriotism, when at the same time she is rejoicing at just as much calamity to her native country as will introduce herself into power, and expel her rivals.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The plainest man that can convince a woman that he is really in love with her has done more to make her in love with him than the handsomest man, if he can produce no such conviction. For the love of woman is a shoot, not a seed, and flourishes most vigorously only when ingrafted on that love which is rooted in the breast of another.
Charles Caleb Colton
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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
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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
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A cool blooded and crafty politician, when he would be thoroughly revenged on his enemy, makes the injuries which have been inflicted, not on himself, but on others, the pretext of his attack. He thus engages the world as a partisan in his quarrel, and dignifies his private hate, by giving it the air of disinterested resentment.
Charles Caleb Colton
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I have somewhere seen it observed that we should make the same use of a book that the bee does of a flower: she steals sweets from it, but does not injure it.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, dispatch of a strong one.
Charles Caleb Colton
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No improvement that takes place in either sex can possibly be confined to itself. Each is a universal mirror to each, and the respective refinement of the one will always be in reciprocal proportion to the polish of the other.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The acquirements of science may be termed the armour of the mind but that armour would be worse than useless, that cost us all we had, and left us nothing to defend.
Charles Caleb Colton
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There are three modes of bearing the ills of life by indifference, which is the most common by philosophy, which is the most ostentatious and by religion, which is the most effectual.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The inheritance of a distinguished and noble name is a proud inheritance to him who lives worthily of it.
Charles Caleb Colton
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An act by which we make one friend and one enemy is a losing game because revenge is a much stronger principle than gratitude
Charles Caleb Colton
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If kings would only determine not to extend their dominions until they had filled them with happiness, they would find the smallest territories too large, but the longest life too short for the full accomplishment of so grand and so noble an ambition.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Most plagiarists, like the drone, have neither taste to select, industry to acquire, nor skill to improve, but impudently pilfer the honey ready prepared, from the hive.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The enthusiast has been compared to a man walking in a fog everything immediately around him, or in contact with him, appears sufficiently clear and luminous but beyond the little circle of which he himself is the centre, all is mist and error and confusion.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Logic is a large drawer, containing some useful instruments, and many more that are superfluous. A wise man will look into it for two purposes, to avail himself of those instruments that are really useful, and to admire the ingenuity with which those that are not so, are assorted and arranged.
Charles Caleb Colton