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He that aspires to be the head of a party will find it more difficult to please his friends than to perplex his foes. He must often act from false reasons which are weak, because he dares not avow the true reasons which are strong.

Charles Caleb Colton

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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
Often
Dare
Perplex
Strong
Reasons
Avow
True
Weak
Aspires
Reason
Please
Foes
Find
Head
Dares
Must
Party
Foe
Friends
Aspire
Difficult
False

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Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.
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A lady of fashion will sooner excuse a freedom flowing from admiration than a slight resulting from indifference.
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It is much easier to ruin a man of principle than a man of none, for he may be ruined through his scruples. Knavery is supple and can bend but honesty is firm and upright, and yields not.
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Life is the jailer of the soul in this filthy prison, and its only deliverer is death.
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Perfection doesn't exist... only good attempts.
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Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. Like friends, too, we should return to them again and again for, like true friends, they will never fail us - never cease to instruct - never cloy.
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We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.
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Avarice has ruined more men than prodigality, and the blindest thoughtlessness of expenditure has not destroyed so many fortunes as the calculating but insatiable lust of accumulation.
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It is best, if possible, to deceive no one for he that ... begins by deceiving others, will end ... by deceiving himself.
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Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.
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Ignorance lies at the bottom of all human knowledge, and the deeper we penetrate, the nearer we arrive unto it.
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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.
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Shakespeare, Butler and Bacon have rendered it extremely difficult for all who come after them to be sublime, witty or profound.
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It is adverse to talent to be consorted and trained up with inferior minds and inferior companions, however high they may rank. The foal of the racer neither finds out his speed nor calls out his powers if pastured out with the common herd, that are destined for the collar and the yoke.
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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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It is always easy to shut a book, but not quite so easy to get rid of a lettered coxcomb.
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In pulpit eloquence, the grand difficulty lies here--to give the subject all the dignity it so fully deserves, without attaching any importance to ourselves. The Christian messenger cannot think too highly of his prince, nor too humbly of himself.
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It was served of the Jesuits, that they constantly inculcated a thorough contempt of worldly things in their doctrines, but eagerly grasped at them in their lives. They were wise in their generation for they cried down worldly things because they wanted to obtain them, and cried up spiritual things, because they wanted to dispose of them.
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Avarice has ruined more souls than extravagance.
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To look back to antiquity is one thing, to go back to it is another.
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