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We injure mysteries, which are matters of faith by any attempt at explanation in order to make them matters of reason.

Charles Caleb Colton

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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
Order
Reason
Injure
Matter
Mysteries
Make
Explanation
Attempt
Matters
Mystery
Faith

More quotes by 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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The further we advance in knowledge, the more simplicity shall we discover in those primary rules that regulate all the apparently endless, complicated, and multiform operations of the Godhead.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Truth can hardly be expected to adapt herself to the crooked policy and wily sinuosities of worldly affairs for truth, like light, travels only in straight lines.
Charles Caleb Colton
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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
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It is curious that we pay statesmen for what they say, not for what they do and judge of them from what they do, not from what they say. Hence they have one code of maxims for profession and another for practice, and make up their consciences as the Neapolitans do their beds, with one set of furniture for show and another for use.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Mental pleasures never cloy unlike those of the body, they are increased by reputation, approved by reflection, and strengthened by enjoyment.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The wealth is ultimately just a relative thing. As a person with little money and little more needs to rich guys money but really wishes
Charles Caleb Colton
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We are not more ingenious in searching out bad motives for good actions when performed by others, than good motives for bad actions when performed by ourselves.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The two most precious things this side of the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other.
Charles Caleb Colton
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There are two metals, one of which is omnipotent in the cabinet, and the other in the camp--gold and iron. He that knows how to apply them both may indeed attain the highest station.
Charles Caleb Colton
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We injure mysteries, which are matters of faith, by any attempt at explanation in order to make them matters of reason. Could they be explained, they would cease to be mysteries and it has been well said that a thing is not necessarily against reason because it happens to be above it.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of the most precious things.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Men of great and shining qualities do not always succeed in life, but the fault lies more often in themselves than in others.
Charles Caleb Colton
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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
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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.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Miss Edgeworth and Mme. de Stael have proved that there is no sex in style and Mme. la Roche Jacqueline, and the Duchesse d'Angouleme have proved that there is no sex in courage.
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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He that will often put eternity and the world before him, and who will dare to look steadfastly at both of them, will find that the more often he contemplates them, the former will grow greater, and the latter less.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Pain may be said to follow pleasure as its shadow but the misfortune is that in this particular case, the substance belongs to the shadow, the emptiness to its cause.
Charles Caleb Colton
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A high degree of intellectual refinement in the female is the surest pledge society can have for the improvement of the male.
Charles Caleb Colton