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Many a man may thank his talent for his rank, but no man has ever been able to return the compliment by thanking his rank for his talent.

Charles Caleb Colton

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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
Many
Rank
Men
Compliment
Thank
Return
Talent
May
Able
Ever
Thanking

More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

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Great minds had rather deserve contemporaneous applause without obtaining it, than obtain without deserving it. If it follow them it is well, but they will not deviate to follow it.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Philosophers have widely differed as to the seat of the soul, and St. Paul has told us that out of the heart proceed murmurings but there can be no doubt that the seat of perfect contentment is in the head, for every individual is thoroughly satisfied with his own proportion of brains.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Antithesis may be the blossom of wit, but it will never arrive at maturity unless sound sense be the trunk and truth the root.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Neither can we admit that definition of genius that some would propose--a power to accomplish all that we undertake for we might multiply examples to prove that this definition of genius contains more than the thing defined. Cicero failed in poetry, Pope in painting, Addison in oratory yet it would be harsh to deny genius to these men.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Opinions, like showers, are generated in high places, but they invariably descend into lower ones, and ultimately flow down to the people as rain unto the sea.
Charles Caleb Colton
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If a book really wants the patronage of a great name, it is a bad book and if it be a good book, it wants it not.
Charles Caleb Colton
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So blinded are we by our passions, that we suffer more to be damned than to be saved.
Charles Caleb Colton
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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
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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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It is more easy to forgive the weak who have injured us than the powerful whom we have injured.
Charles Caleb Colton
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As the gout seems privileged to attack the bodies of the wealthy, so ennui seems to exert a similar prerogative over their minds.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Diffidence is the better part of knowledge.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Too high an appreciation of our own talents is the chief cause why experience preaches to us all in vain.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness when bequeathed by those who, even alive, would part with nothing.
Charles Caleb Colton
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In order to try whether a vessel be leaky, we first prove it with water before we trust it with wine.
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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Those graces which from their presumed facility encourage all to attempt an imitation of them, are usually the most inimitable.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Knowledge is two-fold, and consists not only in an affirmation of what is true, but in the negation of that which is false.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Revenge is a debt, in the paying of which the greatest knave is honest and sincere, and, so far as he is able, punctual.
Charles Caleb Colton