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He that can enjoy the intimacy of the great, and on no occasion disgust them by familiarity, or disgrace himself by servility, proves that he is as perfect a gentleman by nature as his companions are by rank.

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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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.
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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.
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Hope is a prodigal young heir, and experience is his banker.
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There are two principles of established acceptance in morals first, that self-interest is the mainspring of all of our actions, and secondly, that utility is the test of their value.
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Posthumous fame is a plant of tardy growth, for our body must be the seed of it or we may liken it to a torch, which nothing but the last spark of life can light up or we may compare it to the trumpet of the archangel, for it is blown over the dead but unlike that awful blast, it is of earth, not of heaven, and can neither rouse nor raise us.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The poorest man would not part with health for money, but the richest would gladly part with all their money for health.
Charles Caleb Colton
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All poets pretend to write for immortality, but the whole tribe have no objection to present pay, and present praise. Lord Burleigh is not the only statesman who has thought one hundred pounds too much for a song, though sung by Spenser although Oliver Goldsmith is the only poet who ever considered himself to have been overpaid.
Charles Caleb Colton
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We hate some persons because we do not know them and will not know them because we hate them.
Charles Caleb Colton
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If merited, no courage can stand against its just indignation.
Charles Caleb Colton
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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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Power, like the diamond, dazzles the beholder, and also the wearer it dignifies meanness it magnifies littleness to what is contemptible, it gives authority to what is low, exaltation.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Time is the measurer of all things, but is itself immeasurable, and the grand discloser of all things, but is itself undisclosed.
Charles Caleb Colton
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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
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In the pursuit of knowledge, follow it wherever it is to be found like fern, it is the produce of all climates, and like coin, its circulation is not restricted to any particular class.
Charles Caleb Colton
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If you want enemies, excel others if you want friends, let others excel you.
Charles Caleb Colton
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When you have nothing to say, say nothing a weak defense strengthens your opponent, and silence is less injurious than a bad reply.
Charles Caleb Colton
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It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors as his knowledge.
Charles Caleb Colton
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When a man has displayed talent in some particular path, and left all competitors behind him in it, the world are too apt to give him credit for universality of genius, and to anticipate for him success in all that he undertakes.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Ignorance lies at the bottom of all human knowledge, and the deeper we penetrate the nearer we arrive unto it. For what do we truly know, or what can we clearly affirm, of any one of those important things upon which all our reasonings must of necessity be built--time and space, life and death, matter and mind?
Charles Caleb Colton