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That an author's work is the mirror of his mind is a position that has led to very false conclusions. If Satan himself were to write a book it would be in praise of virtue, because the good would purchase it for use, and the bad for ostentation.

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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More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

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The study of mathematics, like the Nile, begins in minuteness but ends in magnificence.
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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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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.
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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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God will excuse our prayers for ourselves whenever we are prevented from them by being occupied in such good works as to entitle us to the prayers of others.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Whenever we find ourselves more inclined to persecute than to persuade, we may then be certain that our zeal has more of pride in it than of charity.
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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Genius in one grand particular is like life. We know nothing of either but by their effects.
Charles Caleb Colton
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None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.
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A lady of fashion will sooner excuse a freedom flowing from admiration than a slight resulting from indifference.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Sturdy beggars can bear stout denials.
Charles Caleb Colton
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A power above all human responsibility ought to be above all human attainment.
Charles Caleb Colton
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If you cannot inspire a woman with love of you, fill her above the brim with love of herself all that runs over will be yours.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The gamester, if he die a martyr to his profession, is doubly ruined. He adds his soul to every other loss, and by the act of suicide, renounces earth to forfeit Heaven.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Women generally consider consequences in love, seldom in resentment.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The wise man has his follies, no less than the fool but it has been said that herein lies the difference--the follies of the fool are known to the world, but hidden from himself the follies of the wise are known to himself, but hidden from the world.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Pride is less ashamed of being ignorant, than of being instructed, and she looks too high to find that, which very often lies beneath her.
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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When I meet with any persons who write obscurely or converse confusedly, I am apt to suspect two things first, that such persons do not understand themselves and secondly, that they are not worthy of being understood by others.
Charles Caleb Colton