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To be a mere verbal critic is what no man of genius would be if he could but to be a critic of true taste and feeling is what no man without genius could be if he would.

Charles Caleb Colton

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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
Genius
Feeling
Feelings
True
Verbal
Without
Critic
Would
Critics
Men
Mere
Taste

More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

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To be obliged to beg our daily happiness from others bespeaks a more lamentable poverty than that of him who begs his daily bread.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Drunkenness is the vice of a good constitution or of a bad memory of a constitution so treacherously good that it never bends till it breaks or of a memory that recollects the pleasures of getting intoxicated, but forgets the pains of getting sober.
Charles Caleb Colton
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To judge by the event is an error all commit: for in every instance courage, if crowned with success, is heroism if clouded by defeat, temerity. When Nelson fought his battle in the Sound, it was the result alone that decided whether he was to kiss a hand at court or a rod at a court-martial.
Charles Caleb Colton
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We devote the activity of our youth to revelry and the decrepitude of our old age to repentance: and we finish the farce by bequeathing our dead bodies to the chancel, which when living, we interdicted from the church.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Some frauds succeed from the apparent candor, the open confidence, and the full blaze of ingenuousness that is thrown around them. The slightest mystery would excite suspicion and ruin all. Such stratagems may be compared to the stars they are discoverable by darkness and hidden only by light.
Charles Caleb Colton
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There are two way of establishing a reputation, one to be praised by honest people and the other to be accused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the first one, because it will always be accompanied by the latter.
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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That theatrical kind of virtue, which requires publicity for its stage, and an applauding world for its audience, could not be depended on, in the secrecy of solitude, or the retirement of a desert.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Man is an embodied paradox, a bundle of contradictions.
Charles Caleb Colton
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There are truths which some men despise because they have not examined, and which they will not examine because they despise.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Two things, well considered, would prevent many quarrels: first, to have it well ascertained whether we are not disputing about terms, rather than things and, secondly, to examine whether that on which we differ is worth contending about.
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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Professors in every branch of the sciences, prefer their own theories to truth: the reason is that their theories are private property, but truth is common stock.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The only kind office performed for us by our friends of which we never complain is our funeral and the only thing which we most want, happens to be the only thing we never purchase--our coffin.
Charles Caleb Colton
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There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Body and mind, like man and wife, do not always agree to die together.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The most zealous converters are always the most rancorous when they fail of producing conversion.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Secrecy is the soul of all great designs. Perhaps more has been effected by concealing our own intentions than by discovering those of our enemy.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Sincerely to aspire after virtue, is to gain her and zealously to labour after her wages, is to receive them.
Charles Caleb Colton
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A leveller has long ago been set down as a ridiculous and chimerical being, who, if he could finish his work to-day, would have to begin it again tomorrow.
Charles Caleb Colton