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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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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
Cause
Talent
Causes
Preaches
High
Talents
Experience
Chief
Chiefs
Appreciation
Vain

More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

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Philosophy is a goddess, whose head indeed is in heaven, but whose feet are upon earth she attempts more than she accomplishes, and promises more than she performs.
Charles Caleb Colton
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It is astonishing how much more anxious people are to lengthen life than to improve it and as misers often lose large sums of money in attempting to make more, so do hypochondriacs squander large sums of time in search of nostrums by which they vainly hope they may get more time to squander.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Five thousand years have added no improvement to the hive of the bee, nor to the house of the beaver but look at the habitations and the achievements of men!
Charles Caleb Colton
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The code of poor laws has at length grown up into a tree, which, like the fabulous Upas, overshadows and poisons the land unwholesome expedients were the bud, dilemmas and depravities have been the blossom, and danger and despair are the bitter fruit.
Charles Caleb Colton
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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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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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Diffidence is the better part of knowledge.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Fashions smile has given wit to dullness and grace to deformity, and has brought everything into vogue, by turns, but virtue.
Charles Caleb Colton
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It is with honesty in one particular as with wealth,--those that have the thing care less about the credit of it than those who have it not. No poor man can well afford to be thought so, and the less of honesty a finished rogue possesses the less he can afford to be supposed to want it.
Charles Caleb Colton
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It is a common observation that any fool can get money but they are not wise that think so.
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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It is a mortifying truth, and ought to teach the wisest of us humility, that many of the most valuable discoveries have been the result of chance rather than of contemplation, and of accident rather than of design.
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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Wit may do very well for a mistress, but [I] should prefer reason for a wife.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Hope is a prodigal young heir, and experience is his banker.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Logic is a large drawer, containing some useful instruments, and many more that are superfluous. A wise man will look into it for two purposes, to avail himself of those instruments that are really useful, and to admire the ingenuity with which those that are not so, are assorted and arranged.
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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That is true beauty which has not only a substance, but a spirit a beauty that we must intimately know, justly to appreciate.
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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Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.
Charles Caleb Colton