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We injure mysteries, which are matters of faith, by any attempt at explanation in order to make them matters of reason. Could they be explained, they would cease to be mysteries and it has been well said that a thing is not necessarily against reason because it happens to be above it.

Charles Caleb Colton

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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
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More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

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Hope is a prodigal young heir, and Experience is his banker but his drafts are seldom honoured, since there is often a heavy balance against him, because he draws largely on a small capital, is not yet in possession, and if he were, would die.
Charles Caleb Colton
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It was served of the Jesuits, that they constantly inculcated a thorough contempt of worldly things in their doctrines, but eagerly grasped at them in their lives. They were wise in their generation for they cried down worldly things because they wanted to obtain them, and cried up spiritual things, because they wanted to dispose of them.
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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He who knows himself knows others.
Charles Caleb Colton
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As that gallant can best affect a pretended passion for one woman who has no true love for another, so he that has no real esteem for any of the virtues can best assume the appearance of them all.
Charles Caleb Colton
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It is always easy to shut a book, but not quite so easy to get rid of a lettered coxcomb.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.
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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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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A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm but if the anchor be too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which was intended for her preservation.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Sloth, if it has prevented many crimes, has also smothered many virtues.
Charles Caleb Colton
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That which we acquire with the most difficulty we retain the longest as those who have earned a fortune are usually more careful of it than those who have inherited one.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Instead of exhibiting talent in the hope that the world would forgive their eccentricities, they have exhibited only their eccentricities, in the hope that the world would give them credit for talent.
Charles Caleb Colton
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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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He that studies books alone, will know how things ought to be and he that studies men, will know how things are.
Charles Caleb Colton
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A wise minister would rather preserve peace than gain a victory, because he knows that even the most successful war leaves nations generally more poor, always more profligate, than it found them.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.
Charles Caleb Colton
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In pulpit eloquence, the grand difficulty lies here--to give the subject all the dignity it so fully deserves, without attaching any importance to ourselves. The Christian messenger cannot think too highly of his prince, nor too humbly of himself.
Charles Caleb Colton
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War kills men, and men deplore the loss but war also crushes bad principles and tyrants, and so saves societies.
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