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The French have a saying that whatever excellence a man may exhibit in a public station he is very apt to be ridiculous in a private one.

Charles Caleb Colton

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Charles Caleb Colton
Died: 1832
Died: January 1
Priest
Writer
Charles Colton
Public
Exhibits
Whatever
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May
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Men
French
Excellence
Ridiculous
Private
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More quotes by Charles Caleb Colton

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Opinions, like showers, are generated in high places, but they invariably descend into lower ones, and ultimately flow down to the people as rain unto the sea.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Words indeed are but the signs and counters of knowledge, and their currency should be strictly regulated by the capital which they represent.
Charles Caleb Colton
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No propagation or multiplication is more rapid that that of evil, unless it be checked no growth more certain.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The mob is a monster, with the hands of Briareus, but the head of Polyphemus,--strong to execute, but blind to perceive.
Charles Caleb Colton
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There are many women who have never intrigued, and many men who have never gamed but those who have done either but once are very extraordinary animals.
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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We strive as hard to hide our hearts from ourselves as from others, and always with more success for in deciding upon our own case we are both judge, jury, and executioner, and where sophistry cannot overcome the first, or flattery the second, self-love is always ready to defeat the sentence by bribing the third.
Charles Caleb Colton
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I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy but I will remember, and this I owe to myself.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Did universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven, and hell a fable.
Charles Caleb Colton
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What is earthly happiness? that phantom of which we hear so much, and see so little whose promises are constantly given and constantly broken, but as constantly believed that cheats us with the sound instead of the substance, and with the blossom instead of the fruit. Like Juno, she is a goddess in pursuit, but a cloud in possession.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Some men who know that they are great are so very haughty withal and insufferable that their acquaintance discover their greatness only by the tax of humility which they are obliged to pay as the price of their friendship.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The greatest and most amiable privilege which the rich enjoy over the poor is that which they exercise the least--the privilege of making others happy.
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 only men will get the body of knowledge without the soul and he that studies only books, the soul without the body.
Charles Caleb Colton
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There are two things which ought to teach us to think but meanly of human glory the very best have had their calumniators, the very worst their panegyrists.
Charles Caleb Colton
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God is on the side of virtue for whoever dreads punishment suffers it, and whoever deserves it, dreads it .
Charles Caleb Colton
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Some indeed there are who profess to despise all flattery, but even these are nevertheless to be flattered, by being told that they do despise it.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Repartee is perfect when it effects its purpose with a double edge. It is the highest order of wit, as it indicates the coolest yet quickest exercise of genius, at a moment when the passions are roused.
Charles Caleb Colton
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Of present fame think little, and of future less the praises that we receive after we are buried, like the flowers that are strewed over our grave, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead.
Charles Caleb Colton
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The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.
Charles Caleb Colton