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The consequences of things are not always proportionate to the apparent magnitude of those events that have produced them. Thus the American Revolution, from which little was expected, produced much; but the French Revolution, from which much was expected, produced little.

Charles Caleb Colton
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Our income are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and trip.
Charles Caleb Colton
When millions applaud you seriously ask yourself what harm you have done; and when they disapprove you, what good.
Charles Caleb Colton
There are some frauds so well conducted that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them.
Charles Caleb Colton
The greatest friend of truth is Time, her greatest enemy is Prejudice, and her constant companion is Humility.
Charles Caleb Colton
I'm aiming by the time I'm fifty to stop being an adolescent.
Charles Caleb Colton
Constant success shows us but one side of the world; adversity brings out the reverse of the picture.
Charles Caleb Colton
We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often despise what we really fear.
Charles Caleb Colton
Avarice has ruined more souls than extravagance.
Charles Caleb Colton
Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.
Charles Caleb Colton
Law and equity are two things which God has joined, but which man has put asunder.
Charles Caleb Colton
Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship - never.
Charles Caleb Colton
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
Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance.
Charles Caleb Colton
True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.
Charles Caleb Colton
Nothing so completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than straightforward and simple integrity in another.
Charles Caleb Colton
Liberty will not descend to a people; a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.
Charles Caleb Colton
War kills men, and men deplore the loss; but war also crushes bad principles and tyrants, and so saves societies.
Charles Caleb Colton
Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it's set a rolling it must increase.
Charles Caleb Colton
Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.
Charles Caleb Colton
The firmest of friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.
Charles Caleb Colton
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
Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own country-men, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies, but untravelled minds.
Charles Caleb Colton
Tyrants have not yet discovered any chains that can fetter the mind.
Charles Caleb Colton
Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.
Charles Caleb Colton
He that is good, will infallibly become better, and he that is bad, will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue and time are three things that never stand still.
Charles Caleb Colton
The excess of our youth are checks written against our age and they are payable with interest thirty years later.
Charles Caleb Colton
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
To know a man, observe how he wins his object, rather than how he loses it; for when we fail, our pride supports us - when we succeed, it betrays us.
Charles Caleb Colton
Life isn't like a book. Life isn't logical or sensible or orderly. Life is a mess most of the time. And theology must be lived in the midst of that mess.
Charles Caleb Colton
The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.
Charles Caleb Colton
To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author.
Charles Caleb Colton
Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console.
Charles Caleb Colton
The consequences of things are not always proportionate to the apparent magnitude of those events that have produced them. Thus the American Revolution, from which little was expected, produced much; but the French Revolution, from which much was expected, produced little.
Charles Caleb Colton
No company is preferable to bad. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.
Charles Caleb Colton
True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.
Charles Caleb Colton
The present time has one advantage over every other - it is our own.
Charles Caleb Colton
There is this difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.
Charles Caleb Colton
Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.
Charles Caleb Colton
Physical courage, which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another.
Charles Caleb Colton
There are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion.
Charles Caleb Colton
Many speak the truth when they say that they despise riches, but they mean the riches possessed by others.
Charles Caleb Colton
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
If a horse has four legs, and I'm riding it, I think I can win.
Charles Caleb Colton
Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.
Charles Caleb Colton
There is nothing more imprudent than excessive prudence.
Charles Caleb Colton
Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it; since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live.
Charles Caleb Colton
Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in their actions.
Charles Caleb Colton
Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us by the same route.
Charles Caleb Colton