Charles Caleb Colton (1780–1832) was an English cleric, writer and collector, well known for his eccentricities.
It is not so difficult a task to plant new truths, as to root out old errors; for there is this paradox in men, they run after that which is new, but are prejudiced in favor of that which is old.
It is seldom that statesmen have the option of choosing between a good and an evil.
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.
Oppression cannot prosper where none will submit to be enslaved.
We cannot think too highly of our nature, nor too humbly of ourselves.
If you are under obligations to many, it is prudent to postpone the recompensing of one, until it be in your power to remunerate all; otherwise you will make more enemies by what you give, than by what you withhold.
Persecuting bigots may be compared to those burning lenses which Lenhenboeck and others composed from ice; by their chilling apathy they freeze the suppliant; by their fiery zeal they burn the sufferer.
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.
Secrecy of design, when combined with rapidity of execution, like me column that guided Israel in the deserts, becomes the guardian pillar of light and fire to our friends, a cloud of overwhelming and impenetrable darkness to our enemies.
The science of mathematics performs more than it promises, but the science of metaphysics promises more than it performs.
Subtract from many modern poets all that may be found in Shakespeare, and trash will remain.
There is this paradox in pride - it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so.
There can be no Christianity where there is no charity
Life is the jailer of the soul in this filthy prison, and its only deliverer is death.
It is not until we have passed through the furnace that we are made to know how much dross there is in our composition.
Pride is less ashamed of being ignorant, than of being instructed, and she looks too high to find that, which very often lies beneath her.
It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors as his knowledge.
Gold is worshipped in all climates, without a single temple, and by all classes, without a single hypocrite.
Many a man may thank his talent for his rank, but no man has ever been able to return the compliment by thanking his rank for his talent.
Sir Richard Steele has observed, that there is this difference between the Church of Rome and the Church of England: the one professes to be infallible, the other to be never in the wrong.