Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool.

If you wish to avoid seeing a fool you must first break your looking glass.

Not creating delusions is enlightenment.

He who lives without folly isn't so wise as he thinks.

Getting rid of a delusion makes us wiser than getting hold of a truth.

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

No one but a fool is always right.

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.

Only dumb people are happy.

Man's wisdom is his best friend; folly his worst enemy.

I think it's so completely bizarre and arrogant for anyone to ever think that they could lose their innocence, because that implies that they have some sense, some idea of what's going on, and no one has any idea what's going on.

People are never so near playing the fool as when they think themselves wise.

People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception.

Greatest fools are the most often satisfied.

Only fools imagine they are already awake. How clearly they understand everything! How easily they distinguish this deception from that reality!

He who thinks himself wise, O heavens! is a great fool.

The greatest fools are oft the most satisfied.

Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have.

To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

The learned is happy, nature to explore; The fool is happy, that he knows no more.

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

Yet with great toil all that I can attain by long experience, and in learned schools, is for to know my knowledge is but vain, and those that think them wise, are greatest fools.

Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.

They are so knowing, that they know nothing.