Charles Caleb Colton Quotes

If we lived in a State where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly. And we'd live like animals or angels in the happy land that /needs/ no heroes. But since in fact we see that avarice, anger, envy, pride, sloth, lust and stupidity commonly profit far beyond humility, chastity, fortitude, justice and thought, and have to choose, to be human at all... why then perhaps we /must/ stand fast a little --even at the risk of being heroes.

Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company.

Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.

Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage in them - that it was a vain endeavor?

A benevolent malefactor, merciful, gentle, helpful, clement, a convict, returning good for evil, giving back pardon for hatred, preferring pity to vengeance, preferring to ruin himself rather than to ruin his enemy, saving him who had smitten him, kneeling on the heights of virtue, more nearly akin to an angel than to a man. Javert was constrained to admit to himself that this monster existed. Things could not go on in this manner.

I entreat masters to live a good life and faithfully to instruct their scholars, especially that they may love God and learn to give themselves to knowledge, in order to promote His honour, the welfare of the state, and their own salvation, but not for the sake of avarice or the praise of man.

Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue, where patience, honor, sweet humility, and calm fortitude, take root and strongly flourish.

Tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do!

I wish to be a martyr, and I don't fear death.

We are apt to love praise, but not deserve it. But if we would deserve it, we must love virtue more than that.

A man must be willing to die for justice. Death is an inescapable reality and men die daily, but good deeds live forever.

While the willingness of the ancient Greeks to sacrifice their lives for glory brings tears to my eyes, I cannot ultimately condone the choice of Achilles.

Men never do good unless necessity drives them to it.

Courage is the most important of the virtues because it is the one that makes all the others possible.

Martyrs win by losing.

The fanatic ... sacrifices his life to prove his worth.

Reason perhaps teaches certain bourgeois virtues, but it does not make either heroes or saints.

Men who have sacrifice their well-being, and even their lives, for the cause of truth or the public good, are, from an empirical point of view -- which scorns virtue and altruism -- regarded as insane or fools; but, from a moral standpoint, they are heroes who do honor to humanity..

I believe that courage is morally neutral. I can well imagine wicked people being brave and good people being timid or afraid. I don't consider it a moral virtue.

When were the good and the brave ever in a majority?

People don't just want to be rich and successful, they want to be good.

I liked the clear morality of 1941, when you had no doubt about good and evil. There was a lot of idealism, people fighting for a cause. People are searching for morality today.

He who seeks fame by the practice of virtue asks only for what he deserves.

Honor modesty more than your life.

Remain tranquil and prepare to bear still greater trials. All is not lost even though you be troubled oftener or tempted more grievously. You are a man, not God. You are flesh, not an angel. How can you possibly expect to remain always in the same state of virtue when the angels in heaven and the first man in paradise failed to do so? I am He who rescues the afflicted and brings to My divinity those who know their own weakness.