As no roads are so rough as those that have just been mended, so no sinners are so intolerant as those that have just turned saints.

Charles Caleb Colton (1780–1832), an English cleric-turned-writer, is best known for his aphoristic collection *Lacon; or, Many Things in Few Words* (early 1820s). The remark belongs to Colton’s satirical moral psychology: he repeatedly targets hypocrisy, zealotry, and the social performance of virtue. In the wake of evangelical revival culture and intense public moralizing in Britain, “new converts” (religious or ideological) were a recognizable type—people who, having recently reformed, could become harsh judges of others. Colton frames the observation with a homely comparison (freshly mended roads being rough) to make a pointed comment about the abrasive phase that can accompany sudden moral reform.

Colton suggests that recent reform can produce a paradoxical harshness: those who have only just corrected their own faults may become the most rigid and censorious toward others. The road metaphor implies that improvement is often initially disruptive—repair makes a surface temporarily worse before it becomes smoother. Likewise, moral change may begin with overcompensation: the “new saint” proves sincerity by policing boundaries and condemning the very behaviors they recently practiced. The aphorism warns against self-righteousness and implies that mature virtue is marked by patience and humility, not intolerance. It also hints at a psychological defense: condemning others helps the reformed person distance themselves from their former self.