“Pride, like the magnet, constantly points to one object, self; but, unlike the magnet, it has no attractive pole, but at all points repels.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine, but if defer tasting them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Opinions, like showers, are generated in high places, but they invariably descend into lower ones, and ultimately flow down to the people as rain unto the sea.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“In life we shall find many men that are great, and some that are good, but very few men that are both great and good.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“True goodness is not without that germ of greatness that can bear with patience the mistakes of the ignorant.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“We are more inclined to hate one another for points on which we differ, than to love one another for points on which we agree.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Pity a thing often avowed, seldom felt; hatred is a thing often felt, seldom avowed.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Public charities and benevolent associations for the gratuitous relief of every species of distress, are peculiar to Christianity; no other system of civil or religious policy has originated them; they form its highest praise and characteristic feature.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“The seeds of repentance are sown in youth by pleasure, but the harvest is reaped in age by pain.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Precisely in proportion to our own intellectual weakness will be our credulity as to those mysterious powers assumed by others.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words Addressed to Those who Think
“Those that know the least of others think the highest of themselves.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“An Irish man fights before he reasons, a Scotchman reasons before he fights, an Englishman is not particular as to the order of precedence, but will do either to accommodate his customers.”
Source: Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son on men and manners. To which are added, selections from Colton's 'Lacon'.
“When we feel a strong desire to thrust our advice upon others, it is usually because we suspect their weakness; but we ought rather to suspect our own.”
Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
“When certain persons abuse us, let us ask ourselves what description of characters it is that they admire; we shall often find this a very consolatory question.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Criticism is like champagne, nothing more execrable if bad, nothing more excellent if good.”
Source: Lacon: or, Many things in few words
“Custom looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present, but both of them are somewhat purblind as to things that are to come.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“If the prodigal quits life in debt to others, the miser quits it still deeper in debt to himself.”
Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
“Pedantry crams our heads with learned lumber and takes out our brains to make room for it.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“We are not more ingenious in searching out bad motives for good actions when performed by others, than good motives for bad actions when performed by ourselves.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“There are two principles of established acceptance in morals; first, that self-interest is the mainspring of all of our actions, and secondly, that utility is the test of their value.”
“Riches may enable us to confer favors, but to confer them with propriety and grace requires a something that riches cannot give.”
Source: L.P.
“Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one, on which we must first erase.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Total freedom from error is what none of us will allow to our neighbors; however we may be inclined to flirt a little with such spotless perfection ourselves.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“It is far better to borrow experience than to buy it.”
Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
“Whenever we find ourselves more inclined to persecute than to persuade, we may then be certain that our zeal has more of pride in it than of charity.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Flattery is often a traffic of mutual meanness, where although both parties intend deception, neither are deceived.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“We must be careful how we flatter fools too little, or wise men too much, for the flatterer must act the very reverse of the physician, and administer the strongest dose only to the weakest patient.”
Source: Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son on men and manners. To which are added, selections from Colton's 'Lacon'.
“With the offspring of genius, the law of parturition is reversed; the throes are in the conception, the pleasure in the birth.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Genius in one grand particular is like life. We know nothing of either but by their effects.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Hope is a prodigal young heir, and experience is his banker.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Knowledge is two-fold, and consists not only in an affirmation of what is true, but in the negation of that which is false.”
Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
“The seat of perfect contentment is in the head; for every individual is thoroughly satisfied with his own proportion of brains.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Religion has treated knowledge sometimes as an enemy, sometimes as a hostage; often as a captive and more often as a child; but knowledge has become of age, and religion must either renounce her acquaintance, or introduce her as a companion and respect her as a friend.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“We ought not to be over-anxious to encourage innovation in cases of doubtful improvement, for an old system must ever have two advantages over a new one; it is established, and it is understood.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Deliberate with caution, but act with decision and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.”
Source: L.P.
“In great cities men are more callous both to the happiness and the misery of others, than in the country; for they are constantly in the habit of seeing both extremes.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Of all the faculties of the mind, memory is the first that flourishes, and the first that dies.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“To cure us of our immoderate love of gain, we should seriously consider how many goods there are that money will not purchase, and these the best; and how many evils there are that money will not remedy, and these the worst.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words Addressed to Those who Think
“Wars of opinion, as they have been the most destructive, are also the most disgraceful of conflicts.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“If we trace the history of most revolutions, we shall find that the first inroads upon the laws have been made by the governors, as often as by the governed.”
Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
“Attempts at reform, when they fail, strengthen despotism, as he that struggles tightens those cords he does not succeed in breaking.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Physicians must discover the weaknesses of the human mind, and even condescend to humor them, or they will never be called in to cure the infirmities of the body.”
Source: L.P.
“That cowardice is incorrigible which the love of power cannot overcome.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“The worst thing that can be said of the most powerful is that they can take your life; but the same can be said of the most weak.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Eloquence is the language of nature, and cannot be learned in the schools; but rhetoric is the creature of art, which he who feels least will most excel in.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“There are some frauds so well conducted that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but live for it.”
Source: L.P.
“Those who bequeath unto themselves a pompous funeral, are at just so much expense to inform the world of something that had much better be concealed; namely, that their vanity has survived themselves.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“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.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Constant success shows us but one side of the world. For as it surrounds us with friends who will tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we can learn our defects.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
