“Perfection doesn't exist... only good attempts.”
“The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age.”
Source: Lacon: or, Many things in few words
“The inheritance of a distinguished and noble name is a proud inheritance to him who lives worthily of it.”
“A power above all human responsibility ought to be above all human attainment.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“There are many that despise half the world; but if there be any that despise the whole of it, it is because the other half despises them.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Most men know what they hate, few what they love.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“He that can please nobody is not so much to be pitied as he that nobody can please.”
Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
“Let us not be too prodigal when we are young, nor too parsimonious when we are old. Otherwise we shall fall into the common error of those, who, when they had the power to enjoy, had not the prudence to acquire; and when they had the prudence to acquire, had no longer the power to enjoy.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Short as life is, some find it long enough to outlive their characters, their constitutions and their estates.”
Source: L.P.
“The brightest thunder-bolt is elicited from the darkest storm.”
Source: L.P.
“Men of strong minds and who think for themselves, should not be discouraged on finding occasionally that some of their best ideas have been anticipated by former writers; they will neither anathematize others nor despair themselves. They will rather go on discovering things before discovered, until they are rewarded with a land hitherto unknown, an empire indisputably their own, both right of conquest and of discovery.”
“The reason why great men meet with so little pity or attachment in adversity, would seem to be this: the friends of a great man were made by his fortune, his enemies by himself, and revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“There is a diabolical trio existing in the natural man, implacable, inextinguishable, co-operative and consentaneous, pride, envy, and hate; pride that makes us fancy we deserve all the goods that others possess; envy that some should be admired while we are overlooked; and hate, because all that is bestowed on others, diminishes the sum we think due to ourselves.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words Addressed to Those who Think
“It is better to have wisdom without learning than learning without wisdom.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Temperate men drink the most, because they drink the longest.”
Source: L.P.
“The wealth is ultimately just a relative thing. As a person with little money and little more needs to rich guys money but really wishes”
“In death itself there can be nothing terrible, for the act of death annihilates sensation; but there are many roads to death, and some of them justly formidable, even to the bravest.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Ennui has made more gamblers than avarice.”
“In answering an opponent, arrange your ideas, but not your words.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Some read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed. Health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius; and we are never more deceived than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity for erudition.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Men spend their lives in anticipations,—in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other—it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.”
“Friendship often ends in love, but love in friendship - never.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.”
Source: Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son on men and manners. To which are added, selections from Colton's 'Lacon'.
“The present time has one advantage over every other -- it is our own.”
Source: Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son on men and manners. To which are added, selections from Colton's 'Lacon'.
“Time is the measurer of all things, but is itself immeasurable, and the grand discloser of all things, but is itself undisclosed.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Time is the most undefinable yet paradoxical of things; the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past, even while we attempt to define it.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Time ... advances like the slowest tide, but retreats like the swiftest torrent.”
Source: Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son on men and manners. To which are added, selections from Colton's 'Lacon'.
“Time, the cradle of hope.... Wisdom walks before it, opportunity with it, and repentance behind it: he that has made it his friend will have little to fear from his enemies, but he that has made it his enemy will have little to hope from his friends.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Time,- that black and narrow isthmus between two eternities.”
“To look back to antiquity is one thing, to go back to it is another.”
Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
“In science, reason is the guide; in poetry, taste. The object of the one is truth, which is uniform and indivisible; the object of the other is beauty, which is multiform and varied.”
“A Christian builds his fortitude on a better foundation than stoicism; he is pleased with every thing that happens, because he knows it could not happen unless it first pleased God, and that which pleases Him must be best.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“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.”
“To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it: the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Theories are private property, but truth is common stock.”
“Physical courage, which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“There is this of good in real evils; they deliver us, while they last, from the petty despotism of all that were imaginary.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Evils in the journey of life are like the hills which alarm travelers upon their road; they both appear great at a distance, but when we approach them we find that they are far less insurmountable than we had conceived.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words: Address--to Those who Think
“All adverse and depressing influences can be overcome, not by fighting, by by rising above them.”
“We are sure to be losers when we quarrel with ourselves; it is civil war.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“We cannot think too highly of our nature, nor too humbly of ourselves.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Subtract from the great man all that he owes to opportunity, all that he owes to chance, and all that he gained by the wisdom of his friends and the folly of his enemies, and the giant will often be seen to be a pygmy.”
“Early rising not only gives us more life in the same number of years, but adds, likewise, to their number; and not only enables us to enjoy more of existence in the same time, but increases also the measure.”
Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
“Ambition is to the mind what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower by reason of our blindness.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“There is this paradox in pride - it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Of all the marvelous works of God, perhaps the one angels view with the most supreme astonishment, is a proud man.”
“To despise our own species is the price we must often pay for knowledge of it.”
“Pride requires very costly food-its keeper's happiness.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
