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Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

Book by Charles Caleb Colton · 31 quotes · Men, Ifs, May

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Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think Quotes

“Were the life of man prolonged, he would become such a proficient in villainy, that it would become necessary again to drown or to burn the world. Earth would become an hell; for future rewards when put off to a great distance, would cease to encourage, and future punishments to alarm.”

MenWorldEarthHellDistanceRewardsPunishmentCeaseImmortalityAlarmsVillainy
Book:Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
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“When a man has displayed talent in some particular path, and left all competitors behind him in it, the world are too apt to give him credit for universality of genius, and to anticipate for him success in all that he undertakes.”

MenWorldGivingLeftBehindsPathTalentParticularGeniusCreditCompetitorsAnticipateUniversality
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“It has been shrewdly said, that when, men abuse us we should suspect ourselves, and when they praise us, them. It is a rare instance of virtue to despise which censure which we do not deserve; and still more rare to despise praise which we do.”

MenShouldHas BeensSaidStillsVirtueDeserveAbusePraiseInstanceSuspectsDespiseCensure
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“For all the practical purposes of life, truth might as well be in a prison as in the folio of a schoolman; and those who release her from her cobwebbed shelf and teach her to live with men have the merit of liberating, if not of discovering, her.”

IfsMenWellsMightPurposeTeachPrisonPracticalsReleaseMeritPurpose Of LifeDiscoveringTruth Of LifeShelvesLiberatingAuthorship
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“Emulation has been termed a spur to virtue, and assumes to be a spur of gold. But it is a spur composed of baser materials, and if tried in the furnace will be found to want that fixedness which is the characteristic of gold. He that pursues virtue, only to surpass others, is not far from wishing others less forward than himself; and he that rejoices too much at his own perfections will be too little grieved at the defects of other men.”

IfsMenWantLittlesHas BeensFoundWishVirtueToo MuchMaterialsPerfectionGoldAssumingPursueCharacteristicsRejoiceDefectsSpursFurnacesEmulation
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“As the grand discordant harmony of the celestial bodies may be explained by the simple principles of gravity and impulse, so also in that more wonderful and complicated microcosm, the heart of man, all the phenomena of morals are perhaps resolvable into one single principle, the pursuit of apparent good; for although customs universally vary, yet man in all climates and countries is essentially the same.”

MenHeartMayCountryBodySimpleMoralPrinciplesWonderfulHarmonyClimateComplicatedPursuitImpulseMotiveCustomsGravityVaryCelestialMicrocosmCelestial Bodies
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“If it be true that men of strong imaginations are usually dogmatists--and I am inclined to think it is so--it ought to follow that men of weak imaginations are the reverse; in which case we should have some compensation for stupidity. But it unfortunately happens that no dogmatist is more obstinate or less open to conviction than a fool.”

IfsThinkingMenShouldHappensStrongImaginationCasesFoolOughtWeakShould HaveConvictionStupidityBeing TrueReverseCompensationObstinateObstinacy
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“Heaven may have happiness as utterly unknown to us as the gift of perfect vision would be to a man born blind. If we consider the inlets of pleasure from five senses only, we may be sure that the same Being who created us could have given us five hundred, if He had pleased.”

IfsMenMayWould BeGivenHeavenBornPerfectPleasureVisionFiveBlessingHundredBlindSensesFive Senses
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“Shrewd and crafty politicians, when they wish to bring about an unpopular measure, must not go straight forward to work, if they do they will certainly fail; and failures to men in power, are like defeats to a general, they shake their popularity. Therefore, since they cannot sail in the teeth of the wind, they must tack, and ultimately gain their object, by appearing at times to be departing from it.”

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“Men are more readily contented with no intellectual light than with a little; and wherever they have been taught to acquire some knowledge in order to please others, they have most generally gone on to acquire more, to please themselves.”

MenLittlesHas BeensLightOrderKnowledgeGoneTaughtPleaseIntellectualAcquireSelf Knowledge
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“A man who knows the world will not only make the most of everything he does know, but of many things he does not know, and will gain more credit by his adroit mode of hiding his ignorance than the pedant by his awkward attempt to exhibit his erudition.”

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“Others, again, give us the mere carcass of another man’s thoughts, but deprived of all their life and spirit, and this is to add murder to robbery. I have somewhere seen it observed, that we should make the same use of a book, as a bee does of a flower; she steals sweets from it, but does not injure it; and those sweets she herself improves and concocts into honey. But most plagiarists, like the drone, have neither taste to select, nor industry to acquire, nor skill to improve, but impudently pilfer the honey ready prepared from the hive.”

MenGivingShouldDoeBookUseSpiritReadySweetFlowerIndustryTasteSkillsMurderAddMerePreparedStealingAcquireHoneyBeesDeprivedSelectAnother ManDronesRobberyHives
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