“That profound firmness which enabler a man to regard difficulties but as evils to be surmounted, no matter what shape they may assume.”
“If that marvellous microcosm, man, with all the costly cargo of his faculties and powers, were indeed a rich argosy, fitted out and freighted only for shipwreck and destruction, who amongst us that tolerate the present only from the hope of the future, who that have any aspirings of a high and intellectual nature about them, could be brought to submit to the disgusting mortifications of the voyage?”
Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
“Neither can we admit that definition of genius that some would propose--"a power to accomplish all that we undertake;" for we might multiply examples to prove that this definition of genius contains more than the thing defined. Cicero failed in poetry, Pope in painting, Addison in oratory; yet it would be harsh to deny genius to these men.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“We cannot think too highly of our nature, nor too humbly of ourselves. When we see the martyr to virtue, subject as he is to the infirmities of a man, yet suffering the tortures of a demon, and bearing them with the magnanimity of a God, do we not behold a heroism that angels may indeed surpass, but which they cannot imitate, and must admire.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Five thousand years have added no improvement to the hive of the bee, nor to the house of the beaver; but look at the habitations and the achievements of men!”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“There are many women who have never intrigued, and many men who have never gamed; but those who have done either but once are very extraordinary animals.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“There are circumstances of peculiar difficulty and danger, where a mediocrity of talent is the most fatal quantum that a man can possibly possess. Had Charles the First and Louis the Sixteenth been more wise or more weak, more firm or more yielding, in either case they had both of them saved their heads.”
Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
“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.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“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.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“If our eloquence be directed above the heads of our hearers, we shall do no execution. By pointing our arguments low, we stand a chance of hitting their hearts as well as their heads. In addressing angels, we could hardly raise our eloquence too high; but we must remember that men are not angels.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Lord Bacon has compared those who move in higher spheres to those heavenly bodies in the firmament, which have much admiration, but little rest. And it is not necessary to invest a wise man with power to convince him that it is a garment bedizened with gold, which dazzles the beholder by its splendor, but oppresses the wearer by its weight.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“There are truths which some men despise because they have not examined, and which they will not examine because they despise. There is one signal instance on record where this kind of prejudice was overcome by a miracle; but the age of miracles is past, while that of prejudice remains.”
Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
“The wisest man may be wiser to-day than he was yesterday, and to-morrow than he is to-day. Total freedom from change would imply total freedom from error; but this is the prerogative of Omniscience alone.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“It has been said that men carry on a kind of coasting trade with religion. In the voyage of life, they profess to be in search of heaven, but take care not to venture so far in their approximations to it, as entirely to lose sight of the earth; and should their frail vessel be in danger of shipwreck, they will gladly throw their darling vices overboard, as other mariners their treasures, only to fish them up again when the storm is over.”
Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
“Religion, like its votaries, while it exists on earth, must have a body as well as a soul. A religion purely spiritual might suit a being as pure, but men are compound animals; and the body too often lords it over the mind.”
Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
“There are too many who reverse both the principles and the practice of the Apostles; they become all things to all men, not to serve others, but themselves; and they try all things only to hold fast that which is bad.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“A man's profundity may keep him from opening on a first interview, and his caution on a second; but I should suspect his emptiness, if he carried on his reserve to a third.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“As a man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are, so the sceptic, in a vain attempt to be wise beyond what is permitted to man, plunges into a darkness more deplorable, and a blindness more incurable than that of the common herd, whom he despises, and would fain instruct.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words : Addressed to Those who Think
“It is in the middle classes of society that all the finest feeling, and the most amiable propensities of our nature do principally nourish and abound. For the good opinion of our fellow-men is the strongest though not the purest motive to virtue. The privations of poverty render us too cold and callous, and the privileges of property too arrogant and confidential, to feel; the first places us beneath the influence of opinion--the second, above it.”
“We submit to the society of those that can inform us, but we seek the society of those whom we can inform. And men of genius ought not to be chagrined if they see themselves neglected. For when we communicate knowledge, we are raised in our own estimation; but when we receive it, we are lowered.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“The French have a saying that whatever excellence a man may exhibit in a public station he is very apt to be ridiculous in a private one.”
“He that studies only men will get the body of knowledge without the soul; and he that studies only books, the soul without the body.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Men of great and shining qualities do not always succeed in life, but the fault lies more often in themselves than in others.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Men pursue riches under the idea that their possession will set them at ease, and above the world. But the law of association often makes those who begin by loving gold as a servant finish by becoming themselves its slaves; and independence without wealth is at least as common as wealth without independence.”
Source: Lacon: or, Many things in few words
“Women do not transgress the bounds of decorum so often as men; but when they do, they go greater lengths.”
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
“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
“Temperate men drink the most, because they drink the longest.”
Source: L.P.
“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.”
“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.”
“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
“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.”
“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.”
“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
“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'.
“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'.
“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
“Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but live for it.”
Source: L.P.
“For one man who sincerely pities our misfortunes, there are a thousand who sincerely hate our success.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Injuries accompanied with insults are never forgiven: all men, on these occasions, are good haters, and lay out their revenge at compound interest.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“The poorest man would not part with health for money, but the richest would gladly part with all their money for health.”
“Men's arguments often prove nothing but their wishes.”
“Pure truth, like pure gold, has been found unfit for circulation because men have discovered that it is far more convenient to adulterate the truth than to refine themselves.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Body and mind, like man and wife, do not always agree to die together.”
“We should not be too niggardly in our praise, for men will do more to support a character than to raise one.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us. Our integrity is never worth so much as when we have parted with our all to keep it.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“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.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
