“Custom is the law of one description of fools, and fashion of another; but the two parties often clash--for precedent is the legislator of the first, and novelty of the last. Custom, therefore, looks to things that are past, and fashion to things that are present.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“When all moves equally (says Pascal), nothing seems to move as in a vessel under sail; and when all run by common consent into vice, none appear to do so. He that stops first, views as from a fixed point the horrible extravagance that transports the rest.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words Addressed to Those who Think
“The cynic who twitted Aristippus by observing that the philosopher who could dine on herbs might despise the company of a king, was well replied to by Aristippus, when he remarked that the philosopher who could enjoy the company or a king might also despise a dinner of herbs.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“If merited, no courage can stand against its just indignation.”
“Few things are more agreeable to self-love than revenge, and yet no cause so effectually restrains us from revenge as self-love. And this paradox naturally suggests another; that the strength of the community is not unfrequently built upon the weakness of those individuals that compose it.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Revenge is a debt, in the paying of which the greatest knave is honest and sincere, and, so far as he is able, punctual.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Revenge is fever in our own blood, to be cured only by letting the blood of another; but the remedy too often produces a relapse, which is remorse--a malady far more dreadful than the first disease, because it is incurable.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Some philosophers would give a sex to revenge, and appropriate it almost exclusively to the female mind. But, like most other vices, it is of both genders; yet, because wounded vanity and slighted love are the two most powerful excitements to revenge, it has been thought, perhaps, to rage with more violence in the female heart.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“No two things differ more than hurry and despatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind; despatch of a strong one.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Our actions must clothe us with an immortality loathsome or glorious.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think