“A man of honour should never forget what he is because he sees what others are.”
“He that openly tells, his friends all that he thinks of them, must expect that they will secretly tell his enemies much that they do not think of him.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“The only kind office performed for us by our friends of which we never complain is our funeral; and the only thing which we most want, happens to be the only thing we never purchase--our coffin.”
Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
“It has been well observed that we should treat futurity as an aged friend from whom we expect a rich legacy.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“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
“Gaming has been resorted to by the affluent as a refuge from ennui. It is a mental dram, and may succeed for a moment; but, like all other stimuli, it produces indirect debility.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Gaming is the child of avarice, but the parent of prodigality.”
Source: L.P.
“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
“The road to glory would cease to be arduous if it were trite and trodden; and great minds must be ready not only to take opportunities but to make them.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“There are two things which ought to teach us to think but meanly of human glory; the very best have had their calumniators, the very worst their panegyrists.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think