“Time, the cradle of hope, but the grave of ambition, is the stern corrector of fools, but the salutary counselor of the wise, bringing all they dread to the one, and all they desire to the other.”
Quote by Charles Caleb Colton
“There is more jealousy between rival wits than rival beauties, for vanity has no sex. But in both cases there must be pretensions, or there will be no jealousy.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Vanity finds in self-love so powerful an ally that it storms, as it were, by a coup de main,, the citadel of our heads, where, having blinded the two watchmen, it readily descends into the heart.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“So blinded are we by our passions, that we suffer more to be damned than to be saved.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Villains are usually the worst casuists, and rush into crimes to avoid less. Henry VIII. committed murder to avoid the imputation of adultery; and in our times, those who commit the latter crime attempt to wash off the stain of seducing the wife by signifying their readiness to shoot the husband.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“We are ruined, not by what we really want, but by what we think we do; therefore never go abroad in search of your wants; if they be real wants, they will come home in search of you; for he that buys what he does not want, will soon want what he cannot buy.”
Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
“A wise minister would rather preserve peace than gain a victory, because he knows that even the most successful war leaves nations generally more poor, always more profligate, than it found them.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Wars are to the body politic, what drams are to the individual. There are times when they may prevent a sudden death, but if frequently resorted to, or long persisted in, they heighten the energies only to hasten the dissolution.”
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
“Wit in women is a jewel, which, unlike all others, borrows lustre from its setting, rather than bestows it; since nothing is so easy as to fancy a very beautiful woman extremely witty.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Pleasure is to women what the sun is to the flower; if moderately enjoyed, it beautifies, it refreshes, and it improves; if immoderately, it withers, deteriorates and destroys.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think