“Words are in this respect like water, that they often take their taste, flavour, and character, from the mouth out of which they proceed, as the water from the channel through which it flows.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Power. like the diamond, dazzles the beholder, and also the wearer; it dignifies meanness; it magnifies littleness; to what is contemptible, it gives authority; to what is low, exaltation. To acquire it, appears not more difficult than to be dispossessed of it when acquired, since it enables the holder to shift his own errors on dependents, and to take their merits to himself. But the miracle of losing it vanishes, when we reflect that we are as liable to fall as to rise, by the treachery of others; and that to say "I am" is language that has been appropriated exclusively to God!”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“An honest man will continue to be so though surrounded on all sides by rogues.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“Oppression cannot prosper where none will submit to be enslaved.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“A society composed of none but the wicked could not exist; it contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction, and without a flood, would be swept away from the earth by the deluge of its own iniquity.”
Source: L.P.
“The temple of truth is built indeed of stones of crystal, but, inasmuch as men have been concerned in rearing it, it has been consolidated by a cement composed of baser materials.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“There are many who say more than the truth on some occasions, and balance the account with their consciences by saying less than the truth on others. But the fact is that they are in both instances as fraudulant as he would be that exacted more than his due from his debtors, and paid less than their due to his creditors.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Antithesis may be the blossom of wit, but it will never arrive at maturity unless sound sense be the trunk and truth the root. CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon; Or, Many Things in a Few Words Light, whether it be material or moral, is the best reformer; for it prevents those disorders which other remedies sometimes cure, but sometimes confirm.”
“put on the livery of the best master only to serve the worst.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“From the preponderance of talent, we may always infer the soundness and vigour of the commonwealth; but from the preponderance of riches, its dotage and degeneration.”
Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan