“Cruel men are the greatest lovers of Mercy, avaricious men of generosity, and proud men of humility; that is to say, in other, not in themselves.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“If a cause be good, the most violent attack of its enemies will not injure it so much as an injudicious defence of it by its friends.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“We are more inclined to hate one another for points on which we differ, than to love one another for points on which we agree. The reason perhaps is this: when we find others that agree with us, we seldom trouble ourselves to confirm that agreement; but when we chance on those who differ from us, we are zealous both to convince and to convert them. Our pride is hurt by the failure, and disappointed pride engenders hatred.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Some men are very entertaining for a first interview, but after that they are exhausted, and run out; on a second meeting we shall find them flat and monotonous; like hand-organs, we have heard all their tunes.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“The most zealous converters are always the most rancorous when they fail of producing conversion.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“A town, before it can be plundered and, deserted, must first be taken; and in this particular Venus has borrowed a law from her consort Mars. A woman that wishes to retain her suitor must keep him in the trenches; for this is a siege which the besieger never raises for want of supplies, since a feast is more fatal to love than a fast, and a surfeit than a starvation. Inanition may cause it to die a slow death, but repletion always destroys it by a sudden one.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“I have a different starting premise from those 100 academics who are so heavily invested in the regime of low expectations and narrow horizons which they have created.”
“The reign of terror to which France submitted has been more justly termed "the reign of cowardice." One knows not which most to execrate,--the nation that could submit to suffer such atrocities, or that low and bloodthirsty demagogue that could inflict them. France, in succumbing to such a wretch as Robespierre, exhibited, not her patience, but her pusillanimity.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“A coxcomb begins by determining that his own profession is the first; and he finishes by deciding that he is the first of profession.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“In all places, and in all times, those religionists who have believed too much have been more inclined to violence and persecution than those who have believed too little.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
