“We devote the activity of our youth to revelry and the decrepitude of our old age to repentance: and we finish the farce by bequeathing our dead bodies to the chancel, which when living, we interdicted from the church.”
Quote by Charles Caleb Colton
“Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error. Where one has been saved by a true estimation of another's weakness, thousands have been destroyed by a false appreciation of their own strength.”
Source: Remarks on the Talents of Lord Byron and the Tendencies of Don Juan
“None are so seldom found alone, and are so soon tired of their own company, as those coxcombs who are on the best terms with themselves.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“When young, we trust ourselves too much, and we trust others too little when old. Rashness is the error of youth, timid caution of age. Manhood is the isthmus between the two extremes; the ripe and fertile season of action, when alone we can hope to find the head to contrive, united with the hand to execute.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“The breast of a good man is a little heaven commencing on earth; where the Deity sits enthroned with unrivaled influence, every subjugated passion, "like the wind and storm, fulfilling his word.”
Source: Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“To be satisfied with the acquittal of the world, though accompanied with the secret condemnation of conscience, this is the mark of a little mind; but it requires a soul of no common stamp to be satisfied with its own acquittal, and to despise the condemnation of the world.”
Source: Lacon: or, Many things in few words
“We should have all our communications with men, as in the presence of God; and with God, as in the presence of men.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“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
