“All preceptors should have that kind of genius described by Tacitus, "equal to their business, but not above it;" a patient industry, with competent erudition; a mind depending more on its correctness than its originality, and on its memory rather than on its invention.”
Quote by Charles Caleb Colton
“Is there anything more tedious than the often repeated tales of the old and forgetful?”
“Those who have finished by making all others think with them, have usually been those who began by daring to think with themselves.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think
“Time is the most subtle yet the most insatiable of depredators, and by appearing to take nothing is permitted to take all; nor can it be satisfied until it has stolen the world from us, and us from the world. It constantly flies, yet overcomes all things by flight; and although it is the present ally, it will be the future conqueror of death.”
Source: Lacon, Or, Many Things in a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think
“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.”
Source: Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words: Address--to Those who Think
“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