Laconics: Or, The Best Words of the Best Authors, Volume 1

Front Cover
Carey, Lea, & Carey, 1829 - Aphorisms and apothegms - 360 pages
 

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 51 - Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
Page 32 - A word to the wise is enough, and many words wont fill a bushel, as Poor Richard says." They joined in desiring him to speak his mind, and gathering round him, he proceeded as follows; "Friends," says he, and neighbours, "the taxes are indeed very heavy, and if those laid on by the Government were the only ones we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride,...
Page 56 - Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.
Page 97 - Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide...
Page 12 - Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes ; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see in needleworks and embroideries it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a lightsome ground. Judge, therefore, of the pleasure of the heart by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly, virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed. For prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth...
Page 76 - Surely every medicine is an innovation, and he that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator; and if time of course alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?
Page 22 - Tam was glorious, o'er a' the ills o' life victorious ! " But pleasures are like poppies spread : you seize the flower, its bloom is shed; or like the snow falls in the river, a moment white — then melts for ever; or like the Borealis' race, that flit ere you can point their place; or like the rainbow's lovely form evanishing amid the storm. Nae man can tether time or tide; the hour approaches Tam maun ride: that hour, o...
Page 18 - ... for wit lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy; judgment, on the contrary, lies quite on the other side, in separating carefully, one from another, ideas, wherein can be found the least difference, thereby to avoid being misled by similitude, and by affinity to take one thing for another.
Page 183 - True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise : it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self; and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.
Page 122 - The most trifling actions that affect a man's credit, are to be regarded. The sound of your hammer at five in the morning, or nine at night, heard by a creditor, makes him easy six months longer ; but if he sees you at a billiard table, or hears your voice at a tavern, -when you should be at work, he sends for his money the next day : demands it before he can receive it in a lump.

Bibliographic information