Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think

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William Tegg, 1866 - 352 pages

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Page 195 - MEN are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say...
Page 135 - And the children of Israel did so and gathered, some more, some less. And when they did mete it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating.
Page 190 - Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty ; It is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.
Page 160 - Is there any principle in all nature more mysterious than the union of soul with body; by which a supposed spiritual substance acquires such an influence over a material one, that the most refined thought is able to actuate the grossest matter? Were we empowered, by a secret wish, to remove mountains, or control the planets in their orbit; this extensive authority would not be more extraordinary, nor more beyond our comprehension.
Page 338 - I knew that I had crossed the track of a camel that had strayed from its owner, because I saw no mark of any human footstep on the same route...
Page xi - That writer does the most, who gives his reader the most knowledge, and takes from him the least time.
Page 338 - I concluded that the animal had lost one tooth, because, wherever it had grazed, a small tuft of herbage was left uninjured in the centre of its bite. As to that which formed the burden of the beast, the busy ants informed me that it was corn on the one side, and the clustering flies that it was honey on the other.
Page 5 - He that has never known adversity is but half acquainted with others, or with himself. Constant success shows us but one side of the world. For, as it surrounds us with friends, who will tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we can learn our defects.
Page 97 - It is far more easy to acquire a fortune like a knave than to expend it like a gentleman.
Page 135 - In youth, we are looking forward to things that are to come ; in old age we are looking backward to things that are gone past ; in manhood, although we appear, indeed, to be more occupied in things that are present, yet even that is too often absorbed in vague determinations to be vastly happy on some future day, when we have time.

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