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Title: Many Thoughts of Many Minds
A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age
Author: Various
Editor: Louis Klopsch
Release Date: November 20, 2005 [EBook #17112]
Language: English
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MANY THOUGHTS OF
MANY MINDS
A Treasury of Quotations from the
Literature of Every Land
and Every Age.
[Illustration]
COMPILED BY
LOUIS KLOPSCH
PUBLISHED BY
THE CHRISTIAN HERALD,
LOUIS KLOPSCH, Proprietor,
BIBLE HOUSE, NEW YORK.
Copyright, 1896,
By LOUIS KLOPSCH.
PREFACE.
In the limited compass of this small volume, the compiler has
endeavored to employ only such material as is likely to prove of
service to the largest circle of readers. Nearly four hundred subjects
have received consideration at his hands, and the quotations given are
from standard authors of recognized ability. Upwards of twenty-five
hundred extracts from the choicest literature of all ages and tongues,
topically arranged, and in scope so wide as to touch on nearly every
subject that engages the human mind, constitute a treasury of thought
which, it is hoped, will be acceptable and helpful to all into whose
hands this volume may chance to fall.
Many Thoughts of Many Minds.
ABILITY.--No man is without some quality, by the due application of
which he might deserve well of the world; and whoever he be that has
but little in his power should be in haste to do that little, lest he
be confounded with him that can do nothing.--DR. JOHNSON.
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others
judge us by what we have already done.--LONGFELLOW.
Every person is responsible for all the good within the scope of his
abilities, and for no more.--GAIL HAMILTON.
The possession of great powers no doubt carries with it a contempt for
mere external show.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
The art of using moderate abilities to advantage wins praise, and often
acquires more reputation than actual brilliancy.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
Ability is a poor man's wealth.--MATTHEW WREN.
The measure of capacity is the measure of sphere to either man or
woman.--ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH.
Natural ability can almost compensate for the want of every kind of
cultivation; but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want
of natural ability.--SCHOPENHAUER.
An able man shows his spirit by gentle words and resolute actions.
--CHESTERFIELD.
ABSOLUTION.--No man taketh away sins (which the law, though holy, just
and good, could not take away), but He in whom there is no sin.--BEDE.
He alone can remit sins who is appointed our Master by the Father of
all; He only is able to discern obedience from disobedience.
--ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA.
It is not the ambassador, it is not the messenger, but the Lord
Himself that saveth His people. The Lord remaineth alone, for no man
can be partner with God in forgiving sins; this office belongs solely
to Christ, who taketh away the sins of the world.--ST. AMBROSE.
It appertaineth to the true God alone to be able to loose men from
their sins.--ST. CYRIL.
Neither angel, nor archangel, nor yet even the Lord Himself (who alone
can say "I am with you"), can, when we have sinned, release us, unless
we bring repentance with us.--ST. AMBROSE.
ACTION.--The thing done avails, and not what is said about it.--EMERSON.
Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness
without action.--BEACONSFIELD.
There are three sorts of actions: those that are good, those that are
bad, and those that are doubtful; and we ought to be most cautious of
those that are doubtful; for we are in most danger of these doubtful
actions, because they do not alarm us; and yet they insensibly lead to
greater transgressions, just as the shades of twilight gradually
reconcile us to darkness.--A. REED.
To the valiant actions speak alone.--SMOLLETT.
It is well to think well: it is divine to act well.--HORACE MANN.
Active natures are rarely melancholy. Activity and melancholy are
incompatible.--BOVEE.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to-day.
* * * * *
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, act, in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
--LONGFELLOW.
Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the
world weigh less than a single lovely action.--LOWELL.
Prodigious actions may as well be done
By weaver's issue, as by prince's son.
--DRYDEN.
It is not to taste sweet things, but to do noble and true things, and
vindicate himself under God's heaven as a God-made man, that the
poorest son of Adam dimly longs. Show him the way of doing that, the
dullest day-drudge kindles into a hero.--CARLYLE.
Deliberate with caution, but act with decision; and yield with
graciousness, or oppose with firmness.--COLTON.
When our souls shall leave this dwelling, the glory of one fair and
virtuous action is above all the scutcheons on our tomb, or silken
banners over us.--J. SHIRLEY.
Our acts make or mar us,--we are the children of our own deeds.
--VICTOR HUGO.
Man, being essentially active, must find in activity his joy, as well
as his beauty and glory; and labor, like everything else that is good,
is its own reward.--WHIPPLE.
ADVERSITY.--Times of great calamity and confusion have ever been
productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the
hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the
darkest storm.--COLTON.
In the day of prosperity we have many refuges to resort to; in the day
of adversity only one.--HORATIUS BONAR.
Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds
rise above them.--WASHINGTON IRVING.
A wretched soul, bruis'd with adversity,
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;
But were we burden'd with like weight of pain,
As much, or more, we should ourselves complain.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Heaven is not always angry when he strikes,
But most chastises those whom most he likes.
--POMFRET.
The fire of my adversity has purged the mass of my acquaintance.
--BOLINGBROKE.
On every thorn delightful wisdom grows;
In every rill a sweet instruction flows.
--DR. YOUNG.
When Providence, for secret ends,
Corroding cares, or sharp affliction, sends;
We must conclude it best it should be so,
And not desponding or impatient grow.
--POMFRET.
If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.
--PROVERBS 24:10.
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which, in prosperous
circumstances, would have lain dormant.--HORACE.
In this wild world the fondest and the best
Are the most tried, most troubled and distress'd.
--CRABBE.
The lessons of adversity are often the most benignant when they seem
the most severe. The depression of vanity sometimes ennobles the
feeling. The mind which does not wholly sink under misfortune rises
above it more lofty than before, and is strengthened by affliction.
--CHENEVIX.
There is healing in the bitter cup.--SOUTHEY.
Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the
blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction, and the
clearer revelation of God's favor.--BACON.
In all cases of heart-ache, the application of another man's
disappointment draws out the pain and allays the irritation.--LYTTON.
Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.--HEBREWS 12:6.
The brightest crowns that are worn in heaven have been tried and
smelted and polished and glorified through the furnace of tribulation.
--CHAPIN.
Genuine morality is preserved only in the school of adversity, and a
state of continuous prosperity may easily prove a quicksand to
virtue.--SCHILLER.
AFFECTATION.--Affectation is the wisdom of fools, and the folly of
many a comparatively wise man.
We are never rendered so ridiculous by qualities which we possess, as
by those which we aim at, or affect to have.--FROM THE FRENCH.
Affectation is a greater enemy to the face than the small-pox.
--ST. EVREMOND.
All affectation is the vain and ridiculous attempt of poverty to
appear rich.--LAVATER.
Affectation hides three times as many virtues as charity does sins.
--HORACE MANN.
AFFECTION.--A loving heart is the truest wisdom.--DICKENS.
Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.
--COLOSSIANS 3:2.
Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the
life of the affections as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they
are wholly restrained love will die at the roots.--HAWTHORNE.
A solitary blessing few can find,
Our joys with those we love are intertwined,
And he whose wakeful tenderness removes
The obstructing thorn that wounds the breast he loves,
Smooths not another's rugged path alone,
But scatters roses to adorn his own.
Affection is a garden, and without it there would not be a verdant
spot on the surface of the globe.
Of all earthly music, that which reaches the farthest into heaven is
the beating of a loving heart.--BEECHER.
If there is anything that keeps the mind open to angel visits, and
repels the ministry of ill, it is human love.--WILLIS.
AFFLICTION.--God sometimes washes the eyes of his children with tears
in order that they may read aright His providence and His commandments.
--T.L. CUYLER.
The truest help we can render an afflicted man is not to take his
burden from him, but to call out his best energy, that he may be able
to bear the burden.--PHILLIPS BROOKS.
Every man deems that he has precisely the trials and temptations which
are the hardest of all for him to bear; but they are so, because they
are the very ones he needs.--RICHTER.
Affliction is but the shadow of God's wing.--GEORGE MACDONALD.
Aromatic plants bestow
No spicy fragrance where they grow;
But crushed and trodden to the ground,
Diffuse their balmy sweets around.
--GOLDSMITH.
Affliction appears to be the guide to reflection; the teacher of
humility; the parent of repentance; the nurse of faith; the
strengthener of patience, and the promoter of charity.
Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of
extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary
graces.--MATTHEW HENRY.
If you would not have affliction visit you twice, listen at once to
what it teaches.--BURGH.
Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.--JOB 5:7.
Affliction is the wholesome soul of virtue;
Where patience, honor, sweet humanity,
Calm fortitude, take root, and strongly flourish.
--MALLET AND THOMSON.
Affliction's sons are brothers in distress;
A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!
--BURNS.
With the wind of tribulation God separates in the floor of the soul,
the chaff from the corn.--MOLINOS.
No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous:
nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of
righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.--HEBREWS 12:11.
AGE.--No wise man ever wished to be younger.--SWIFT.
I venerate old age; and I love not the man who can look without
emotion upon the sunset of life, when the dusk of evening begins to
gather over the watery eye, and the shadows of twilight grow broader
and deeper upon the understanding.--LONGFELLOW.
It is only necessary to grow old to become more indulgent. I see no
fault committed that I have not committed myself.--GOETHE.
That which is usually called dotage is not the weak point of all old
men, but only of such as are distinguished by their levity.--CICERO.
We must not take the faults of our youth into our old age; for old age
brings with it its own defects.--GOETHE.
Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;
You've play'd, and lov'd, and ate, and drank your fill;
Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age
Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage.
--POPE.
If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written
upon the heart. The spirit should not grow old.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.--VICTOR
HUGO.
Remember that some of the brightest drops in the chalice of life may
still remain for us in old age. The last draught which a kind
Providence gives us to drink, though near the bottom of the cup, may,
as is said of the draught of the Roman of old, have at the very
bottom, instead of dregs, most costly pearls.--W.A. NEWMAN.
Begin to patch up thine old body for heaven.--SHAKESPEARE.
Few people know how to be old.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
When men grow virtuous in their old age, they are merely making a
sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.--SWIFT.
The defects of the mind, like those of the countenance, increase with
age.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
He who would pass the declining years of his life with honor and
comfort, should when young, consider that he may one day become old,
and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young.--ADDISON.
Winter, which strips the leaves from around us, makes us see the
distant regions they formerly concealed; so does old age rob us of our
enjoyments, only to enlarge the prospect of eternity before us.--RICHTER.
The easiest thing for our friends to discover in us, and the hardest
thing for us to discover in ourselves, is that we are growing old.
--H.W. SHAW.
AMBITION.--Most people would succeed in small things if they were not
troubled with great ambitions.--LONGFELLOW.
He who ascends to mountain tops, shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind,
Must look down on the hate of those below.
--SOUTHEY.
They that stand high, have many blasts to shake them;
And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.
--SHAKESPEARE.
The path of glory leads but to the grave.--GRAY.
We should be careful to deserve a good reputation by doing well; and
when that care is once taken, not to be over anxious about the
success.--ROCHESTER.
Say what we will, you may be sure that ambition is an error; its wear
and tear of heart are never recompensed,--it steals away the freshness
of life,--it deadens its vivid and social enjoyments,--it shuts our
souls to our own youth,--and we are old ere we remember that we have
made a fever and a labor of our raciest years.--LYTTON.
I charge thee, fling away ambition:
By that sin fell the angels.
--SHAKESPEARE.
A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher
than himself, and a mean man by one which is lower than himself. The
one produces aspiration; the other, ambition. Ambition is the way in
which a vulgar man aspires.--BEECHER.
It is not for man to rest in absolute contentment. He is born to hopes
and aspirations, as the sparks fly upward, unless he has brutified his
nature, and quenched the spirit of immortality, which is his portion.
--SOUTHEY.
Ambition has but one reward for all:
A little power, a little transient fame,
A grave to rest in, and a fading name!
--WILLIAM WINTER.
All my ambition is, I own,
To profit and to please unknown;
Like streams supplied from springs below,
Which scatter blessings as they go.
--DR. COTTON.
ANGELS.--If you woo the company of the angels in your waking hours,
they will be sure to come to you in your sleep.--G.D. PRENTICE.
The accusing spirit, which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath,
blushed as he gave it in; and the recording angel, as he wrote it
down, dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever.--STERNE.
There are two angels that attend unseen
Each one of us, and in great books record
Our good and evil deeds. He who writes down
The good ones, after every action closes
His volume, and ascends with it to God.
The other keeps his dreadful day-book open
Till sunset, that we may repent; which doing,
The record of the action fades away,
And leaves a line of white across the page.
Now if my act be good, as I believe it,
It cannot be recalled. It is already
Sealed up in heaven, as a good deed accomplished.
The rest is yours.
--LONGFELLOW.
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.
--MILTON.
ANGER.--And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain.
--COLERIDGE.
Anger is implanted in us as a sort of sting, to make us gnash with our
teeth against the devil, to make us vehement against him, not to set
us in array against each other.
When anger rushes unrestrain'd to action,
Like a hot steed, it stumbles in its way.
--SAVAGE.
Lamentation is the only musician that always, like a screech-owl,
alights and sits on the roof of an angry man.--PLUTARCH.
He is a fool who cannot be angry; but he is a wise man who will
not.--SENECA.
Men in rage strike those that wish them best.--SHAKESPEARE.
Men often make up in wrath what they want in reason.--W.R. ALGER.
Anger is the most impotent passion that accompanies the mind of man;
it effects nothing it goes about; and hurts the man who is possessed
by it more than any other against whom it is directed.--CLARENDON.
When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.
--JEFFERSON.
An angry man opens his mouth and shuts up his eyes.--CATO.
When a man is wrong and won't admit it, he always gets angry.
--HALIBURTON.
Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.--EPHESIANS 4:26.
Anger begins with folly and ends with repentance.--PYTHAGORAS.
Anger causes us often to condemn in one what we approve of in
another.--PASQUIER QUESNEL.
ANXIETY.--Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions than
ruined by too confident a security.--BURKE.
Can your solicitude alter the cause or unravel the intricacy of human
events?--BLAIR.
Almost all men are over-anxious. No sooner do they enter the world
than they lose that taste for natural and simple pleasures so
remarkable in early life. Every hour do they ask themselves what
progress they have made in the pursuit of wealth or honor; and on they
go as their fathers went before them, till, weary and sick at heart,
they look back with a sigh of regret to the golden time of their
childhood.--ROGERS.
Nothing in life is more remarkable than the unnecessary anxiety which
we endure and generally occasion ourselves.--BEACONSFIELD.
ART.--The perfection of art is to conceal art.--QUINTILIAN.
Art must anchor in nature, or it is the sport of every breath of
folly.--HAZLITT.
Beauty is at once the ultimate principle and the highest aim of
art.--GOETHE.
Art does not imitate, but interpret.--MAZZINI.
Art is the gift of God, and must be used unto his glory.--LONGFELLOW.
ASSOCIATES.--Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good
manners.--1 CORINTHIANS 15:20.
He who comes from the kitchen smells of its smoke; he who adheres to a
sect has something of its cant; the college air pursues the student,
and dry inhumanity him who herds with literary pedants.--LAVATER.
He that walketh with wise men shall be wise.--SOLOMON.
If you always live with those who are lame, you will yourself learn to
limp.--FROM THE LATIN.
If men wish to be held in esteem, they must associate with those only
who are estimable.--LA BRUYÈRE.
Be very circumspect in the choice of thy company. In the society of
thine equals thou shalt enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thy
superiors thou shalt find more profit. To be the best in the company
is the way to grow worse; the best means to grow better is to be the
worst there.--QUARLES.
A companion of fools shall be destroyed.--PROVERBS 13:20.
Choose the company of your superiors whenever you can have it.--LORD
CHESTERFIELD.
I set it down as a maxim, that it is good for a man to live where he
can meet his betters, intellectual and social.--THACKERAY.
Keep good company, and you shall be of the number.--GEORGE HERBERT.
It is best to be with those in time that we hope to be with in
eternity.--FULLER.
ASTRONOMY.--The contemplation of celestial things will make a man both
speak and think more sublimely and magnificently when he descends to
human affairs.--CICERO.
The sun rejoicing round the earth, announced
Daily the wisdom, power and love of God.
The moon awoke, and from her maiden face,
Shedding her cloudy locks, looked meekly forth,
And with her virgin stars walked in the heavens,--
Walked nightly there, conversing as she walked,
Of purity, and holiness, and God.
--ROBERT POLLOK.
I love to rove amidst the starry height,
To leave the little scenes of Earth behind,
And let Imagination wing her flight
On eagle pinions swifter than the wind.
I love the planets in their course to trace;
To mark the comets speeding to the sun,
Then launch into immeasurable space,
Where, lost to human sight, remote they run.
I love to view the moon, when high she rides
Amidst the heav'ns, in borrowed lustre bright;
To fathom how she rules the subject tides,
And how she borrows from the sun her light.
O! these are wonders of th' Almighty hand,
Whose wisdom first the circling orbits planned.
--T. RODD.
ATHEISM.--I should like to see a man sober in his habits, moderate,
chaste, just in his dealings, assert that there is no God; he would
speak at least without interested motives; but such a man is not to be
found.--LA BRUYÈRE.
An Atheist-laugh's a poor exchange
For Deity offended!
--BURNS.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.--PSALM 14:1.
Kircher, the astronomer, having an acquaintance who denied the
existence of a Supreme Being, took the following method to convince
him of his error. Expecting him on a visit, he placed a handsome
celestial globe in a part of the room where it could not escape the
notice of his friend, who, on observing it, inquired whence it came,
and who was the maker.
"It was not made by any person," said the astronomer.
"That is impossible," replied the sceptic; "you surely jest."
Kircher then took occasion to reason with his friend upon his own
atheistical principles, explaining to him that he had adopted this
plan with a design to show him the fallacy of his scepticism.
"You will not," said he, "admit that this small body originated in
mere chance, and yet you contend that those heavenly bodies, to which
it bears only a faint and diminutive resemblance, came into existence
without author or design."
He pursued this chain of reasoning till his friend was totally
confounded, and cordially acknowledged the absurdity of his notions.
By night an atheist half believes a God.--YOUNG.
No one is so much alone in the world as a denier of God.--RICHTER.
When men live as if there were no God, it becomes expedient for them
that there should be none; and then they endeavor to persuade
themselves so.--TILLOTSON.
Atheism is the result of ignorance and pride, of strong sense and
feeble reasons, of good eating and ill living.--JEREMY COLLIER.
Atheism can benefit no class of people,--neither the unfortunate, whom
it bereaves of hope, nor the prosperous, whose joys it renders
insipid.--CHATEAUBRIAND.
AUTHORITY.--Self-possession is the backbone of authority.--HALIBURTON.
Man, proud man!
Dressed in a little brief authority:
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd.
His glassy essence--like an angry ape
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose
with gold.--SHAKESPEARE.
AUTHORS.--Choose an author as you choose a friend.--EARL OF ROSCOMMON.
The motives and purposes of authors are not always so pure and high,
as, in the enthusiasm of youth, we sometimes imagine. To many the
trumpet of fame is nothing but a tin horn to call them home, like
laborers from the field, at dinner-time, and they think themselves
lucky to get the dinner.--LONGFELLOW.
It is a doubt whether mankind are most indebted to those who, like
Bacon and Butler, dig the gold from the mine of literature, or to
those who, like Paley, purify it, stamp it, fix its real value, and
give it currency and utility.--COLTON.
Twenty to one offend more in writing too much than too little.--ROGER
ASCHAM.
He who proposes to be an author should first be a student.--DRYDEN.
Nothing is so beneficial to a young author as the advice of a man
whose judgment stands constitutionally at the freezing-point.--DOUGLAS
JERROLD.
No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly; and this
self-deceit is yet stronger with respect to the offspring of the
mind.--CERVANTES.
There are three difficulties in authorship--to write anything worth
the publishing, to find honest men to publish it, and to get sensible
men to read it.--COLTON.
An author! 'Tis a venerable name!
How few deserve it, and what numbers claim!
Unblest with sense above their peers refin'd,
Who shall stand up, dictators to mankind?
Nay, who dare shine, if not in virtue's cause?
That sole proprietor of just applause.
--YOUNG.
Never write on a subject without having first read yourself full on
it; and never read on a subject till you have thought yourself hungry
on it.--RICHTER.
How many great ones may remember'd be,
Which in their days most famously did flourish,
Of whom no word we hear, nor sign now see,
But as things wip'd out with a sponge do perish,
Because the living cared not to cherish
No gentle wits, through pride or covetize,
Which might their names for ever memorize!
--SPENSER.
The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things
familiar, and familiar things new.--THACKERAY.
To write well is to think well, to feel well, and to render well; it
is to possess at once intellect, soul and taste.--BUFFON.
Young authors give their brains much exercise and little food.--JOUBERT.
AVARICE.--It is surely very narrow policy that supposes money to be
the chief good.--JOHNSON.
Poverty is in want of much, but avarice of everything.--PUBLIUS SYRUS.
There are two considerations which always imbitter the heart of an
avaricious man--the one is a perpetual thirst after more riches, the
other the prospect of leaving what he has already acquired.--FIELDING.
O cursed lust of gold: when for thy sake
The fool throws up his interest in both worlds,
First starved in this, then damn'd in that to come.
--BLAIR.
Many have been ruined by their fortunes; many have escaped ruin by the
want of fortune. To obtain it, the great have become little, and the
little great.--ZIMMERMANN.
Avarice is the vice of declining years.--GEORGE BANCROFT.
Riches, like insects, when conceal'd they lie,
Wait but for wings, and in their season fly.
Who sees pale Mammon pine amidst his store,
Sees but a backward steward for the poor;
This year a reservoir, to keep and spare;
The next a fountain, spouting thro' his heir
In lavish streams to quench a country's thirst,
And men and dogs shall drink him till they burst.
--POPE.
The love of money is the root of all evil.--1 TIMOTHY 6:10.
The avaricious man is like the barren, sandy ground of the desert,
which sucks in all the rain and dews with greediness, but yields no
fruitful herbs or plants for the benefit of others.--ZENO.
Avarice in old age, is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to
increase our provisions for the road, the nearer we approach to our
journey's end?--CICERO.
Poverty wants some, luxury many, and avarice all things.--COWLEY.
BASHFULNESS.--Modesty is the graceful, calm virtue of maturity;
bashfulness the charm of vivacious youth.--MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT.
As those that pull down private houses adjoining to the temples of the
gods, prop up such parts as are contiguous to them; so, in undermining
bashfulness, due regard is to be had to adjacent modesty, good-nature
and humanity.--PLUTARCH.
Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.
--ARISTOTLE.
Women who are the least bashful are not unfrequently the most modest;
and we are never more deceived than when we would infer any laxity of
principle from that freedom of demeanor which often arises from a
total ignorance of vice.--COLTON.
BEAUTY.--It is beauty that begins to please, and tenderness that
completes the charm.--FONTENELLE.
Keats spoke for all time when he said, "A thing of beauty is a joy
forever."--THACKERAY.
Beauty is an outward gift which is seldom despised except by those to
whom it has been refused.--GIBBON.
What is beauty? Not the show
Of shapely limbs and features. No.
These are but flowers
That have their dated hours
To breathe their momentary sweets, then go.
'Tis the stainless soul within
That outshines the fairest skin.
--SIR A. HUNT.
I pray Thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within.--SOCRATES.
Happily there exists more than one kind of beauty. There is the
beauty of infancy, the beauty of youth, the beauty of maturity, and,
believe me, ladies and gentlemen, the beauty of age.--G.A. SALA.
There is no beauty on earth which exceeds the natural loveliness of
woman.--J. PETIT-SENN.
There is a self-evident axiom, that she who is born a beauty is half
married.--OUIDA.
Beauty attracts us men, but if, like an armed magnet it is pointed
with gold or silver beside, it attracts with tenfold power.--RICHTER.
If thou marry beauty, thou bindest thyself all thy life for that
which, perchance, will neither last nor please thee one year.--RALEIGH.
It is seldom that beautiful persons are otherwise of great virtue.
--BACON.
The most natural beauty in the world is honesty and moral truth.
--SHAFTESBURY.
Every year of my life I grow more convinced that it is wisest and best
to fix our attention on the beautiful and good and dwell as little as
possible on the dark and the base.--CECIL.
A woman possessing nothing but outward advantages is like a flower
without fragrance, a tree without fruit.--REGNIER.
All orators are dumb, when beauty pleadeth.--SHAKESPEARE.
Who has not experienced how, on near acquaintance, plainness becomes
beautified, and beauty loses its charm, exactly according to the
quality of the heart and mind? And from this cause am I of opinion
that the want of outward beauty never disquiets a noble nature or will
be regarded as a misfortune. It never can prevent people from being
amiable and beloved in the highest degree.--FREDERIKA BREMER.
Good nature will always supply the absence of beauty; but beauty
cannot supply the absence of good nature.--ADDISON.
There should be, methinks, as little merit in loving a woman for her
beauty as in loving a man for his prosperity; both being equally
subject to change.--POPE.
Socrates called beauty a short-lived tyranny; Plato, a privilege of
nature; Theophrastus, a silent cheat; Theocritus, a delightful
prejudice; Carneades, a solitary kingdom; Domitian said, that nothing
was more grateful; Aristotle affirmed that beauty was better than all
the letters of recommendation in the world; Homer, that 'twas a
glorious gift of nature, and Ovid, alluding to him, calls it a favor
bestowed by the gods.--FROM THE ITALIAN.
Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good,
A shining gloss, that fadeth suddenly;
A flower that dies, when first it 'gins to bud;
A brittle glass, that's broken presently;
A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour.
And as good lost is seld or never found,
As fading gloss no rubbing will refresh,
As flowers dead lie wither'd on the ground,
As broken glass no cement can redress,
So beauty blemish'd once, for ever's lost,
In spite of physic, painting, pain and cost.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free!
Such sweet neglect more taketh me,
Than all the adulteries of art;
That strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
--BEN JONSON.
BENEVOLENCE.--Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward
heaven.--BEECHER.
The disposition to give a cup of cold water to a disciple is a far
nobler property than the finest intellect. Satan has a fine intellect
but not the image of God.--HOWELLS.
Animated by Christian motives and directed to Christian ends, it shall
in no wise go unrewarded; here, by the testimony of an approving
conscience; hereafter, by the benediction of our blessed Redeemer, and
a brighter inheritance in His Father's house.--BISHOP MANT.
God will excuse our prayers for ourselves whenever we are prevented
from them by being occupied in such good works as to entitle us to the
prayers of others.--COLTON.
The lower a man descends in his love, the higher he lifts his life.
--W.R. ALGER.
There is nothing that requires so strict an economy as our
benevolence. We should husband our means as the agriculturalist his
fertilizer, which if he spread over too large a superficies produces
no crop, if over too small a surface, exuberates in rankness and in
weeds.--COLTON.
The conqueror is regarded with awe, the wise man commands our esteem;
but it is the benevolent man who wins our affections.--FROM THE FRENCH.
Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. As Collingwood never saw a
vacant place in his estate but he took an acorn out of his pocket and
popped it in, so deal with your compliments through life. An acorn
costs nothing; but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of timber.
--THACKERAY.
You will find people ready enough to do the Samaritan without the oil
and twopence.--SYDNEY SMITH.
Genuine benevolence is not stationary, but peripatetic. It _goeth_
about doing good.--NEVINS.
Benevolence is not in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth. It
is a business with men as they are, and with human life as drawn by
the rough hand of experience. It is a duty which you must perform at
the call of principle; though there be no voice of eloquence to give
splendor to your exertions, and no music of poetry to lead your
willing footsteps through the bowers of enchantment. It is not the
impulse of high and ecstatic emotion. It is an exertion of principle.
You must go to the poor man's cottage, though no verdure flourish
around it, and no rivulet be nigh to delight you by the gentleness of
its murmurs. If you look for the romantic simplicity of fiction you
will be disappointed; but it is your duty to persevere, in spite of
every discouragement. Benevolence is not merely a feeling but a
principle; not a dream of rapture for the fancy to indulge in, but a
business for the hand to execute.--CHALMERS.
The only way to be loved, is to be and to appear lovely; to possess
and display kindness, benevolence, tenderness; to be free from
selfishness and to be alive to the welfare of others.--JAY.
Beneficence is a duty. He who frequently practices it, and sees his
benevolent intentions realized, at length comes really to love him to
whom he has done good. When, therefore, it is said, "Thou shalt love
thy neighbor as thyself," it is not meant, thou shalt love him first
and do him good in consequence of that love, but, thou shalt do good
to thy neighbor; and this thy beneficence will engender in thee that
love to mankind which is the fulness and consummation of the
inclination to do good.--KANT.
The lessons of prudence have charms,
And slighted, may lead to distress;
But the man whom benevolence warms
Is an angel who lives but to bless.
--BLOOMFIELD.
Every virtue carries with it its own reward, but none in so
distinguished and pre-eminent a degree as benevolence.
BIBLE.--The Bible begins gloriously with Paradise, the symbol of
youth, and ends with the everlasting kingdom, with the holy city. The
history of every man should be a Bible.--NOVALIS.
The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of
suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying.--FLAVEL.
Within that awful volume lies
The mystery of mysteries!
Happiest they of human race,
To whom God has granted grace
To read, to fear, to hope, to pray,
To lift the latch and force the way;
And better had they ne'er been born,
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.
--SCOTT.
Like the needle to the North Pole, the Bible points to heaven.
--R.B. NICHOL.
There are two books laid before us to study, to prevent our falling
into error: first, the volume of the Scriptures, which reveal the will
of God; then the volume of the Creatures, which express His power.
--BACON.
Men cannot be well educated without the Bible. It ought, therefore, to
hold the chief place in every situation of learning throughout
Christendom; and I do not know of a higher service that could be
rendered to this republic than the bringing about this desirable
result.--DR. NUTT.
What is the Bible in your house? It is not the Old Testament, it is
not the New Testament, it is not the gospel according to Matthew, or
Mark, or Luke, or John; it is the Gospel according to William, it is
the Gospel according to Mary, it is the Gospel according to Henry and
James, it is the Gospel according to your name. You write your own
Bible.--BEECHER.
A single book has saved me; but that book is not of human origin. Long
had I despised it; long had I deemed it a class-book for the credulous
and ignorant; until, having investigated the Gospel of Christ, with an
ardent desire to ascertain its truth or falsity, its pages proffered
to my inquiries the simplest knowledge of man and nature, and the
simplest, and at the same time the most exalted system of moral
ethics. Faith, hope and charity were enkindled in my bosom; and every
advancing step strengthened me in the conviction that the morals of
this book are as infinitely superior to human morals as its oracles
are superior to human opinions.--M.L. BAUTIN.
Whence but from Heaven, could men unskill'd in arts,
In several ages born, in several parts,
Weave such agreeing truths? or how, or why
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie?
--DRYDEN.
Good, the more communicated, more abundant grows.--MILTON.
I will answer for it, the longer you read the Bible, the more you will
like it; it will grow sweeter and sweeter; and the more you get into
the spirit of it, the more you will get into the spirit of Christ.
--ROMAINE.
It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without
any mixture of error, for its matter: it is all pure, all sincere,
nothing too much, nothing wanting.--LOCKE.
A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every
district--all studied and appreciated as they merit--are the principal
support of virtue, morality and civil liberty.--FRANKLIN.
Here there is milk for babes, whilst there is manna for angels; truth
level with the mind of a peasant; truth soaring beyond the reach of a
seraph.--REV. HUGH STOWELL.
It is belief in the Bible, the fruits of deep meditation, which has
served me as the guide of my moral and literary life. I have found
capital safely invested and richly productive of interest, although I
have sometimes made but a bad use of it.--GOETHE.
BIGOTRY.--All looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.--POPE.
Bigotry dwarfs the soul by shutting out the truth.--CHAPIN.
A man must be excessively stupid, as well as uncharitable, who
believes there is no virtue but on his own side.--ADDISON.
Show me the man who would go to heaven alone if he could, and in that
man I will show you one who will never be admitted into heaven.--FELTHAM.
BIOGRAPHY.--The great lesson of biography is to show what man can be
and do at his best. A noble life put fairly on record acts like an
inspiration to others.--SAMUEL SMILES.
Biography, especially the biography of the great and good, who have
risen by their own exertions from poverty and obscurity to eminence
and usefulness, is an inspiring and ennobling study. Its direct
tendency is to reproduce the excellence it records.--HORACE MANN.
To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity
is to continue in a state of childhood all our days.--PLUTARCH.
BOASTING.--Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed;
nature never pretends.--LAVATER.
Where boasting ends, there dignity begins.--YOUNG.
A gentleman that loves to hear himself talk will speak more in a
minute than he will stand to in a month.--SHAKESPEARE.
Men of real merit, and whose noble and glorious deeds we are ready to
acknowledge, are yet not to be endured when they vaunt their own
actions.--ÆSCHINES.
The less people speak of their greatness the more we think of
it.--BACON.
Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament:
They are but beggars that can count their worth.
--SHAKESPEARE.
BOOKS.--When friends grow cold, and the converse of intimates
languishes into vapid civility and commonplace, books only continue
the unaltered countenance of happier days, and cheer us with that true
friendship which never deceived hope nor deserted sorrow.--WASHINGTON
IRVING.
No book can be so good as to be profitable when negligently read.
--SENECA.
He who loves not books before he comes to thirty years of age, will
hardly love them enough afterward to understand them.--CLARENDON.
I like books. I was born and bred among them, and have the easy
feeling, when I get in their presence, that a stable-boy has among
horses.--O.W. HOLMES.
Many readers judge of the power of a book by the shock it gives their
feelings--as some savage tribes determine the power of muskets by
their recoil; that being considered best which fairly prostrates the
purchaser.--LONGFELLOW.
Nothing can supply the place of books. They are cheering or soothing
companions in solitude, illness, affliction. The wealth of both
continents would not compensate for the good they impart.--CHANNING.
We should have a glorious conflagration if all who cannot put _fire_
into their works would only consent to put their works into the
_fire_.--COLTON.
Books, dear books,
Have been, and are my comforts; morn and night,
Adversity, prosperity, at home,
Abroad, health, sickness--good or ill report,
The same firm friends; the same refreshment rich,
And source of consolation.
--DR. DODD.
When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and
courageous feelings, seek for no other rule to judge the work by; it
is good, and made by a good workman.--LA BRUYÈRE.
Books are a guide in youth, and an entertainment for age. They support
us under solitude, and keep us from becoming a burden to ourselves.
They help us to forget the crossness of men and things, compose our
cares and our passions, and lay our disappointments asleep. When we
are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing
of peevishness, pride or design in their conversation.--JEREMY COLLIER.
He that studies books alone, will know how things ought to be; and he
that studies men will know how things are.--COLTON.
It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part;
the rest are confounded with the multitude.--VOLTAIRE.
Good books are to the young mind what the warming sun and the
refreshing rain of spring are to the seeds which have lain dormant in
the frosts of winter. They are more, for they may save from that which
is worse than death, as well as bless with that which is better than
life.--HORACE MANN.
The books which help you most are those which make you think the most.
The hardest way of learning is by easy reading: but a great book that
comes from a great thinker--it is a ship of thought, deep freighted
with truth and with beauty.--THEODORE PARKER.
Books, like friends, should be few, and well chosen.
Thou mayst as well expect to grow stronger by always eating as wiser
by always reading. Too much overcharges nature, and turns more into
disease than nourishment. 'Tis thought and digestion which makes books
serviceable, and gives health and vigor to the mind.--FULLER.
BREVITY.--Brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and
outward flourishes.--SHAKESPEARE.
Brevity in writing is what charity is to all other
virtues--righteousness is nothing without the one, nor authorship
without the other.--SYDNEY SMITH.
If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with
sunbeams--the more they are condensed the deeper they burn.--SOUTHEY.
The more an idea is developed the more concise becomes its expression;
the more a tree is pruned, the better is the fruit.--ALFRED BOUGEANT.
The more you say the less people remember. The fewer the words, the
greater the profit.--FÉNELON.
With vivid words your just conceptions grace,
Much truth compressing in a narrow space;
Then many shall peruse, but few complain,
And envy frown, and critics snarl in vain.
--PINDAR.
Brevity is the child of silence, and is a credit to its parentage.
--H.W. SHAW.
A verse may find him whom a sermon flies.--GEORGE HERBERT.
When a man has no design but to speak plain truth, he may say a great
deal in a very narrow compass.--STEELE.
BUSINESS.--That which is everybody's business is nobody's business.
--IZAAK WALTON.
Formerly when great fortunes were only made in war, war was a
business; but now, when great fortunes are only made by business,
business is war.--BOVEE.
Call on a business man at business times only, and on business,
transact your business and go about your business, in order to give
him time to finish his business.--DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public
business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the
quickness of their imagination.--SWIFT.
Rare almost as great poets, rarer, perhaps, than veritable saints and
martyrs, are consummate men of business. A man, to be excellent in
this way, requires a great knowledge of character, with that exquisite
tact which feels unerringly the right moment when to act. A discreet
rapidity must pervade all the movements of his thought and action. He
must be singularly free from vanity, and is generally found to be an
enthusiast who has the art to conceal his enthusiasm.--HELPS.
It is very sad for a man to make himself servant to a thing, his
manhood all taken out of him by the hydraulic pressure of excessive
business. I should not like to be merely a great doctor, a great
lawyer, a great minister, a great politician--I should like to be also
something of a man.--THEODORE PARKER.
Not because of any extraordinary talents did he succeed, but because
he had a capacity on a level for business and not above it.--TACITUS.
The great secret both of health and successful industry is the
absolute yielding up of one's consciousness to the business and
diversion of the hour--never permitting the one to infringe in the
least degree upon the other.--SISMONDI.
Few people do business well who do nothing else.--CHESTERFIELD.
To men addicted to delights, business is an interruption; to such as
are cold to delights, business is an entertainment. For which reason
it was said to one who commended a dull man for his application, "No
thanks to him; if he had no business, he would have nothing to
do."--STEELE.
CARE.--To carry care to bed is to sleep with a pack on your back.
--HALIBURTON.
Cast all your care on God: that anchor holds.--TENNYSON.
Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt,
And every grin, so merry, draws one out.
--DR. WOLCOT.
He who climbs above the cares of this world, and turns his face to his
God, has found the sunny side of life.--SPURGEON.
CAUTION.--It is a good thing to learn caution by the misfortunes of
others.--PUBLIUS SYRUS.
Vessels large may venture more,
But little boats should keep near shore.
--BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
Caution is the eldest child of wisdom.--VICTOR HUGO.
All is to be feared where all is to be lost.--BYRON.
CENSURE.--Few persons have sufficient wisdom to prefer censure which
is useful to them to praise which deceives them.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
To arrive at perfection, a man should have very sincere friends, or
inveterate enemies; because he would be made sensible of his good or
ill conduct either by the censures of the one or the admonitions of
the others.--DIOGENES.
Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.--SWIFT.
The villain's censure is extorted praise.--POPE.
CHARACTER.--How wonderfully beautiful is the delineation of the
characters of the three patriarchs in Genesis! To be sure if ever man
could, without impropriety, be called, or supposed to be, "the friend
of God," Abraham was that man. We are not surprised that Abimelech and
Ephron seem to reverence him so profoundly. He was peaceful, because
of his conscious relation to God.--S.T. COLERIDGE.
The great hope of society is individual character.--CHANNING.
A man is known to his dog by the smell, to his tailor by the coat, to
his friend by the smile; each of these know him, but how little or how
much depends on the dignity of the intelligence. That which is truly
and indeed characteristic of the man is known only to God.--RUSKIN.
Never does a man portray his own character more vividly than in his
manner of portraying another.--RICHTER.
There are beauties of character which, like the night-blooming cereus,
are closed against the glare and turbulence of every-day life, and
bloom only in shade and solitude, and beneath the quiet
stars.--TUCKERMAN.
There are many persons of whom it may be said that they have no other
possession in the world but their character, and yet they stand as
firmly upon it as any crowned king.--SAMUEL SMILES.
The man that makes a character makes foes.--YOUNG.
He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer
The worst that man can breathe;
And make his wrongs his outsides,
To wear them like his raiment, carelessly;
And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart,
To bring it into danger.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Every man has three characters--that which he exhibits, that which he
has, and that which he thinks he has.--ALPHONSE KARR.
The best rules to form a young man are to talk little, to hear much,
to reflect alone upon what has passed in company, to distrust one's
own opinions, and value others that deserve it.--SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE.
Brains and character rule the world. The most distinguished Frenchman
of the last century said, "Men succeed less by their talents than
their character." There were scores of men a hundred years ago who had
more intellect than Washington. He outlives and overrides them all by
the influence of his character.--WENDELL PHILLIPS.
All men are like in their lower natures; it is in their higher
characters that they differ.--BOVEE.
You may depend upon it that he is a good man whose intimate friends
are all good.--LAVATER.
Give me the character and I will forecast the event. Character, it has
in substance been said, is "victory organized."--BOVEE.
A good character is in all cases the fruit of personal exertion. It is
not inherited from parents, it is not created by external advantages,
it is no necessary appendage of birth, wealth, talents, or station;
but it is the result of one's own endeavors.--HAWES.
Actions, looks, words, steps, form the alphabet by which you may spell
characters.--LAVATER.
CHARITY.--I have much more confidence in the charity which begins in
the home and diverges into a large humanity, than in the world-wide
philanthropy which begins at the outside of our horizon to converge
into egotism.--MRS. JAMESON.
To complain that life has no joys while there is a single creature
whom we can relieve by our bounty, assist by our counsels, or enliven
by our presence, is to lament the loss of that which we possess, and
is just as irrational as to die of thirst with the cup in our
hands.--FITZOSBORNE.
But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right
hand doeth.--MATTHEW 6:3.
The spirit of the world encloses four kinds of spirits, diametrically
opposed to charity--the spirit of resentment, spirit of aversion,
spirit of jealousy, and the spirit of indifference.--BOSSUET.
Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness, when
bequeathed by those who, when alive, would part with nothing.--COLTON.
The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.
--BYRON.
Be charitable and indulgent to every one but yourself.--JOUBERT.
Almost all the virtues that can be named are enwrapt in one virtue of
charity and love:--for "it suffereth long," and so it is longanimity;
it "is kind," and so it is courtesy; it "vaunteth not itself," and so
it is modesty; it "is not puffed up," and so it is humility; it "is
not easily provoked," and so it is lenity; it "thinketh no evil," and
so it is simplicity; it "rejoiceth in the truth," and so it is verity;
it "beareth all things," and so it is fortitude; it "believeth all
things," and so it is faith; it "hopeth all things," and so it is
confidence; it "endureth all things," and so it is patience; it "never
faileth," and so it is perseverance.--CHILLINGWORTH.
As every lord giveth a certain livery to his servants, charity is the
very livery of Christ. Our Saviour, who is the Lord above all lords,
would have his servants known by their badge, which is love.--LATIMER.
You must have a genius for charity as well as for anything else.
--THOREAU.
Prayer carries us half way to God, fasting brings us to the door of
his palace, and alms-giving procures us admission.--KORAN.
Above all things have fervent charity among yourselves; for charity
shall cover the multitude of sins.--1 PETER 4:8.
It is an old saying, that charity begins at home; but this is no
reason it should not go abroad. A man should live with the world as a
citizen of the world; he may have a preference for the particular
quarter or square, or even alley, in which he lives, but he should
have a generous feeling for the welfare of the whole.--CUMBERLAND.
Alas for the rarity of Christian charity under the sun!--HOOD.
You cannot separate charity and religion.--COLTON.
Think not you are charitable if the love of Jesus and His brethren be
not purely the motive of your gifts. Alas! you might not give your
superfluities, but "bestow all your goods to feed the poor;" you might
even "give your body to be burned" for them, and yet be utterly
destitute of charity, if self-seeking, self-pleasing or self-ends
guide you; and guide you they must, until the love of God be by the
Holy Ghost shed abroad in your heart.--HAWEIS.
Whoever would entitle himself after death, through the merits of his
Redeemer, to the noblest of rewards, let him serve God throughout life
in this most excellent of all duties, doing good to our brethren.
Whoever is sensible of his offences, let him take this way especially
of evidencing his repentance.--ARCHBISHOP SECKER.
I have learned from Jesus Christ himself what charity is, and how we
ought to practise it; for He says, "By this shall all men know that ye
are my disciples, if ye love one another." Never can I, therefore,
please myself in the hope that I may obtain the name of a servant of
Christ, if I possess not a true and unfeigned charity within me.
--ST. BASIL.
There is a debt of mercy and pity, of charity and compassion, of
relief and succor due to human nature, and payable from one man to
another; and such as deny to pay it the distressed in the time of
their abundance may justly expect it will be denied themselves in a
time of want. "With what measure you mete it shall be measured to you
again."--BURKITT.
We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without
hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the
fingers.--SENECA.
As the purse is emptied the heart is filled.--VICTOR HUGO.
Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler, sister woman;
Though they may gang a kennin' wrang,
To step aside is human.
--BURNS.
CHEERFULNESS.--Cheerfulness is full of significance: it suggests good
health, a clear conscience, and a soul at peace with all human
nature.--CHARLES KINGSLEY.
As in our lives so also in our studies, it is most becoming and most
wise, so to temper gravity with cheerfulness, that the former may not
imbue our minds with melancholy, nor the latter degenerate into
licentiousness.--PLINY.
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth
the bones.--PROVERBS 17:22.
Be of good cheer.--JOHN 16:33.
The mind that is cheerful in its present state, will be averse to all
solicitude as to the future, and will meet the bitter occurrences of
life with a placid smile.--HORACE.
An ounce of cheerfulness is worth a pound of sadness to serve God
with.--FULLER.
If good people would but make their goodness agreeable, and smile
instead of frowning in their virtue, how many would they win to the
good cause!--ARCHBISHOP USHER.
Between levity and cheerfulness there is a wide distinction; and the
mind which is most open to levity is frequently a stranger to
cheerfulness.--BLAIR.
You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheerful people. Why
not make earnest effort to confer that pleasure on others? You will
find half the battle is gained if you never allow yourself to say
anything gloomy.--MRS. L.M. CHILD.
Inner sunshine warms not only the heart of the owner, but all who come
in contact with it.--J.T. FIELDS.
The way to cheerfulness is to keep our bodies in exercise and our
minds at ease.--STEELE.
Let us be of good cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to
bear are those which never happen.--LOWELL.
A cheerful temper, joined with innocence, will make beauty attractive,
knowledge delightful and wit good-natured. It will lighten sickness,
poverty and affliction, convert ignorance into an amiable simplicity,
and render deformity itself agreeable.--ADDISON.
CHILDREN.--If I were to choose among all gifts and qualities that
which, on the whole, makes life pleasantest, I should select the love
of children. No circumstance can render this world wholly a solitude
to one who has this possession.--T.W. HIGGINSON.
I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they,
who are so fresh from God, love us.--DICKENS.
They are idols of hearts and of households;
They are angels of God in disguise;
His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses;
His glory still gleams in their eyes.
Oh those truants from home and from heaven,
They have made me more manly and mild,
And I know now how Jesus could liken
The kingdom of God to a child.
--DICKENS.
The child is father of the man.
--WORDSWORTH.
The smallest children are nearest to God, as the smallest planets are
nearest the sun.--RICHTER.
In trying to teach children a great deal in a short time, they are
treated not as though the race they were to run was for life, but
simply a three-mile heat.--HORACE MANN.
Childhood shows the man
As morning shows the day.
--MILTON.
Be very vigilant over thy child in the April of his understanding,
lest the frost of May nip his blossoms. While he is a tender twig,
straighten him; whilst he is a new vessel, season him; such as thou
makest him, such commonly shalt thou find him. Let his first lesson be
obedience, and his second shall be what thou wilt.--QUARLES.
A child is an angel dependent on man.--COUNT DE MAISTRE.
A child's eyes, those clear wells of undefiled thought--what on earth
can be more beautiful? Full of hope, love and curiosity, they meet
your own. In prayer, how earnest; in joy, how sparkling; in sympathy,
how tender! The man who never tried the companionship of a little
child has carelessly passed by one of the great pleasures of life, as
one passes a rare flower without plucking it or knowing its
value.--MRS. NORTON.
If a boy is not trained to endure and to bear trouble, he will grow up
a girl; and a boy that is a girl has all a girl's weakness without any
of her regal qualities. A woman made out of a woman is God's noblest
work; a woman made out of a man is his meanest.--BEECHER.
Children are the keys of Paradise.
* * * They alone are good and wise,
Because their thoughts, their very lives are prayer.
--STODDARD.
Blessed be the hand that prepares a pleasure for a child, for there
is no saying when and where it may bloom forth.--DOUGLAS JERROLD.
Many children, many cares; no children, no felicity.--BOVEE.
If there is anything that will endure
The eye of God because it still is pure,
It is the spirit of a little child,
Fresh from His hand, and therefore undefiled.
Nearer the gate of Paradise than we,
Our children breathe its airs, its angels see;
And when they pray, God hears their simple prayer,
Yea, even sheathes His sword, in judgment bare.
--STODDARD.
Every child walks into existence through the golden gate of love.
--BEECHER.
Of all sights which can soften and humanize the heart of man, there is
none that ought so surely to reach it as that of innocent children
enjoying the happiness which is their proper and natural
portion.--SOUTHEY.
Ah! what would the world be to us,
If the children were no more?
We should dread the desert behind us
Worse than the dark before.
--LONGFELLOW.
Jesus was the first great teacher of men who showed a genuine sympathy
for childhood. When He said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven," it
was a revelation.--EDWARD EGGLESTON.
Where children are there is the golden age.--NOVALIS.
CHRIST.--The best of men that ever wore earth about him was a
sufferer, a soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit; the first
true gentleman that ever breathed.--DECKER.
All the glory and beauty of Christ are manifested within, and there
He delights to dwell; His visits there are frequent, His condescension
amazing, His conversation sweet, His comforts refreshing; and the
peace that He brings passeth all understanding.--THOMAS À KEMPIS.
From first to last Jesus is the same; always the same, majestic and
simple, infinitely severe and infinitely gentle.--NAPOLEON I.
He, the Holiest among the mighty, and the Mightiest among the holy,
has lifted with His pierced hands empires off their hinges, has turned
the stream of centuries out of its channel, and still governs the
ages.--RICHTER.
In His death He is a sacrifice, satisfying for our sins; in the
resurrection, a conqueror; in the ascension, a king; in the
intercession, a high priest.--LUTHER.
Jesus Christ was more than man.--NAPOLEON I.
The sages and heroes of history are receding from us, and history
contracts the record of their deeds into a narrower and narrower page.
But time has no power over the name and deeds and words of Jesus
Christ.--CHANNING.
Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne and I myself have founded empires; but
upon what do these creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus
alone founded His empire upon love; and to this very day millions
would die for Him.--NAPOLEON I.
If the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and
death of Jesus were those of a God.--ROUSSEAU.
Those who have minutely studied the character of the Saviour will find
it difficult to determine whether there is most to admire or to
imitate in it--there is so much of both.
CHRISTIANITY.--A Christian is God Almighty's gentleman.--HARE.
The real security of Christianity is to be found in its benevolent
morality, in its exquisite adaptation to the human heart, in the
facility with which its scheme accommodates itself to the capacity of
every human intellect, in the consolation which it bears to every
house of mourning, in the light with which it brightens the great
mystery of the grave.--MACAULAY.
It is the truth divine, speaking to our whole being: occupying,
calling into action, and satisfying man's every faculty, supplying the
minutest wants of his being, and speaking in one and the same moment
to his reason, his conscience and his heart. It is the light of
reason, the life of the heart, and the strength of the will.--PIERRE.
Since its introduction, human nature has made great progress, and
society experienced great changes; and in this advanced condition of
the world, Christianity, instead of losing its application and
importance, is found to be more and more congenial and adapted to
man's nature and wants. Men have outgrown the other institutions of
that period when Christianity appeared, its philosophy, its modes of
warfare, its policy, its public and private economy; but Christianity
has never shrunk as intellect has opened, but has always kept in
advance of men's faculties, and unfolded nobler views in proportion as
they have ascended. The highest powers and affections which our nature
has developed, find more than adequate objects in this religion.
Christianity is indeed peculiarly fitted to the more improved stages
of society, to the more delicate sensibilities of refined minds, and
especially to that dissatisfaction with the present state, which
always grows with the growth of our moral powers and affections.
--CHANNING.
It is a refiner as well as a purifier of the heart; it imparts
correctness of perception, delicacy of sentiment, and all those nicer
shades of thought and feeling which constitute elegance of mind.
--MRS. JOHN SANFORD.
I desire no other evidence of the truth of Christianity than the
Lord's Prayer.--MADAME DE STAEL.
Had it been published by a voice from heaven, that twelve poor men,
taken out of boats and creeks, without any help of learning, should
conquer the world to the cross, it might have been thought an illusion
against all reason of men; yet we know it was undertaken and
accomplished by them.--STEPHEN CHARNOCK.
A few persons of an odious and despised country could not have filled
the world with believers, had they not shown undoubted credentials
from the divine person who sent them on such a message.--ADDISON.
COMPANY.--Nature has left every man a capacity of being agreeable,
though not of shining in company; and there are a hundred men
sufficiently qualified for both who, by a very few faults, that they
might correct in half an hour, are not so much as tolerable.--SWIFT.
It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught
as men take diseases one of another; therefore, let men take heed of
their company.--SHAKESPEARE.
The most agreeable of all companions is a simple, frank man, without
any high pretensions to an oppressive greatness; one who loves life,
and understands the use of it; obliging alike at all hours; above all,
of a golden temper and steadfast as an anchor. For such an one we
gladly exchange the greatest genius, the most brilliant wit, the
profoundest thinker.--LESSING.
No man can possibly improve in any company for which he has not
respect enough to be under some degree of restraint.--CHESTERFIELD.
A companion is but another self; wherefore it is an argument that a
man is wicked if he keep company with the wicked.--ST. CLEMENT.
Let them have ever so learned lectures of breeding, that which will
most influence their carriage will be the company they converse with,
and the fashion of those about them.--LOCKE.
CONCEIT.--Be not wise in your own conceits.--ROMANS 12:16.
Conceit is the most contemptible and one of the most odious qualities
in the world. It is vanity driven from all other shifts, and forced to
appeal to itself for admiration.--HAZLITT.
The certain way to be cheated is to fancy one's self more cunning than
others.--CHARRON.
Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needless,
but impairs what it would improve.--POPE.
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.--COLTON.
We go and fancy that everybody is thinking of us. But he is not; he is
like us--he is thinking of himself.--CHARLES READE.
Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool
than of him.--PROVERBS 26:12.
A man who is proud of small things shows that small things are great
to him.--MADAME DE GIRARDIN.
Self-made men are most always apt to be a little too proud of the
job.--H.W. SHAW.
Nature has sometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of a man's
own making.--ADDISON.
He who gives himself airs of importance exhibits the credentials of
impotence.--LAVATER.
The more any one speaks of himself, the less he likes to hear another
talked of.--LAVATER.
CONDUCT.--I will govern my life, and my thoughts, as if the whole
world were to see the one, and to read the other; for what does it
signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God (who is
the searcher of our hearts) all our privacies are open?--SENECA.
The integrity of men is to be measured by their conduct, not by their
professions.--JUNIUS.
Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest,
Learn more than thou trowest,
Set less than thou throwest.
--SHAKESPEARE.
A man, like a watch, is to be valued for his manner of going.--WILLIAM
PENN.
I would, God knows, in a poor woodman's hut
Have spent my peaceful days, and shared my crust
With her who would have cheer'd me, rather far
Than on this throne; but being what I am,
I'll be it nobly.
--JOANNA BAILLIE.
Only add
Deeds to thy knowledge answerable, add faith,
Add virtue, patience, temperance, add love,
By name to come call'd charity, the soul
Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loath
To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess
A Paradise within thee, happier far.
--MILTON.
Take heed lest passion sway
Thy judgment to do aught which else free-will
Would not admit.
--MILTON.
CONFIDENCE.--Whatever distrust we may have of the sincerity of those
who converse with us, we always believe they will tell us more truth
than they do to others.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
Never put much confidence in such as put no confidence in others.--HARE.
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.--COLTON.
He who believes in nobody knows that he himself is not to be trusted.
--AUERBACH.
Trust not him that hath once broken faith.--SHAKESPEARE.
People have generally three epochs in their confidence in man. In the
first they believe him to be everything that is good, and they are
lavish with their friendship and confidence. In the next, they have
had experience, which has smitten down their confidence, and they then
have to be careful not to mistrust every one, and to put the worst
construction upon everything. Later in life, they learn that the
greater number of men have much more good in them than bad, and that
even when there is cause to blame, there is more reason to pity than
condemn; and then a spirit of confidence again awakens within them.
--FREDRIKA BREMER.
Trust him little who praises all, him less who censures all, and him
least who is indifferent about all.--LAVATER.
CONSCIENCE.--Conscience is a clock which, in one man, strikes aloud
and gives warning; in another, the hand points silently to the figure,
but strikes not. Meantime, hours pass away, and death hastens, and
after death comes judgment.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
Oh! Conscience! Conscience! Man's most faithful friend,
Him canst thou comfort, ease, relieve, defend:
But if he will thy friendly checks forego,
Thou art, oh! wo for me, his deadliest foe!
--CRABBE.
In the commission of evil, fear no man so much as thyself; another is
but one witness against thee, thou art a thousand; another thou mayest
avoid, thyself thou canst not. Wickedness is its own punishment.
--QUARLES.
A good conscience is a continual Christmas.--FRANKLIN.
Be mine that silent calm repast,
A conscience cheerful to the last:
That tree which bears immortal fruit,
Without a canker at the root;
That friend which never fails the just,
When other friends desert their trust.
--DR. COTTON.
No man ever offended his own conscience, but first or last it was
revenged upon him for it.--SOUTH.
He that loses his conscience has nothing left that is worth keeping.
Therefore be sure you look to that, and in the next place look to your
health; and if you have it praise God and value it next to a good
conscience.--IZAAK WALTON.
Our secret thoughts are rarely heard except in secret. No man knows
what conscience is until he understands what solitude can teach him
concerning it.--JOSEPH COOK.
A man never outlives his conscience, and that, for this cause only,
he cannot outlive himself.--SOUTH.
Rules of society are nothing, one's conscience is the umpire.--MADAME
DUDEVANT.
A man, so to speak, who is not able to bow to his own conscience every
morning is hardly in a condition to respectfully salute the world at
any other time of the day.--DOUGLAS JERROLD.
In matters of conscience first thoughts are best; in matters of
prudence last thoughts are best--REV. ROBERT HALL.
A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart;
his next, to escape the censures of the world. If the last interferes
with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; but otherwise
there cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind, than to see
those approbations which it gives itself seconded by the applause of
the public.--ADDISON.
Conscience raises its voice in the breast of every man, a witness for
his Creator.
We should have all our communications with men, as in the presence of
God; and with God, as in the presence of men.--COLTON.
I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his
cardinals. I have within me the great pope, self.--LUTHER.
The most reckless sinner against his own conscience has always in the
background the consolation that he will go on in this course only this
time, or only so long, but that at such a time he will amend. We may
be assured that we do not stand clear with our own consciences so long
as we determine or project, or even hold it possible, at some future
time to alter our course of action.--FICHTE.
There is one court whose "findings" are incontrovertible, and whose
sessions are held in the chambers of our own breast.--HOSEA BALLOU.
Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.
--STERNE.
He that hath a blind conscience which sees nothing, a dead conscience
which feels nothing, and a dumb conscience which says nothing, is in
as miserable a condition as a man can be on this side of hell.
--PATRICK HENRY.
Conscience is its own readiest accuser.--CHAPIN.
If thou wouldst be informed what God has written concerning thee in
Heaven look into thine own bosom, and see what graces He hath there
wrought in thee.--FULLER.
Yet still there whispers the small voice within,
Heard thro' gain's silence, and o'er glory's din;
Whatever creed be taught or land be trod,
Man's conscience is the oracle of God!
--BYRON.
The world will never be in any manner of order or tranquillity until
men are firmly convinced that conscience, honor and credit are all in
one interest; and that without the concurrence of the former the
latter are but impositions upon ourselves and others.--STEELE.
CONTENTMENT.--To secure a contented spirit, measure your desires by
your fortune, and not your fortune by your desires.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
I press to bear no haughty sway;
I wish no more than may suffice:
I do no more than well I may,
Look what I lack, my mind supplies;
Lo, thus I triumph like a king,
My mind's content with anything.
--BYRD.
Enjoy your own life without comparing it with that of
another.--CONDORCET.
To be content with little is difficult; to be content with much,
impossible.--MARIE EBNER-ESCHENBACH.
My God, give me neither poverty nor riches; but whatsoever it may be
Thy will to give, give me with it a heart which knows humbly to
acquiesce in what is Thy will.--GOTTHOLD.
One who is contented with what he has done will never become famous
for what he will do. He has lain down to die. The grass is already
growing over him.--BOVEE.
Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the
expense of ten thousand desires makes a wise and a happy
purchase.--BALGUY.
If men knew what felicity dwells in the cottage of a godly man, how
sound he sleeps, how quiet his rest, how composed his mind, how free
from care, how easy his position, how moist his mouth, how joyful his
heart, they would never admire the noises, the diseases, the throngs
of passions, and the violence of unnatural appetites that fill the
house of the luxurious and the heart of the ambitious.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
He is richest who is content with the least; for content is the wealth
of nature.--SOCRATES.
Poor and content, is rich and rich enough;
But riches, fineless, is as poor as winter,
To him that ever fears he shall be poor.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Learn to be pleased with everything, with wealth so far as it makes us
beneficial to others; with poverty, for not having much to care for;
and with obscurity, for being unenvied.--PLUTARCH.
It is right to be contented with what we have, but never with what we
are.--SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.
Without content, we shall find it almost as difficult to please
others as ourselves.--GREVILLE.
True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough
for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.--COLTON.
Content with poverty my soul I arm;
And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
--DRYDEN.
Unless we find repose within ourselves, it is vain to seek it
elsewhere.--HOSEA BALLOU.
The noblest mind the best contentment has.--SPENSER.
I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.
--PHILIPPIANS 4:11.
CONVERSATION.--The pith of conversation does not consist in exhibiting
your own superior knowledge on matters of small consequence, but in
enlarging, improving and correcting the information you possess by the
authority of others.--SIR WALTER SCOTT.
There are three things in speech that ought to be considered before
some things are spoken--the manner, the place and the time.--SOUTHEY.
The secret of tiring is to say everything that can be said on the
subject.--VOLTAIRE.
Speak little and well if you wish to be considered as possessing
merit.--FROM THE FRENCH.
The less men think, the more they talk.--MONTESQUIEU.
He who sedulously attends, pointedly asks, calmly speaks, coolly
answers, and ceases when he has no more to say, is in possession of
some of the best requisites of man.--LAVATER.
Amongst such as out of cunning hear all and talk little, be sure to
talk less; or if you must talk, say little.--LA BRUYÈRE.
Not only to say the right thing in the right place, but, far more
difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting
moment.--G.A. SALA.
When we are in the company of sensible men, we ought to be doubly
cautious of talking too much, lest we lose two good things, their good
opinion and our own improvement; for what we have to say we know, but
what they have to say we know not.--COLTON.
Never hold any one by the button or the hand in order to be heard out;
for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your
tongue than them.--CHESTERFIELD.
There is speaking well, speaking easily, speaking justly and speaking
seasonably: It is offending against the last, to speak of
entertainments before the indigent; of sound limbs and health before
the infirm; of houses and lands before one who has not so much as a
dwelling; in a word, to speak of your prosperity before the miserable;
this conversation is cruel, and the comparison which naturally arises
in them betwixt their condition and yours is excruciating.
--LA BRUYÈRE.
Egotists cannot converse, they talk to themselves only.--A. BRONSON
ALCOTT.
The extreme pleasure we take in talking of ourselves should make
us fear that we give very little to those who listen to us.
--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
Many can argue, not many converse.--A. BRONSON ALCOTT.
One thing which makes us find so few people who appear reasonable and
agreeable in conversation is, that there is scarcely any one who does
not think more of what he is about to say than of answering precisely
what is said to him.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
The first ingredient in conversation is truth, the next good sense,
the third good humor, and the fourth wit.
It is a secret known but to few, yet of no small use in the conduct of
life, that when you fall into a man's conversation, the first thing
you should consider is, whether he has a greater inclination to hear
you, or that you should hear him.--STEELE.
In my whole life I have only known ten or twelve persons with whom it
was pleasant to speak--_i.e._, who keep to the subject, do not repeat
themselves, and do not talk of themselves; men who do not listen to
their own voice, who are cultivated enough not to lose themselves in
commonplaces, and, lastly, who possess tact and good taste enough not
to elevate their own persons above their subjects.--METTERNICH.
COUNSEL.--I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be
one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.--SHAKESPEARE.
The best receipt--best to work and best to take--is the admonition of
a friend.--BACON.
Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect
yourself. His counsel may then be useful, where your own self-love
might impair your judgment.--SENECA.
Let no man value at little price a virtuous woman's counsel.--GEORGE
CHAPMAN.
COURAGE.--The conscience of every man recognizes courage as the
foundation of manliness, and manliness as the perfection of human
character.--THOMAS HUGHES.
To struggle when hope is banished!
To live when life's salt is gone!
To dwell in a dream that's vanished!
To endure, and go calmly on!
The brave man is not he who feels no fear,
For that were stupid and irrational;
But he, whose noble soul its fear subdues,
And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from.
--JOANNA BAILLIE.
A valiant man
Ought not to undergo or tempt a danger,
But worthily, and by selected ways;
He undertakes by reason, not by chance.
--BEN JONSON.
True courage is cool and calm. The bravest of men have the least of a
brutal bullying insolence, and in the very time of danger are found
the most serene and free. Rage, we know, can make a coward forget
himself and fight. But what is done in fury or anger can never be
placed to the account of courage.--SHAFTESBURY.
Much danger makes great hearts most resolute.--MARSTON.
Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it
and conquering it.--RICHTER.
The truest courage is always mixed with circumspection; this being the
quality which distinguishes the courage of the wise from the hardiness
of the rash and foolish.--JONES OF NAYLAND.
Physical courage, which despises all danger, will make a man brave in
one way; and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a
man brave in another. The former would seem most necessary for the
camp, the latter for council; but to constitute a great man, both are
necessary.--COLTON.
He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but
he that loses his courage loses all.--CERVANTES.
COURTSHIP.--Every man ought to be in love a few times in his life,
and to have a smart attack of the fever. You are better for it when it
is over: the better for your misfortune, if you endure it with a manly
heart; how much the better for success, if you win it and a good wife
into the bargain!--THACKERAY.
Men dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake!--POPE.
With women worth the being won,
The softest lover ever best succeeds.
--HILL.
The pleasantest part of a man's life is generally that which passes in
courtship, provided his passion be sincere, and the party beloved kind
with discretion. Love, desire, hope, all the pleasing emotions of the
soul, rise in the pursuit.--ADDISON.
How would that excellent mystery, wedded life, irradiate the world
with its blessed influences, were the generous impulses and sentiments
of courtship but perpetuated in all their exuberant fullness during
the sequel of marriage!--FREDERIC SAUNDERS.
Rejected lovers need never despair! There are four-and-twenty hours in
a day, and not a moment in the twenty-four in which a woman may not
change her mind.--DE FINOD.
Courtship consists in a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as
to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood.--STERNE.
COVETOUSNESS.--Covetousness, like a candle ill made, smothers the
splendor of a happy fortune in its own grease.--F. OSBORN.
The only instance of a despairing sinner left upon record in the New
Testament is that of a treacherous and greedy Judas.
He deservedly loses his own property who covets that of another.
--PHAEDRUS.
Covetousness, which is idolatry.--COLOSSIANS 3:5.
There is not a vice which more effectually contracts and deadens the
feelings, which more completely makes a man's affections centre in
himself, and excludes all others from partaking in them, than the
desire of accumulating possessions. When the desire has once gotten
hold on the heart, it shuts out all other considerations, but such as
may promote its views. In its zeal for the attainment of its end, it
is not delicate in the choice of means. As it closes the heart, so
also it clouds the understanding. It cannot discern between right and
wrong; it takes evil for good, and good for evil; it calls darkness
light, and light darkness. Beware, then, of the beginning of
covetousness, for you know not where it will end.--BISHOP MANT.
The covetous person lives as if the world were made altogether for
him, and not he for the world; to take in everything, and part with
nothing.--SOUTH.
Covetous men are fools, miserable wretches, buzzards, madmen, who live
by themselves, in perpetual slavery, fear, suspicion, sorrow,
discontent, with more of gall than honey in their enjoyments; who are
rather possessed by their money than possessors of it.--BURTON.
Why are we so blind? That which we improve, we have, that which we
hoard is not for ourselves.--MADAME DELUZY.
If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man
cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that it may be said
to possess him.--BACON.
Those who give not till they die show that they would not then if
they could keep it any longer.--BISHOP HALL.
CRITICISM.--He whose first emotion, on the view of an excellent
production, is to undervalue it, will never have one of his own to
show.--AIKEN.
Neither praise nor blame is the object of true criticism. Justly to
discriminate, firmly to establish, wisely to prescribe and honestly to
award--these are the true aims and duties of criticism.--SIMMS.
Censure and criticism never hurt anybody. If false, they can't hurt
you unless you are wanting in manly character; and if true, they show
a man his weak points, and forewarn him against failure and
trouble.--GLADSTONE.
It is easy to criticise an author, but it is difficult to appreciate
him.--VAUVENARGUES.
It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.--BEACONSFIELD.
There is a certain meddlesome spirit, which, in the garb of learned
research, goes prying about the traces of history, casting down its
monuments, and marring and mutilating its fairest trophies. Care
should be taken to vindicate great names from such pernicious
erudition.--WASHINGTON IRVING.
He who would reproach an author for obscurity should look into his own
mind to see whether it is quite clear there. In the dusk the plainest
writing is illegible.--GOETHE.
A man must serve his time to ev'ry trade,
Save censure; critics all are ready-made.
CUNNING.--In a great business there is nothing so fatal as cunning
management.--JUNIUS.
Cunning leads to knavery; it is but a step from one to the other, and
that very slippery; lying only makes the difference; add that to
cunning, and it is knavery.--LA BRUYÈRE.
Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering
other people's weaknesses.--HAZLITT.
A cunning man overreaches no one half as much as himself.--BEECHER.
The animals to whom nature has given the faculty we call cunning know
always when to use it, and use it wisely; but when man descends to
cunning, he blunders and betrays.--THOMAS PAINE.
The most sure method of subjecting yourself to be deceived, is to
consider yourself more cunning than others.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
DEATH.--God's finger touch'd him, and he slept.--TENNYSON.
But no! that look is not the last;
We yet may meet where seraphs dwell,
Where love no more deplores the past,
Nor breathes that withering word--Farewell!
--PEABODY.
How beautiful it is for a man to die on the walls of Zion! to be
called like a watch-worn and weary sentinel, to put his armor off, and
rest in heaven.--N.P. WILLIS.
I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was
Death.--REVELATION 6:8.
When we see our enemies and friends gliding away before us, let us not
forget that we are subject to the general law of mortality, and shall
soon be where our doom will be fixed forever.--DR. JOHNSON.
I have seen those who have arrived at a fearless contemplation of the
future, from faith in the doctrine which our religion teaches. Such
men were not only calm and supported, but cheerful in the hour of
death; and I never quitted such a sick chamber without a hope that my
last end might be like theirs.--SIR HENRY HALFORD.
One may live as a conqueror, a king or a magistrate; but he must die
as a man. The bed of death brings every human being to his pure
individuality; to the intense contemplation of that deepest and most
solemn of all relations, the relation between the creature and his
Creator. Here it is that fame and renown cannot assist us; that all
external things must fail to aid us; that even friends, affection and
human love and devotedness cannot succor us.--WEBSTER.
There is no death. The thing that we call death
Is but another, sadder name for life.
--STODDARD.
To die,--to sleep,--
No more;--and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to.
--SHAKESPEARE.
All that nature has prescribed must be good; and as death is natural
to us, it is absurdity to fear it. Fear loses its purpose when we are
sure it cannot preserve us, and we should draw resolution to meet it,
from the impossibility to escape it.--STEELE.
There is nothing certain in man's life but this, that he must lose
it.--OWEN MEREDITH.
Death robs the rich and relieves the poor.--J.L. BASFORD.
Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the
physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him
whom time cannot console.--COLTON.
Death, so called, is a thing that makes men weep,
And yet a third of life is pass'd in sleep.
--BYRON.
The finest day of life is that on which one quits it.--FREDERICK THE
GREAT.
Death is delightful. Death is dawn--
The waking from a weary night
Of fevers unto truth and light.
--JOAQUIN MILLER.
The hour conceal'd and so remote the fear,
Death still draws nearer, never seeming near.
--POPE.
All that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Death gives us sleep, eternal youth, and immortality.--RICHTER.
You should not fear, nor yet should you wish for your last day.
--MARTIAL.
No man but knows that he must die; he knows that in whatever quarter
of the world he abides--whatever be his circumstances--however strong
his present hold of life--however unlike the prey of death he
looks--that it is his doom beyond reverse to die.--STEBBING.
It is by no means a fact that death is the worst of all evils; when it
comes, it is an alleviation to mortals who are worn out with
sufferings.--METASTASIO.
God giveth quietness at last.--WHITTIER.
Death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exits.
--JOHN WEBSTER.
Death will have his day.--SHAKESPEARE.
Death comes but once.--BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
It is not I who die, when I die, but my sin and misery.--GOTTHOLD.
Death is the crown of life.--YOUNG.
So live, that, when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon; but sustain'd and sooth'd
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one that draws the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
--BRYANT.
DEBT.--Who goes a-borrowing goeth a-sorrowing.--TUSSER.
Creditors have better memories than debtors; and creditors are a
superstitious sect, great observers of set days and times.--FRANKLIN.
Man hazards the condition and loses the virtues of freeman, in
proportion as he accustoms his thoughts to view without anguish or
shame his lapse into the bondage of debtor.--LYTTON.
Paying of debts is, next to the grace of God, the best means in the
world to deliver you from a thousand temptations to sin and vanity.
--DELANY.
Run not into debt, either for wares sold, or money borrowed; be
content to want things that are not of absolute necessity, rather than
to run up the score.--SIR M. HALE.
Debt is the worst poverty.--M.G. LICHTWER.
DELICACY.--Delicacy is the genuine tint of virtue.--MARGUERITE DE
VALOIS.
Many things are too delicate to be thought; many more, to be spoken.
--NOVALIS.
An appearance of delicacy is inseparable from sweetness and gentleness
of character.--MRS. SIGOURNEY.
True delicacy, that most beautiful heart-leaf of humanity, exhibits
itself most significantly in little things.--MARY HOWITT.
Delicacy is to the affections what grace is to the beauty.--DEGERANDO.
Weak men often, from the very principle of their weakness, derive a
certain susceptibility, delicacy and taste which render them, in those
particulars, much superior to men of stronger and more consistent
minds, who laugh at them.--GREVILLE.
Delicacy is to the mind what fragrance is to the fruit.--ACHILLES
POINCELOT.
DELUSION.--Delusions, like dreams, are dispelled by our awaking to the
stern realities of life.--A.R.C. DALLAS.
No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as
necessary to our happiness as realities.--BOVEE.
We are always living under some delusion, and instead of taking things
as they are, and making the best of them, we follow an ignis fatuus,
and lose, in its pursuit, the joy we might attain.--JAMES ELLIS.
DESPAIR.--It is impossible for that man to despair who remembers that
his Helper is omnipotent.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
Despair is the conclusion of fools.--BEACONSFIELD.
He that despairs measures Providence by his own little contracted
model.--SOUTH.
Despair is infidelity and death.--WHITTIER.
Despair makes a despicable figure, and descends from a mean original.
'Tis the offspring of fear, of laziness and impatience; it argues a
defect of spirit and resolution, and oftentimes of honesty too. I
would not despair, unless I saw misfortune recorded in the book of
fate, and signed and sealed by necessity.--COLLIER.
Where Christ brings His cross, He brings His presence; and where He
is, none are desolate, and there is no room for despair.--MRS. BROWNING.
He is the truly courageous man who never desponds.--CONFUCIUS.
Religion converts despair, which destroys, into resignation, which
submits.--LADY BLESSINGTON.
Dreadful is their doom, whom doubt has driven
To censure fate, and pious hope forego.
--BEATTIE.
DIET.--Simple diet is best.--PLINY.
Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.--SHAKESPEARE.
In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eat about twice
as much as nature requires.--FRANKLIN.
DIFFICULTIES.--Difficulties strengthen the mind, as well as labor does
the body.--SENECA.
There is no merit where there is no trial; and, till experience stamps
the mark of strength, cowards may pass for heroes, faith for
falsehood.--AARON HILL.
Difficulties are God's errands; and when we are sent upon them we
should esteem it a proof of God's confidence--as a compliment from
God.--BEECHER.
It is difficulties which give birth to miracles.--REV. DR. SHARPE.
What is difficulty? Only a word indicating the degree of strength
requisite for accomplishing particular objects; a mere notice of the
necessity for exertion; a bugbear to children and fools; only a mere
stimulus to men.--SAMUEL WARREN.
Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the supreme
ordinance of a paternal guardian and legislator, who knows us better
than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too. He that wrestles
with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist
is our helper.--BURKE.
There are few difficulties that hold out against real attacks; they
fly, like the visible horizon, before those who advance.
DISCIPLINE.--No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no
glory; no cross, no crown.--WILLIAM PENN.
No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not
be subdued by discipline.--SENECA.
DISCORD.--Our life is full of discord; but by forbearance and virtue
this same discord can be turned to harmony.--JAMES ELLIS.
The peacemakers shall be called the sons of God, who came to make
peace between God and man. What then shall the sowers of discord be
called, but the children of the devil? And what must they look for but
their father's portion?--ST. BERNARD.
DISCRETION.--Remember the divine saying, He that keepeth his mouth,
keepeth his life.--SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there is
none so useful as discretion.--ADDISON.
Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.--BACON.
Discretion and hard valor are the twins of honor.--BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
The better part of valor is discretion.--SHAKESPEARE.
Discretion is more necessary to women than eloquence, because they
have less trouble to speak well than to speak little.--FATHER DU BOSC.
Let's teach ourselves that honorable stop
Not to outsport discretion.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to win all the
duties of life.--ADDISON.
Great ability without discretion comes almost invariably to a tragic
end.--GAMBETTA.
DISSIMULATION.--Dissimulation, even the most innocent in its nature,
is ever productive of embarrassment; whether the design is evil or
not, artifice is always dangerous and almost inevitably disgraceful.
--LA BRUYÈRE.
DRESS.--In the matter of dress people should always keep below their
ability.--MONTESQUIEU.
Those who are incapable of shining but by dress would do well to
consider, that the contrast between them and their clothes turns out
much to their disadvantage.--SHENSTONE.
And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field,
how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin.--MATTHEW 6:28.
A majority of women seem to consider themselves sent into the world
for the sole purpose of displaying dry goods; and it is only when
acting the part of an animated milliner's block that they feel they
are performing their appropriate mission.--ABBA GOOLD WOOLSON.
No man is esteemed for gay garments but by fools and women.--SIR
WALTER RALEIGH.
Those who think that in order to dress well it is necessary to dress
extravagantly or grandly make a great mistake. Nothing so well becomes
true feminine beauty as simplicity.--GEORGE D. PRENTICE.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy;
rich, not gaudy; for the apparel oft proclaims the man.--SHAKESPEARE.
No real happiness is found
In trailing purple o'er the ground.
--PARNELL.
If a woman were about to proceed to her execution, she would demand a
little time to perfect her toilet.--CHAMFORT.
Men of quality never appear more amiable than when their dress is
plain. Their birth, rank, title and its appendages are at best
invidious; and as they do not need the assistance of dress, so, by
their disclaiming the advantage of it, they make their superiority sit
more easy.--SHENSTONE.
It is well known that a loose and easy dress contributes much to give
to both sexes those fine proportions of body that are observable in
the Grecian statues, and which serve as models to our present
artists.--ROUSSEAU.
As soon as a woman begins to dress "loud," her manners and
conversation partake of the same element.--HALIBURTON.
Dress has a moral effect on the conduct of mankind. Let any gentleman
find himself with dirty boots, old surtout, soiled neckcloth and a
general negligence of dress, he will in all probability find a
corresponding disposition by negligence of _address_.--SIR JONAH
BARRINGTON.
We sacrifice to dress, till household joys
And comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry,
And keeps our larder clean; puts out our fires,
And introduces hunger, frost and woe,
Where peace and hospitality might reign.
Dress changes the manners.--VOLTAIRE.
DRINK.--Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may
follow strong drink.--ISAIAH 5:11.
All excess is ill, but drunkenness is of the worst sort. It spoils
health, dismounts the mind, and unmans men. It reveals secrets, is
quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous and mad. He that is drunk
is not a man, because he is, for so long, void of reason that
distinguishes a man from a beast.--WILLIAM PENN.
Some of the domestic evils of drunkenness are houses without windows,
gardens without fences, fields without tillage, barns without roofs,
children without clothing, principles, morals or manners.--FRANKLIN.
Drunkenness is the vice of a good constitution or of a bad memory--of
a constitution so treacherously good that it never bends till it
breaks; or of a memory that recollects the pleasures of getting
intoxicated, but forgets the pains of getting sober.--COLTON.
Habitual intoxication is the epitome of every crime.--DOUGLAS JERROLD.
O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by,
let us call thee--devil! * * * O, that men should put an enemy to
their mouths to steal away their brains; that we should, with joy,
revel, pleasure and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!
--SHAKESPEARE.
Every inordinate cup is unbless'd, and the ingredient is a devil.
--SHAKESPEARE.
It were better for a man to be subject to any vice, than to
drunkenness: for all other vanities and sins are recovered, but a
drunkard will never shake off the delight of beastliness.--SIR WALTER
RALEIGH.
Man has evil as well as good qualities peculiar to himself.
Drunkenness places him as much below the level of the brutes as reason
elevates him above them.--SIR G. SINCLAIR.
Of all vices take heed of drunkenness; other vices are but fruits of
disordered affections--this disorders, nay, banishes reason; other
vices but impair the soul--this demolishes her two chief faculties,
the understanding and the will; other vices make their own way--this
makes way for all vices; he that is a drunkard is qualified for all
vice.--QUARLES.
There is scarcely a crime before me that is not directly or indirectly
caused by strong drink.--JUDGE COLERIDGE.
Beware of drunkenness, lest all good men beware of thee; where
drunkenness reigns, there reason is an exile, virtue a stranger, God
an enemy; blasphemy is wit, oaths are rhetoric, and secrets are
proclamations.--QUARLES.
DUTY.--Duty grows everywhere, like children, like grass.--EMERSON.
Perish discretion when it interferes with duty.--HANNAH MORE.
The people of this country have shown by the highest proofs human
nature can give, that wherever the path of duty and honor may lead,
however steep and rugged it may be, they are ready to walk in
it.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
The true way to render ourselves happy is to love our duty and find in
it our pleasure.--MME. DE MOTTEVILLE.
Let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and
prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this precept
well to heart: "Do the duty which lies nearest to thee," which thou
knowest to be a duty! Thy second duty will already have become
clearer.--CARLYLE.
Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of
man.--ECCLESIASTES 12:13.
Commonplace though it may appear, this doing of one's duty embodies
the highest ideal of life and character. There may be nothing heroic
about it; but the common lot of men is not heroic.--SAMUEL SMILES.
Who escapes a duty avoids a gain.--THEODORE PARKER.
Let us do our duty in our shop or our kitchen, the market, the street,
the office, the school, the home, just as faithfully as if we stood in
the front rank of some great battle, and we knew that victory for
mankind depended upon our bravery, strength, and skill. When we do
that the humblest of us will be serving in that great army which
achieves the welfare of the world.--THEODORE PARKER.
In every profession the daily and common duties are the most useful.
Let men laugh when you sacrifice desire to duty, if they will. You
have time and eternity to rejoice in.--THEODORE PARKER.
Be not diverted from your duty by any idle reflections the silly world
may make upon you, for their censures are not in your power, and
consequently should not be any part of your concern.--EPICTETUS.
It is thy duty oftentimes to do what thou wouldst not; thy duty, too,
to leave undone that thou wouldst do.--THOMAS À KEMPIS.
There is no evil that we cannot either face or fly from but the
consciousness of duty disregarded. A sense of duty pursues us ever. It
is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of
the morning, and dwell in the utmost parts of the seas, duty
performed, or duty violated, is still with us, for our happiness or
our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as
in the light our obligations are yet with us. We cannot escape their
power, nor fly from their presence. They are with us in this life,
will be with us at its close, and in that scene of inconceivable
solemnity which lies yet further onward we shall still find ourselves
surrounded by the consciousness of duty, to pain us wherever it has
been violated, and to console us so far as God may have given us grace
to perform it.--WEBSTER.
EARLY RISING.--Whoever has tasted the breath of morning, knows that
the most invigorating and most delightful hours of the day are
commonly spent in bed; though it is the evident intention of Nature
that we should enjoy and profit by them.--SOUTHEY.
Who would in such a gloomy state remain
Longer than nature craves; when ev'ry muse
And every blooming pleasure wait without,
To bless the wildly devious morning walk?
--THOMSON.
The difference between rising at five and seven o'clock in the
morning, for the space of forty years, supposing a man to go to bed at
the same hour at night, is nearly equivalent to ten additional years
to a man's life.--DODDRIDGE.
I would have inscribed on the curtains of your bed, and the walls of
your chamber: "If you do not rise early, you can make progress in
nothing."--CHATHAM.
When one begins to turn in bed, it is time to get up.--WELLINGTON.
Few ever lived to a great age, and fewer still ever became
distinguished, who were not in the habit of early rising.--DR. JOHN TODD.
Next to temperance, a quiet conscience, a cheerful mind and active
habits, I place early rising as a means of health and happiness.--FLINT.
Thus we improve the pleasures of the day,
While tasteless mortals sleep their time away.
--MRS. CENTLIVRE.
No man can promise himself even fifty years of life, but any man may,
if he please, live in the proportion of fifty years in forty;--let him
rise early, that he may have the day before him, and let him make the
most of the day, by determining to expend it on two sorts of
acquaintance only,--those by whom something may be got, and those from
whom something may be learnt.--COLTON.
The famous Apollonius being very early at Vespasian's gate, and
finding him stirring, from thence conjectured that he was worthy to
govern an empire, and said to his companion, "This man surely will be
emperor, he is so early."--CAUSSIN.
EARNESTNESS.--Without earnestness no man is ever great, or does really
great things. He may be the cleverest of men, he may be brilliant,
entertaining, popular; but he will want weight. No soul-moving picture
was ever painted that had not in it the depth of shadow.--PETER BAYNE.
A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and
done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give no
peace.--EMERSON.
Patience is only one faculty; earnestness the devotion of all the
faculties. Earnestness is the cause of patience; it gives endurance,
overcomes pain, strengthens weakness, braves dangers, sustains hope,
makes light of difficulties, and lessens the sense of weariness in
overcoming them.--BOVEE.
There is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent and sincere
earnestness.--DICKENS.
He who would do some great thing in this short life, must apply
himself to the work with such a concentration of his forces as to the
idle spectators, who live only to amuse themselves, looks like
insanity.--JOHN FOSTER.
ECONOMY.--Economy is a savings-bank, into which men drop pennies, and
get dollars in return.--H.W. SHAW.
Economy is half the battle of life; it is not so hard to earn money as
to spend it well.--SPURGEON.
Let honesty and industry be thy constant companions and spend one
penny less than thy clear gains; then shall thy hide-bound pocket soon
begin to thrive and will never again cry with the empty belly-ache;
neither will creditors insult thee, nor want oppress, nor hunger bite,
nor nakedness freeze thee.--FRANKLIN.
He that, when he should not, spends too much, shall, when he would
not, have too little to spend.--FELTHAM.
Economy is the parent of integrity, of liberty and of ease, and
the beauteous sister of temperance, of cheerfulness and health.
--DR. JOHNSON.
Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.
--FRANKLIN.
If you know how to spend less than you get you have the philosopher's
stone.--FRANKLIN.
Be saving, but not at the cost of all liberality. Have the soul of a
king and the hand of a wise economist.--JOUBERT.
A penny saved is two pence clear,
A pin a day's a groat a year.
--FRANKLIN.
Those individuals who save money are better workmen; if they do not
the work better, they behave better and are more respectable; and I
would sooner have in my trade a hundred men who save money than two
hundred who would spend every shilling they get. In proportion as
individuals save a little money their morals are much better; they
husband that little, and there is a superior tone given to their
morals, and they behave better for knowing that they have a little
stake in society.
No man is rich whose expenditures exceed his means; and no one is poor
whose incomings exceed his outgoings.--HALIBURTON.
EDUCATION.--The true order of learning should be first, what is
necessary; second, what is useful, and third, what is ornamental. To
reverse this arrangement is like beginning to build at the top of the
edifice.--MRS. SIGOURNEY.
A father inquires whether his boy can construe Homer, if he
understands Horace, and can taste Virgil; but how seldom does he ask,
or examine, or think whether he can restrain his passions,--whether he
is grateful, generous, humane, compassionate, just and benevolent.
--LADY HERVEY.
The world is only saved by the breath of the school children.--THE
TALMUD.
It was the German schoolhouse which destroyed Napoleon III. France,
since then, is making monster cannon and drilling soldiers still, but
she is also building schoolhouses.--BEECHER.
A complete and generous education fits a man to perform justly,
skilfully and magnanimously all the offices of peace and war.--MILTON.
Knowledge does not comprise all which is contained in the large term
of education. The feelings are to be disciplined, the passions are to
be restrained; true and worthy motives are to be inspired; a profound
religious feeling is to be instilled, and pure morality inculcated
under all circumstances. All this is comprised in education.--WEBSTER.
It is not scholarship alone, but scholarship impregnated with religion,
that tells on the great mass of society. We have no faith in the
efficacy of mechanics' institutes, or even of primary and elementary
schools, for building up a virtuous and well conditioned peasantry so
long as they stand dissevered from the lessons of Christian piety.
Unless your cask is perfectly clean, whatever you pour into it turns
sour.--HORACE.
Prussia is great because her people are intelligent. They know the
alphabet. The alphabet is conquering the world.--G.W. CURTIS.
Next in importance to freedom and justice, is popular education,
without which neither justice nor freedom can be permanently
maintained.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
A boy is better unborn than untaught.--GASCOIGNE.
On the diffusion of education among the people rests the preservation
and perpetuation of our free institutions.--WEBSTER.
Education commences at the mother's knee, and every word spoken within
the hearing of little children tends toward the formation of
character. Let parents bear this ever in mind.--HOSEA BALLOU.
Do not ask if a man has been through college; ask if a college has
been through him; if he is a walking university.--CHAPIN.
The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think than
what to think,--rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to
think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of
other men.--BEATTIE.
Into what boundless life does education admit us. Every truth gained
through it expands a moment of time into illimitable being--positively
enlarges our existence, and endows us with qualities which time cannot
weaken or destroy.--CHAPIN.
All that a university or final highest school can do for us is still
but what the first school began doing--teach us to read. We learn to
read in various languages, in various sciences; we learn the alphabet
and letters of all manner of books. But the place where we are to get
knowledge, even theoretic knowledge, is the books themselves. It
depends on what we read, after all manner of professors have done
their best for us. The true university of these days is a collection
of books.--CARLYLE.
If you suffer your people to be ill educated, and their manners to be
corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to
which their first education disposed them--you first make thieves and
then punish them.--SIR THOMAS MORE.
'Tis education forms the common mind,
Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.
--POPE.
EGOTISM.--When all is summed up, a man never speaks of himself without
loss; his accusations of himself are always believed, his praises
never.--MONTAIGNE.
Be your character what it will, it will be known; and nobody will
take it upon your word.--CHESTERFIELD.
We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not to talk of ourselves
at all.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
It is never permissible to say, I say.--MADAME NECKER.
The more you speak of yourself, the more you are likely to lie.
--ZIMMERMANN.
What hypocrites we seem to be whenever we talk of ourselves! Our words
sound so humble, while our hearts are so proud.--HARE.
The more anyone speaks of himself, the less he likes to hear another
talked of.--LAVATER.
Do you wish men to speak well of you? Then never speak well of
yourself.--PASCAL.
He who thinks he can find in himself the means of doing without others
is much mistaken; but he who thinks that others cannot do without him
is still more mistaken.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
ELOQUENCE.--Extemporaneous and oral harangues will always have this
advantage over those that are read from a manuscript; every burst of
eloquence or spark of genius they may contain, however studied they
may have been beforehand, will appear to the audience to be the effect
of the sudden inspiration of talent.--COLTON.
True eloquence consists in saying all that is necessary, and nothing
but what is necessary.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be
brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will
toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but
they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and
in the occasion.--WEBSTER.
There is as much eloquence in the tone of voice, in the eyes, and in
the air of a speaker, as in his choice of words.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
EMPLOYMENT.--Life will frequently languish, even in the hands of the
busy, if they have not some employment subsidiary to that which forms
their main pursuit.--BLAIR.
The rust rots the steel which use preserves.--LYTTON.
Indolence is stagnation; employment is life.--SENECA.
The devil does not tempt people whom he finds suitably employed.
--JEREMY TAYLOR.
Employment, which Galen calls "nature's physician," is so essential to
human happiness, that indolence is justly considered as the mother of
misery.--BURTON.
ENTHUSIASM.--Enthusiasm is the height of man; it is the passing from
the human to the divine.--EMERSON.
Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.
--BEACONSFIELD.
Let us recognize the beauty and power of true enthusiasm; and whatever
we may do to enlighten ourselves and others, guard against checking or
chilling a single earnest sentiment.--TUCKERMAN.
Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm; it moves stones, it charms
brutes. Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes
no victories without it.--LYTTON.
Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the
triumph of enthusiasm.--EMERSON.
The most enthusiastic man in a cause is rarely chosen as a leader.
--ARTHUR HELPS.
Let us beware of losing our enthusiasms. Let us ever glory in
something, and strive to retain our admiration for all that would
ennoble, and our interest in all that would enrich and beautify our
life.--PHILLIPS BROOKS.
ENVY.--There is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as
envy.--SHERIDAN.
An envious man waxeth lean with the fatness of his neighbors. Envy is
the daughter of pride, the author of murder and revenge, the beginner
of secret sedition and the perpetual tormentor of virtue. Envy is the
filthy slime of the soul; a venom, a poison, or quicksilver which
consumeth the flesh and drieth up the marrow of the bones.--SOCRATES.
As a moth gnaws a garment, so doth envy consume a man.--ST. CHRYSOSTOM.
We ought to be guarded against every appearance of envy, as a passion
that always implies inferiority wherever it resides.--PLINY.
Base envy withers at another's joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
--THOMSON.
The envious man is in pain upon all occasions which ought to give him
pleasure. The relish of his life is inverted; and the objects which
administer the highest satisfaction to those who are exempt from this
passion give the quickest pangs to persons who are subject to it. All
the perfections of their fellow-creatures are odious. Youth, beauty,
valor and wisdom are provocations of their displeasure. What a
wretched and apostate state is this! to be offended with excellence,
and to hate a man because we approve him!--STEELE.
The truest mark of being born with great qualities is being born
without envy.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
The praise of the envious is far less creditable than their censure;
they praise only that which they can surpass, but that which surpasses
them they censure.--COLTON.
Envy--the rottenness of the bones.--PROVERBS 14:30.
There is no guard to be kept against envy, because no man knows where
it dwells, and generous and innocent men are seldom jealous and
suspicious till they feel the wound.
Stones and sticks are thrown only at fruit-bearing trees.--SAADI.
Emulation looks out for merits, that she may exalt herself by a
victory; envy spies out blemishes, that she may lower another by a
defeat.--COLTON.
Envy is a passion so full of cowardice and shame, that nobody ever had
the confidence to own it.--ROCHESTER.
ETERNITY.--He that will often put eternity and the world before him,
and who will dare to look steadfastly at both of them, will find that
the more often he contemplates them, the former will grow greater, and
the latter less.--COLTON.
Let us be adventurers for another world. It is at least a fair and
noble chance; and there is nothing in this worth our thoughts or our
passions. If we should be disappointed, we are still no worse than the
rest of our fellow-mortals; and if we succeed in our expectations, we
are eternally happy.--BURNET.
Eternity has no gray hairs! The flowers fade, the heart withers, man
grows old and dies, the world lies down in the sepulchre of ages, but
time writes no wrinkles on the brow of eternity.--BISHOP HEBER.
The vaulted void of purple sky
That everywhere extends,
That stretches from the dazzled eye,
In space that never ends;
A morning whose uprisen sun
No setting e'er shall see;
A day that comes without a noon,
Such is eternity.
--CLARE.
"What is eternity?" was a question once asked at the Deaf and Dumb
Institution at Paris, and the beautiful and striking answer was given
by one of the pupils, "The lifetime of the Almighty."--JOHN BATE.
If people would but provide for eternity with the same solicitude and
real care as they do for this life, they could not fail of heaven.
--TILLOTSON.
EVIL.--The doing an evil to avoid an evil cannot be good.--COLERIDGE.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as want of heart.
--HOOD.
To overcome evil with good is good, to resist evil with evil is
evil.--MOHAMMED.
We cannot do evil to others without doing it to ourselves.--DESMAHIS.
Every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor. As the Sandwich
Islander believes that the strength and valor of the enemy he kills
passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the temptation we
resist.--EMERSON.
If you do what you should not, you must bear what you would not.
--FRANKLIN.
As sure as God is good, so surely there is no such thing as necessary
evil.--SOUTHEY.
In the history of man it has been very generally the case that when
evils have grown insufferable they have touched the point of cure.
--CHAPIN.
Even in evil, that dark cloud which hangs over the creation, we
discern rays of light and hope, and gradually come to see in suffering
and temptation proofs and instruments of the sublimest purposes of
wisdom and love.--CHANNING.
EXAMPLE.--Example is more forcible than precept. People look at my six
days in the week to see what I mean on the seventh.--REV. R. CECIL.
People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to
copy after.--GOLDSMITH.
A wise and good man will turn examples of all sorts to his own
advantage. The good he will make his patterns, and strive to equal or
excel them. The bad he will by all means avoid.--THOMAS À KEMPIS.
None preaches better than the ant, and she says nothing.--FRANKLIN.
No reproof or denunciation is so potent as the silent influence of a
good example.--HOSEA BALLOU.
I am satisfied that we are less convinced by what we hear than by what
we see.--HERODOTUS.
Advice may be wrong, but examples prove themselves.--H.W. SHAW.
If thou desire to see thy child virtuous, let him not see his father's
vices; thou canst not rebuke that in children that they behold
practised in thee; till reason be ripe, examples direct more than
precepts; such as thy behavior is before thy children's faces, such
commonly is theirs behind their parents' backs.--QUARLES.
Example is contagious behavior.--CHARLES READE.
The pulpit only "teaches" to be honest; the market-place "trains" to
overreaching and fraud; and teaching has not a tithe of the efficiency
of training. Christ never wrote a tract, but he went about doing good.
--HORACE MANN.
The best teachers of humanity are the lives of great men.--DR. JOHNSON.
EXCESS.--Excess always carries its own retribution.--OUIDA.
The misfortune is, that when man has found honey, he enters upon the
feast with an appetite so voracious, that he usually destroys his own
delight by excess and satiety.--KNOX.
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
--SHAKESPEARE.
The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age, payable with
interest, about thirty years after date.--COLTON.
The body oppressed by excesses, bears down the mind, and depresses to
the earth any portion of the divine spirit we had been endowed with.
--HORACE.
Every morsel to a satisfied hunger is only a new labor to a tired
digestion.--SOUTH.
Let pleasure be ever so innocent, the excess is always criminal.
--ST. EVREMOND.
EXERCISE.--A man must often exercise or fast or take physic, or be
sick.--SIR W. TEMPLE.
It is exercise alone that supports the spirits, and keeps the mind in
vigor.--CICERO.
There are many troubles which you cannot cure by the Bible and the
hymn-book, but which you can cure by a good perspiration and a breath
of fresh air.--BEECHER.
Exercise is the chief source of improvement in all our faculties.
--BLAIR.
You will never live to my age without you keep yourself in breath with
exercise.--SIR P. SIDNEY.
EXPERIENCE.--To Truth's house there is a single door, which is
experience.--BAYARD TAYLOR.
Experience join'd with common sense,
To mortals is a providence.
--GREEN.
Experience does take dreadfully high school-wages, but he teaches like
no other.--CARLYLE.
No man was ever endowed with a judgment so correct and judicious, in
regulating his life, but that circumstances, time and experience,
would teach him something new, and apprize him that of those things
with which he thought himself the best acquainted, he knew nothing;
and that those ideas, which in theory appeared the most advantageous,
were found, when brought into practice, to be altogether inapplicable.
--TERENCE.
Experience is a grindstone; and it is lucky for us if we can get
brightened by it, and not ground.--H.W. SHAW.
It may serve as a comfort to us in all our calamities and afflictions
that he that loses anything and gets wisdom by it is a gainer by the
loss.--L'ESTRANGE.
To wilful men,
The injuries that they themselves procure,
Must be their schoolmasters.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, and
scarce in that; for it is true we may give advice, but we cannot give
conduct.--FRANKLIN.
All is but lip wisdom which wants experience.--SIR P. SIDNEY.
EXTRAVAGANCE.--He who is extravagant will quickly become poor; and
poverty will enforce dependence, and invite corruption.--DR. JOHNSON.
The man who builds, and wants wherewith to pay,
Provides a home from which to run away.
--YOUNG.
FAITH.--What we believe, we must believe wholly and without reserve;
wherefore the only perfect and satisfying object of faith is God. A
faith that sets bounds to itself, that will believe so much and no
more, that will trust thus far and no farther, is none.
Faith is the key that unlocks the cabinet of God's treasures; the
king's messenger from the celestial world, to bring all the supplies
we need out of the fullness that there is in Christ.--J. STEPHENS.
Faith builds a bridge from this world to the next.--YOUNG.
It is impossible to be a hero in anything unless one is first a hero
in faith.--JACOBI.
Faith is not the lazy notion that a man may with careless confidence
throw his burden upon the Saviour and trouble himself no further, a
pillow upon which he lulls his conscience to sleep, till he drops into
perdition; but a living and vigorous principle, working by love, and
inseparably connected with true repentance as its motive and with holy
obedience as its fruits.
Faith is the root of all good works. A root that produces nothing is
dead.--BISHOP WILSON.
The person who has a firm trust in the Supreme Being is powerful in
his power, wise by his wisdom, happy by his happiness.--ADDISON.
The highest historical probability can be adduced in support of the
proposition that, if it were possible to annihilate the Bible, and
with it all its influences, we should destroy with it the whole
spiritual system of the moral world.--EDWARD EVERETT.
He had great faith in loaves of bread
For hungry people, young and old,
And hope inspired; kind words he said
To those he sheltered from the cold.
In words he did not put his trust;
His faith in words he never writ;
He loved to share his cup and crust
With all mankind who needed it.
He put his trust in Heaven and he
Worked well with hand and head;
And what he gave in charity
Sweetened his sleep and daily bread.
No cloud can overshadow a true Christian but his faith will discern a
rainbow in it.--BISHOP HORNE.
Faith in God, faith in man, faith in work: this is the short formula
in which we may sum up the teachings of the founders of New
England,--a creed ample enough for this life and the next.--LOWELL.
FAME.--None despise fame more heartily than those who have no possible
claim to it.--J. PETIT-SENN.
He who would acquire fame must not show himself afraid of censure. The
dread of censure is the death of genius.--SIMMS.
Though fame is smoke, its fumes are frankincense to human thoughts.
--BYRON.
He lives in fame that died in virtue's cause.--SHAKESPEARE.
Whatever may be the temporary applause of men, or the expressions of
public opinion, it may be asserted without fear of contradiction, that
no true and permanent fame can be founded, except in labors which
promote the happiness of mankind.--CHARLES SUMNER.
Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something
else,--very rarely to those who say to themselves, "Go to, now let us
be a celebrated individual!"--HOLMES.
It is a very indiscreet and troublesome ambition which cares so much
about fame; about what the world says of us; to be always looking in
the faces of others for approval; to be always anxious about the
effect of what we do or say; to be always shouting, to hear the echoes
of our own voices.--LONGFELLOW.
The way to fame is like the way to heaven--through much tribulation.
--STERNE.
Nor fame I slight, nor for her favors call:
She comes unlook'd for, if she comes at all.
--POPE.
Write your name in kindness, love and mercy on the hearts of the
thousands you come in contact with year by year, and you will never be
forgotten.--CHALMERS.
The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.
--BYRON.
FASHION.--Fashion's smile has given wit to dullness and grace to
deformity, and has brought everything into vogue, by turns, except
virtue.--COLTON.
A woman would be in despair if Nature had formed her as fashion makes
her appear.--MLLE. DE L'ESPINASSE.
Fashion is not public opinion, or the result of embodiment of public
opinion. It may be that public opinion will condemn the shape of a
bonnet, as it may venture to do always, and with the certainty of
being right nine times in ten: but fashion will place it upon the head
of every woman in America; and, were it literally a crown of thorns,
she would smile contentedly beneath the imposition.--J.G. HOLLAND.
Fashion is among the last influences under which a human being who
respects himself, or who comprehends the great end of life, would
desire to be placed.--CHANNING.
The Empress of France had but to change the position of a ribbon to
set all the ribbons in Christendom to rustling. A single word from her
convulsed the whalebone market of the world.--J.G. HOLLAND.
A fashionable woman is always in love--with herself.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
Change of fashions is the tax which industry imposes on the vanity of
the rich.--CHAMFORT.
Fashion, a word which knaves and fools may use
Their knavery and folly to excuse.
--CHURCHILL.
FEAR.--The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.--PSALM 111:10.
O, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know ere long,--
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.
--LONGFELLOW.
Fear not the proud and the haughty; fear rather him who fears God.
--SAADI.
Fear guides more to their duty than gratitude; for one man who is
virtuous from the love of virtue, from the obligation he thinks he
lies under to the Giver of all, there are ten thousand who are good
only from their apprehension of punishment.--GOLDSMITH.
The fear of God is freedom, joy, and peace;
And makes all ills that vex us here to cease.
--WALLER.
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?--PSALM 27:1.
Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil.--DR. JOHNSON.
God planted fear in the soul as truly as He planted hope or courage.
Fear is a kind of bell, or gong, which rings the mind into quick life
and avoidance upon the approach of danger. It is the soul's signal for
rallying.--BEECHER.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because
fear hath torment.--1 JOHN 4:18.
Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt.--GEORGE SEWELL.
Fear not; for I am with thee.--ISAIAH 43:5.
FIDELITY.--To God, thy country, and thy friend be true.--VAUGHAN.
He who is faithful over a few things is a lord of cities. It does not
matter whether you preach in Westminster Abbey or teach a ragged
class, so you be faithful. The faithfulness is all.--GEORGE MACDONALD.
His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles;
His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate;
His tears, pure messengers sent from his heart;
His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity.
Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments
of the human mind.--CICERO.
Give us a man, young or old, high or low, on whom we know we can
thoroughly depend, who will stand firm when others fail; the friend
faithful and true, the adviser honest and fearless, the adversary just
and chivalrous,--in such a one there is a fragment of the Rock of
Ages.--DEAN STANLEY.
FLATTERY.--Those are generally good at flattering who are good for
nothing else.--SOUTH.
If any man flatters me, I'll flatter him again, though he were my best
friend.--FRANKLIN.
No flatt'ry, boy! an honest man can't live by't;
It is a little sneaking art, which knaves
Use to cajole and soften fools withal.
If thou hast flatt'ry in thy nature, out with't;
Or send it to a court, for there 'twill thrive.
--OTWAY.
A man who flatters a woman hopes either to find her a fool or to make
her one.--RICHARDSON.
Flatterers are the worst kind of enemies.--TACITUS.
It is better to fall among crows than flatterers; for those devour the
dead only, these the living.--ANTISTHENES.
Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flattery.--SWIFT.
Men find it more easy to flatter than to praise.--JEAN PAUL.
'Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery's the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit.
--SWIFT.
Ah! when the means are gone, that buy this praise,
The breath is gone whereof this praise is made.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Flattery is false money, which would not be current were it not for
our vanity.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
Who flatters is of all mankind the lowest,
Save he who courts the flattery.
--HANNAH MORE.
Meddle not with him that flattereth with his lips.--PROVERBS 20:19.
Men are like stone jugs,--you may lug them where you like by the ears.
--DR. JOHNSON.
Commend a fool for his wit and a knave for his honesty, and they will
receive you into their bosoms.--FIELDING.
FLOWERS.--Flowers are the sweetest things that God ever made and
forgot to put a soul into.--BEECHER.
In Eastern lands they talk in flowers,
And they tell in a garland their loves and cares:
Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers
On its leaves a mystic language bears.
--PERCIVAL.
How the universal heart of man blesses flowers! They are wreathed
round the cradle, the marriage altar, and the tomb.--MRS. L.M. CHILD.
There is not the least flower but seems to hold up its head and to
look pleasantly, in the secret sense of the goodness of its Heavenly
Maker.--SOUTH.
Flowers knew how to preach divinity before men knew how to dissect and
botanize them.--H.N. HUDSON.
And with childlike credulous affection
We behold their tender buds expand;
Emblems of our own great resurrection,
Emblems of the bright and better land.
--LONGFELLOW.
FOOLS.--He who provides for this life, but takes no care for eternity,
is wise for a moment, but a fool forever.--TILLOTSON.
The wise man has his follies no less than the fool; but it has been
said that herein lies the difference,--the follies of the fool are
known to the world, but are hidden from himself; the follies of the
wise are known to himself, but hidden from the world.--COLTON.
People are never so near playing the fool as when they think
themselves wise.--LADY MONTAGU.
To pardon those absurdities in ourselves which we cannot suffer in
others is neither better nor worse than to be more willing to be fools
ourselves than to have others so.--POPE.
Surely he is not a fool that hath unwise thoughts, but he that utters
them.--BISHOP HALL.
It would be easier to endow a fool with intellect than to persuade him
that he had none.--BABINET.
At thirty man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty, chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve,
Resolves--and re-resolves; then dies the same.
--YOUNG.
It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others,
and to forget his own.--CICERO.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.--POPE.
A fool is often as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and always more
incorrigible.--COLTON.
Always win fools first. They talk much, and what they have once
uttered they will stick to; whereas there is always time, up to the
last moment, to bring before a wise man arguments that may entirely
change his opinion.--HELPS.
Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are
fools.--CHAPMAN.
None but a fool is always right.--HARE.
People have no right to make fools of themselves, unless they have no
relations to blush for them.--HALIBURTON.
FORBEARANCE.--Learn from Jesus to love and to forgive. Let the blood
of Jesus, which implores pardon for you in heaven, obtain it from you
for your brethren here upon earth.--VALPY.
The kindest and the happiest pair
Will find occasion to forbear;
And something every day they live
To pity, and perhaps forgive.
--COWPER.
It is a noble and a great thing to cover the blemishes and to excuse
the failings of a friend; to draw a curtain before his stains, and to
display his perfections; to bury his weaknesses in silence, but to
proclaim his virtues upon the house-top.--SOUTH.
FORGIVENESS.--If ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father
will also forgive you.--MATTHEW 6:14.
He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must
pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven.--LORD HERBERT.
They who forgive most shall be most forgiven.--BAILEY.
The brave only know how to forgive.--STERNE.
The gospel comes to the sinner at once with nothing short of complete
forgiveness as the starting-point of all his efforts to be holy. It
does not say, "Go and sin no more, and I will not condemn thee." It
says at once, "Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no
more."--HORATIUS BONAR.
Life, that ever needs forgiveness, has, for its first duty, to
forgive.--LYTTON.
Alas! if my best Friend, who laid down His life for me, were to
remember all the instances in which I have neglected Him, and to plead
them against me in judgment, where should I hide my guilty head in the
day of recompense? I will pray, therefore, for blessings on my
friends, even though they cease to be so, and upon my enemies, though
they continue such.--COWPER.
Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against
us.--THE LORD'S PRAYER.
God's way of forgiving is thorough and hearty,--both to forgive and to
forget; and if thine be not so, thou hast no portion of His.--LEIGHTON.
FORTITUDE.--The greatest man is he who chooses the right with
invincible resolution; who resists the sorest temptations from within
and without; who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully; who is the
calmest in storms, and whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on God, is
the most unfaltering.--CHANNING.
Fortitude implies a firmness and strength of mind, that enables us to
do and suffer as we ought. It rises upon an opposition, and, like a
river, swells the higher for having its course stopped.--JEREMY COLLIER.
True fortitude I take to be the quiet possession of a man's self, and
an undisturbed doing his duty, whatever evil besets or danger lies in
his way.--LOCKE.
FORTUNE.--It is a madness to make fortune the mistress of events,
because in herself she is nothing, but is ruled by prudence.--DRYDEN.
The prudent man really frames his own fortunes for himself.--PLAUTUS.
Let fortune do her worst, whatever she makes us lose, so long as she
never makes us lose our honesty and our independence.--POPE.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness
thrust upon them.--SHAKESPEARE.
Every man is the architect of his own fortune.--SALLUST.
The bad fortune of the good turns their faces up to heaven; and the
good fortune of the bad bows their heads down to the earth.--SAADI.
Fortune favors the bold.--CICERO.
The less we deserve good fortune, the more we hope for it.--MOLIÈRE.
FREEDOM.--I would rather be a freeman among slaves than a slave among
freemen.--SWIFT.
There are two freedoms,--the false, where a man is free to do what he
likes; the true, where a man is free to do what he ought.--CHARLES
KINGSLEY.
The cause of freedom is the cause of God.--BOWLES.
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.
--RICHARD LOVELACE.
And ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.
--ROBERT TREAT PAINE.
Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident
proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use
their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who
resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.--MACAULAY.
To have freedom is only to have that which is absolutely necessary to
enable us to be what we ought to be, and to possess what we ought to
possess.--RAHEL.
When Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white
With streakings of the morning light.
--JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.
Freedom is not caprice but room to enlarge.--C.A. BARTOL.
Blandishments will not fascinate us, nor will threats of a "halter"
intimidate. For, under God, we are determined that, wheresoever,
whensoever, or howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will
die freemen.--JOSIAH QUINCY.
Who then is free?--the wise, who well maintains
An empire o'er himself; whom neither chains,
Nor want, nor death, with slavish fear inspire;
Who boldly answers to his warm desire;
Who can ambition's vainest gifts despise;
Firm in himself, who on himself relies;
Polish'd and round, who runs his proper course,
And breaks misfortune with superior force.
--HORACE.
The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to
a people's energy, intellect, and virtues.--CHANNING.
He was the freeman whom the truth made free;
Who first of all, the bands of Satan broke;
Who broke the bands of sin, and for his soul,
In spite of fools consulted seriously.
--POLLOCK.
FRIENDSHIP.--Friendship is the only thing in the world concerning the
usefulness of which all mankind are agreed.--CICERO.
The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves by thumping on your back
His sense of your great merit,
Is such a friend, that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon or to bear it.
--COWPER.
He is a friend indeed who proves himself a friend in need.--PLAUTUS.
Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not.--PROVERBS 27:10.
To God, thy country, and thy friend be true.--VAUGHAN.
There is no man so friendless but that he can find a friend sincere
enough to tell him disagreeable truths.--LYTTON.
A friendship that makes the least noise is very often the most useful;
for which reason I should prefer a prudent friend to a zealous one.
--ADDISON.
A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man that
actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of
friends; and that the most liberal professions of good-will are very
far from being the surest marks of it.--GEORGE WASHINGTON.
No friend's a friend till he shall prove a friend.--BEAUMONT AND
FLETCHER.
The qualities of your friends will be those of your enemies,--cold
friends, cold enemies; half friends, half enemies; fervid enemies,
warm friends.--LAVATER.
Purchase no friends by gifts; when thou ceasest to give such will
cease to love.--FULLER.
The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend as to find a friend
worth dying for.--HENRY HOME.
Real friendship is a slow grower, and never thrives unless engrafted
upon a stock of known and reciprocal merit.--CHESTERFIELD.
There is nothing more becoming any wise man, than to make choice of
friends, for by them thou shalt be judged what thou art: let them
therefore be wise and virtuous, and none of those that follow thee for
gain; but make election rather of thy betters, than thy
inferiors.--SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
'Tis thus that on the choice of friends
Our good or evil name depends.
--GAY.
We may have many acquaintances, but we can have but few friends;
this made Aristotle say that he that hath many friends hath none.
--DR. JOHNSON.
An act, by which we make one friend and one enemy, is a losing game;
because revenge is a much stronger principle than gratitude.--COLTON.
That friendship will not continue to the end that is begun for an end.
--QUARLES.
Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in continue firm
and constant.--SOCRATES.
We cannot expect the deepest friendship unless we are willing to pay
the price, a self-sacrificing love.--PELOUBET.
False friends are like our shadow, keeping close to us while we walk
in the sunshine, but leaving us the instant we cross into the shade.
--BOVEE.
Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.--FRANKLIN.
The greatest medicine is a true friend.--SIR W. TEMPLE.
True friends visit us in prosperity only when invited, but in
adversity they come without invitation.--THEOPHRASTUS.
Sudden friendships rarely live to ripeness.--MLLE. DE SCUDÉRI.
Who friendship with a knave hath made,
Is judg'd a partner in the trade.
--GAY.
Thou mayest be sure that he who will in private tell thee of thy
faults is thy friend, for he adventures thy dislike and doth hazard
thy hatred.--SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
He is happy that hath a true friend at his need; but he is more truly
happy that hath no need of his friend.--WARWICK.
I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
--COWPER.
True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in the
worth and choice.--DR. JOHNSON.
FRUGALITY.--Frugality is founded on the principle that all riches have
limits.--BURKE.
Frugality may be termed the daughter of prudence, the sister of
temperance, and the parent of liberty.--DR. JOHNSON.
The world has not yet learned the riches of frugality.--CICERO.
FUTURITY.--It is vain to be always looking toward the future and never
acting toward it.--J.F. BOYES.
The best preparation for the future is the present well seen to, the
last duty done.--GEORGE MACDONALD.
Trust no future howe'er pleasant;
Let the dead past bury its dead;
Act,--act in the living present,
Heart within and God o'erhead!
--LONGFELLOW.
The state of that man's mind who feels too intense an interest as to
future events, must be most deplorable.--SENECA.
God will not suffer man to have the knowledge of things to come; for
if he had prescience of his prosperity, he would be careless; and,
understanding of his adversity, he would be senseless.--ST. AUGUSTINE.
Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may
bring forth.--PROVERBS 27:1.
The golden age is not in the past, but in the future; not in the
origin of human experience, but in its consummate flower; not opening
in Eden, but out from Gethsemane.--CHAPIN.
Why will any man be so impertinently officious as to tell me all
prospect of a future state is only fancy and delusion? Is there any
merit in being the messenger of ill news. If it is a dream, let me
enjoy it, since it makes me both the happier and better man.--ADDISON.
How narrow our souls become when absorbed in any present good or ill!
it is only the thought of the future that makes them great.--RICHTER.
If there was no future life, our souls would not thirst for it.--RICHTER.
GAMBLING.--There is nothing that wears out a fine face like the vigils
of the card-table, and those cutting passions which naturally attend
them. Hollow eyes, haggard looks and pale complexions are the natural
indications.--STEELE.
Games of chance are traps to catch school boy novices and gaping
country squires, who begin with a guinea and end with a mortgage.
--CUMBERLAND.
All gaming, since it implies a desire to profit at the expense of
another, involves a breach of the tenth commandment.--WHATELY.
There is but one good throw upon the dice, which is, to throw them
away.--CHATFIELD.
I look upon every man as a suicide from the moment he takes the
dice-box desperately in his hand; and all that follows in his fatal
career from that time is only sharpening the dagger before he strikes
it to his heart.--CUMBERLAND.
It is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity and the father of
mischief.--WASHINGTON.
GENEROSITY.--All my experience of the world teaches me that in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the safe side and the just side of
a question is the generous side and the merciful side.--MRS. JAMESON.
He who gives what he would as readily throw away gives without
generosity; for the essence of generosity is in self-sacrifice.--HENRY
TAYLOR.
Generosity is only benevolence in practice.--BISHOP KEN.
The secret pleasure of a generous act is the great mind's great bribe.
--DRYDEN.
If there be any truer measure of a man than by what he does, it must
be by what he gives.--SOUTH.
Some are unwisely liberal; and more delight to give presents than to
pay debts.--SIR P. SIDNEY.
When you give, take to yourself no credit for generosity, unless you
deny yourself something in order that you may give.--HENRY TAYLOR.
The generous who is always just, and the just who is always generous,
may, unannounced, approach the throne of heaven.--LAVATER.
Men of the noblest dispositions think themselves happiest when others
share their happiness with them.--DUNCAN.
In giving, a man receives more than he gives; and the more is in
proportion to the worth of the thing given.--GEORGE MACDONALD.
Let us proportion our alms to our ability, lest we provoke God to
proportion His blessings to our alms.--BEVERIDGE.
A friend to everybody is often a friend to nobody, or else in his
simplicity he robs his family to help strangers, and becomes brother
to a beggar. There is wisdom in generosity, as in everything else.
--SPURGEON.
GENIUS.--Genius is an immense capacity for taking trouble.--CARLYLE.
Genius always gives its best at first, prudence at last.--LAVATER.
There is hardly a more common error than that of taking the man who
has but one talent for a genius.--HELPS.
Talent wears well, genius wears itself out; talent drives a brougham
in fact; genius, a sun-chariot in fancy.--OUIDA.
Genius unexerted is no more genius than a bushel of acorns is a
forest of oaks.--BEECHER.
The first and last thing which is required of genius is the love of
truth.--GOETHE.
Genius can never despise labor.--ABEL STEVENS.
And genius hath electric power,
Which earth can never tame;
Bright suns may scorch, and dark clouds lower--
Its flash is still the same.
--LYDIA M. CHILD.
Genius must be born, and never can be taught.--DRYDEN.
Genius is the gold in the mine, talent is the miner who works and
brings it out.--LADY BLESSINGTON.
One science only will one genius fit;
So vast is art, so narrow human wit.
--POPE.
I know no such thing as genius,--genius is nothing but labor and
diligence.--HOGARTH.
Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing
meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone.--LONGFELLOW.
Genius, without religion, is only a lamp on the outer gate of a
palace. It may serve to cast a gleam of light on those that are
without while the inhabitant sits in darkness.--HANNAH MORE.
Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellences which are
out of the reach of the rules of art: a power which no precepts can
teach, and which no industry can acquire.--SIR J. REYNOLDS.
GENTLEMAN.--Propriety of manners, and consideration for others, are
the two main characteristics of a gentleman.--BEACONSFIELD.
To be a gentleman does not depend upon the tailor or the toilet. Good
clothes are not good habits. A gentleman is just a gentle-man,--no
more, no less; a diamond polished, that was first a diamond in the
rough.--BISHOP DOANE.
What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be
generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these
qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought
a gentleman to be a loyal son, a true husband, an honest father? Ought
his life to be decent, his bills to be paid, his taste to be high and
elegant, his aims in life lofty and noble?--THACKERAY.
The taste of beauty, and the relish of what is decent, just and
amiable, perfects the character of the gentleman and the philosopher.
And the study of such a taste or relish will, as we suppose, be ever
the great employment and concern of him who covets as well to be wise
and good, as agreeable and polite.--SHAFTESBURY.
Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company, and
reflection must finish him.--LOCKE.
You may depend upon it, religion is, in its essence, the most
gentlemanly thing in the world. It will alone gentilize, if unmixed
with cant; and I know nothing else that will, alone. Certainly not the
army, which is thought to be the grand embellisher of manners.
--COLERIDGE.
He is the best gentleman that is the son of his own deserts, and not
the degenerated heir of another's virtue.--VICTOR HUGO.
Perhaps propriety is as near a word as any to denote the manners of
the gentleman; elegance is necessary to the fine gentleman; dignity is
proper to noblemen; and majesty to kings.--HAZLITT.
He is gentle that doth gentle deeds.
Gentleman is a term which does not apply to any station, but to the
mind and the feelings in every station.--TALFOURD.
Of the offspring of the gentilman Jafeth, came Habraham, Moyses, Aron
and the profettys; and also the kyng of the right line of Mary, of
whom that gentilman Jhesus was borne.--JULIANA BERNERS.
GENTLENESS.--True gentleness is founded on a sense of what we owe to
Him who made us, and to the common nature which we all share. It
arises from reflection on our own failings and wants, and from just
views of the condition and the duty of man. It is native feeling
heightened and improved by principle.--BLAIR.
We do not believe, or we forget, that "the Holy Ghost came down, not
in shape of a vulture, but in the form of a dove."--EMERSON.
Gentleness in the gait is what simplicity is in the dress. Violent
gestures or quick movements inspire involuntary disrespect.--BALZAC.
The best and simplest cosmetic for women is constant gentleness and
sympathy for the noblest interests of her fellow-creatures. This
preserves and gives to her features an indelibly gay, fresh, and
agreeable expression. If women would but realize that harshness makes
them ugly, it would prove the best means of conversion.--AUERBACH.
Gentleness, which belongs to virtue, is to be carefully distinguished
from the mean spirit of cowards and the fawning assent of sycophants.
--BLAIR.
GIFTS.--Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness, when
bequeathed by those who, when alive, would part with nothing.--COLTON.
Give freely to him that deserveth well, and asketh nothing: and that
is a way of giving to thyself.--FULLER.
The gift, to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me,
correspondent to my flowing unto him.--EMERSON.
The only gift is a portion of thyself. * * * Therefore the poet brings
his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem;
the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a
handkerchief of her own sewing.--EMERSON.
A gift--its kind, its value and appearance; the silence or the pomp
that attends it; the style in which it reaches you--may decide the
dignity or vulgarity of the giver.--LAVATER.
God's love gives in such a way that it flows from a Father's heart,
the well-spring of all good. The heart of the giver makes the gift
dear and precious; as among ourselves we say of even a trifling gift,
"It comes from a hand we love," and look not so much at the gift as at
the heart.--LUTHER.
There is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.--SENECA.
GLORY.--Real glory springs from the quiet conquest of ourselves; and
without that the conqueror is nought but the first slave.--THOMSON.
Wood burns because it has the proper stuff for that purpose in it; and
a man becomes renowned because he has the necessary stuff in him.
Renown is not to be sought, and all pursuit of it is vain. A person
may, indeed, by skillful conduct and various artificial means, make a
sort of name for himself; but if the inner jewel is wanting, all is
vanity, and will not last a day.--GOETHE.
The road to glory would cease to be arduous if it were trite and
trodden; and great minds must be ready not only to take opportunities
but to make them.--COLTON.
True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, in writing
what deserves to be read, and in so living as to make the world
happier and better for our living in it.--PLINY.
Glory relaxes often and debilitates the mind; censure stimulates and
contracts,--both to an extreme. Simple fame is, perhaps, the proper
medium.--SHENSTONE.
GLUTTONY.--Gluttony is the source of all our infirmities, and the
fountain of all our diseases. As a lamp is choked by a superabundance
of oil, a fire extinguished by excess of fuel, so is the natural
health of the body destroyed by intemperate diet.--BURTON.
I have come to the conclusion that mankind consume twice too much
food.--SYDNEY SMITH.
Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits
Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.
--SHAKESPEARE.
The pleasures of the palate deal with us like Egyptian thieves who
strangle those whom they embrace.--SENECA.
When I behold a fashionable table set out in all its magnificence, I
fancy that I see gouts and dropsies, fevers and lethargies, with other
innumerable distempers lying in ambuscade among the dishes. Nature
delights in the most plain and simple diet. Every animal but man keeps
to one dish. Herbs are the food of this species, fish of that, and
flesh of a third. Man falls upon everything that comes in his way; not
the smallest fruit or excrescence of the earth, scarce a berry or a
mushroom can escape him.--ADDISON.
GOD.--In all thy actions think God sees thee; and in all His actions
labor to see Him; that will make thee fear Him; this will move thee to
love Him; the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge, and the
knowledge of God is the perfection of love.--QUARLES.
God should be the object of all our desires, the end of all our
actions, the principle of all our affections, and the governing power
of our whole souls.--MASSILLON.
God governs the world, and we have only to do our duty wisely, and
leave the issue to Him.--JOHN JAY.
They that deny a God destroy man's nobility; for certainly man is like
the beasts in his body; and if he is not like God in his spirit, he is
an ignoble creature.--BACON.
God is all love; it is He who made everything, and He loves everything
that He has made.--HENRY BROOKE.
How calmly may we commit ourselves to the hands of Him who bears up
the world,--of Him who has created, and who provides for the joys even
of insects, as carefully as if He were their father.--RICHTER.
I fear God, and next to God, I chiefly fear him who fears Him not.
--SAADI.
A foe to God was never true friend to man.--YOUNG.
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
--COWPER.
There never was a man of solid understanding, whose apprehensions are
sober, and by a pensive inspection advised, but that he hath found by
an irresistible necessity one true God and everlasting being.--SIR
WALTER RALEIGH.
Who guides below, and rules above,
The great disposer, and the mighty king;
Than He none greater, next Him none,
That can be, is, or was.
--HORACE.
Thou art, O God, the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see;
Its glow by day, its smile by night,
Are but reflections caught from Thee!
Where'er we turn thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are thine!
--MOORE.
From God derived, to God by nature join'd.
We act the dictates of His mighty mind:
And though the priests are mute and temples still,
God never wants a voice to speak His will.
--ROWE.
The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is
not, discovers to me His existence.--BRUYÈRE.
We find in God all the excellences of light, truth, wisdom, greatness,
goodness and life. Light gives joy and gladness; truth gives
satisfaction; wisdom gives learning and instruction; greatness excites
admiration; goodness produces love and gratitude; life gives
immortality and insures enjoyment.--JONES OF NAYLAND.
We have a friend and protector, from whom, if we do not ourselves
depart from Him, nor power nor spirit can separate us. In His strength
let us proceed on our journey, through the storms, and troubles, and
dangers of the world. However they may rage and swell, though the
mountains shake at the tempests, our rock will not be moved: we have
one friend who will never forsake us; one refuge, where we may rest in
peace and stand in our lot at the end of the days. That same is He who
liveth, and was dead; who is alive forevermore; and hath the keys of
hell and of death.--BISHOP HEBER.
It is a most unhappy state to be at a distance with God: man needs no
greater infelicity than to be left to himself.--FELTHAM.
The man who forgets the wonders and mercies of the Lord is without any
excuse; for we are continually surrounded with objects which may serve
to bring the power and goodness of God strikingly to mind.--SLADE.
God is the light which, never seen itself, makes all things visible,
and clothes itself in colors. Thine eye feels not its ray, but thine
heart feels its warmth.--RICHTER.
A secret sense of God's goodness is by no means enough. Men should
make solemn and outward expressions of it, when they receive His
creatures for their support; a service and homage not only due to Him,
but profitable to themselves.--DEAN STANHOPE.
All is of God. If He but wave His hand,
The mists collect, the rains fall thick and loud;
Till, with a smile of light on sea and land,
Lo! He looks back from the departing cloud.
Angels of life and death alike are His;
Without His leave they pass no threshold o'er;
Who, then, would wish or dare, believing this,
Against His messengers to shut the door?
--LONGFELLOW.
"God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good."
* * * Wheresoever I turn my eyes, behold the memorials of His greatness!
of His goodness! * * * What the world contains of good is from His
free and unrequited mercy: what it presents of real evil arises from
ourselves.--BISHOP BLOMFIELD.
GOLD.--Gold, like the sun, which melts wax and hardens clay, expands
great souls and contracts bad hearts.--RIVAROL.
There are two metals, one of which is omnipotent in the cabinet, and
the other in the camp,--gold and iron. He that knows how to apply them
both may indeed attain the highest station.--COLTON.
Gold is Cæsar's treasure, man is God's; thy gold hath Cæsar's image,
and thou hast God's; give, therefore, those things unto Cæsar which
are Cæsar's, and unto God which are God's.--QUARLES.
Foul-cankering rust the hidden treasure frets;
But gold, that's put to use, more gold begets.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Gold is the fool's curtain, which hides all his defects from the
world.--FELTHAM.
O cursed lust of gold! when for thy sake
The fool throws up his interest in both worlds.
--BLAIR.
How few, like Daniel, have God and gold together!--GEORGE VILLIERS.
Gold adulterates one thing only,--the human heart.--MARGUERITE DE
VALOIS.
GOODNESS.--A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps
friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.--BASIL.
It is only great souls that know how much glory there is in being
good.--SOPHOCLES.
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.--POPE.
Every day should be distinguished by at least one particular act of
love.--LAVATER.
He that is a good man is three-quarters of his way towards the being a
good Christian, wheresoever he lives, or whatsoever he is
called.--SOUTH.
A good man is kinder to his enemy than bad men are to their friends.
--BISHOP HALL.
Live for something. Do good, and leave behind you a monument of
virtue that the storm of time can never destroy. Write your name in
kindness, love, and mercy, on the hearts of thousands you come in
contact with year by year; you will never be forgotten. No, your name,
your deeds, will be as legible on the hearts you leave behind as the
stars on the brow of evening. Good deeds will shine as the stars of
heaven.--CHALMERS.
He that does good for good's sake seeks neither praise nor reward,
though sure of both at last.--WILLIAM PENN.
What is good-looking, as Horace Smith remarks, but looking good? Be
good, be womanly, be gentle, generous in your sympathies, heedful of
the well-being of all around you; and, my word for it, you will not
lack kind words of admiration.--WHITTIER.
Some good we all can do; and if we do all that is in our power,
however little that power may be, we have performed our part, and may
be as near perfection as those whose influence extends over kingdoms,
and whose good actions are felt and applauded by thousands.--BOWDLER.
GOVERNMENT.--The administration of government, like a guardianship,
ought to be directed to the good of those who confer and not of those
who receive the trust.--CICERO.
Power exercised with violence has seldom been of long duration, but
temper and moderation generally produce permanence in all things.
--SENECA.
No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected
without being truly respectable.--MADISON.
The best government is not that which renders men the happiest, but
that which renders the greatest number happy.--DUCLOS.
No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet
every one thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all
trades,--that of government.--SOCRATES.
In the early ages men ruled by strength; now they rule by brain, and
so long as there is only one man in the world who can think and plan,
he will stand head and shoulders above him who cannot.--BEECHER.
The proper function of a government is to make it easy for people to
do good, and difficult for them to do evil.--GLADSTONE.
All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of
the people.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
Those who think must govern those who toil.--GOLDSMITH.
GRACE.--Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy
affections.--DRYDEN.
The mother grace of all the graces is Christian good-will.--BEECHER.
All actions and attitudes of children are graceful because they are
the luxuriant and immediate offspring of the moment,--divested of
affectation and free from all pretence.--FUSELI.
Grace has been defined, the outward expression of the inward harmony
of the soul.--HAZLITT.
GRATITUDE.--Gratitude is a virtue disposing the mind to an inward
sense and an outward acknowledgment of a benefit received, together
with a readiness to return the same, or the like, as occasions of the
doer of it shall require, and the abilities of the receiver extend to.
He who receives a good turn, should never forget it: he who does one,
should never remember it.--CHARRON.
O Lord, that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with
thankfulness.--SHAKESPEARE.
What causes such a miscalculation in the amount of gratitude which men
expect for the favors they have done, is, that the pride of the giver
and that of the receiver can never agree as to the value of the
benefit.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
If gratitude is due from children to their earthly parents, how much
more is the gratitude of the great family of man due to our Father in
heaven!--HOSEA BALLOU.
GRAVE.--There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be
at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of
the oppressor. The small and great are there; and the servant is free
from his master.--JOB 3:17, 18, 19.
We go to the grave of a friend saying, "A man is dead;" but angels
throng about him, saying, "A man is born."--BEECHER.
Always the idea of unbroken quiet broods around the grave. It is a
port where the storms of life never beat, and the forms that have been
tossed on its chafing waves lie quiet forevermore. There the child
nestles as peacefully as ever it lay in its mother's arms, and the
workman's hands lie still by his side, and the thinker's brain is
pillowed in silent mystery, and the poor girl's broken heart is
steeped in a balm that extracts its secret woe, and is in the keeping
of a charity that covers all blame.--CHAPIN.
There is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a
remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the
living. Oh, the grave!--the grave! It buries every error, covers every
defect, extinguishes every resentment! From its peaceful bosom spring
none but fond regrets and tender recollections.--WASHINGTON IRVING.
What is the grave?
'Tis a cool, shady harbor, where the Christian
Wayworn and weary with life's rugged road,
Forgetting all life's sorrows, joys, and pains,
Lays his poor body down to rest--
Sleeps on--and wakes in heaven.
GREATNESS.--He who, in questions of right, virtue, or duty, sets
himself above all ridicule, is truly great, and shall laugh in the end
with truer mirth than ever he was laughed at.--LAVATER.
The greatest man is he who chooses the right with invincible
resolution, who resists the sorest temptations from within and
without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in
storms and most fearless under menace and frowns, whose reliance on
truth, on virtue, on God, is most unfaltering. I believe this
greatness to be most common among the multitude, whose names are never
heard.--CHANNING.
Great minds, like heaven, are pleased in doing good,
Though the ungrateful subjects of their favors
Are barren in return.
--ROWE.
Great truths are portions of the soul of man;
Great souls are the portions of eternity.
--LOWELL.
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than
disbelief in great men.--CARLYLE.
If the title of great man ought to be reserved for him who cannot be
charged with an indiscretion or a vice, who spent his life in
establishing the independence, the glory and durable prosperity of his
country; who succeeded in all that he undertook, and whose successes
were never won at the expense of honor, justice, integrity, or by the
sacrifice of a single principle--this title will not be denied to
Washington.--SPARKS.
He only is great who has the habits of greatness; who, after
performing what none in ten thousand could accomplish, passes on like
Samson, and "tells neither father nor mother of it."--LAVATER.
He who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a
very low standard of it in his mind.--HAZLITT.
In life, we shall find many men that are great, and some men that are
good, but very few men that are both great and good.--COLTON.
A really great man is known by three signs,--generosity in the design,
humanity in the execution, and moderation in success.--BISMARCK.
Nothing can make a man truly great but being truly good and partaking
of God's holiness.--MATTHEW HENRY.
The greatest truths are the simplest; so are the greatest men.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness
thrust upon them.--SHAKESPEARE.
No man has come to true greatness who has not felt in some degree that
his life belongs to his race, and that what God gives him, He gives
him for mankind.--PHILLIPS BROOKS.
Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be
great.--EMERSON.
GRIEF.--Grief is the culture of the soul, it is the true fertilizer.
--MADAME DE GIRARDIN.
Light griefs are plaintive, but great ones are dumb.--SENECA.
If the internal griefs of every man could be read, written on his
forehead, how many who now excite envy would appear to be the objects
of pity?--METASTASIO.
Excess of grief for the deceased is madness; for it is an injury to
the living, and the dead know it not.--XENOPHON.
All the joys of earth will not assuage our thirst for happiness; while
a single grief suffices to shroud life in a sombre veil, and smite it
with nothingness at all points.--MADAME SWETCHINE.
What an argument in favor of social connections is the observation
that by communicating our grief we have less, and by communicating our
pleasure we have more.--GREVILLE.
They truly mourn that mourn without a witness.--BYRON.
Alas! I have not words to tell my grief;
To vent my sorrow would be some relief;
Light sufferings give us leisure to complain;
We groan, we cannot speak, in greater pain.
--DRYDEN.
It is folly to tear one's hair in sorrow, as if grief could be
assuaged by baldness.--CICERO.
Dr. Holmes says, both wittily and truly, that crying widows are
easiest consoled.--H.W. SHAW.
Who fails to grieve, when just occasion calls,
Or grieves too much, deserves not to be blest:
Inhuman, or effeminate, his heart.
--YOUNG.
Great grief makes sacred those upon whom its hand is laid. Joy may
elevate, ambition glorify, but sorrow alone can consecrate.--HORACE
GREELEY.
Every one can master a grief but he that has it.--SHAKESPEARE.
GRUMBLING.--When a man is full of the Holy Ghost, he is the very last
man to be complaining of other people.--D.L. MOODY.
Every one must see daily instances of people who complain from a mere
habit of complaining.--GRAVES.
There is an unfortunate disposition in a man to attend much more to
the faults of his companions which offend him, than to their
perfections which please him.--GREVILLE.
No talent, no self-denial, no brains, no character, is required to set
up in the grumbling business; but those who are moved by a genuine
desire to do good have little time for murmuring or complaint.--ROBERT
WEST.
I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, "It is
all barren."--STERNE.
GUILT.--Think not that guilt requires the burning torches of the
Furies to agitate and torment it. Their own frauds, their crimes,
their remembrances of the past, their terrors of the future,--these
are the domestic furies that are ever present to the mind of the
impious.--ROBERT HALL.
Guilt alone, like brain-sick frenzy in its feverish mood, fills the
light air with visionary terrors, and shapeless forms of fear.--JUNIUS.
Guilt, though it may attain temporal splendor, can never confer real
happiness; the evil consequences of our crimes long survive their
commission, and, like the ghosts of the murdered, forever haunt the
steps of the malefactor; while the paths of virtue, though seldom
those of worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and
peace.--SIR WALTER SCOTT.
He who is conscious of secret and dark designs, which, if known, would
blast him, is perpetually shrinking and dodging from public observation,
and is afraid of all around him, and much more of all above him.--WIRT.
They whose guilt within their bosom lies, imagine every eye beholds
their blame.--SHAKESPEARE.
Life is not the supreme good; but of all earthly ills the chief is
guilt.--SCHILLER.
They who once engage in iniquitous designs miserably deceive
themselves when they think that they will go so far and no farther;
one fault begets another, one crime renders another necessary; and
thus they are impelled continually downward into a depth of guilt,
which at the commencement of their career they would have died rather
than have incurred.--SOUTHEY.
Let wickedness escape as it may at the bar, it never fails of doing
justice upon itself; for every guilty person is his own hangman.
--SENECA.
HABIT.--Habits are soon assumed; but when we strive to strip them off,
'tis being flayed alive.--COWPER.
The law of the harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act, and
you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a character; sow a
character, and you reap a destiny.--G.D. BOARDMAN.
A single bad habit will mar an otherwise faultless character, as an
ink drop soileth the pure white page.--HOSEA BALLOU.
Habits are like the wrinkles on a man's brow; if you will smooth out
the one, I will smooth out the other.--H.W. SHAW.
A large part of Christian virtue consists in right habits.--PALEY.
Habit is ten times nature.--WELLINGTON.
Habit is the most imperious of all masters.--GOETHE.
I will govern my life and my thoughts as if the whole world were to
see the one and to read the other; for what does it signify to make
anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God (who is the searcher of
our hearts) all our privacies are open?--SENECA.
The will that yields the first time with some reluctance does so the
second time with less hesitation, and the third time with none at all,
until presently the habit is adopted.--HENRY GILES.
It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors as his
knowledge.--COLTON.
Habits, though in their commencement like the filmy line of the
spider, trembling at every breeze, may in the end prove as links of
tempered steel, binding a deathless being to eternal felicity or
woe.--MRS. SIGOURNEY.
I will be a slave to no habit; therefore farewell tobacco.--HOSEA
BALLOU.
HAPPINESS.--He who is good is happy.--HABBINGTON.
If solid happiness we prize,
Within our breast this jewel lies;
And they are fools who roam:
The world has nothing to bestow,
From our own selves our joys must flow,
And that dear hut, our home.
--COTTON.
The common course of things is in favor of happiness; happiness is the
rule, misery the exception. Were the order reversed, our attention
would be called to examples of health and competency, instead of
disease and want.--PALEY.
Happiness and virtue react upon each other,--the best are not only the
happiest, but the happiest are usually the best.--LYTTON.
God loves to see his creatures happy; our lawful delight is His; they
know not God that think to please Him with making themselves
miserable. The idolaters thought it a fit service for Baal to cut and
lance themselves; never any holy man looked for thanks from the true
God by wronging himself.--BISHOP HALL.
Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its
counterfeit!--HOSEA BALLOU.
Degrees of happiness vary according to the degrees of virtue, and
consequently, that life which is most virtuous is most happy.--NORRIS.
Without strong affection, and humanity of heart, and gratitude to that
Being whose code is mercy, and whose great attribute is benevolence to
all things that breathe, true happiness can never be attained.--DICKENS.
The utmost we can hope for in this world is contentment; if we aim at
anything higher, we shall meet with nothing but grief and
disappointment. A man should direct all his studies and endeavors at
making himself easy now and happy hereafter.--ADDISON.
To be happy is not only to be freed from the pains and diseases of the
body, but from anxiety and vexation of spirit; not only to enjoy the
pleasures of sense, but peace of conscience and tranquillity of mind.
--TILLOTSON.
Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it
the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is
never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may
find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.--HAWTHORNE.
The happiness of the tender heart is increased by what it can take
away from the wretchedness of others.--J. PETIT-SENN.
There is no man but may make his paradise.--BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions,--the little,
soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt
compliment in the disguise of a playful raillery, and the countless
other infinitesimals of pleasant thought and feeling.--COLERIDGE.
To be happy is not the purpose for which you are placed in this world.
--FROUDE.
The happiness of the human race in this world does not consist in our
being devoid of passions, but in our learning to command them.--FROM
THE FRENCH.
Our happiness in this world depends on the affections we are enabled
to inspire.--DUCHESSE DE PRASLIN.
HATRED.--The passion of hatred is so durable and so inveterate that
the surest prognostic of death in a sick man is a wish for
reconciliation.--BRUYÈRE.
We hate some persons because we do not know them; and we will not know
them because we hate them.--COLTON.
If you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of
mind, as by degrees will break out upon those who are your friends, or
those who are indifferent to you.--PLUTARCH.
Hatred is the vice of narrow souls; they feed it with all their
littlenesses, and make it the pretext of base tyrannies.--BALZAC.
It is the nature of the human disposition to hate him whom you have
injured.--TACITUS.
Life is too short to spare an hour of it in the indulgence of this
evil passion.--LAMARTINE.
The hatred we bear our enemies injures their happiness less than our
own.--J. PETIT-SENN.
The hatred of persons related to each other is the most violent.
--TACITUS.
When our hatred is too keen it places us beneath those we hate.
--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
HEALTH.--The only way for a rich man to be healthy is, by exercise and
abstinence, to live as if he was poor.--SIR W. TEMPLE.
There is this difference between those two temporal blessings, health
and money: Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed; health is
the most enjoyed, but the least envied: and this superiority of the
latter is still more obvious when we reflect that the poorest man
would not part with health for money, but that the richest would
gladly part with all their money for health.--COLTON.
Refuse to be ill. Never tell people you are ill; never own it to
yourself. Illness is one of those things which a man should resist on
principle at the onset.--LYTTON.
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words, health, peace and competence:
But health consists with temperance alone;
And peace, O Virtue! peace is all thy own.
--POPE.
O blessed Health! thou art above all gold and treasure; 'tis thou who
enlargest the soul, and openest all its powers to receive instruction,
and to relish virtue. He that has thee has little more to wish for,
and he that is so wretched as to want thee, wants everything with
thee.--STERNE.
People who are always taking care of their health are like misers, who
are hoarding up a treasure which they have never spirit enough to
enjoy.--STERNE.
Health and good humor are to the human body like sunshine to
vegetation.--MASSILLON.
One means very effectual for the preservation of health is a quiet and
cheerful mind, not afflicted with violent passions or distracted with
immoderate cares.--JOHN RAY.
The requirements of health, and the style of female attire which
custom enjoins, are in direct antagonism to each other.--ABBA GOOLD
WOOLSON.
For life is not to live, but to be well.--MARTIAL.
From labor health, from health contentment springs.--BEATTIE.
In these days half our diseases come from neglect of the body in
overwork of the brain--LYTTON.
The rule is simple: Be sober and temperate, and you will be
healthy.--FRANKLIN.
HEART.--Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the
issues of life.--PROVERBS 4:23.
The poor too often turn away unheard,
From hearts that shut against them with a sound
That will be heard in heaven.
--LONGFELLOW.
He who has most of heart knows most of sorrow.--BAILEY.
All offences come from the heart.--SHAKESPEARE.
Many flowers open to the sun, but only one follows him constantly.
Heart, be thou the sunflower, not only open to receive God's blessing,
but constant in looking to Him.--RICHTER.
Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.--MATTHEW 12:34.
Do you think that any one can move the heart but He that made it?
--JOHN LYLY.
When a young man complains that a young lady has no heart, it is
pretty certain that she has his.--G.D. PRENTICE.
The heart never grows better by age, I fear rather worse; always
harder. A young liar will be an old one; and a young knave will only
be a greater knave as he grows older.--CHESTERFIELD.
A heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.--GIBBON.
The heart that has once been bathed in love's pure fountain retains
the pulse of youth forever.--LANDOR.
A loving heart carries with it, under every parallel of latitude, the
warmth and light of the tropics. It plants its Eden in the wilderness
and solitary place, and sows with flowers the gray desolation of rock
and mosses.--WHITTIER.
None but God can satisfy the longings of an immortal soul; that as the
heart was made for Him, so He only can fill it.--TRENCH.
There are treasures laid up in the heart,--treasures of charity,
piety, temperance, and soberness. These treasures a man takes with him
beyond death, when he leaves this world.--BUDDHIST SCRIPTURES.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who
can know it?--JEREMIAH 17:9.
HEAVEN.--The generous who is always just, and the just who is always
generous, may, unannounced, approach the throne of heaven.--LAVATER.
The redeemed shall walk there.--ISAIAH 35:9.
If our Creator has so bountifully provided for our existence here,
which is but momentary, and for our temporal wants, which will soon be
forgotten, how much more must He have done for our enjoyment in the
everlasting world!--HOSEA BALLOU.
Heaven does not make holiness, but holiness makes heaven.--PHILLIPS
BROOKS.
I cannot be content with less than heaven.--BAILEY.
Heaven's gates are not so highly arched as princes' palaces; they that
enter there must go upon their knees.--DANIEL WEBSTER.
He who seldom thinks of heaven is not likely to get thither; as the
only way to hit the mark is to keep the eye fixed upon it.--BISHOP
HORNE.
Perfect purity, fullness of joy, everlasting freedom, perfect rest,
health and fruition, complete security, substantial and eternal
good.--HANNAH MORE.
Heaven is the day of which grace is the dawn; the rich, ripe fruit of
which grace is the lovely flower; the inner shrine of that most
glorious temple to which grace forms the approach and outer
court.--REV. DR. GUTHRIE.
Nothing is farther than earth from heaven; nothing is nearer than
heaven to earth.--HARE.
Heaven will be inherited by every man who has heaven in his soul. "The
kingdom of God is within you."--BEECHER.
Blessed is the pilgrim, who in every place, and at all times of this
his banishment in the body, calling upon the holy name of Jesus,
calleth to mind his native heavenly land, where his blessed Master,
the King of saints and angels, waiteth to receive him. Blessed is the
pilgrim who seeketh not an abiding place unto himself in this world;
but longeth to be dissolved, and be with Christ in heaven.--THOS. À
KEMPIS.
HEROES.--Great men need to be lifted upon the shoulders of the whole
world, in order to conceive their great ideas or perform their great
deeds. That is, there must be an atmosphere of greatness round about
them. A hero cannot be a hero unless in an heroic world.--HAWTHORNE.
Troops of heroes undistinguished die.--ADDISON.
Nobody, they say, is a hero to his valet. Of course; for a man must be
a hero to understand a hero. The valet, I dare say, has great respect
for some person of his own stamp.--GOETHE.
There is more heroism in self-denial than in deeds of arms.--SENECA.
We can all be heroes in our virtues, in our homes, in our
lives.--JAMES ELLIS.
Each man is a hero and an oracle to somebody; and to that person
whatever he says has an enhanced value.--EMERSON.
HISTORY.--History maketh a young man to be old, without either
wrinkles or gray hairs,--privileging him with the experience of age,
without either the infirmities or inconveniences thereof.--THOMAS
FULLER.
History teaches everything, even the future.--LAMARTINE.
It is when the hour of the conflict is over that history comes to a
right understanding of the strife, and is ready to exclaim, "Lo, God
is here, and we knew him not!"--BANCROFT.
This I hold to be the chief office of history, to rescue virtuous
actions from the oblivion to which a want of records would consign
them, and that men should feel a dread of being considered infamous in
the opinions of posterity, from their depraved expressions and base
actions.--TACITUS.
Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to continue
always a child. If no use is made of the labors of past ages, the
world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge.--CICERO.
History is the depository of great actions, the witness of what is
past, the example and instructor of the present, and monitor to the
future.--CERVANTES.
There is no history worthy of attention but that of a free people; the
history of a people subjected to despotism is only a collection of
anecdotes.--CHAMFORT.
History is but the unrolled scroll of prophecy.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
The world's history is a divine poem of which the history of every
nation is a canto and every man a word. Its strains have been pealing
along down the centuries, and though there have been mingled the
discords of warring cannon and dying men, yet to the Christian
philosopher and historian--the humble listener--there has been a
divine melody running through the song which speaks of hope and
halcyon days to come.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
HOME.--There is no happiness in life, there is no misery, like that
growing out of the dispositions which consecrate or desecrate a
home.--CHAPIN.
It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel
that home was the happiest place in the world; and I value this
delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent can
bestow.--WASHINGTON IRVING.
He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his
home.--GOETHE.
'Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark
Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home;
'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark
Our coming, and look brighter when we come.
--BYRON.
'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
--JOHN HOWARD PAYNE.
There's a strange something, which without a brain
Fools feel, and which e'en wise men can't explain,
Planted in man, to bind him to that earth,
In dearest ties, from whence he drew his birth.
--CHURCHILL.
The first sure symptom of a mind in health is rest of heart, and
pleasure felt at home.--YOUNG.
Are you not surprised to find how independent of money peace of
conscience is, and how much happiness can be condensed in the humblest
home?--JAMES HAMILTON.
Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
--SCOTT.
When home is ruled according to God's Word, angels might be asked to
stay a night with us, and they would not find themselves out of their
element.--SPURGEON.
Stint yourself, as you think good, in other things; but don't scruple
freedom in brightening home. Gay furniture and a brilliant garden are
a sight day by day, and make life blither.--CHARLES BUXTON.
In all my wanderings round this world of care,
In all my griefs--and God has given my share--
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down;
To husband out life's taper at the close,
And keep the flame from wasting, by repose:
I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,
Amidst the swains to show my book-learn'd skill,
Around my fire an evening group to draw,
And tell of all I felt, and all I saw;
And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue,
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew,
I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
Here to return--and die at home at last.
--GOLDSMITH.
Home is the seminary of all other institutions.--CHAPIN.
HONESTY.--To be honest as this world goes is to be one man picked out
of ten thousand.--SHAKESPEARE.
The man who pauses in his honesty wants little of a villain.--H. MARTYN.
The man who is so conscious of the rectitude of his intentions as to
be willing to open his bosom to the inspection of the world is in
possession of one of the strongest pillars of a decided character. The
course of such a man will be firm and steady, because he has nothing
to fear from the world, and is sure of the approbation and support of
heaven.--WIRT.
Honesty needs no disguise nor ornament; be plain.--OTWAY.
"Honesty is the best policy;" but he who acts on that principle is not
an honest man.--WHATELY.
The first step toward greatness is to be honest, says the proverb; but
the proverb fails to state the case strong enough. Honesty is not only
"the first step toward greatness,"--it is greatness itself.--BOVEE.
Let honesty be as the breath of thy soul, and never forget to have a
penny, when all thy expenses are enumerated and paid: then shalt thou
reach the point of happiness, and independence shall be thy shield and
buckler, thy helmet and crown; then shall thy soul walk upright nor
stoop to the silken wretch because he hath riches, nor pocket an abuse
because the hand which offers it wears a ring set with diamonds.
--FRANKLIN.
Nothing really succeeds which is not based on reality; sham, in a
large sense, is never successful. In the life of the individual, as in
the more comprehensive life of the State, pretension is nothing and
power is everything.--WHIPPLE.
The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint.
--LAVATER.
No man is bound to be rich or great,--no, nor to be wise; but every
man is bound to be honest.--SIR BENJAMIN RUDYARD.
An honest man's the noblest work of God.--POPE.
When men cease to be faithful to their God, he who expects to find
them so to each other will be much disappointed.--BISHOP HORNE.
If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue
and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.
--DR. JOHNSON.
All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not honesty and
good-nature.--MONTAIGNE.
No legacy is so rich as honesty.--SHAKESPEARE.
What is becoming is honest, and whatever is honest must always be
becoming.--CICERO.
HOPE.--All which happens in the whole world happens through hope. No
husbandman would sow a grain of corn if he did not hope it would
spring up and bring forth the ear. How much more are we helped on by
hope in the way to eternal life!--LUTHER.
"Hast thou hope?" they asked of John Knox, when he lay a-dying. He
spoke nothing, but raised his finger and pointed upward, and so
died.--CARLYLE.
The riches of heaven, the honor which cometh from God only, and the
pleasures at His right hand, the absence of all evil, the presence and
enjoyment of all good, and this good enduring to eternity, never more
to be taken from us, never more to be in any, the least degree,
diminished, but forever increasing, these are the wreaths which form
the contexture of that crown held forth to our hopes.--BISHOP HORNE.
A religious hope does not only bear up the mind under her sufferings
but makes her rejoice in them.--ADDISON.
Hope is like the wing of an angel, soaring up to heaven, and bearing
our prayers to the throne of God.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
Hope is our life when first our life grows clear,
Hope and delight, scarce crossed by lines of fear:
Yet the day comes when fain we would not hope--
But forasmuch as we with life must cope,
Struggling with this and that--and who knows why?
Hope will not give us up to certainty,
But still must bide with us.
--WM. MORRIS.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast,
Man never is, but always to be blest.
--POPE.
A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow,
real poverty.--HUME.
True hope is based on the energy of character. A strong mind always
hopes, and has always cause to hope, because it knows the mutability
of human affairs, and how slight a circumstance may change the whole
course of events. Such a spirit, too, rests upon itself; it is not
confined to partial views or to one particular object. And if at last
all should be lost, it has saved itself.--VON KNEBEL.
Hope, like the glimmering taper's light,
Adorns and cheers the way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.
--GOLDSMITH.
HOSPITALITY.--Like many other virtues, hospitality is practiced in its
perfection by the poor. If the rich did their share, how would the
woes of this world be lightened!--MRS. KIRKLAND.
It is not the quantity of the meat, but the cheerfulness of the
guests, which makes the feast.--CLARENDON.
There is an emanation from the heart in genuine hospitality which
cannot be described, but is immediately felt and puts the stranger at
once at his ease.--WASHINGTON IRVING.
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have
entertained angels unawares.--HEBREWS 13:2.
Blest be that spot, where cheerful guests retire
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire;
Blest that abode, where want and pain repair,
And every stranger finds a ready chair:
Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd,
Where all the ruddy family around
Laugh at the jest or pranks, that never fail,
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale,
Or press the bashful stranger to his food,
And learn the luxury of doing good.
--GOLDSMITH.
HUMILITY.--The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not
sufficient.--ST. AUGUSTINE.
The high mountains are barren, but the low valleys are covered over
with corn; and accordingly the showers of God's grace fall into lowly
hearts and humble souls.--WORTHINGTON.
He who sacrifices a whole offering shall be rewarded for a whole
offering; he who offers a burnt-offering shall have the reward of a
burnt-offering; but he who offers humility to God and man shall be
rewarded with a reward as if he had offered all the sacrifices in the
world.--THE TALMUD.
True humility--the basis of the Christian system--is the low but deep
and firm foundation of all virtues.--BURKE.
By humility, and the fear of the Lord, are riches, honor, and life.
--PROVERBS 22:4.
"If you ask, what is the first step in the way of truth? I answer
humility," saith St. Austin. "If you ask, what is the second? I say
humility. If you ask, what is the third? I answer the same--humility."
Is it not as the steps of degree in the Temple, whereby we descend to
the knowledge of ourselves, and ascend to the knowledge of God? Would
we attain mercy? humility will help us.--C. SUTTON.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.--MATTHEW 5:5.
Nothing can be further apart than true humility and servility.--BEECHER.
Some one called Sir Richard Steele the "vilest of mankind," and he
retorted with proud humility, "It would be a glorious world if I
were."--BOVEE.
Humility is the Christian's greatest honor; and the higher men climb,
the farther they are from heaven.--BURDER.
The grace which makes every other grace amiable.--ALFRED MERCIER.
If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble; for the proud
heart, as it loves none but itself, so it is beloved of none but by
itself; the voice of humility is God's music, and the silence of
humility is God's rhetoric. Humility enforces where neither virtue nor
strength can prevail nor reason.--QUARLES.
The fullest and best ears of corn hang lowest toward the ground.
--BISHOP REYNOLDS.
If thou wouldst find much favor and peace with God and man, be very
low in thine own eyes; forgive thyself little, and others much.
--LEIGHTON.
After crosses and losses men grow humbler and wiser.--FRANKLIN.
HURRY.--No two things differ more than hurry and despatch. Hurry is
the mark of a weak mind, despatch of a strong one. A weak man in
office, like a squirrel in a cage, is laboring eternally, but to no
purpose, and in constant motion without getting on a jot; like a
turnstile, he is in everybody's way, but stops nobody; he talks a
great deal, but says very little; looks into everything, but sees into
nothing; and has a hundred irons in the fire, but very few of them are
hot, and with those few that are he only burns his fingers.--COLTON.
HYPOCRISY.--If the world despises hypocrites, what must be the
estimate of them in heaven?--MADAME ROLAND.
Hypocrisy itself does great honor, or rather justice, to religion, and
tacitly acknowledges it to be an ornament to human nature. The
hypocrite would not be at so much pains to put on the appearance of
virtue, if he did not know it was the most proper and effectual means
to gain the love and esteem of mankind.--ADDISON.
The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his
heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.
--PSALM 55:21.
Hypocrisy is folly. It is much easier, safer, and pleasanter to be the
thing which a man aims to appear, than to keep up the appearance of
being what he is not.--CECIL.
Hypocrites do the devil's drudgery in Christ's livery.--MATTHEW HENRY.
To wear long faces, just as if our Maker,
The God of goodness, was an undertaker.
--PETER PINDAR.
Hypocrisy is oftenest clothed in the garb of religion.--HOSEA BALLOU.
Such a man will omit neither family worship, nor a sneer at his
neighbor. He will neither milk his cows on the first day of the week
without a Sabbath mask on his face, nor remove it while he waters the
milk for his customers.--GEORGE MACDONALD.
If Satan ever laughs, it must be at hypocrites; they are the greatest
dupes he has.--COLTON.
IDLENESS.--I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide.--CHESTERFIELD.
Some people have a perfect genius for doing nothing, and doing it
assiduously.--HALIBURTON.
Laziness grows on people; it begins in cobwebs, and ends in iron
chains. The more business a man has to do, the more he is able to
accomplish; for he learns to economize his time.--JUDGE HALE.
If you ask me which is the real hereditary sin of human nature, do you
imagine I shall answer pride or luxury or ambition or egotism? No; I
shall say indolence. Who conquers indolence will conquer all the rest.
Indeed, all good principles must stagnate without mental activity.
--ZIMMERMANN.
A poor idle man cannot be an honest man.--ACHILLES POINCELOT.
Absence of occupation is not rest,
A mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd.
--COWPER.
Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all easy; and he that
riseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business
at night; while laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes
him.--FRANKLIN.
Evil thoughts intrude in an unemployed mind, as naturally as worms are
generated in a stagnant pool.--FROM THE LATIN.
An idle man's brain is the devil's workshop.--BUNYAN.
If you are idle, you are on the road to ruin; and there are few
stopping-places upon it. It is rather a precipice than a road.--BEECHER.
The ruin of most men dates from some idle moment.--HILLARD.
Time, with all its celerity, moves slowly on to him whose whole
employment is to watch its flight.--DR. JOHNSON.
An idler is a watch that wants both hands,
As useless if it goes as when it stands.
--COWPER.
IMMIGRATION.--If you should turn back from this land to Europe the
foreign ministers of the Gospel, and the foreign attorneys, and the
foreign merchants, and the foreign philanthropists, what a robbery of
our pulpits, our court rooms, our storehouses, and our beneficent
institutions, and what a putting back of every monetary, merciful,
moral, and religious interest of the land! This commingling here of
all nationalities under the blessing of God will produce in
seventy-five or one hundred years the most magnificent style of man
and woman the world ever saw. They will have the wit of one race, the
eloquence of another race, the kindness of another, the generosity of
another, the æsthetic taste of another, the high moral character of
another, and when that man and woman step forth, their brain and nerve
and muscle an intertwining of the fibres of all nationalities, nothing
but the new electric photographic apparatus, that can see clear
through body and mind and soul, can take of them an adequate picture.
--T. DEWITT TALMAGE.
IMMORTALITY.--Immortality is the glorious discovery of Christianity.
--CHANNING.
We are born for a higher destiny than that of earth; there is a realm
where the rainbow never fades, where the stars will be spread before
us like islands that slumber on the ocean, and where the beings that
pass before us like shadows will stay in our presence forever.--LYTTON.
It must be so--Plato, thou reasonest well--
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread and inward horror
Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the Divinity that stirs within us;
'Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years,
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,
The wreck of matter, and the crash of worlds.
--ADDISON.
Faith in the hereafter is as necessary for the intellectual as the
moral character; and to the man of letters, as well as to the
Christian, the present forms but the slightest portion of his
existence.--SOUTHEY.
The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I hear around me the
immortal symphonies which invite me.--VICTOR HUGO.
All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are
immortal and divine.--SOCRATES.
Immortality o'ersweeps all pains, all tears, all time, all fears, and
peals, like the eternal thunder of the deep, into my ears this truth:
Thou livest forever!--BYRON.
INDEPENDENCE.--It is not the greatness of a man's means that makes him
independent, so much as the smallness of his wants.--COBBETT.
These two things, contradictory as they may seem, must go
together,--manly dependence and manly independence, manly reliance and
manly self-reliance.--WORDSWORTH.
Ourselves are to ourselves the cause of ill;
We may be independent if we will.
--CHURCHILL.
Let fortune do her worst, whatever she makes us lose, as long as she
never makes us lose our honesty and our independence.--POPE.
INDUSTRY.--Industry is a Christian obligation, imposed on our race
to develop the noblest energies, and insures the highest reward.
--E.L. MAGOON.
Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before
kings.--PROVERBS 22:29.
If you have great talents, industry will improve them; if moderate
abilities, industry will supply their deficiencies. Nothing is denied
to well-directed labor; nothing is ever to be attained without it.
--SIR J. REYNOLDS.
If we are industrious, we shall never starve; for, at the workingman's
house hunger looks in, but dares not enter. Nor will the bailiff or
the constable enter, for industry pays debts, while despair increaseth
them.--FRANKLIN.
There is no art or science that is too difficult for industry to
attain to; it is the gift of tongues, and makes a man understood and
valued in all countries and by all nations; it is the philosopher's
stone, that turns all metals, and even stones, into gold, and suffers
not want to break into its dwelling; it is the northwest passage, that
brings the merchant's ship as soon to him as he can desire. In a word,
it conquers all enemies, and makes fortune itself pay contribution.
--CLARENDON.
The way to wealth is as plain as the way to market. It depends
chiefly on two words, industry and frugality: that is, waste neither
time nor money, but make the best use of both. Without industry and
frugality nothing will do, and with them everything.--FRANKLIN.
The celebrated Galen said employment was nature's physician. It is
indeed so important to happiness that indolence is justly considered
the parent of misery.--COLTON.
In every rank, or great or small,
'Tis industry supports us all.
--GAY.
INFIDELITY.--There is but one thing without honor, smitten with
eternal barrenness, inability to do or to be,--insincerity, unbelief.
--CARLYLE.
Infidelity is one of those coinages,--a mass of base money that won't
pass current with any heart that loves truly, or any head that thinks
correctly. And infidels are poor sad creatures; they carry about them
a load of dejection and desolation, not the less heavy that it is
invisible. It is the fearful blindness of the soul.--CHALMERS.
A sceptical young man one day conversing with the celebrated Dr. Parr,
observed that he would believe nothing which he could not understand.
"Then, young man, your creed will be the shortest of any man's I
know."--HELPS.
Infidelity and faith look both through the perspective glass, but at
contrary ends. Infidelity looks through the wrong end of the glass;
and, therefore, sees those objects near which are afar off, and makes
great things little,--diminishing the greatest spiritual blessings,
and removing far from us threatened evils. Faith looks at the right
end, and brings the blessings that are far off in time close to our
eye, and multiplies God's mercies, which, in a distance, lost their
greatness.--BISHOP HALL.
No one is so much alone in the universe as a denier of God.--RICHTER.
Mere negation, mere Epicurean infidelity, as Lord Bacon most justly
observes, has never disturbed the peace of the world. It furnishes no
motive for action; it inspires no enthusiasm; it has no missionaries,
no crusades, no martyrs.--MACAULAY.
When once infidelity can persuade men that they shall die like beasts,
they will soon be brought to live like beasts also.--SOUTH.
INGRATITUDE.--If there be a crime of deeper dye than all the guilty
train of human vices, it is ingratitude.--H. BROOKE.
Men may be ungrateful, but the human race is not so.--DE BOUFFLERS.
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude.
--SHAKESPEARE.
He that forgets his friend is ungrateful to him; but he that forgets
his Saviour is unmerciful to himself.--BUNYAN.
You may rest upon this as an unfailing truth, that there neither is,
nor never was, any person remarkably ungrateful, who was not also
insufferably proud. In a word, ingratitude is too base to return a
kindness, too proud to regard it, much like the tops of mountains,
barren indeed, but yet lofty; they produce nothing; they feed nobody;
they clothe nobody; yet are high and stately, and look down upon all
the world.--SOUTH.
Ingratitude is always a kind of weakness. I have never seen that
clever men have been ungrateful.--GOETHE.
You love a nothing when you love an ingrate.--PLAUTUS.
And shall I prove ungrateful? shocking thought! He that is ungrateful
has no guilt but one; all other crimes may pass for virtues in him.
--YOUNG.
Nothing more detestable does the earth produce than an ungrateful man.
--AUSONIUS.
Do you know what is more hard to bear than the reverses of fortune? It
is the baseness, the hideous ingratitude, of man.--NAPOLEON.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child.
--SHAKESPEARE.
One ungrateful man does an injury to all who stand in need of aid.
--PUBLIUS SYRUS.
INNOCENCE.--We have not the innocence of Eden; but by God's help and
Christ's example we may have the victory of Gethsemane.--CHAPIN.
True, conscious honor, is to feel no sin;
He's arm'd without that's innocent within.
--HORACE.
Innocence is a flower which withers when touched, but blooms not
again, though watered with tears.--HOOPER.
To be innocent is to be not guilty; but to be virtuous is to overcome
our evil inclinations.--WILLIAM PENN.
How many bitter thoughts does the innocent man avoid! Serenity and
cheerfulness are his portion. Hope is continually pouring its balm
into his soul. His heart is at rest, whilst others are goaded and
tortured by the stings of a wounded conscience, the remonstrances and
risings up of principles which they cannot forget; perpetually teased
by returning temptations, perpetually lamenting defeated resolutions.
--PALEY.
Oh, keep me innocent; make others great!--CAROLINE OF DENMARK.
There are some reasoners who frequently confound innocence with the
mere incapacity of guilt; but he that never saw, or heard, or thought
of strong liquors, cannot be proposed as a pattern of sobriety.
--DR. JOHNSON.
Let our lives be pure as snow-fields, where our footsteps leave a
mark, but not a stain.--MADAME SWETCHINE.
There is no courage but in innocence, no constancy but in an honest
cause.--SOUTHERN.
INSPIRATION.--Do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble
impulse by the name of inspiration?--GEORGE ELIOT.
The glow of inspiration warms us; this holy rapture springs from the
seeds of the Divine mind sown in man.--OVID.
No man was ever great without divine inspiration.--CICERO.
A lively and agreeable man has not only the merit of liveliness and
agreeableness himself, but that also of awakening them in others.
--GREVILLE.
INTELLECT.--If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take
it from him.--FRANKLIN.
Alexander the Great valued learning so highly, that he used to say he
was more indebted to Aristotle for giving him knowledge than to his
father Philip for life.--SAMUEL SMILES.
A man cannot leave a better legacy to the world than a well-educated
family.--REV. THOMAS SCOTT.
Times of general calamity and confusion have ever been productive of
the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest
furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest
storm.--COLTON.
Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to
live, as well as strong to think.--EMERSON.
God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given
us, on this side of the grave.--BACON.
Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge; and its nature is
sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance.--CHANNING.
To be able to discern that what is true is true, and that what is
false is false,--this is the mark and character of intelligence.
--EMERSON.
INTEMPERANCE.--A man may choose whether he will have abstemiousness
and knowledge, or claret and ignorance.--DR. JOHNSON.
Intemperance weaves the winding-sheet of souls.--JOHN B. GOUGH.
Drunkenness calls off the watchman from the towers; and then all the
evils that proceed from a loose heart, an untied tongue, and a
dissolute spirit, we put upon its account.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
It is little the sign of a wise or good man, to suffer temperance to
be transgressed in order to purchase the repute of a generous
entertainer.--ATTERBURY.
Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath
babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.
Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color
in the cup, when it moveth itself aright: at the last it biteth like a
serpent, and stingeth like an adder.--PROVERBS 23:29-32.
O, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their
brains!--SHAKESPEARE.
I never drink. I cannot do it, on equal terms with others. It costs
them only one day; but me three,--the first in sinning, the second in
suffering, and the third in repenting.--STERNE.
Wise men mingle mirth with their cares, as a help either to forget or
overcome them; but to resort to intoxication for the ease of one's
mind is to cure melancholy by madness.--CHARRON.
Greatness of any kind has no greater foe than a habit of drinking.
--WALTER SCOTT.
Intemperance is a great decayer of beauty.--JUNIUS.
Sinners, hear and consider; if you wilfully condemn your souls to
bestiality, God will condemn them to perpetual misery.--BAXTER.
The habit of using ardent spirits, by men in office, has occasioned
more injury to the public, and more trouble to me, than all other
causes. And were I to commence my administration again, the first
question I would ask, respecting a candidate for office would be,
"Does he use ardent spirits?"--JEFFERSON.
JEALOUSY.--People who are jealous, or particularly careful of their
own rights and dignity, always find enough of those who do not care
for either to keep them continually uncomfortable.--BARNES.
It is with jealousy as with the gout. When such distempers are in the
blood, there is never any security against their breaking out, and
that often on the slightest occasions, and when least suspected.
--FIELDING.
All the other passions condescend at times to accept the inexorable
logic of facts; but jealousy looks facts straight in the face, ignores
them utterly, and says that she knows a great deal better than they
can tell her.--HELPS.
The jealous man's disease is of so malignant a nature that it
converts all it takes into its own nourishment.--ADDISON.
Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire,
which hath a most vehement flame.--SONG OF SOLOMON 8:6.
Yet is there one more cursed than they all,
That canker-worm, that monster, jealousie,
Which eats the heart and feeds upon the gall,
Turning all love's delight to misery,
Through fear of losing his felicity.
--SPENSER.
JOY.--The very society of joy redoubles it; so that, whilst it lights
upon my friend it rebounds upon myself, and the brighter his candle
burns the more easily will it light mine.--SOUTH.
The joy resulting from the diffusion of blessings to all around us is
the purest and sublimest that can ever enter the human mind, and can
be conceived only by those who have experienced it. Next to the
consolations of divine grace, it is the most sovereign balm to the
miseries of life, both in him who is the object of it, and in him who
exercises it.--BISHOP PORTEUS.
Who partakes in another's joys is a more humane character than he who
partakes in his griefs.--LAVATER.
Joy is more divine than sorrow; for joy is bread, and sorrow is
medicine.--BEECHER.
Without kindness, there can be no true joy.--CARLYLE.
Joy is an import; joy is an exchange;
Joy flies monopolists: it calls for two;
Rich fruit! Heaven planted! never pluck'd by one.
--YOUNG.
JUDGMENT.--How are we justly to determine in a world where there are
no innocent ones to judge the guilty?--MADAME DE GENLIS.
Who upon earth could live were all judged justly?--BYRON.
One man's word is no man's word; we should quietly hear both sides.
--GOETHE.
Men are not to be judged by their looks, habits, and appearances; but
by the character of their lives and conversations, and by their works.
--L'ESTRANGE.
We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that everyone
may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath
done, whether it be good or bad.--2 COR. 5:10.
It is very questionable, in my mind, how far we have the right to
judge one of another, since there is born within every man the germs
of both virtue and vice. The development of one or the other is
contingent upon circumstances.--BALLOU.
The right of private judgment is absolute in every American citizen.
--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
The very thing that men think they have got the most of, they have got
the least of; and that is judgment.--H.W. SHAW.
There are no judgments so harsh as those of the erring, the
inexperienced, and the young.--MISS MULOCK.
The judgment of a great people is often wiser than the wisest men.
--KOSSUTH.
Judge thyself with a judgment of sincerity, and thou wilt judge others
with a judgment of charity.--MASON.
'Tis with our judgments as our watches; none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
--POPE.
JUSTICE.--Justice offers nothing but what may be accepted with honor;
and lays claim to nothing in return but what we ought not even to wish
to withhold.--WOMAN'S RIGHTS AND DUTIES.
Be just and fear not:
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,
Thy God's, and truth's.
--SHAKESPEARE.
And heaven that every virtue bears in mind,
E'en to the ashes of the just, is kind.
--POPE.
He who is only just is cruel.--BYRON.
The sweet remembrance of the just
Shall flourish when he sleeps in dust.
--PARAPHRASE OF PSALM 112:6.
Justice is the insurance which we have on our lives and property, and
obedience is the premium which we pay for it.--WILLIAM PENN.
Heaven is above all yet; there sits a judge that no king can corrupt.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is always, therefore,
represented as blind.--ADDISON.
At present we can only reason of the divine justice from what we know
of justice in man. When we are in other scenes, we may have truer and
nobler ideas of it; but while we are in this life, we can only speak
from the volume that is laid open before us.--POPE.
In matters of equity between man and man, our Saviour has taught us to
put my neighbor in place of myself, and myself in place of my
neighbor.--DR. WATTS.
The books are balanced in heaven, not here.--H.W. SHAW.
Be just in all thy actions, and if join'd
With those that are not, never change thy mind.
--DENHAM.
The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.
--ARISTOTLE.
Justice is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament
which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together.--WEBSTER.
KINDNESS.--A more glorious victory cannot be gained over another man
than this, that when the injury began on his part, the kindness should
begin on ours.--TILLOTSON.
Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little
things, in which smiles and kindness, and small obligations, given
habitually, are what win and preserve the heart, and secure comfort.
--SIR H. DAVY.
Kindness has converted more sinners than either zeal, eloquence, or
learning.--F.W. FABER.
How easy it is for one benevolent being to diffuse pleasure around
him; and how truly is a kind heart a fountain of gladness, making
everything in its vicinity to freshen into smiles!--WASHINGTON IRVING.
Always say a kind word if you can, if only that it may come in,
perhaps, with singular opportuneness, entering some mournful man's
darkened room, like a beautiful firefly, whose happy circumvolutions
he cannot but watch, forgetting his many troubles.--HELPS.
One kindly deed may turn
The fountain of thy soul
To love's sweet day-star, that shall o'er thee burn
Long as its currents roll.
--HOLMES.
We may scatter the seeds of courtesy and kindness around us at so
little expense. Some of them will inevitably fall on good ground, and
grow up into benevolence in the minds of others: and all of them will
bear fruit of happiness in the bosom whence they spring.--BENTHAM.
There is no beautifier of complexion or form or behavior like the
wish to scatter joy, and not pain, around us.--EMERSON.
KISSES.--A kiss from my mother made me a painter.--BENJAMIN WEST.
It is the passion that is in a kiss that gives to it its sweetness; it
is the affection in a kiss that sanctifies it.--BOVEE.
It is as old as the creation, and yet as young and fresh as ever. It
pre-existed, still exists, and always will exist. Depend upon it, Eve
learned it in Paradise, and was taught its beauties, virtues, and
varieties by an angel, there is something so transcendent in it.
--HALIBURTON.
Four sweet lips, two pure souls, and one undying affection,--these are
love's pretty ingredients for a kiss.--BOVEE.
You would think, if our lips were made of horn and stuck out a foot or
two from our faces, kisses at any rate would be done for. Not so. No
creatures kiss each other so much as the birds.--CHARLES BUXTON.
KNOWLEDGE.--Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or
we know where we can find information upon it.--BOSWELL.
If we do not plant knowledge when young, it will give us no shade when
we are old.--CHESTERFIELD.
In reading authors, when you find
Bright passages, that strike your mind,
And which, perhaps, you may have reason
To think on, at another season,
Be not contented with the sight,
But take them down in black and white;
Such a respect is wisely shown,
As makes another's sense one's own.
--BYRON.
Early knowledge is very valuable capital with which to set forth in
life. It gives one an advantageous start. If the possession of
knowledge has a given value at fifty, it has a much greater value at
twenty-five; for there is the use of it for twenty-five of the most
important years of your life; and it is worth more than a hundred per
cent interest. Indeed, who can estimate the interest of knowledge? Its
price is above rubies.--WINSLOW.
Knowledge is
Bought only with a weary care,
And wisdom means a world of pain.
--JOAQUIN MILLER.
The knowledge which we have acquired ought not to resemble a great
shop without order, and without an inventory; we ought to know what we
possess, and be able to make it serve us in need.--LEIBNITZ.
Knowledge is power as well as fame.--RUFUS CHOATE.
Knowledge is leagued with the universe, and findeth a friend in all
things; but ignorance is everywhere a stranger, unwelcome; ill at ease
and out of place.--TUPPER.
A Persian philosopher, being asked by what method he had acquired so
much knowledge, answered, "By not being prevented by shame from asking
questions where I was ignorant."
Every human being whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give
all that he has to get knowledge.--DR. JOHNSON.
That learning which thou gettest by thy own observation and
experience, is far beyond that which thou gettest by precept; as the
knowledge of a traveler exceeds that which is got by reading.--THOMAS
À KEMPIS.
If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it.--FULLER.
Knowledge will not be acquired without pains and application. It is
troublesome and deep, digging for pure waters; but when once you come
to the spring, they rise up and meet you.--FELTON.
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; Wisdom is humble that
he knows no more.--COWPER.
All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are
willing to pay the price.--JUVENAL.
Seldom ever was any knowledge given to keep, but to impart; the grace
of this rich jewel is lost in concealment.--BISHOP HALL.
There is no knowledge for which so great a price is paid as a
knowledge of the world; and no one ever became an adept in it except
at the expense of a hardened or a wounded heart.--LADY BLESSINGTON.
The sure foundations of the State are laid in knowledge, not in
ignorance; and every sneer at education, at culture, at book learning,
which is the recorded wisdom of the experience of mankind, is the
demagogue's sneer at intelligent liberty, inviting national degeneracy
and ruin.--G.W. CURTIS.
LABOR.--Labor is one of the great elements of society,--the great
substantial interest on which we all stand.--DANIEL WEBSTER.
Hard workers are usually honest. Industry lifts them above temptation.
--BOVEE.
Bodily labor alleviates the pains of the mind; and hence arises the
happiness of the poor.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who
disgrace labor.--U.S. GRANT.
If the power to do hard work is not talent, it is the best possible
substitute for it.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
It is not work that kills men, it is worry. Work is healthy, you can
hardly put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the
blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery, but the
friction. Fear secretes acids, but love and trust are sweet juices.
--BEECHER.
Genius may conceive, but patient labor must consummate.--HORACE MANN.
God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into the nest.
He does not unearth the good that the earth contains, but He puts it
in our way, and gives us the means of getting it ourselves.
--J.G. HOLLAND.
Labor, wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven.--CARLYLE.
Love labor; for if thou dost not want it for food, thou mayest for
physic.--WILLIAM PENN.
Next to faith in God, is faith in labor.--BOVEE.
Labor is rest--from the sorrows that greet us;
Rest from all petty vexations that meet us,
Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us,
Rest from world-sirens that lure us to ill.
--FRANCES S. OSGOOD.
No man is born into the world, whose work
Is not born with him.
--LOWELL.
Labor! all labor is noble and holy!
Let thy great deeds be thy prayer to thy God.
--FRANCES S. OSGOOD.
LANGUAGE.--In the commerce of speech use only coin of gold and silver.
--JOUBERT.
The language denotes the man. A coarse or refined character finds its
expression naturally in a coarse or refined phraseology.--BOVEE.
Language is the picture and counterpart of thought.--MARK HOPKINS.
Felicity, not fluency, of language is a merit.--WHIPPLE.
LAUGHTER.--Laughter is a most healthful exertion; it is one of the
greatest helps to digestion with which I am acquainted.--DR. HUFELAND.
Men show their character in nothing more clearly than by what they
think laughable.--GOETHE.
A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market.--LAMB.
A laugh to be joyous must flow from a joyous heart, for without
kindness there can be no true joy.--CARLYLE.
One good, hearty laugh is a bombshell exploding in the right place,
while spleen and discontent are a gun that kicks over the man who
shoots it off.--TALMAGE.
Stupid people, who do not know how to laugh, are always pompous and
self-conceited; that is, ungentle, uncharitable, unchristian.
--THACKERAY.
Man is the only creature endowed with the power of
laughter.--GREVILLE.
LEARNING.--Wear your learning like your watch, in a private pocket;
and do not pull it out and strike it, merely to show that you have
one.--CHESTERFIELD.
He who learns and makes no use of his learning, is a beast of burden,
with a load of books.--SAADI.
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
--POPE.
The three foundations of learning: Seeing much, suffering much, and
studying much.--CATHERALL.
The end of learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love
Him, and to imitate Him, by possessing our souls of true virtue.--MILTON.
Learning passes for wisdom among those who want both.--SIR W. TEMPLE.
Learning makes a man fit company for himself.--YOUNG.
He who has no inclination to learn more, will be very apt to think
that he knows enough.--POWELL.
It is without all controversy that learning doth make the minds of men
gentle, amiable, and pliant to government; whereas ignorance makes
them churlish, thwarting, and mutinous; and the evidence of time doth
clear this assertion, considering that the most barbarous, rude, and
unlearned times have been most subject to tumults, seditions, and
changes.--LORD BACON.
He that wants good sense is unhappy in having learning, for he has
thereby only more ways of exposing himself; and he that has sense,
knows that learning is not knowledge, but rather the art of using
it.--STEELE.
To be proud of learning is the greatest ignorance.--BISHOP TAYLOR.
Learning is better worth than house or land.--CRABBE.
LIBERALITY.--If you are poor, distinguish yourself by your virtues; if
rich, by your good deeds.--JOUBERT.
He that defers his charity until he is dead is, if a man weighs it
rightly, rather liberal of another man's goods than his own.--BACON.
Liberality consists rather in giving seasonably than much.--LA BRUYÈRE.
There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that
withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.
--PROVERBS 11:24.
Liberality consists less in giving profusely, than in giving
judiciously.--LA BRUYÈRE.
The liberal soul shall be made fat; and he that watereth shall be
watered also himself.--PROVERBS 11:25.
LIBERTY.--The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.
--THOMAS JEFFERSON.
'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower
Of fleeting life, its lustre and perfume;
And we are weeds without it.
--COWPER.
The love of liberty that is not a real principle of dutiful behavior
to authority is as hypocritical as the religion that is not productive
of a good life.--BISHOP BUTLER.
Liberty must be limited in order to be enjoyed.--BURKE.
Liberty is from God; liberties, from the devil.--AUERBACH.
A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty
Is worth a whole eternity in bondage.
--ADDISON.
If liberty with law is fire on the hearth, liberty without law is fire
on the floor.--HILLARD.
Few persons enjoy real liberty; we are all slaves to ideas or habits.
--ALFRED DE MUSSET.
The liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which they
have made themselves, under whatsoever form it be of government; the
liberty of a private man, in being master of his own time and actions,
as far as may consist with the laws of God and of his country.--COWLEY.
The spirit of liberty is not merely, as multitudes imagine, a
jealousy of our own particular rights, but a respect for the rights of
others, and an unwillingness that any man, whether high or low, should
be wronged and trampled under foot.--CHANNING.
Liberty, without wisdom, is license.--BURKE.
LIFE.--Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of
little things, in which smiles and kindness, and small obligations
given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart and secure
comfort.--SIR HUMPHRY DAVY.
Catch, then, O catch the transient hour;
Improve each moment as it flies;
Life's a short summer--man a flower--
He dies--alas! how soon he dies!
--DR. JOHNSON.
Life's but a means unto an end, that end,
Beginning, mean, and end to all things--God.
--BAILEY.
In the midst of life we are in death.--CHURCH BURIAL SERVICE.
Life in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the scene of good or
evil, as you make it.--MONTAIGNE.
Since every man who lives is born to die,
And none can boast sincere felicity,
With equal mind what happens let us bear,
Nor joy nor grieve too much for things beyond our care.
--DRYDEN.
Nor love thy life nor hate; but what thou liv'st
Live well; how long or short permit to heaven.
--MILTON.
The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason
of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and
sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.--PSALM 90:10.
A handful of good life is worth a bushel of learning.--GEORGE HERBERT.
Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or
registering wrongs.--CHARLOTTE BRONTE.
That man lives twice that lives the first life well.--HERRICK.
He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best; and
he whose heart beats the quickest lives the longest.--JAMES MARTINEAU.
Life is probation: mortal man was made
To solve the solemn problem--right or wrong.
--JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
Live virtuously, my lord, and you cannot die too soon, nor live too
long.--LADY RACHEL RUSSELL.
Our life contains a thousand springs,
And dies if one be gone;
Strange that a harp of thousand strings
Should keep in tune so long.
--DR. WATTS.
And he that lives to live forever never fears dying.--WILLIAM PENN.
We live in deeds, not years; in thought, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives,
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.
--BAILEY.
This is the state of man; to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him:
The third day, comes a frost, a killing frost;
And,--when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a ripening,--nips his root,
And then he falls.
--SHAKESPEARE.
The end of life is to be like unto God; and the soul following God,
will be like unto Him; He being the beginning, middle, and end of all
things.--SOCRATES.
For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon
earth are a shadow.--JOB 8:9.
You and I are now nearly in middle age, and have not yet become soured
and shrivelled with the wear and tear of life. Let us pray to be
delivered from that condition where life and nature have no fresh,
sweet sensations for us.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.--DR. JOHNSON.
I slept and dreamed that life was beauty;
I woke and found that life was duty.
--ELLEN STURGIS HOOPER.
The truest end of life is to know the life that never ends.--WILLIAM
PENN.
Let those who thoughtfully consider the brevity of life remember the
length of eternity.--BISHOP KEN.
LIGHT.--We should render thanks to God for having produced this
temporal light, which is the smile of heaven and joy of the world,
spreading it like a cloth of gold over the face of the air and earth,
and lighting it as a torch by which we might behold His works.--CAUSSIN.
Hail, holy light! offspring of heaven first-born.--MILTON.
Light itself is a great corrective. A thousand wrongs and abuses that
are grown in darkness disappear, like owls and bats, before the light
of day.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
I am the light of the world.--JOHN 9:5.
No wonder that light is so frequently used by the sacred oracles as
the symbol of our best blessings. Of the Gospel revelation one apostle
says, "The night is far spent, and the day is at hand." Another, under
the impression of the same auspicious event, thus applied the language
of ancient prophecy: "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great
light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light
is sprung up."--BASELEY.
The light in the world comes principally from two sources,--the sun,
and the student's lamp.--BOVEE.
LOVE.--Love is the purification of the heart from self; it strengthens
and ennobles the character, gives higher motives and a nobler aim to
every action of life, and makes both man and woman strong, noble, and
courageous.--MISS JEWSBURY.
We never can willingly offend where we sincerely love.--ROWLAND HILL.
It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less
difficult to know it has begun. A thousand heralds proclaim it to the
listening air, a thousand messengers betray it to the eye. Tone, act,
attitude and look, the signals upon the countenance, the electric
telegraph of touch,--all these betray the yielding citadel before the
word itself is uttered, which, like the key surrendered, opens every
avenue and gate of entrance, and renders retreat impossible.--LONGFELLOW.
Love and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much
as the two sides of an algebraic equation.--EMERSON.
If there is anything that keeps the mind open to angel visits, and
repels the ministry of ill, it is human love.--N.P. WILLIS.
The first symptom of true love in a young man is timidity, in a girl
it is boldness. The two sexes have a tendency to approach, and each
assumes the qualities of the other.--VICTOR HUGO.
The lover's pleasure, like that of the hunter, is in the chase, and
the brightest beauty loses half its merit, as the flower its perfume,
when the willing hand can reach it too easily. There must be doubt;
there must be difficulty and danger.--WALTER SCOTT.
Love is of all stimulants the most powerful. It sharpens the wits like
danger, and the memory like hatred; it spurs the will like ambition;
it intoxicates like wine.--A.B. EDWARDS.
Let those love now who never loved before,
Let those that always loved now love the more.
--PARNELL.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below, and saints above;
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
--SCOTT.
If thou neglectest thy love to thy neighbor, in vain thou professest
thy love to God; for by thy love to God the love to thy neighbor is
begotten, and by the love to thy neighbor, thy love to God is
nourished.--QUARLES.
Love's like the measles--all the worse when it comes late in life.
--JERROLD.
Love is strong as death. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can
the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his
house for love, it would utterly be contemned.--SONG OF SOLOMON 8:6-7.
Love is the fulfilling of the law.--ROMANS 13:10.
Love's sweetest meanings are unspoken; the full heart knows no rhetoric
of words.--BOVEE.
A woman is more considerate in affairs of love than a man; because
love is more the study and business of her life.--WASHINGTON IRVING.
Love, it has been said, flows downward. The love of parents for their
children has always been far more powerful than that of children for
their parents; and who among the sons of men ever loved God with a
thousandth part of the love which God has manifested to us?--HARE.
It is better to desire than to enjoy, to love than to be loved.
--HAZLITT.
Who never loved ne'er suffered; he feels nothing,
Who nothing feels but for himself alone.
--YOUNG.
Love why do we one passion call,
When 'tis a compound of them all?
Where hot and cold, where sharp and sweet,
In all their equipages meet;
Where pleasures mix'd with pains appear,
Sorrow with joy, and hope with fear.
--SWIFT.
Nothing more excites to everything noble and generous, than virtuous
love.--HENRY HOME.
Love, free as air, at sight of human ties,
Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies.
--POPE.
But there's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream.
--MOORE.
They do not love, that do not show their love.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak. It serves for food and
raiment.--LONGFELLOW.
That you may be beloved, be amiable.--OVID.
All these inconveniences are incidents to love: reproaches,
jealousies, quarrels, reconcilements, war, and then peace.--TERENCE.
Love seizes on us suddenly, without giving warning, and our
disposition or our weakness favors the surprise; one look, one glance
from the fair, fixes and determines us. Friendship, on the contrary,
is a long time forming; it is of slow growth, through many trials and
months of familiarity.--LA BRUYÈRE.
Love is a child that talks in broken language,
Yet then he speaks most plain.
--DRYDEN.
Love that has nothing but beauty to keep it in good health, is
short-lived.--ERASMUS.
No cord or cable can draw so forcibly, or bind so fast, as love can do
with only a single thread.--BURTON.
It is possible that a man can be so changed by love, that one could
not recognize him to be the same person.--TERENCE.
Only those who love with the heart can animate the love of others.
--ABEL STEVENS.
If a man really loves a woman, of course he wouldn't marry her for the
world, if he were not quite sure that he was the best person she could
by any possibility marry.--HOLMES.
True love is humble, thereby is it known;
Girded for service, seeking not its own;
Vaunts not itself, but speaks in self-dispraise.
--ABRAHAM COLES.
Love without faith is as bad as faith without love.--BEECHER.
MAN.--Man is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of
the man.--1 COR. 11:7.
Do you know what a man is? Are not birth, beauty, good shape,
discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality,
and such like, the spice and salt that season a man?--SHAKESPEARE.
A man may twist as he pleases, and do what he pleases, but he
inevitably comes back to the track to which nature has destined
him.--GOETHE.
Men may rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things.
--TENNYSON.
It is an error to suppose that a man belongs to himself. No man does.
He belongs to his wife, or his children, or his relations, or to his
creditors, or to society in some form or other.--G.A. SALA.
The record of life runs thus: Man creeps into childhood,--bounds into
youth,--sobers into manhood,--softens into age,--totters into second
childhood, and slumbers into the cradle prepared for him,--thence to
be watched and cared for.--HENRY GILES.
How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful, is man!
--YOUNG.
He is the whole encyclopædia of facts. The creation of a thousand
forests is in one acorn; and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain,
America, lie folded already in the first man.--EMERSON.
Man is an animal that cooks his victuals.--BURKE.
Man is an animal that makes bargains; no other animal does this,--one
dog does not change a bone with another.--ADAM SMITH.
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.
--POPE.
His life was gentle; and the elements
So mix'd in him, that nature might stand up
And say to all the world, "This was a man!"
--SHAKESPEARE.
Man that is born of woman is of few days, and full of trouble.
--JOB 14:1.
Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure that there is
one rascal less in the world.--CARLYLE.
An individual man is a fruit which it cost all the foregoing ages to
form and ripen. He is strong, not to do, but to live; not in his arms,
but in his heart; not as an agent, but as a fact.--EMERSON.
What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in
faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action,
how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god!--SHAKESPEARE.
There are but three classes of men, the retrograde, the stationary,
and the progressive.--LAVATER.
Before man made us citizens, great nature made us men.--LOWELL.
MANNERS.--Evil communications corrupt good manners.--1 COR. 15:33.
The person who screams, or uses the superlative degree, or converses
with heat puts whole drawing-rooms to flight. If you wish to be loved,
love measure.--EMERSON.
Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we
converse.--SWIFT.
I really think next to the consciousness of doing a good action, that
of doing a civil one is the most pleasing; and the epithet which I
should covet the most next to that of Aristides, would be that of
well-bred.--CHESTERFIELD.
A man's worth is estimated in this world according to his conduct.
--LA BRUYÈRE.
There is certainly something of exquisite kindness and thoughtful
benevolence in that rarest of gifts,--fine breeding.--LYTTON.
In the society of ladies, want of sense is not so unpardonable as
want of manners.--LAVATER.
Good manners are a part of good morals.--WHATLEY.
One principal part of good breeding is to suit our behavior to the
three several degrees of men: our superiors, our equals, and those
below us.--SWIFT.
As a man's salutations, so is the total of his character; in nothing
do we lay ourselves so open as in our manner of meeting and
salutation.--LAVATER.
Grace is to the body what good sense is to the mind.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each one a stroke of
genius or of love, now repeated and hardened into usage, they form at
last a rich varnish, with which the routine of life is washed, and its
details adorned. If they are superficial, so are the dew-drops which
give such a depth to the morning meadows.--EMERSON.
Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase,
barbarize or refine, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible
operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give their whole
form and colors to our lives. According to their quality they aid
morals, they supply them, or they totally destroy them.--BURKE.
Good breeding is the result of much good sense, some good nature, and
a little self-denial for the sake of others, and with a view to obtain
the same indulgence from them.--CHESTERFIELD.
To be good and disagreeable is high treason against the royalty of
virtue.--HANNAH MORE.
A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's
ill manners.--CHESTERFIELD.
The distinguishing trait of people accustomed to good society is a
calm, imperturbable quiet which pervades all their actions and habits,
from the greatest to the least. They eat in quiet, move in quiet, live
in quiet, and lose their wife, or even their money, in quiet; while
low persons cannot take up either a spoon or an affront without making
such an amazing noise about it.--LYTTON.
MARRIAGE.--Save the love we pay to heaven, there is none purer,
holier, than that a virtuous woman feels for him she would cleave
through life to. Sisters part from sisters, brothers from brothers,
children from their parents, but such woman from the husband of her
choice, never!--SHERIDAN KNOWLES.
I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would
wear well.--GOLDSMITH.
A married man falling into misfortune is more apt to retrieve his
situation in the world than a single one, chiefly because his spirits
are soothed and retrieved by domestic endearments, and his
self-respect kept alive by finding that although all abroad be
darkness and humiliation, yet there is a little world of love at home
over which he is a monarch.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
A man may be cheerful and contented in celibacy, but I do not think he
can ever be happy; it is an unnatural state, and the best feelings of
his nature are never called into action.--SOUTHEY.
It is not good that the man should be alone.--GENESIS 2:18.
The most unhappy circumstance of all is, when each party is always
laying up fuel for dissension, and gathering together a magazine of
provocations to exasperate each other with when they are out of
humor.--STEELE.
When thou choosest a wife, think not only of thyself, but of those
God may give thee of her, that they reproach thee not for their being.
--TUPPER.
An obedient wife commands her husband.--TENNYSON.
No man can either live piously or die righteous without a wife.
--RICHTER.
Two persons who have chosen each other out of all the species with a
design to be each other's mutual comfort and entertainment have, in
that action, bound themselves to be good-humored, affable, discreet,
forgiving, patient, and joyful, with respect to each other's frailties
and perfections, to the end of their lives.--ADDISON.
Man is the circled oak; woman the ivy.--AARON HILL.
A man of sense and education should meet a suitable companion in a
wife. It is a miserable thing when the conversation can only be such
as whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted, and probably a
dispute about that.--DR. JOHNSON.
Go down the ladder when thou marriest a wife; go up when thou choosest
a friend.--RABBI BEN AZAI.
Were a man not to marry a second time, it might be concluded that his
first wife had given him a disgust for marriage; but by taking a
second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first by showing
that she made him so happy as a married man that he wishes to be so a
second time.--DR. JOHNSON.
Though fools spurn Hymen's gentle pow'rs,
We who improve his golden hours,
By sweet experience know,
That marriage, rightly understood,
Gives to the tender and the good
A paradise below.
--COTTON.
As a walled town is more worthier than a village, so is the forehead
of a married man more honorable than the bare brow of a bachelor.
--SHAKESPEARE.
God the best maker of all marriages.--SHAKESPEARE.
A light wife doth make a heavy husband.
The following "marriage" maxims are worthy of more than a hasty
reading. Husbands should not pass them by, for they are designed for
wives; and wives should not despise them, for they are addressed to
husbands:--
1. The very nearest approach to domestic happiness on earth is in the
cultivation on both sides of absolute unselfishness.
2. Never both be angry at once.
3. Never talk at one another, either alone or in company.
4. Never speak loud to one another unless the house is on fire.
5. Let each one strive to yield oftenest to the wishes of the other.
6. Let self-denial be the daily aim and practice of each.
7. Never find fault unless it is perfectly certain that a fault has
been committed, and always speak lovingly.
8. Never taunt with a past mistake.
9. Neglect the whole world besides rather than one another.
10. Never allow a request to be repeated.
11. Never make a remark at the expense of each other,--it is a
meanness.
12. Never part for a day without loving words to think of during
absence.
13. Never meet without a loving welcome.
14. Never let the sun go down upon any anger or grievance.
15. Never let any fault you have committed go by until you have
frankly confessed it and asked forgiveness.
16. Never forget the happy hours of early love.
17. Never sigh over what might have been, but make the best of what
is.
18. Never forget that marriage is ordained of God, and that His
blessing alone can make it what it should ever be.
19. Never be contented till you know you are both walking in the
narrow way.
20. Never let your hopes stop short of the eternal home.
--COTTAGER AND ARTISAN.
Mothers who force their daughters into interested marriage, are worse
than the Ammonites who sacrificed their children to Moloch--the latter
undergoing a speedy death, the former suffering years of torture, but
too frequently leading to the same result.--LORD ROCHESTER.
Let us no more contend, nor blame
Each other, blamed enough elsewhere, but strive
In offices of love, how we may lighten
Each other's burden, in our share of woe.
--MILTON.
The world well tried, the sweetest thing in life
Is the unclouded welcome of a wife.
--WILLIS.
A wife is a gift bestowed upon a man to reconcile him to the loss of
paradise.--GOETHE.
Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife there.--ANDREW
JACKSON.
If you wish to ruin yourself, marry a rich wife.--MICHELET.
Marriage is the strictest tie of perpetual friendship, and there can
be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without
integrity; and he must expect to be wretched, who pays to beauty,
riches, or politeness that regard which only virtue and piety can
claim.--DR. JOHNSON.
When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live
till I were married.--SHAKESPEARE.
The good wife is none of our dainty dames, who love to appear in a
variety of suits every day new; as if a good gown, like a stratagem in
war, were to be used but once. But our good wife sets up a sail
according to the keel of her husband's estate; and if of high
parentage, she doth not so remember what she was by birth, that she
forgets what she is by match.--FULLER.
Of earthly goods the best, is a good wife.--SIMONIDES.
Take the daughter of a good mother.--FULLER.
Jars concealed are half reconciled; 'tis a double task, to stop the
breach at home and men's mouths abroad. To this end, a good husband
never publicly reproves his wife. An open reproof puts her to do
penance before all that are present; after which, many study rather
revenge than reformation.--FULLER.
Every effort is made in forming matrimonial alliances to reconcile
matters relating to fortune, but very little is paid to the congeniality
of dispositions, or to the accordance of hearts.--MASSILLON.
A good wife is heaven's last best gift to man; his angel and minister
of graces innumerable; his gem of many virtues; his casket of jewels;
her voice his sweet music; her smiles his brightest day; her kiss the
guardian of his innocence; her arms the pale of his safety, the balm of
his health, the balsam of his life; her industry, his surest wealth;
her economy, his safest steward; her lips, his faithful counselors; her
bosom, the softest pillow of his cares; and her prayers, the ablest
advocates of heaven's blessings on his head.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
A married man has many cares, but a bachelor no pleasures.--DR. JOHNSON.
MEDITATION.--Meditation is the soul's perspective glass, whereby, in
her long removes, she discerneth God, as if He were near at hand.
--FELTHAM.
Meditation is the life of the soul; action is the soul of meditation;
honor is the reward of action; so meditate, that thou mayst do; so do,
that thou mayst purchase honor; for which purchase, give God the glory.
--QUARLES.
MELANCHOLY.--I once gave a lady two-and-twenty receipts against
melancholy: one was a bright fire; another, to remember all the
pleasant things said to her; another, to keep a box of sugar-plums on
the chimney-piece and a kettle simmering on the hob. I thought this
mere trifling at the moment, but have in after life discovered how
true it is that these little pleasures often banish melancholy better
than higher and more exalted objects; and that no means ought to be
thought too trifling which can oppose it either in ourselves or in
others.--SYDNEY SMITH.
Melancholy sees the worst of things,--things as they may be, and not
as they are. It looks upon a beautiful face, and sees but a grinning
skull.--BOVEE.
There are some people who think that they should be always mourning,
that they should put a continual constraint upon themselves, and feel
a disgust for those amusements to which they are obliged to submit.
For my own part, I confess that I know not how to conform myself to
these rigid notions. I prefer something more simple, which I also
think would be more pleasing to God.--FÉNELON.
MERCY.--Let us be merciful as well as just.--LONGFELLOW.
Consider this,--
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Among the attributes of God, although they are all equal, mercy shines
with even more brilliancy than justice.--CERVANTES.
God's mercy is a holy mercy, which knows how to pardon sin, not to
protect it; it is a sanctuary for the penitent, not for the
presumptuous.--BISHOP REYNOLDS.
It is enthroned in the heart of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.
--SHAKESPEARE.
There is no better rule to try a doctrine by than the question, Is it
merciful, or is it unmerciful? If its character is that of mercy, it
has the image of Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life.
--HOSEA BALLOU.
The quality of mercy is not strain'd;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless'd;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes;
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Lenity will operate with greater force, in some instances, than rigor.
It is therefore my first wish to have my whole conduct distinguished
by it.--WASHINGTON.
Teach me to feel another's woe,
To hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.
--POPE.
Underneath the wings of the seraphim are stretched the arms of the
divine mercy, ever ready to receive sinners.--THE TALMUD.
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.--SHAKESPEARE.
MERIT.--There is merit without elevation, but there is no elevation
without some merit.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
Distinguished merit will ever rise to oppression, and will draw lustre
from reproach. The vapors which gather round the rising sun, and
follow him in his course, seldom fail at the close of it to form a
magnificent theatre for his reception, and to invest with variegated
tints and with a softened effulgence the luminary which they cannot
hide.--ROBERT HALL.
On their own merits modest men are dumb.--GEORGE COLMAN.
The art of being able to make a good use of moderate abilities wins
esteem and often confers more reputation than real merit.--LA BRUYÈRE.
The mark of extraordinary merit is to see those most envious of it
constrained to praise.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
METHOD.--Method is essential, and enables a larger amount of work to
be got through with satisfaction. "Method," said Cecil (afterward Lord
Burleigh), "is like packing things in a box; a good packer will get in
half as much again as a bad one." Cecil's despatch of business was
extraordinary; his maxim being, "The shortest way to do many things is
to do only one thing at once."--SAMUEL SMILES.
MIND.--Our minds are like certain vehicles,--when they have little to
carry they make much noise about it, but when heavily loaded they run
quietly.--ELIHU BURRITT.
We ought, in humanity, no more to despise a man for the misfortunes
of the mind than for those of the body, when they are such as he
cannot help; were this thoroughly considered we should no more laugh
at a man for having his brains cracked than for having his head
broke.--POPE.
It is the mind that makes the body rich.--SHAKESPEARE.
A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things, but
cannot receive great ones.--CHESTERFIELD.
Were I so tall to reach the pole,
Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I must be measur'd by my soul:
The mind's the standard of the man.
--DR. WATTS.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
--MILTON.
The blessing of an active mind, when it is in a good condition, is,
that it not only employs itself, but is almost sure to be the means of
giving wholesome employment to others.
He that has treasures of his own
May leave the cottage or the throne,
May quit the globe, and dwell alone
Within his spacious mind.
--DR. WATTS.
The mind grows narrow in proportion as the soul grows
corrupt.--ROUSSEAU.
Every great mind seeks to labor for eternity. All men are captivated
by immediate advantages; great minds alone are excited by the prospect
of distant good.--SCHILLER.
Mind unemployed is mind unenjoyed.--BOVEE.
As the mind must govern the hands, so in every society the man of
intelligence must direct the man of labor.--DR. JOHNSON.
As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without
culture, so the mind without cultivation can never produce good
fruit.--SENECA.
Few minds wear out; more rust out.--BOVEE.
There is nothing so elastic as the human mind. Like imprisoned steam,
the more it is pressed the more it rises to resist the pressure. The
more we are obliged to do, the more we are able to accomplish.
--T. EDWARDS.
Minds of moderate calibre ordinarily condemn everything which is
beyond their range.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
Guard well thy thoughts: our thoughts are heard in heaven.--YOUNG.
It is the mind that maketh good or ill,
That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor.
--SPENSER.
He that has no resources of mind, is more to be pitied than he who is
in want of necessaries for the body; and to be obliged to beg our
daily happiness from others, bespeaks a more lamentable poverty than
that of him who begs his daily bread.--COLTON.
A good mind possesses a kingdom.
MIRTH.--Harmless mirth is the best cordial against the consumption of
the spirit; wherefore jesting is not unlawful, if it trespasseth not
in quantity, quality, or season.--FULLER.
Mirthfulness is in the mind, and you cannot get it out. It is the
blessed spirit that God has set in the mind to dust it, to enliven its
dark places, and to drive asceticism, like a foul fiend, out at the
back door. It is just as good, in its place, as conscience or
veneration. Praying can no more be made a substitute for smiling than
smiling can for praying.--BEECHER.
Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt;
And ev'ry grin so merry draws one out.
--PETER PINDAR.
There is nothing like fun, is there? I haven't any myself, but I do
like it in others. O, we need it! We need all the counterweights we
can muster to balance the sad relations of life. God has made many
sunny spots in the heart; why should we exclude the light from
them?--HALIBURTON.
I love such mirth as does not make friends ashamed to look upon one
another next morning.--IZAAK WALTON.
Mirth is God's medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it. Grim care,
moroseness, anxiety,--all this rust of life, ought to be scoured off
by the oil of mirth. It is better than emery. Every man ought to rub
himself with it. A man without mirth is like a wagon without springs,
in which one is caused disagreeably to jolt by every pebble over which
it runs.--BEECHER.
MISFORTUNE.--The diamond of character is revealed by the concussion of
misfortune, as the splendor of the precious jewel of the mine is
developed by the blows of the lapidary.--F.A. DURIVAGE.
A soul exasperated in ills, falls out
With everything, its friend, itself.
--ADDISON.
We have all of us sufficient fortitude to bear the misfortunes of
others.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
The good man, even though overwhelmed by misfortune, loses never his
inborn greatness of soul. Camphor-wood burnt in the fire becomes all
the more fragrant.--SATAKA.
Who hath not known ill-fortune, never knew
Himself, or his own virtue.
--MALLET.
Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds
rise above it.--WASHINGTON IRVING.
Misfortunes are, in morals, what bitters are in medicine: each is at
first disagreeable; but as the bitters act as corroborants to the
stomach, so adversity chastens and ameliorates the disposition.--FROM
THE FRENCH.
When one is past, another care we have;
Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave.
--HERRICK.
The greatest misfortune of all is not to be able to bear misfortune.
--BIAS.
I believe, indeed, that it is more laudable to suffer great
misfortunes than to do great things.--STANISLAUS.
Our bravest lessons are not learned through success, but misadventure.
--ALCOTT.
The less we parade our misfortunes the more sympathy we command.
--ORVILLE DEWEY.
It is a celebrated thought of Socrates, that if all the misfortunes of
mankind were cast into a public stock, in order to be equally
distributed among the whole species, those who now think themselves
the most unhappy would prefer the share they are already possessed of,
before that which would fall to them by such a division.--ADDISON.
We should learn, by reflecting on the misfortunes which have attended
others, that there is nothing singular in those which befall ourselves.
--MELMOTH.
Most of our misfortunes are more supportable than the comments of our
friends upon them.--COLTON.
MOB.--The mob has nothing to lose, everything to gain.--GOETHE.
The mob have neither judgment nor principle,--ready to bawl at night
for the reverse of what they desired in the morning.--TACITUS.
The scum that rises upmost, when the nation boils.--DRYDEN.
The mob is a sort of bear; while your ring is through its nose, it
will even dance under your cudgel; but should the ring slip, and you
lose your hold, the brute will turn and rend you.--JANE PORTER.
Inconstant, blind,
Deserting friends at need, and duped by foes;
Loud and seditious, when a chief inspired
Their headlong fury, but, of him deprived,
Already slaves that lick'd the scourging hand.
--THOMSON.
Let there be an entire abstinence from intoxicating drinks throughout
this country during the period of a single generation, and a mob would
be as impossible as combustion without oxygen.--HORACE MANN.
MODERATION.--Unlimited activity, of whatever kind, must end in
bankruptcy.--GOETHE.
A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation
in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a
vice.--THOMAS PAINE.
The boundary of man is moderation. When once we pass that pale our
guardian angel quits his charge of us.--FELTHAM.
Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all
virtues.--BISHOP HALL.
The superior man wishes to be slow in his words and earnest in his
conduct.--CONFUCIUS.
Moderation resembles temperance. We are not unwilling to eat more, but
are afraid of doing ourselves harm.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
To go beyond the bounds of moderation is to outrage humanity. The
greatness of the human soul is shown by knowing how to keep within
proper bounds. So far from greatness consisting in going beyond its
limits, it really consists in keeping within it.--PASCAL.
MODESTY.--A modest person seldom fails to gain the goodwill of those
he converses with, because nobody envies a man who does not appear to
be pleased with himself.--STEELE.
Modesty seldom resides in a breast that is not enriched with nobler
virtues.--GOLDSMITH.
True modesty avoids everything that is criminal; false modesty
everything that is unfashionable.--ADDISON.
You little know what you have done, when you have first broke the
bounds of modesty; you have set open the door of your fancy to the
devil, so that he can, almost at his pleasure ever after, represent
the same sinful pleasure to you anew.--BAXTER.
Modesty once extinguished knows not how to return.--SENECA.
Modesty never rages, never murmurs, never pouts when it is ill-treated.
--STEELE.
A just and reasonable modesty does not only recommend eloquence, but
sets off every great talent which a man can be possessed of; it
heightens all the virtues which it accompanies; like the shades in
paintings, it raises and rounds every figure, and makes the colors
more beautiful, though not so glaring as they would be without.
--ADDISON.
The first of all virtues is innocence; the next is modesty. If we
banish modesty out of the world, she carries away with her half the
virtue that is in it.--ADDISON.
The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does
not make a speech; he takes a low business tone, avoids all brag, is
nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in
monosyllables, hugs his fact. He calls his employment by its lowest
name, and so takes from evil tongues their sharpest weapon.--EMERSON.
God intended for women two preventatives against sin, modesty and
remorse; in confession to a mortal priest the former is removed by his
absolution, the latter is taken away.--MIRANDA OF PIEDMONT.
MONEY.--The love of money is the root of all evil.--1 TIMOTHY 6:10.
But for money and the need of it, there would not be half the
friendship in the world. It is powerful for good if divinely used.
Give it plenty of air, and it is sweet as the hawthorn; shut it up,
and it cankers and breeds worms.--GEORGE MACDONALD.
Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can.--WESLEY.
What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the bankers! How
tenderly we look at her faults if she is a relative; what a kind,
good-natured old creature we find her!--THACKERAY.
Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its
nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants.
Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies one
want, it doubles and trebles that want another way. That was a true
proverb of the wise man, rely upon it: "Better is little with the fear
of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith."--FRANKLIN.
A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.--SWIFT.
We must learn that competence is better than extravagance, that worth
is better than wealth, that the golden calf we have worshiped has no
more brains than that one of old which the Hebrews worshiped. So
beware of money and of money's worth as the supreme passion of the
mind. Beware of the craving for enormous acquisition.--BARTOL.
Money is a good servant, but a dangerous master.--BOUHOURS.
By doing good with his money, a man as it were stamps the image of God
upon it, and makes it pass current for the merchandise of heaven.
--RUTLEDGE.
To cure us of our immoderate love of gain, we should seriously
consider how many goods there are that money will not purchase, and
these the best; and how many evils there are that money will not
remedy, and these the worst.--COLTON.
The deepest depth of vulgarism is that of setting up money as the ark
of the covenant.--CARLYLE.
MORALITY.--In cases of doubtful morality, it is usual to say, Is there
any harm in doing this? This question may sometimes be best answered
by asking ourselves another: Is there any harm in letting it alone?
--COLTON.
To give a man a full knowledge of true morality, I would send him to
no other book than the New Testament.--LOCKE.
Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be
maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to
expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious
principle.--WASHINGTON.
Ten men have failed from defect in morals where one has failed from
defect in intellect.--HORACE MANN.
Socrates taught that true felicity is not to be derived from external
possessions, but from wisdom, which consists in the knowledge and
practice of virtue; that the cultivation of virtuous manners is
necessarily attended with pleasure as well as profit; that the honest
man alone is happy; and that it is absurd to attempt to separate
things which are in nature so closely united as virtue and interest.
--ENFIELD.
The moral law is written on the tablets of eternity. For every false
word or unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for lust or
vanity, the price has to be paid at last.--FROUDE.
Morality without religion, is only a kind of dead reckoning,--an
endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance
we have to run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.
--LONGFELLOW.
The system of morality which Socrates made it the business of his life
to teach was raised upon the firm basis of religion. The first
principles of virtuous conduct which are common to all mankind are,
according to this excellent moralist, laws of God; and the conclusive
argument by which he supports this opinion is, that no man departs
from these principles with impunity.--ENFIELD.
All sects are different, because they come from men; morality is
everywhere the same, because it comes from God.--VOLTAIRE.
MOTHER.--The mother in her office holds the key of the soul.--OLD PLAY.
There is a sight all hearts beguiling--
A youthful mother to her infant smiling,
Who with spread arms and dancing feet,
A cooing voice, returns its answer sweet.
--BAILLIE.
"What is wanting," said Napoleon one day to Madame Campan, "in order
that the youth of France be well educated?" "Good mothers," was the
reply. The emperor was most forcibly struck with this answer. "Here,"
said he, "is a system in one word."--ABBOTT.
A mother is a mother still,
The holiest thing alive.
--COLERIDGE.
A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters may
become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives
their husbands. But a mother's love endures through all; in good
repute, in bad repute, in the face of the world's condemnation, a
mother still loves on, and still hopes that her child may turn from
his evil ways, and repent; still she remembers the infant smiles that
once filled her bosom with rapture, the merry laugh, the joyful shout
of his childhood, the opening promise of his youth; and she can never
be brought to think him all unworthy.--WASHINGTON IRVING.
If there be aught surpassing human deed or word or thought, it is a
mother's love!--MARCHIONESS DE SPADARA.
I think it must somewhere be written, that the virtues of mothers
shall, occasionally, be visited on their children, as well as the sins
of fathers.--DICKENS.
Unhappy is the man for whom his own mother has not made all other
mothers venerable.--RICHTER.
The instruction received at the mother's knee, and the paternal
lessons, together with the pious and sweet souvenirs of the fireside,
are never effaced entirely from the soul.--LAMENNAIS.
One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters.--GEORGE HERBERT.
"An ounce of mother," says the Spanish proverb, "is worth a pound of
clergy."--T.W. HIGGINSON.
Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall;
A mother's secret hope outlives them all.
--HOLMES.
A mother's love is indeed the golden link that binds youth to age; and
he is still but a child, however time may have furrowed his cheek, or
silvered his brow, who can yet recall, with a softened heart, the fond
devotion or the gentle chidings of the best friend that God ever gives
us.--BOVEE.
All that I am, my mother made me.--J.Q. ADAMS.
MOURNING.--He mourns the dead who lives as they desire.--YOUNG.
Of permanent mourning there is none; no cloud remains fixed. The sun
will shine to-morrow.--RICHTER.
Excess of grief for the deceased is madness; for it is an injury to
the living, and the dead know it not.--XENOPHON.
The true way to mourn the dead is to take care of the living who
belong to them.--BURKE.
No longer mourn for me when I am dead,
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled.
--SHAKESPEARE.
MUSIC.--Music is the medicine of an afflicted mind, a sweet sad
measure is the balm of a wounded spirit; and joy is heightened by
exultant strains.--HENRY GILES.
Sweet music! sacred tongue of God.--CHARLES G. LELAND.
Music is the fourth great material want of our natures,--first food,
then raiment, then shelter, then music.--BOVEE.
When griping grief the heart doth wound,
And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
Then music, with her silver sound,
With speedy help doth lend redress.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Some of the fathers went so far as to esteem the love of music a sign
of predestination; as a thing divine, and reserved for the felicities
of heaven itself.--SIR W. TEMPLE.
I think sometimes could I only have music on my own terms; could I
live in a great city, and know where I could go whenever I wished the
ablution and inundation of musical waves, that were a bath and a
medicine.--EMERSON.
Music hath charms to soothe a savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
--CONGREVE.
There's music in the sighing of a reed;
There's music in the gushing of a rill;
There's music in all things, if men had ears.
--BYRON.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils.
--SHAKESPEARE.
O, pleasant is the welcome kiss
When day's dull round is o'er;
And sweet the music of the step
That meets us at the door.
--J.R. DRAKE.
Not the rich viol, trump, cymbal, nor horn,
Guitar, nor cittern, nor the pining flute,
Are half so sweet as tender human words.
--BARRY CORNWALL.
Is there a heart that music cannot melt?
Alas! how is that rugged heart forlorn.
--BEATTIE.
Music cleanses the understanding, inspires it, and lifts it into a
realm which it would not reach if it were left to itself.--HENRY WARD
BEECHER.
Music is a discipline, and a mistress of order and good manners; she
makes the people milder and gentler, more moral and more reasonable.
--LUTHER.
Amongst the instrumentalities of love and peace, surely there can be
no sweeter, softer, more effective voice than that of gentle,
peace-breathing music.--ELIHU BURRITT.
Explain it as we may, a martial strain will urge a man into the front
rank of battle sooner than an argument, and a fine anthem excite his
devotion more certainly than a logical discourse.--TUCKERMAN.
Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from
the eyes of woman.--BEETHOVEN.
Music is the child of prayer, the companion of religion.--CHATEAUBRIAND.
Had I children, my utmost endeavors would be to make them musicians.
--HORACE WALPOLE.
Next to theology I give to music the highest place and honor. And we
see how David and all the saints have wrought their godly thoughts
into verse, rhyme, and song.--LUTHER.
NATURE.--Nature does not capriciously scatter her secrets as golden
gifts to lazy pets and luxurious darlings, but imposes tasks when she
presents opportunities, and uplifts him whom she would inform. The
apple that she drops at the feet of Newton is but a coy invitation to
follow her to the stars.--WHIPPLE.
Everything made by man may be destroyed by man; there are no
ineffaceable characters except those engraved by nature; and nature
makes neither princes nor rich men nor great lords.--ROUSSEAU.
It were happy if we studied nature more in natural things; and acted
according to nature, whose rules are few, plain, and most reasonable.
Let us begin where she begins, go her pace, and close always where she
ends, and we cannot miss of being good naturalists.--WILLIAM PENN.
O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all:
the earth is full of Thy riches.--PSALM 104:24.
The laws of nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in
them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The
elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the
air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our
race if the punishment of crimes against the laws of man were as
inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the laws of
nature,--were man as unerring in his judgments as nature.--LONGFELLOW.
Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that
overawes our little anxieties and doubts; the sight of the deep-blue
sky and the clustering stars above seems to impart a quiet to the
mind.--T. EDWARDS.
Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her.
--WORDSWORTH.
The works of nature and the works of revelation display religion to
mankind in characters so large and visible, that those who are not
quite blind may in them see and read the first principles and most
necessary parts of it, and from thence penetrate into those infinite
depths filled with the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.--LOCKE.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the soul.
--POPE.
It is a great mortification to the vanity of man that his utmost art
and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions,
either for beauty or value.--HUME.
Read nature; nature is a friend to truth;
Nature is Christian, preaches to mankind;
And bids dead matter aid us in our creed.
--YOUNG.
Lavish thousands of dollars on your baby clothes, and after all the
child is prettiest when every garment is laid aside. That becoming
nakedness, at least, may adorn the chubby darling of the poorest
home.--T.W. HIGGINSON.
Our old mother nature has pleasant and cheery tones enough for us when
she comes in her dress of blue and gold over the eastern hill-tops;
but when she follows us upstairs to our beds in her suit of black
velvet and diamonds, every creak of her sandals and every whisper of
her lips is full of mystery and fear.--HOLMES.
Nature ever faithful is
To such as trust her faithfulness.
--EMERSON.
What profusion is there in His work! When trees blossom there is not a
single breastpin, but a whole bosom full of gems; and of leaves they
have so many suits that they can throw them away to the winds all
summer long. What unnumbered cathedrals has He reared in the forest
shades, vast and grand, full of curious carvings, and haunted evermore
by tremulous music; and in the heavens above, how do stars seem to
have flown out of His hand faster than sparks out of a mighty forge!
--BEECHER.
Nature is God's Old Testament.--THEODORE PARKER.
To him who in the love of nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware.
--BRYANT.
Nature and wisdom never are at strife.--JUVENAL.
Those who devote themselves to the peaceful study of nature have but
little temptation to launch out upon the tempestuous sea of ambition;
they will scarcely be hurried away by the more violent or cruel
passions, the ordinary failings of those ardent persons who do not
control their conduct; but, pure as the objects of their researches,
they will feel for everything about them the same benevolence which
they see nature display toward all her productions.--CUVIER.
"Behold the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin,
yet your heavenly Father careth for them." He expatiates on a single
flower, and draws from it the delightful argument of confidence in
God. He gives us to see that taste may be combined with piety, and
that the same heart may be occupied with all that is serious in the
contemplations of religion, and be at the same time alive to the
charms and the loveliness of nature.--DR. CHALMERS.
Who loves not the shady trees,
The smell of flowers, the sound of brooks,
The song of birds, and the hum of bees,
Murmuring in green and fragrant nooks,
The voice of children in the spring,
Along the field-paths wandering?
--T. MILLAR.
You will find something far greater in the woods than you will find
in books. Stones and trees will teach you that which you will never
learn from masters.--ST. BERNARD.
NOBILITY.--He who is lord of himself, and exists upon his own
resources, is a noble but a rare being.--SIR E. BRYDGES.
If a man be endued with a generous mind, this is the best kind of
nobility.--PLATO.
A noble life crowned with heroic death, rises above and outlives the
pride and pomp and glory of the mightiest empire of the earth.--JAMES
A. GARFIELD.
Nature makes all the noblemen; wealth, education, or pedigree never
made one yet.--H.W. SHAW.
Be noble! and the nobleness that lives
In other men, sleeping, but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.
--LOWELL.
Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good.
--TENNYSON.
OBEDIENCE.--The virtue of paganism was strength; the virtue of
Christianity is obedience.--HARE.
To obey is better than sacrifice.--1 SAMUEL 15:22.
Look carefully that love to God and obedience to His commands be the
principle and spring from whence thy actions flow; and that the glory
of God and the salvation of thy soul be the end to which all thy
actions tend; and that the word of God be thy rule and guide in every
enterprise and undertaking. "As many as walk by this rule, peace be
unto them, and mercy."--BURKITT.
Obedience is not truly performed by the body of him whose heart is
dissatisfied. The shell without a kernel is not fit for store.--SAADI.
He praiseth God best that serveth and obeyeth Him most: the life of
thankfulness consists in the thankfulness of the life.--BURKITT.
No principle is more noble, as there is none more holy, than that of a
true obedience.--HENRY GILES.
"His kingdom come!" For this we pray in vain,
Unless He does in our affections reign.
How fond it were to wish for such a King,
And no obedience to his sceptre bring,
Whose yoke is easy, and His burthen light;
His service freedom, and His judgments right.
--WALLER.
Obedience, we may remember, is a part of religion, and therefore an
element of peace; but love which includes obedience is the
whole.--GEORGE SEWELL.
The virtue of Christianity is obedience.--J.C. HARE.
Prepare thy soul calmly to obey; such offering will be more acceptable
to God than every other sacrifice.--METASTASIO.
OBSTINACY.--Obstinacy is ever most positive when it is most in the
wrong.--MADAME NECKER.
People first abandon reason, and then become obstinate; and the deeper
they are in error the more angry they are.--BLAIR.
An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but they hold him.--POPE.
Most other passions have their periods of fatigue and rest, their
suffering and their cure; but obstinacy has no resource, and the first
wound is mortal.--THOMAS PAINE.
Narrowness of mind is often the cause of obstinacy; we do not easily
believe beyond what we see.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
Obstinacy and vehemency in opinion are the surest proofs of
stupidity.--BARTON.
OCCUPATION.--Cheerfulness is the daughter of employment; and I have
known a man come home in high spirits from a funeral, merely because
he has had the management of it.--DR. HORNE.
Employment, which Galen calls "nature's physician," is so essential to
human happiness that indolence is justly considered as the mother of
misery.--BURTON.
Occupation alone is happiness.--DR. JOHNSON.
It is observed at sea that men are never so much disposed to grumble
and mutiny as when least employed. Hence an old captain, when there
was nothing else to do, would issue the order to "scour the anchor."
--SAMUEL SMILES.
The great happiness of life, I find, after all, to consist in the
regular discharge of some mechanical duty.--SCHILLER.
The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which
finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or
broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.--EMERSON.
Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other
blessedness. He has a work, a life purpose. Labor is life.--CARLYLE.
One only "right" we have to assert in common with mankind--and that is
as much in our hands as theirs--is the right of having something to
do.--MISS MULOCK.
OPINION.--Opinions should be formed with great caution, and changed
with greater.--H.W. SHAW.
Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he
differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself
on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.--HORACE
MANN.
He who has no opinion of his own, but depends upon the opinion and
taste of others, is a slave.--KLOPSTOCK.
To maintain an opinion because it is thine, and not because it is
true, is to prefer thyself above the truth.--VENNING.
We should always keep a corner of our heads open and free, that we may
make room for the opinions of our friends. Let us have heart and head
hospitality.--JOUBERT.
No liberal man would impute a charge of unsteadiness to another for
having changed his opinion.--CICERO.
Who observes not that the voice of the people, yea of that people that
voiced themselves the people of God, did prosecute the God of all
people, with one common voice, "He is worthy to die." I will not,
therefore, ambitiously beg their voices for my preferment; nor weigh
my worth in that uneven balance, in which a feather of opinion shall
be moment enough to turn the scales and make a light piece go current,
and a current piece seem light.--ARTHUR WARWICK.
It is not only arrogant, but it is profligate, for a man to disregard
the world's opinion of himself.--CICERO.
In the minds of most men, the kingdom of opinion is divided into three
territories,--the territory of yes, the territory of no, and a broad,
unexplored middle ground of doubt.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion.--LOWELL.
Public opinion, though often formed upon a wrong basis, yet generally
has a strong underlying sense of justice.--ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
OPPORTUNITY.--Opportunity is rare, and a wise man will never let it go
by him.--BAYARD TAYLOR.
Many do with opportunities as children do at the seashore; they fill
their little hands with sand, and then let the grains fall through,
one by one, till all are gone.--REV. T. JONES.
Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good actions; try to
use ordinary situations.--RICHTER.
The best men are not those who have waited for chances, but who have
taken them,--besieged the chance, conquered the chance, and made the
chance their servitor.--CHAPIN.
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows, and in miseries:
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
--SHAKESPEARE.
The opportunity to do mischief is found a hundred times a day, and
that of doing good once a year.--VOLTAIRE.
There is an hour in each man's life appointed to make his happiness,
if then he seize it.--BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
There is no man whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when
she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door
and flies out at the window.--CARDINAL IMPERIALI.
Nothing is so often irrevocably neglected as an opportunity of daily
occurrence.--MARIE EBNER-ESCHENBACH.
Give me a chance, says Stupid, and I will show you. Ten to one he has
had his chance already, and neglected it.--HALIBURTON.
That policy that can strike only while the iron is hot will be
overcome by that perseverance which, like Cromwell's, can make the
iron hot by striking; and he that can only rule the storm must yield
to him who can both raise and rule it.--COLTON.
Opportunity has hair in front; behind she is bald. If you seize her by
the forelock, you may hold her; but if suffered to escape, not Jupiter
himself can catch her again.--SENECA.
OPPOSITION.--The effects of opposition are wonderful. There are men
who rise refreshed on hearing of a threat; men to whom a crisis which
intimidates and paralyzes the majority--demanding, not the faculties
of prudence and thrift, but comprehension, immovableness, the
readiness of sacrifice,--comes graceful and beloved as a bride.
--EMERSON.
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our
skill. Our antagonist is our helper.--BURKE.
A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise
against and not with the wind. Even a head wind is better than none.
No man ever worked his passage anywhere in a dead calm. Let no man wax
pale, therefore, because of opposition.--JOHN NEAL.
It is not ease, but effort,--not facility, but difficulty, that makes
men. There is, perhaps, no station in life in which difficulties have
not to be encountered and overcome before any decided measure of
success can be achieved.--SAMUEL SMILES.
To make a young couple love each other, it is only necessary to
oppose and separate them.--GOETHE.
ORDER.--Order is heaven's first law.--POPE.
Order is to arrangement what the soul is to the body, and what mind is
to matter.--JOUBERT.
Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of
the city, the security of the State. As the beams to a house, as the
bones to the microcosm of man, so is order to all things.--SOUTHEY.
The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,
Observe degree, priority, and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Fretfulness of temper will generally characterize those who are
negligent of order.--BLAIR.
Let all things be done decently and in order.--1 CORINTHIANS 14:40.
PARADISE.--Every man has a paradise around him till he sins, and the
angel of an accusing conscience drives him from his Eden.--LONGFELLOW.
Gentleness and kindness will make our homes a paradise upon earth.
--BARTOL.
PARENTS.--The sacred books of the ancient Persians say: "If you would
be holy instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform
will be imputed to you."--MONTESQUIEU.
Of all hardness of heart there is none so inexcusable as that of
parents toward their children. An obstinate, inflexible, unforgiving
temper is odious upon all occasions; but here it is unnatural.--ADDISON.
Children, honor your parents in your hearts; bear them not only awe
and respect, but kindness and affection: love their persons, fear to
do anything that may justly provoke them; highly esteem them as the
instruments under God of your being: for "Ye shall fear every man his
mother and his father."--JEREMY TAYLOR.
Next to God, thy parents.--WILLIAM PENN.
Whoever makes his father's heart to bleed,
Shall have a child that will revenge the deed.
--RANDOLPH.
How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child's board. It is
like the aged man reclining under the shadow of the oak which he has
planted.--SCOT'S MAGAZINE.
With joy the parent loves to trace
Resemblance in his children's face:
And, as he forms their docile youth
To walk the steady paths of truth,
Observes them shooting into men,
And lives in them life o'er again.
--LLOYD.
Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the
land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.--EXODUS 20:12.
PASSION.--The passions are the gales of life; and it is religion only
that can prevent them from rising into a tempest.--DR. WATTS.
Strong as our passions are, they may be starved into submission, and
conquered without being killed.--COLTON.
The ruling passion, be it what it will,
The ruling passion conquers reason still.
--POPE.
Men spend their lives in the service of their passions, instead of
employing their passions in the service of their lives.--STEELE.
The art of governing the passions is more useful, and more important,
than many things in the search and pursuit of which we spend our days.
Without this art, riches and health, and skill and knowledge, will
give us little satisfaction; and whatsoever else we be, we can be
neither happy, nor wise, nor good.--JORTIN.
Hold not conference, debate, or reasoning with any lust; 'tis but a
preparatory for thy admission of it. The way is at the very first
flatly to deny it.--FULLER.
In the human breast two master-passions cannot coexist.--CAMPBELL.
The passions act as winds to propel our vessel, our reason is the
pilot that steers her; without the winds she would not move, without
the pilot she would be lost.--FROM THE FRENCH.
Even virtue itself, all perfect as it is, requires to be inspirited by
passion; for duties are but coldly performed which are but
philosophically fulfilled.--MRS. JAMESON.
Our headstrong passions shut the door of our souls against God.
--CONFUCIUS.
Men will always act according to their passions. Therefore the best
government is that which inspires the nobler passions and destroys the
meaner.--JACOBI.
The passions should be purged; all may become innocent if they are
well directed and moderated. Even hatred maybe a commendable feeling
when it is caused by a lively love of good. Whatever makes the
passions pure, makes them stronger, more durable, and more enjoyable.
--JOUBERT.
The most common-place people become highly imaginative when they are
in a passion. Whole dramas of insult, injury, and wrong pass before
their minds,--efforts of creative genius, for there is sometimes not a
fact to go upon.--HELPS.
As rivers, when they overflow, drown those grounds, and ruin those
husbandmen, which, whilst they flowed calmly betwixt their banks, they
fertilized and enriched; so our passions, when they grow exorbitant
and unruly, destroy those virtues, to which they may be very
serviceable whilst they keep within their bounds.--BOYLE.
Passion costs too much to bestow it upon every trifle.--REV. THOMAS ADAM.
Words may be counterfeit, false coined, and current only from the
tongue, without the mind; but passion is in the soul, and always
speaks the heart.--SOUTHERN.
A genuine passion is like a mountain stream; it admits of no
impediment; it cannot go backward; it must go forward.--BOVEE.
Passion is the drunkenness of the mind.--SOUTH.
Exalted souls
Have passions in proportion violent,
Resistless, and tormenting; they're a tax
Imposed by nature on pre-eminence,
And fortitude and wisdom must support them.
--LILLO.
One master-passion in the breast,
Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest.
--POPE.
Oh how the passions, insolent and strong,
Bear our weak minds their rapid course along;
Make us the madness of their will obey;
Then die and leave us to our griefs a prey!
--CRABBE.
A great passion has no partner.--LAVATER.
When the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of passion, it is
the man, and not the subject, that becomes exhausted.--THOMAS PAINE.
He who is passionate and hasty is generally honest. It is your cool,
dissembling hypocrite of whom you should beware.--LAVATER.
The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous
only in one, through their excess.--BOVEE.
It is not the absence, but the mastery, of our passions which affords
happiness.--MME. DE MAINTENON.
PAST.--The past is utterly indifferent to its worshipers.--WILLIAM
WINTER.
Not to know what happened before we were born is always to remain a
child; to know, and blindly to adopt that knowledge as an implicit
rule of life, is never to be a man.--CHATFIELD.
No hand can make the clock strike for me the hours that are passed.
--BYRON.
The present is only intelligible in the light of the past.--TRENCH.
Study the past if you would divine the future.--CONFUCIUS.
The best of prophets of the future is the past.--BYRON.
Many classes are always praising the by-gone time, for it is natural
that the old should extol the days of their youth; the weak, the area
of their strength; the sick, the season of their vigor; and the
disappointed, the springtide of their hopes!--C. BINGHAM.
Some are so very studious of learning what was done by the ancients
that they know not how to live with the moderns.--WILLIAM PENN.
The past and future are veiled; but the past wears the widow's veil;
the future, the virgin's.--RICHTER.
PATIENCE.--He that can have patience can have what he will.--FRANKLIN.
Patience! why, it is the soul of peace; of all the virtues, it is
nearest kin to heaven; it makes men look like gods. The best of men
that ever wore earth about him was a sufferer,--a soft, meek, patient,
humble, tranquil spirit; the first true gentleman that ever breathed.
--DECKER.
Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses
and disappointments; but let us have patience, and we soon shall see
them in their proper figures.--ADDISON.
If we could have a little patience, we should escape much mortification;
time takes away as much as it gives.--MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ.
Never think that God's delays are God's denials. Hold on; hold fast;
hold out. Patience is genius.--BUFFON.
There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a
virtue.--BURKE.
We usually learn to wait only when we have no longer anything to wait
for.--MARIE EBNER-ESCHENBACH.
No school is more necessary to children than patience, because either
the will must be broken in childhood or the heart in old age.--RICHTER.
We have only to be patient, to pray, and to do His will, according to
our present light and strength, and the growth of the soul will go on.
The plant grows in the mist and under clouds as truly as under
sunshine; so does the heavenly principle within.--CHANNING.
He that will have a cake of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Patience is a nobler motion than any deed.--C.A. BARTOL.
Patience is the guardian of faith, the preserver of peace, the
cherisher of love, the teacher of humility; Patience governs the
flesh, strengthens the spirit, sweetens the temper, stifles anger,
extinguishes envy, subdues pride; she bridles the tongue, refrains the
hand, tramples upon temptations, endures persecutions, consummates
martyrdom; Patience produces unity in the church, loyalty in the
State, harmony in families and societies; she comforts the poor and
moderates the rich; she makes us humble in prosperity, cheerful in
adversity, unmoved by calumny and reproach; she teaches us to forgive
those who have injured us, and to be the first in asking forgiveness
of those whom we have injured; she delights the faithful, and invites
the unbelieving; she adorns the woman, and approves the man; is loved
in a child, praised in a young man, admired in an old man; she is
beautiful in either sex and every age.--BISHOP HORNE.
Patience is the ballast of the soul, that will keep it from rolling
and tumbling in the greatest storms; and he that will venture out
without this to make him sail even and steady will certainly make
shipwreck and drown himself, first in the cares and sorrows of this
world, and then in perdition.--BISHOP HOPKINS.
There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and
without undue haste; there are no honors too distant to the man who
prepares himself for them with patience.--LA BRUYÈRE.
Patience is the support of weakness; impatience is the ruin of
strength.--COLTON.
If the wicked flourish and thou suffer, be not discouraged. They are
fatted for destruction; thou art dieted for health.--FULLER.
Patience is sorrow's salve.--CHURCHILL.
PATRIOTISM.--He serves his party best, who serves the country best.
--RUTHERFORD B. HAYES.
This is a maxim which I have received by hereditary tradition, not
only from my father, but also from my grandfather and his ancestors,
that after what I owe to God, nothing should be more dear or more
sacred than the love and respect I owe to my country.--DE THOU.
Be just, and fear not;
Let all the ends thou aim'st at, be thy country's,
Thy God's, and Truth's.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,
His first, best country ever is at home.
--GOLDSMITH.
I love my country's good, with a respect more tender, more holy and
profound, than my own life.--SHAKESPEARE.
Hail, Columbia! happy land!
Hail, ye heroes! heaven born band!
Who fought and bled in freedom's cause,
Who fought and bled in freedom's cause,
And when the storm of war was gone,
Enjoyed the peace your valor won.
Let Independence be our boast,
Ever mindful what it cost;
Ever grateful for the prize,
Let its altar reach the skies!
--JOSEPH HOPKINSON.
Strike--for your altars and your fires;
Strike--for the green graves of your sires;
God, and your native land!
--FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.
One flag, one land, one heart, one hand,
One nation evermore!
--HOLMES.
If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the
spot.--JOHN A. DIX.
The noblest motive is the public good.--VIRGIL.
The union of lakes, the union of lands,
The union of States none can sever,
The union of hearts, the union of hands,
And the flag of our Union forever!
--GEORGE P. MORRIS.
I was born an American; I live an American; I shall die an American.
--DANIEL WEBSTER.
Our country--whether bounded by the St. John's and the Sabine, or
however otherwise bounded or described, and be the measurement more or
less--still our country, to be cherished in all our hearts, to be
defended by all our hands.--ROBERT C. WINTHROP.
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee,--are all with thee!
--LONGFELLOW.
I am not accustomed to the language of eulogy; I have never studied
the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say that if all
that has been said by orators and poets, since the creation of the
world, in praise of woman, was applied to the women of America, it
would not do them justice for their conduct during this war.--ABRAHAM
LINCOLN.
How dear is fatherland to all noble hearts!--VOLTAIRE.
Let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing but our
country. And, by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a
vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of
wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with
admiration forever.--DANIEL WEBSTER.
PEACE.--Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the
children of God.--MATTHEW 5:9.
I could not live in peace if I put the shadow of a wilful sin between
myself and God.--GEORGE ELIOT.
Five great enemies of peace inhabit with us--avarice, ambition, envy,
anger and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly
enjoy perpetual peace.--PETRARCH.
There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to
meet the enemy.--WASHINGTON.
They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into
pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither
shall they learn war any more.--ISAIAH 2:4.
I never advocated war except as a means of peace.--U.S. GRANT.
There are interests by the sacrifice of which peace is too dearly
purchased. One should never be at peace to the shame of his own
soul--to the violation of his integrity or of his allegiance to
God.--CHAPIN.
Peace, above all things, is to be desired; but blood must sometimes be
spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.--ANDREW JACKSON.
PERSEVERANCE.--The block of granite, which was an obstacle in the
pathway of the weak, becomes a stepping stone in the pathway of the
strong.--CARLYLE.
It is all very well to tell me that a young man has distinguished
himself by a brilliant first speech. He may go on, or he may be
satisfied with his first triumph; but show me a young man who has not
succeeded at first, and nevertheless has gone on, and I will back that
young man to do better than most of those who have succeeded at the
first trial.--CHARLES JAMES FOX.
I hold a doctrine, to which I owe not much, indeed, but all the
little I ever had, namely, that with ordinary talent and extraordinary
perseverance, all things are attainable.--SIR T.F. BUXTON.
Those who would attain to any marked degree of excellence in a chosen
pursuit must work, and work hard for it, prince or peasant.--BAYARD
TAYLOR.
All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or
wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance; it is
by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries
are united by canals. If a man was to compare the effect of a single
stroke of a pickaxe, or of one impression of the spade, with the
general design and last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense
of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly
continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains
are levelled, and oceans bounded, by the slender force of human
beings.--DR. JOHNSON.
Even in social life, it is persistency which attracts confidence, more
than talents and accomplishments.--WHIPPLE.
A falling drop at last will carve a stone.--LUCRETIUS.
Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt;
Nothing so hard but search will find it out.
--LOVELACE.
It is interesting to notice how some minds seem almost to create
themselves, springing up under every disadvantage, and working their
solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles.
--WASHINGTON IRVING.
Press on! a better fate awaits thee.--VICTOR HUGO.
PHILOSOPHY.--True philosophy is that which renders us to ourselves,
and all others who surround us, better, and at the same time more
content, more patient, more calm and more ready for all decent and
pure enjoyment.--LAVATER.
Philosophy abounds more than philosophers, and learning more than
learned men.--W.B. CLULOW.
The road to true philosophy is precisely the same with that which
leads to true religion; and from both the one and the other, unless we
would enter in as little children, we must expect to be totally
excluded.--BACON.
Philosophy is the art and law of life, and it teaches us what to do in
all cases, and, like good marksmen, to hit the white at any distance.
--SENECA.
A little philosophy inclineth men's minds to atheism; but depth in
philosophy bringeth men's minds to religion.--BACON.
Whence? whither? why? how?--these questions cover all philosophy.
--JOUBERT.
PHYSIOGNOMY.--Children are marvelously and intuitively correct
physiognomists. The youngest of them exhibit this trait.--BARTOL.
As the language of the face is universal, so 'tis very comprehensive;
no laconism can reach it; 'tis the short-hand of the mind, and crowds
a great deal in a little room.--JEREMY COLLIER.
Spite of Lavater, faces are oftentimes great lies. They are the paper
money of society, for which, on demand, there frequently proves to be
no gold in the human coffer.--F.G. TRAFFORD.
The scope of an intellect is not to be measured with a tape-string, or
a character deciphered from the shape or length of a nose.--BOVEE.
People's opinions of themselves are legible in their countenances.
--JEREMY COLLIER.
PIETY.--True piety hath in it nothing weak, nothing sad, nothing
constrained. It enlarges the heart; it is simple, free, and attractive.
--FÉNELON.
We may learn by practice such things upon earth as shall be of use to
us in heaven. Piety, unostentatious piety, is never out of place.
--CHAPIN.
Piety does not mean that a man should make a sour face about things,
and refuse to enjoy in moderation what his Maker has given.--CARLYLE.
Piety raises and fortifies the mind for trying occasions and painful
events. When our country is threatened by dangers and pressed by
difficulties who are the best bulwarks of its defence? Not the sons of
dissipation and folly, not the smooth-tongued sycophants of a court,
nor sceptics and blasphemers, from the school of infidelity; but the
man whose moral conduct is animated and sustained by the doctrines and
consolations of religion. Happy is that country where patriotism is
sustained and sanctified by piety; where authority respects and guards
freedom, and freedom reveres and loves legitimate authority; where
truth and mercy meet together, righteousness and peace embrace each
other.--TON.
It is impossible for the mind which is not totally destitute of piety,
to behold the sublime, the awful, the amazing works of creation and
providence; the heavens with their luminaries, the mountains, the
ocean, the storm, the earthquake, and the volcano; the circuit of the
seasons and the revolutions of empires; without marking in them all
the mighty hand of God, and feeling strong emotions of reverence
toward the Author of these stupendous works.--DWIGHT.
John Wesley quaintly observed that the road to heaven is a narrow
path, not intended for wheels, and that to ride in a coach here and to
go to heaven hereafter, was a happiness too much for man.--BEECHER.
We are surrounded by motives to piety and devotion, if we would but
mind them. The poor are designed to excite our liberality; the
miserable, our pity; the sick, our assistance; the ignorant, our
instruction; those that are fallen, our helping hand. In those who are
vain, we see the vanity of the world; in those who are wicked, our own
frailty. When we see good men rewarded, it confirms our hope; and when
evil men are punished, it excites our fear.--BISHOP WILSON.
PITY.--Pity, though it may often relieve, is but, at best, a
short-lived passion, and seldom affords distress more than transitory
assistance; with some it scarce lasts from the first impulse till the
hand can be put into the pocket.--GOLDSMITH.
We pity in others only those evils which we have ourselves experienced.
--ROUSSEAU.
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.--SHAKESPEARE.
Pity and forbearance, and long-sufferance and fair interpretation, and
excusing our brother, and taking in the best sense, and passing the
gentlest sentence, are as certainly our duty, and owing to every
person that does offend and can repent, as calling to account can be
owing to the law, and are first to be paid; and he that does not so is
an unjust person.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
O, brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother, where pity dwells, the
peace of God is there.--WHITTIER.
The world is full of love and pity. Had there been less suffering,
there would have been less kindness.--THACKERAY.
Pity melts the mind to love.--DRYDEN.
PLEASURE.--Would you judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of
pleasures, take this rule:--Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the
tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes
off the relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the
strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin
to you, however innocent it may be in itself.--SOUTHEY.
Let not the enjoyment of pleasures now within your grasp be carried to
such excess as to incapacitate you from future repetition.--SENECA.
The inward pleasure of imparting pleasure--that is the choicest of
all.--HAWTHORNE.
He who can at all times sacrifice pleasure to duty approaches
sublimity.--LAVATER.
The end of pleasure is to support the offices of life, to relieve the
fatigues of business, to reward a regular action, and to encourage the
continuance.--JEREMY COLLIER.
Choose such pleasures as recreate much and cost little.--FULLER.
The pleasures of the world are deceitful; they promise more than they
give. They trouble us in seeking them, they do not satisfy us when
possessing them, and they make us despair in losing them.--MADAME DE
LAMBERT.
When the idea of any pleasure strikes your imagination, make a just
computation between the duration of the pleasure and that of the
repentance that is likely to follow it.--EPICTETUS.
The seeds of repentance are sown in youth by pleasure, but the
harvest is reaped in age by pain.--COLTON.
Pleasure's the only noble end
To which all human powers should tend;
And virtue gives her heavenly lore,
But to make pleasure please us more!
Wisdom and she were both design'd
To make the senses more refined,
That man might revel free from cloying,
Then most a sage, when most enjoying!
--MOORE.
Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood,
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.
--POPE.
People should be guarded against temptation to unlawful pleasures by
furnishing them the means of innocent ones. In every community there
must be pleasures, relaxations, and means of agreeable excitement; and
if innocent are not furnished, resort will be had to criminal. Man was
made to enjoy as well as labor, and the state of society should be
adapted to this principle of human nature.--CHANNING.
Mental pleasures never cloy; unlike those of the body, they are
increased by repetition, approved of by reflection, and strengthened
by enjoyment.--COLTON.
I should rejoice if my pleasures were as pleasing to God as they are
to myself.--MARGUERITE DE VALOIS.
We tire of those pleasures we take, but never of those we give.
--J. PETIT-SENN.
Mistake not. Those pleasures are not pleasures that trouble the quiet
and tranquillity of thy life.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
POETRY.--True poetry, like the religious prompting itself, springs
from the emotional side of a man's complex nature, and is ever in
harmony with his highest intuitions and aspirations.--EPES SARGENT.
Then, rising with aurora's light,
The muse invoked, sit down to write;
Blot out, correct, insert, refine,
Enlarge, diminish, interline;
Be mindful, when invention fails,
To scratch your head and bite your nails.
--SWIFT.
It is uninspired inspiration.--HENRY REED.
Poetry is the blossom and the fragrance of all human knowledge, human
thoughts, human passions, emotions, language.--COLERIDGE.
Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,
Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares,
The poets, who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays!
--WORDSWORTH.
Poetry is the music of thought, conveyed to us in music of language.
--CHATFIELD.
He who finds elevated and lofty pleasures in the feeling of poetry is
a true poet, though he has never composed a line of verse in his
entire lifetime.--MADAME DUDEVANT.
Poetry is enthusiasm with wings of fire; it is the angel of high
thoughts, that inspires us with the power of sacrifice.--MAZZINI.
Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest
and best minds.--SHELLEY.
Poetry is unfallen speech. Paradise knew no other, for no other would
suffice to answer the need of those ecstatic days of innocence.
--ABRAHAM COLES.
Poesy is of so subtle a spirit, that in the pouring out of one
language into another it will evaporate.--DENHAM.
Poetry is the child of enthusiasm.--SIGMA.
The art of poetry is to touch the passions, and its duty to lead them
on the side of virtue.--COWPER.
Poetry has been to me its own exceeding great reward; it has given me
the habit of wishing to discover the good and beautiful in all that
meets and surrounds me.--S.T. COLERIDGE.
When the Divine Artist would produce a poem, He plants a germ of it in
a human soul, and out of that soul the poem springs and grows as from
the rose-tree the rose.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great
poet, must first become a little child.--MACAULAY.
Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling
souls.--VOLTAIRE.
There is as much difference between good poetry and fine verses, as
between the smell of a flower-garden and of a perfumer's shop.--HARE.
The world is full of poetry. The air is living with its spirit; and
the waves dance to the music of its melodies, and sparkle in its
brightness.--PERCIVAL.
You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some with you.--JOUBERT.
Poetry is the robe, the royal apparel, in which truth asserts its
divine origin.--BEECHER.
The poet may say or sing, not as things were, but as they ought to
have been; but the historian must pen them, not as they ought to have
been, but as they really were.--CERVANTES.
POLITENESS.--True politeness is perfect ease and freedom. It simply
consists in treating others just as you love to be treated yourself.
--CHESTERFIELD.
Politeness has been defined to be artificial good-nature; but we may
affirm, with much greater propriety, that good-nature is natural
politeness.--STANISLAUS.
Christianity is designed to refine and to soften; to take away the
heart of stone, and to give us hearts of flesh; to polish off the
rudeness and arrogances of our manners and tempers; and to make us
blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke.--JAY.
Politeness is to goodness what words are to thoughts.--JOUBERT.
Avoid all haste; calmness is an essential ingredient of politeness.
--ALPHONSE KARR.
There is no policy like politeness; and a good manner is the best
thing in the world, either to get one a good name or to supply the
want of it.--LYTTON.
There is no accomplishment so easy to acquire as politeness, and none
more profitable.--H.W. SHAW.
Fine manners are like personal beauty,--a letter of credit everywhere.
--BARTOL.
True politeness is the spirit of benevolence showing itself in a
refined way. It is the expression of good-will and kindness. It
promotes both beauty in the man who possesses it, and happiness in
those who are about him. It is a religious duty, and should be a part
of religious training.--BEECHER.
Politeness induces morality. Serenity of manners requires serenity of
mind.--JULIA WARD HOWE.
To the acquisition of the rare quality of politeness, so much of the
enlightened understanding is necessary that I cannot but consider
every book in every science, which tends to make us wiser, and of
course better men, as a treatise on a more enlarged system of
politeness.--MONRO.
Bowing, ceremonious, formal compliments, stiff civilities, will never
be politeness; that must be easy, natural, unstudied; and what will
give this but a mind benevolent and attentive to exert that amiable
disposition in trifles to all you converse and live with?--CHATHAM.
As charity covers a multitude of sins before God, so does politeness
before men.--GREVILLE.
The polite of every country seem to have but one character. A
gentleman of Sweden differs but little, except in trifles, from one of
any other country. It is among the vulgar we are to find those
distinctions which characterize a people.--GOLDSMITH.
When two goats met on a bridge which was too narrow to allow either to
pass or return, the goat which lay down that the other might walk over
it was a finer gentleman than Lord Chesterfield.--CECIL.
Good-breeding is not confined to externals, much less to any
particular dress or attitude of the body; it is the art of pleasing,
or contributing as much as possible to the ease and happiness of those
with whom you converse.--FIELDING.
POPULARITY.--Avoid popularity, if you would have peace.--ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Avoid popularity, it has many snares, and no real benefit.--WILLIAM PENN.
Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you!--LUKE 6:26.
Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and
lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices,
but weigh them.--KANT.
Those men who are commended by everybody must be very extraordinary
men; or, which is more probable, very inconsiderable men.--LORD
GREVILLE.
POVERTY.--Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few
would be poor.--DR. JOHNSON.
In one important respect a man is fortunate in being poor. His
responsibility to God is so much the less.--BOVEE.
Morality and religion are but words to him who fishes in gutters for
the means of sustaining life, and crouches behind barrels in the
street for shelter from the cutting blasts of a winter night.--HORACE
GREELEY.
Poverty is the only burden which is not lightened by being shared with
others.--RICHTER.
We should not so much esteem our poverty as a misfortune, were it not
that the world treats it so much as a crime.--BOVEE.
Poverty is the test of civility and the touchstone of friendship.
--HAZLITT.
There is not such a mighty difference as some men imagine between the
poor and the rich; in pomp, show, and opinion there is a great deal,
but little as to the pleasures and satisfactions of life: they enjoy
the same earth and air and heavens; hunger and thirst make the poor
man's meat and drink as pleasant and relishing as all the varieties
which cover the rich man's table; and the labor of a poor man is more
healthful, and many times more pleasant, too, than the ease and
softness of the rich.--SHERLOCK.
Want is a bitter and a hateful good,
Because its virtues are not understood;
Yet many things, impossible to thought,
Have been by need to full perfection brought.
The daring of the soul proceeds from thence,
Sharpness of wit, and active diligence;
Prudence at once, and fortitude it gives;
And, if in patience taken, mends our lives.
--DRYDEN.
Few things in this world more trouble people than poverty, or the fear
of poverty; and, indeed, it is a sore affliction; but, like all other
ills that flesh is heir to, it has its antidote, its reliable remedy.
The judicious application of industry, prudence and temperance is a
certain cure.--HOSEA BALLOU.
That man is to be accounted poor, of whatever rank he be, and suffers
the pains of poverty, whose expenses exceed his resources; and no man
is, properly speaking, poor, but he.--PALEY.
That some of the indigent among us die of scanty food is undoubtedly
true; but vastly more in this community die from eating too much than
from eating too little.--CHANNING.
Poverty is the only load which is the heavier the more loved ones
there are to assist in supporting it.--RICHTER.
POWER.--Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest
heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with
unlimited power.--COLTON.
The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall.--BACON.
Even in war, moral power is to physical as three parts out of four.
--NAPOLEON.
The less power a man has, the more he likes to use it.--J. PETIT-SENN.
The greater a man is in power above others, the more he ought to excel
them in virtue. None ought to govern who is not better than the
governed.--PUBLIUS SYRUS.
It is an observation no less just than common, that there is no
stronger test of a man's real character than power and authority,
exciting, as they do, every passion, and discovering every latent
vice.--PLUTARCH.
PRAISE.--Words of praise, indeed, are almost as necessary to warm a
child into a genial life as acts of kindness and affection. Judicious
praise is to children what the sun is to flowers.--BOVEE.
Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and
not thine own lips.--PROVERBS 27:2.
For if good were not praised more than ill,
None would chuse goodness of his own free will.
--SPENSER.
Praise has different effects, according to the mind it meets with; it
makes a wise man modest, but a fool more arrogant, turning his weak
brain giddy.--FELTHAM.
Solid pudding against empty praise.--POPE.
It is always esteemed the greatest mischief a man can do to those whom
he loves, to raise men's expectations of them too high by undue and
impertinent commendations.--SPRAT.
Speak not in high commendation of any man to his face, nor censure any
man behind his back; but if thou knowest anything good of him, tell it
unto others; if anything ill, tell it privately and prudently to
himself.--BURKITT.
As the Greek said, "Many men know how to flatter, few men know how to
praise."--WENDELL PHILLIPS.
It is singular how impatient men are with overpraise of others, how
patient of overpraise of themselves; and yet the one does them no
injury, while the other may be their ruin.--LOWELL.
Good things should be praised.--SHAKESPEARE.
He hurts me most who lavishly commends.--CHURCHILL.
The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art,
Reigns more or less and glows in every heart.
--YOUNG.
Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.
It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no longer raise
expectation or animate enterprise.--DR. JOHNSON.
It is the greatest possible praise to be praised by a man who is
himself deserving of praise.--FROM THE LATIN.
He who praises you for what you have not, wishes to take from you what
you have.--MANUEL.
Thou may'st be more prodigal of praise when thou writest a letter than
when thou speakest in presence.--FULLER.
Those who are greedy of praise prove that they are poor in merit.
--PLUTARCH.
What a person praises is perhaps a surer standard, even than what he
condemns, of his own character, information and abilities.--HARE.
Allow no man to be so free with you as to praise you to your face.
--STEELE.
Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.--PSALM 150:6.
Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so; it is this which
distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of
sycophants and admiration of fools.--STEELE.
PRAYER.--The first petition that we are to make to Almighty God is for
a good conscience, the next for health of mind, and then of body.
--SENECA.
Prayers are heard in heaven very much in proportion to our faith.
Little faith gets very great mercies, but great faith still greater.
--SPURGEON.
When we pray for any virtue, we should cultivate the virtue as well as
pray for it; the form of your prayers should be the rule of your life;
every petition to God is a precept to man. Look not, therefore, upon
your prayers as a short method of duty and salvation only, but as a
perpetual monition of duty; by what we require of God we see what He
requires of us.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
How happy it is to believe, with a steadfast assurance, that our
petitions are heard even while we are making them; and how delightful
to meet with a proof of it in the effectual and actual grant of
them.--COWPER.
We have assurance that we shall be heard in what we pray, because we
pray to that God that heareth prayer, and is the rewarder of all that
come unto Him; and in His name, to whom God denieth nothing; and,
therefore, howsoever we are not always answered at the present, or in
the same kind that we desire, yet, sooner or later, we are sure to
receive even above that we are able to ask or think, if we continue to
sue unto Him according to His will.--ARCHBISHOP USHER.
The best answer to all objections urged against prayer is the fact
that man cannot help praying; for we may be sure that that which is so
spontaneous and ineradicable in human nature has its fitting objects
and methods in the arrangements of a boundless Providence.--CHAPIN.
So much of our lives is celestial and divine as we spend in the
exercise of prayer.--HOOKER.
Leave not off praying to God: for either praying will make thee leave
off sinning; or continuing in sin will make thee desist from praying.
--FULLER.
Let our prayers, like the ancient sacrifices, ascend morning and
evening; let our days begin and end with God.--CHANNING.
Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed,
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.
--MONTGOMERY.
If He prayed who was without sin, how much more it becometh a sinner
to pray!--ST. CYPRIAN.
No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.--EMERSON.
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small.
--COLERIDGE.
More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of.
--TENNYSON.
It is as natural and reasonable for a dependent creature to apply to
its Creator for what it needs, as for a child thus to solicit the aid
of a parent who is believed to have the disposition and ability to
bestow what it needs.--ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER.
Prayer is the first breath of Divine life; it is the pulse of the
believing soul;--by prayer "we draw water with joy from the wells of
salvation;" by prayer faith puts forth its energy, in apprehending the
promised blessings, and receiving from the Redeemer's fullness; in
leaning on His almighty arm, and making His name our strong tower; and
in overcoming the world, the flesh and the devil.--T. SCOTT.
No man can hinder our private addresses to God; every man can build a
chapel in his breast, himself the priest, his heart the sacrifice, and
the earth he treads on the altar.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy
door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which
seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.--MATTHEW 6:6.
Prayer moves the hand that moves the universe.
Holy beginning of a holy cause,
When heroes, girt for freedom's combat, pause
Before high Heaven, and, humble in their might,
Call down its blessing on that coming fight.
--MOORE.
It is so natural for a man to pray that no theory can prevent him from
doing it.--JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.
The Lord's Prayer contains the sum total of religion and morals.
--WELLINGTON.
It lightens the stroke to draw near to Him who handles the rod.
--WASHINGTON IRVING.
I desire no other evidence of the truth of Christianity than the
Lord's Prayer.--MADAME DE STAEL.
In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words
without a heart.--BUNYAN.
Between the humble and contrite heart and the majesty of Heaven there
are no barriers. The only password is prayer.--HOSEA BALLOU.
Prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness of our thoughts, the
evenness of recollection, the seat of meditation, the rest of our
cares and the calm of our tempest: prayer is the issue of a quiet
mind, of untroubled thoughts; it is the daughter of charity and the
sister of meekness.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
Our prayer and God's mercy are like two buckets in a well; while the
one ascends, the other descends.--BISHOP HOPKINS.
Prayer is the voice of faith.--HORNE.
We should pray with as much earnestness as those who expect everything
from God; we should act with as much energy as those who expect
everything from themselves.--COLTON.
PREACHING.--That is not the best sermon which makes the hearers go
away talking to one another, and praising the speaker, but which makes
them go away thoughtful and serious, and hastening to be alone.--BURNET.
Be short in all religious exercises. Better leave the people longing
than loathing.--NATHANIEL EMMONS.
A good discourse is that from which one can take nothing without
taking the life.--FÉNELON.
We must judge religious movements, not by the men who make them, but
by the men they make.--JOSEPH COOK.
The world looks at ministers out of the pulpit to know what they mean
when in it.--CECIL.
I preached as never sure to preach again,
And as a dying man to dying men.
--BAXTER.
Let all your preaching be in the most simple and plainest manner; look
not to the prince, but to the plain, simple, gross, unlearned people,
of which cloth the prince also himself is made. If I, in my preaching,
should have regard to Philip Melancthon and other learned doctors,
then should I do but little good. I preach in the simplest manner to
the unskillful, and that giveth content to all. Hebrew, Greek and
Latin I spare until we learned ones come together.--LUTHER.
It requires as much reflection and wisdom to know what is not to be
put into a sermon as what is.--CECIL.
To endeavor to move by the same discourse hearers who differ in age,
sex, position and education is to attempt to open all locks with the
same key.--J. PETIT-SENN.
Men of God have always, from time to time, walked among men, and made
their commission felt in the heart and soul of the commonest
hearer.--EMERSON.
I would not have preachers torment their hearers, and detain them with
long and tedious preaching.--LUTHER.
I love a serious preacher, who speaks for my sake and not for his own;
who seeks my salvation, and not his own vainglory. He best deserves to
be heard who uses speech only to clothe his thoughts, and his thoughts
only to promote truth and virtue.--MASSILLON.
PRECEPT.--Precepts are the rules by which we ought to square our
lives. When they are contracted into sentences, they strike the
affections; whereas admonition is only blowing of the coal.--SENECA.
He that lays down precepts for the government of our lives and
moderating our passions obliges human nature, not only in the present,
but in all succeeding generations.--SENECA.
Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones at hand
do more toward a happy life than whole volumes that we know not where
to find.--SENECA.
Precept must be upon precept.--ISAIAH 28:10.
PREJUDICE.--Prejudice is the child of ignorance.--HAZLITT.
As those who believe in the visibility of ghosts can easily see them,
so it is always easy to see repulsive qualities in those we despise
and hate.--FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
Prejudice squints when it looks, and lies when it talks.--DUCHESS
D'ABRANTES.
Human nature is so constituted that all see and judge better in the
affairs of other men than in their own.--TERENCE.
To all intents and purposes, he who will not open his eyes is, for the
present, as blind as he who cannot.--SOUTH.
The prejudices of ignorance are more easily removed than the
prejudices of interest; the first are all blindly adopted, the second
willfully preferred.--BANCROFT.
Prejudice may be considered as a continual false medium of viewing
things, for prejudiced persons not only never speak well, but also
never think well, of those whom they dislike, and the whole character
and conduct is considered with an eye to that particular thing which
offends them.--BUTLER.
Prejudice is the twin of illiberality.--G.D. PRENTICE.
Remember, when the judgment is weak the prejudice is strong.--KANE
O'HARA.
Prejudice and self-sufficiency naturally proceed from inexperience of
the world and ignorance of mankind.--ADDISON.
How immense to us appear the sins we have not committed.--MADAME NECKER.
PRESENT.--Busy not yourself in looking forward to the events of
to-morrow; but whatever may be those of the days Providence may yet
assign you neglect not to turn them to advantage.--HORACE.
Make use of time, if thou lovest eternity; know yesterday cannot be
recalled, to-morrow cannot be assured: to-day is only thine; which if
thou procrastinate, thou losest; which lost, is lost forever: one
to-day is worth two to-morrows.--QUARLES.
He who neglects the present moment throws away all he has.--SCHILLER.
Abridge your hopes in proportion to the shortness of the span of human
life; for while we converse, the hours, as if envious of our pleasure,
fly away: enjoy, therefore, the present time, and trust not too much
to what to-morrow may produce.--HORACE.
If we stand in the openings of the present moment, with all the length
and breadth of our faculties unselfishly adjusted to what it reveals,
we are in the best condition to receive what God is always ready to
communicate.--T.C. UPHAM.
Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly
happy at some period or other, when they have time. But the present
time has one advantage over every other--it is our own. Past
opportunities are gone, future are not come.--COLTON.
Try to be happy in this present moment, and put not off being so to a
time to come,--as though that time should be of another make from
this, which has already come and is ours.--FULLER.
Let us attend to the present, and as to the future we shall know how
to manage when the occasion arrives.--CORNEILLE.
We may make our future by the best use of the present. There is no
moment like the present.--MISS EDGEWORTH.
Take all reasonable advantage of that which the present may offer you.
It is the only time which is ours. Yesterday is buried forever, and
to-morrow we may never see.--VICTOR HUGO.
Every day is a gift I receive from Heaven; let us enjoy to-day that
which it bestows on me. It belongs not more to the young than to me,
and to-morrow belongs to no one.--MANCROIX.
One of the illusions is that the present hour is not the critical,
decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day
in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that
every day is Doomsday.--EMERSON.
What is really momentous and all-important with us is the present, by
which the future is shaped and colored.--WHITTIER.
PRESS.--In the long, fierce struggle for freedom of opinion, the press,
like the Church, counted its martyrs by thousands.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
The productions of the press, fast as steam can make and carry them,
go abroad through all the land, silent as snowflakes, but potent as
thunder. It is an additional tongue of steam and lightning, by which a
man speaks his first thought, his instant argument or grievance, to
millions in a day.--CHAPIN.
Let it be impressed upon your minds, let it be instilled into your
children, that the liberty of the press is the palladium of all the
civil, political, and religious rights.--JUNIUS.
The liberty of the press is the true measure of all other liberty; for
all freedom without this must be merely nominal.--CHATFIELD.
The invention of printing added a new element of power to the race.
From that hour, in a most especial sense, the brain and not the arm,
the thinker and not the soldier, books and not kings, were to rule the
world; and weapons, forged in the mind, keen-edged and brighter than
the sunbeam, were to supplant the sword and the battle-axe.--WHIPPLE.
PRETENSION.--It is worth noticing that those who assume an imposing
demeanor and seek to pass themselves off for something beyond what
they are, are not unfrequently as much underrated by some as overrated
by others.--WHATELY.
Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed: nature never
pretends.--LAVATER.
When you see a man with a great deal of religion displayed in his shop
window, you may depend upon it he keeps a very small stock of it
within.--SPURGEON.
True glory strikes root, and even extends itself; all false pretensions
fall as do flowers, nor can anything feigned be lasting.--CICERO.
It is no disgrace not to be able to do everything; but to undertake,
or pretend to do, what you are not made for, is not only shameful, but
extremely troublesome and vexatious.--PLUTARCH.
He who gives himself airs of importance, exhibits the credentials of
impotence.--LAVATER.
The desire of appearing clever often prevents our becoming so.
--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint.
--LAVATER.
PRIDE.--Without the sovereign influence of God's extraordinary and
immediate grace, men do very rarely put off all the trappings of their
pride, till they who are about them put on their winding-sheet.
--CLARENDON.
Pride and weakness are Siamese twins.--LOWELL.
Of all the causes that conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
--POPE.
It is hardly possible to overvalue ourselves but by undervaluing our
neighbors.--CLARENDON.
The sin of pride is the sin of sins; in which all subsequent sins are
included, as in their germ; they are but the unfolding of this one.
--ARCHBISHOP TRENCH.
Some people are proud of their humility.--BEECHER.
Pride requires very costly food--its keeper's happiness.--COLTON.
Pride, of all others the most dangerous fault,
Proceeds from want of sense, or want of thought.
--ROSCOMMON.
If a man has a right to be proud of anything, it is of a good action
done as it ought to be, without any base interest lurking at the
bottom of it.--STERNE.
There is this paradox in pride,--it makes some men ridiculous, but
prevents others from becoming so.--COLTON.
In reality, there is perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to
subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, stifle it, mortify it
as much as you please, it is still alive, and will every now and then
peep out and show itself.--FRANKLIN.
Men say, "By pride the angels fell from heaven." By pride they reached
a place from which they fell!--JOAQUIN MILLER.
Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with
infamy.--FRANKLIN.
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
--PROVERBS 16:18.
If he could only see how small a vacancy his death would leave, the
proud man would think less of the place he occupies in his lifetime.
--LEGOUVÉ.
I think half the troubles for which men go slouching in prayer to God
are caused by their intolerable pride. Many of our cares are but a
morbid way of looking at our privileges. We let our blessings get
mouldy, and then call them curses.--BEECHER.
When pride and presumption walk before, shame and loss follow very
closely.--LOUIS XI.
How can there be pride in a contrite heart? Humility is the earliest
fruit of religion.--HOSEA BALLOU.
In beginning the world, if you don't wish to get chafed at every turn,
fold up your pride carefully, put it under lock and key, and only let
it out to air upon grand occasions. Pride is a garment all stiff
brocade outside, all grating sackcloth on the side next to the skin.
--LYTTON.
Pride is a vice, which pride itself inclines every man to find in
others, and to overlook in himself.--DR. JOHNSON.
An avenging God closely follows the haughty.--SENECA.
Charity feeds the poor, so does pride; charity builds an hospital, so
does pride. In this they differ: charity gives her glory to God; pride
takes her glory from man.--QUARLES.
The proud man is forsaken of God.--PLATO.
PROCRASTINATION.--Faith in to-morrow, instead of Christ, is Satan's
nurse for man's perdition.--REV. DR. CHEEVER.
To be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to
set about it; this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking
and sleeping from one day and night to another, till he is starved and
destroyed.--TILLOTSON.
By the streets of "By and By" one arrives at the house of "Never."
--CERVANTES.
By one delay after another they spin out their whole lives, till
there's no more future left for them.--L'ESTRANGE.
Procrastination is the thief of time.--YOUNG.
For Yesterday was once To-morrow.--PERSIUS.
Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day.--FRANKLIN.
Indulge in procrastination, and in time you will come to this, that
because a thing ought to be done, therefore you can't do it.--CHARLES
BUXTON.
PROGRESS.--He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer,
whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into
living peace.--RUSKIN.
"Can any good come out of Nazareth?" This is always the question of
the wiseacres and the knowing ones. But the good, the new, comes from
exactly that quarter whence it is not looked for, and is always
something different from what is expected. Everything new is received
with contempt, for it begins in obscurity. It becomes a power
unobserved.--FEUERBACH.
Look up and not down; look forward and not back; look out and not in;
and lend a hand.--E.E. HALE.
I must do something to keep my thoughts fresh and growing. I dread
nothing so much as falling into a rut and feeling myself becoming a
fossil.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
Humanity, in the aggregate, is progressing, and philanthropy looks
forward hopefully.--HOSEA BALLOU.
Human improvement is from within outwards.--FROUDE.
An original sentence, a step forward, is worth more than all the
centuries.--EMERSON.
Let us labor for that larger and larger comprehension of truth, that
more and more thorough repudiation of error, which shall make the
history of mankind a series of ascending developments.--HORACE MANN.
We can trace back our existence almost to a point. Former time
presents us with trains of thoughts gradually diminishing to nothing.
But our ideas of futurity are perpetually expanding. Our desires and
our hopes, even when modified by our fears, seem to grasp at
immensity. This alone would be sufficient to prove the progressiveness
of our nature, and that this little earth is but a point from which we
start toward a perfection of being.--SIR HUMPHRY DAVY.
By the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great
mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is
never old, or middle-aged, or young; but, in a condition of
unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual
decay, fall, renovation, and progression.--BURKE.
We are either progressing or retrograding all the while; there is no
such thing as remaining stationary in this life.--JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.
It is wonderful how soon a piano gets into a log-hut on the frontier.
You would think they found it under a pine-stump. With it comes a
Latin grammar, and one of those tow-head boys has written a hymn on
Sunday. Now let colleges, now let senates take heed! for here is one
who, opening these fine tastes on the basis of the pioneer's iron
constitution, will gather all their laurels in his strong hands.
--EMERSON.
A fresh mind keeps the body fresh. Take in the ideas of the day, drain
off those of yesterday.--LYTTON.
The wisest man may be wiser to-day than he was yesterday, and
to-morrow than he is to-day. Total freedom from change would imply
total freedom from error; but this is the prerogative of Omniscience
alone.--COLTON.
PROSPERITY.--Watch lest prosperity destroy generosity.--BEECHER.
Prosperity seems to be scarcely safe, unless it be mixed with a little
adversity.--HOSEA BALLOU.
The increase of a great number of citizens in prosperity is a
necessary element to the security, and even to the existence, of a
civilized people.--BURET.
Prosperity is the touchstone of virtue; for it is less difficult to
bear misfortunes than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure.--TACITUS.
Prosperity demands of us more prudence and moderation than adversity.
--CICERO.
We must distinguish between felicity and prosperity; for prosperity
leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment.--LANDOR.
He that swells in prosperity will be sure to shrink in adversity.
--COLTON.
Prosperity is very liable to bring pride among the other goods with
which it endows an individual; it is then that prosperity costs too
dear.--HOSEA BALLOU.
Prosperity, in regard of our corrupt inclination to abuse the
blessings of Almighty God, doth prove a thing dangerous to the soul of
man.--HOOKER.
It is one of the worst effects of prosperity to make a man a vortex,
instead of a fountain; so that, instead of throwing out, he learns
only to draw in.--BEECHER.
Prosperity makes some friends and many enemies.--VAUVENARGUES.
They who lie soft and warm in a rich estate seldom come to heat
themselves at the altar.--SOUTH.
Take care to be an economist in prosperity: there is no fear of your
being one in adversity.--ZIMMERMAN.
PROVIDENCE.--The Providence of God is the great protector of our life
and usefulness, and under the divine care we are perfectly safe from
danger.--SPURGEON.
I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.
--WHITTIER.
The decrees of Providence are inscrutable. In spite of man's
short-sighted endeavors to dispose of events according to his own
wishes and his own purposes, there is an Intelligence beyond his
reason, which holds the scales of justice, and promotes his
well-being, in spite of his puny efforts.--MORIER.
Divine Providence tempers his blessings to secure their better effect.
He keeps our joys and our fears on an even balance, that we may
neither presume nor despair. By such compositions God is pleased to
make both our crosses more tolerable and our enjoyments more wholesome
and safe.--W. WOGAN.
He who ruleth the raging of the sea, knows also how to check the
designs of the ungodly. I submit myself with reverence to His Holy
Will. O Abner, I fear my God, and I fear none but Him.--RACINE.
Duties are ours; events are God's. This removes an infinite burden
from the shoulders of a miserable, tempted, dying creature. On this
consideration only can he securely lay down his head and close his
eyes.--CECIL.
Yes, thou art ever present, power supreme!
Not circumscribed by time, nor fixt to space,
Confined to altars, nor to temples bound.
In wealth, in want, in freedom or in chains,
In dungeons or on thrones, the faithful find thee!
--HANNAH MORE.
We must follow, not force Providence.--SHAKESPEARE.
Go, mark the matchless working of the power
That shuts within the seed the future flower;
Bids these in elegance of form excel.
In color these, and those delight the smell;
Sends nature forth, the daughter of the skies,
To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes.
--COWPER.
A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps.
--PROVERBS 16:9.
PRUDENCE.--Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order
that they should see twice as much as they say.--COLTON.
Prudence is that virtue by which we discern what is proper to be done
under the various circumstances of time and place.--MILTON.
When any great design thou dost intend,
Think on the means, the manner, and the end.
--SIR J. DENHAM.
The prudence of the best heads is often defeated by the tenderness of
the best of hearts.--FIELDING.
Prudence is a necessary ingredient in all the virtues, without which
they degenerate into folly and excess.--JEREMY COLLIER.
No other protection is wanting, provided you are under the guidance of
prudence.--JUVENAL.
Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and
moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them
all.--BURKE.
The rules of prudence, like the laws of the stone tables, are for the
most part prohibitive. "Thou shalt not" is their characteristic
formula.--COLERIDGE.
PUNCTUALITY.--I give it as my deliberate and solemn conviction that
the individual who is habitually tardy in meeting an appointment, will
never be respected or successful in life.--REV. W. FISK.
I have always been a quarter of an hour before my time, and it has
made a man of me.--LORD NELSON.
Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear
dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person's money as his time.
--HORACE MANN.
It is no use running; to set out betimes is the main point.--LA FONTAINE.
I could never think well of a man's intellectual or moral character if
he was habitually unfaithful to his appointments.--EMMONS.
PURITY.--Purity in person and in morals is true godliness.--HOSEA BALLOU.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.--MATTHEW 5:8.
God be thanked that there are some in the world to whose hearts the
barnacles will not cling.--J.G. HOLLAND.
While our hearts are pure,
Our lives are happy and our peace is sure.
--WILLIAM WINTER.
Purity lives and derives its life solely from the Spirit of God.--COLTON.
I pray thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within.--SOCRATES.
QUARRELS.--Quarrels would never last long if the fault was only on one
side.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
The quarrels of lovers are like summer storms; everything is more
beautiful when they have passed.--MADAME NECKER.
I will rather suffer a thousand wrongs than offer one. I have always
found that to strive with a superior is injurious; with an equal,
doubtful; with an inferior, sordid and base; with any, full of
unquietness.--BISHOP HALL.
He that blows the coals in quarrels he has nothing to do with has no
right to complain if the sparks fly in his face.--FRANKLIN.
Those who in quarrel interpose,
Must often wipe a bloody nose.
--GAY.
Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
--SHAKESPEARE.
READING.--Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but
a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make
itself felt at the end of the year.--HORACE MANN.
We never read without profit if with the pen or pencil in our hand we
mark such ideas as strike us by their novelty, or correct those we
already possess.--ZIMMERMANN.
When what you read elevates your mind and fills you with noble
aspirations, look for no other rule by which to judge a book; it is
good, and is the work of a master-hand.--LA BRUYÈRE.
When in reading we meet with any maxim that may be of use, we should
take it for our own, and make an immediate application of it, as we
would of the advice of a friend whom we have purposely consulted.
--COLTON.
We should accustom the mind to keep the best company by introducing it
only to the best books.--SYDNEY SMITH.
If I were to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead under
every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and
cheerfulness to me through life, and a shield against its ills,
however things might go amiss, and the world frown upon me, it would
be a taste for reading.--SIR JOHN HERSCHEL.
Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an
exact man.... Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics,
subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric,
able to contend.--BACON.
Nothing, in truth, has such a tendency to weaken not only the powers
of invention, but the intellectual powers in general, as a habit of
extensive and various reading without reflection.--DUGALD STEWART.
Mr. Johnson had never, by his own account, been a close student, and
used to advise young people never to be without a book in their
pocket, to be read at bye-times, when they had nothing else to do. "It
has been by that means," said he to a boy at our house one day, "that
all my knowledge has been gained, except what I have picked up by
running about the world with my wits ready to observe, and my tongue
ready to talk."--MRS. PIOZZI.
Reading without purpose is sauntering, not exercise. More is got from
one book on which the thought settles for a definite end in knowledge,
than from libraries skimmed over by a wandering eye. A cottage flower
gives honey to the bee, a king's garden none to the butterfly.--LYTTON.
Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.--COLLECT.
Much reading is like much eating,--wholly useless without digestion.
--SOUTH.
REASON.--Reason is the glory of human nature, and one of the chief
eminences whereby we are raised above the beasts, in this lower
world.--DR. WATTS.
Let our reason, and not our senses, be the rule of our conduct; for
reason will teach us to think wisely, to speak prudently, and to
behave worthily.--CONFUCIUS.
Though reason is not to be relied upon as universally sufficient to
direct us what to do, yet it is generally to be relied upon and obeyed
where it tells us what we are not to do.--SOUTH.
He that will not reason is a bigot, he that cannot reason is a fool,
and he that dares not reason is a slave.--SIR W. DRUMMOND.
Wise men are instructed by reason; men of less understanding, by
experience; the most ignorant, by necessity; and beasts, by
nature.--CICERO.
When a man has not a good reason for doing a thing, he has one good
reason for letting it alone.--WALTER SCOTT.
One can never repeat too often, that reason, as it exists in man, is
only our intellectual eye, and that, like the eye, to see, it needs
light,--to see clearly and far, it needs the light of Heaven.
The language of reason, unaccompanied by kindness, will often fail of
making an impression; it has no effect on the understanding, because
it touches not the heart. The language of kindness, unassociated with
reason, will frequently be unable to persuade; because, though it may
gain upon the affections, it wants that which is necessary to convince
the judgment. But let reason and kindness be united in a discourse,
and seldom will even pride or prejudice find it easy to resist.
--GISBORNE.
Good reasons must, of force, give place to better.--SHAKESPEARE.
There is a just Latin axiom, that he who seeks a reason for everything
subverts reason.--EPES SARGENT.
REBUKE.--In all reprehensions, observe to express rather thy love than
thy anger; and strive rather to convince than exasperate: but if the
matter do require any special indignation, let it appear to be the
zeal of a displeased friend, rather than the passion of a provoked
enemy.--FULLER.
RECONCILIATION.--Wherein is it possible for us, wicked and impious
creatures, to be justified, except in the only Son of God? O sweet
reconciliation! O untraceable ministry! O unlooked-for blessing! that
the wickedness of many should be hidden in one godly and righteous
man, and the righteousness of one justify a host of sinners!--JUSTIN
MARTYR.
God pardons like a mother who kisses the offence into everlasting
forgetfulness.--BEECHER.
As thro' the land at eve we went,
And pluck'd the ripen'd ears,
We fell out, my wife and I,
We fell out I know not why,
And kiss'd again with tears.
And blessings on the falling out
That all the more endears,
When we fall out with those we love
And kiss again with tears!
For when we came where lies the child
We lost in other years,
There above the little grave,
Oh, there above the little grave,
We kiss'd again with tears.
--TENNYSON.
Oh, my dear friends,--you who are letting miserable misunderstandings
run on from year to year, meaning to clear them up some day,--if you
only could know and see and feel that the time is short, how it would
break the spell! How you would go instantly and do the thing which you
might never have another chance to do!--PHILLIPS BROOKS.
REFINEMENT.--Refinement is the delicate aroma of Christianity.
--CHARLOTTE M. YONGE.
That alone can be called true refinement which elevates the soul of
man, purifying the manners by improving the intellect.--HOSEA BALLOU.
Refinement that carries us away from our fellow-men is not God's
refinement.--BEECHER.
If refined sense, and exalted sense, be not so useful as common sense,
their rarity, their novelty, and the nobleness of their objects, make
some compensation, and render them the admiration of mankind.--HUME.
Far better, and more cheerfully, I could dispense with some part of
the downright necessaries of life, than with certain circumstances of
elegance and propriety in the daily habits of using them.--DE QUINCEY.
REFORM.--He who reforms himself, has done more toward reforming the
public, than a crowd of noisy, impotent patriots.--LAVATER.
He that has energy enough in his constitution to root out a vice
should go a little further, and try to plant a virtue in its place;
otherwise he will have his labor to renew. A strong soil that has
produced weeds may be made to produce wheat with far less difficulty
than it would cost to make it produce nothing.--COLTON.
Time yet serves, wherein you may redeem your tarnished honors, and
restore yourselves into the good thoughts of the world again.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Each year one vicious habit rooted out, in time might make the worst
man good.--FRANKLIN.
Reform, like charity, must begin at home.--CARLYLE.
Whatever you dislike in another person take care to correct in
yourself.--SPRAT.
He who reforms, God assists.--CERVANTES.
REGENERATION.--Content not thyself with a bare forbearance of sin, so
long as thy heart is not changed, nor thy will changed, nor thy
affections changed; but strive to become a new man, to be transformed
by the renewing of thy mind, to hate sin, to love God, to wrestle
against thy secret corruptions, to take delight in holy duties, to
subdue thine understanding, and will, and affections, to the obedience
of faith and godliness.--BP. SANDERSON.
He that is once "born of God shall overcome the world," and the prince
of this world too, by the power of God in him. Holiness is no
solitary, neglected thing; it hath stronger confederacies, greater
alliances, than sin and wickedness. It is in league with God and the
universe; the whole creation smiles upon it; there is something of God
in it, and therefore it must needs be a victorious and triumphant
thing.--CUDWORTH.
Regeneration is the ransacking of the soul, the turning of a man out
of himself, the crumbling to pieces of the old man, and the new
moulding of it into another shape; it is the turning of stones into
children, and a drawing of the lively portraiture of Jesus Christ upon
that very table that before represented only the very image of the
devil.... Art thou thus changed? Are all old things done away, and all
things in thee become new? Hast thou a new heart and renewed
affections? And dost thou serve God in newness of life and
conversation? If not,--what hast thou to do with hopes of heaven? Thou
art yet without Christ, and so consequently without hope.--BISHOP
HOPKINS.
REGRET.--A wrong act followed by just regret and thoughtful caution to
avoid like errors, makes a man better than he would have been if he
had never fallen.--HORATIO SEYMOUR.
The business of life is to go forward; he who sees evil in prospect
meets it in his way, but he who catches it by retrospection turns back
to find it. That which is feared may sometimes be avoided, but that
which is regretted to-day may be regretted again to-morrow.--DR. JOHNSON.
A feeling of sadness and longing
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
--LONGFELLOW.
The present only is a man's possession; the past is gone out of his
hand wholly, irrevocably. He may suffer from it, learn from it,--in
degree, perhaps, expiate it; but to brood over it is utter madness.
--MISS MULOCK.
Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
--WHITTIER.
RELIGION.--A religion that never suffices to govern a man will never
suffice to save him; that which does not sufficiently distinguish one
from a wicked world will never distinguish him from a perishing
world.--HOWE.
Religion crowns the statesman and the man,
Sole source of public and of private peace.
--YOUNG.
A true religious instinct never deprived man of one single joy;
mournful faces and a sombre aspect are the conventional affectations
of the weak-minded.--HOSEA BALLOU.
The source of all good and of all comfort.--BURKE.
You may depend upon it, religion is, in its essence, the most
gentlemanly thing in the world. It will _alone_ gentilize, if unmixed
with cant; and I know nothing else that will _alone_.--S.T. COLERIDGE.
If we traverse the world, it is possible to find cities without walls,
without letters, without kings, without wealth, without coin, without
schools and theatres; but a city without a temple, or that practiseth
not worship, prayer, and the like, no one ever saw.--PLUTARCH.
Religion, if in heavenly truths attired,
Needs only to be seen to be admired.
--COWPER.
Ah! what a divine religion might be found out if charity were really
made the principle of it instead of faith.--SHELLEY.
Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the
private school, supported entirely by private contributions; keep the
Church and the State forever apart.--U.S. GRANT.
Religion is the mortar that binds society together; the granite
pedestal of liberty; the strong backbone of the social system.--GUTHRIE.
All belief which does not render more happy, more free, more loving,
more active, more calm, is, I fear, an erroneous and superstitious
belief.--LAVATER.
Never trust anybody not of sound religion, for he that is false to God
can never be true to man.--LORD BURLEIGH.
A man devoid of religion, is like a horse without a bridle.--FROM THE
LATIN.
It is a great disgrace to religion, to imagine that it is an enemy to
mirth and cheerfulness, and a severe exacter of pensive looks and
solemn faces.--WALTER SCOTT.
Nowhere would there be consolation, if religion were not.--JACOBI.
A man with no sense of religious duty is he whom the Scriptures
describe in such terse but terrific language, as living "without God
in the world." Such a man is out of his proper being, out of the
circle of all his duties, out of the circle of all his happiness, and
away, far, far away, from the purposes of his creation.--WEBSTER.
All who have been great and good without Christianity, would have been
much greater and better with it.--COLTON.
There are a good many pious people who are as careful of their
religion as of their best service of china, only using it on holy
occasions, for fear it should get chipped or flawed in working-day
wear.--DOUGLAS JERROLD.
Wonderful! that the Christian religion, which seems to have no other
object than the felicity of another life, should also constitute the
happiness of this.--MONTESQUIEU.
Pour the balm of the Gospel into the wounds of bleeding nations. Plant
the tree of life in every soil, that suffering kingdoms may repose
beneath its shade and feel the virtue of its healing leaves, till all
the kindred of the human family shall be bound together in one common
bond of amity and love, and the warrior shall be a character unknown
but in the page of history.--THOMAS RAFFLES.
There are three modes of bearing the ills of life; by indifference,
which is the most common; by philosophy, which is the most
ostentatious; and by religion, which is the most effectual.--COLTON.
A house without family worship has neither foundation nor covering.
--MASON.
Religion is the best armor in the world, but the worst cloak.--BUNYAN.
A good name is better than precious ointment.--ECCLESIASTES 7:1.
I have lived long enough to know what I did not at one time
believe--that no society can be upheld in happiness and honor without
the sentiment of religion.--LA PLACE.
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,
religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that
man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these
great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of
men and citizens. And let us with caution indulge the supposition that
morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded
to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure,
reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality
can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.--WASHINGTON.
"When I was young, I was sure of many things; there are only two
things of which I am sure now; one is, that I am a miserable sinner;
and the other, that Jesus Christ is an all sufficient Saviour." He is
well taught who gets these two lessons.--JOHN NEWTON.
If we make religion our business, God will make it our blessedness.
--H.G.J. ADAM.
The call to religion is not a call to be better than your fellows, but
to be better than yourself. Religion is relative to the individual.
--BEECHER.
REMEMBRANCE.--Remembrance is the only paradise out of which we cannot
be driven away.--RICHTER.
You can't order remembrance out of the mind; and a wrong that was a
wrong yesterday must be a wrong to-morrow.--THACKERAY.
I cannot but remember such things were
That were most precious to me.
--SHAKESPEARE.
REMORSE.--Remorse is the punishment of crime; repentance, its
expiation. The former appertains to a tormented conscience; the latter
to a soul changed for the better.--JOUBERT.
Remorse, the fatal egg by pleasure laid,
In every bosom where her nest is made,
Hatched by the beams of truth, denies him rest,
And proves a raging scorpion in his breast.
--COWPER.
We can prostrate ourselves in the dust when we have committed a fault,
but it is not best to remain there.--CHATEAUBRIAND.
There is no man that is knowingly wicked but is guilty to himself; and
there is no man that carries guilt about him but he receives a sting
in his soul.--TILLOTSON.
REPENTANCE.--Repentance, without amendment, is like continually
pumping without mending the leak.--DILWYN.
Repentance is but another name for aspiration.--BEECHER.
If you would be good, first believe that you are bad.--EPICTETUS.
Repentance is a goddess and the preserver of those who have erred.
--JULIAN.
Some well-meaning Christians tremble for their salvation, because they
have never gone through that valley of tears and of sorrow, which they
have been taught to consider as an ordeal that must be passed through
before they can arrive at regeneration. To satisfy such minds, it may
be observed, that the slightest sorrow for sin is sufficient, if it
produce amendment, and that the greatest is insufficient, if it do
not.--COLTON.
Let us be quick to repent of injuries while repentance may not be a
barren anguish.--DR. JOHNSON.
Our hearts must not only be broken with sorrow, but be broken from
sin, to constitute repentance.--DEWEY.
Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every
time we fall.--GOLDSMITH.
I will to-morrow, that I will,
I will be sure to do it;
To-morrow comes, to-morrow goes,
And still thou art to do it.
Thus still repentance is deferred.
From one day to another:
Until the day of death is come,
And judgment is the other.
--DREXELIUS.
As it is never too soon to be good, so it is never too late to amend:
I will, therefore, neither neglect the time present, nor despair of
the time past. If I had been sooner good, I might perhaps have been
better; if I am longer bad, I shall, I am sure, be worse.--ARTHUR
WARWICK.
Repentance is heart's sorrow, and a clear life ensuing.--SHAKESPEARE.
REPOSE.--Power rests in tranquillity.--CECIL.
Have you known how to compose your manners? You have done a great deal
more than he who has composed books. Have you known how to take repose?
You have done more than he who has taken cities and empires.--MONTAIGNE.
Repose without stagnation is the state most favorable to happiness.
"The great felicity of life," says Seneca, "is to be without
perturbations."--BOVEE.
There is no mortal truly wise and restless at once; wisdom is the
repose of minds.--LAVATER.
REPROOF.--If you have a thrust to make at your friend's expense, do it
gracefully, it is all the more effective. Some one says the reproach
that is delivered with hat in hand is the most telling.--HALIBURTON.
The severest punishment suffered by a sensitive mind, for injury
inflicted upon another, is the consciousness of having done it.--HOSEA
BALLOU.
No reproach is like that we clothe in a smile, and present with a
bow.--LYTTON.
Reproof is a medicine like mercury or opium; if it be improperly
administered, it will do harm instead of good.--HORACE MANN.
He had such a gentle method of reproving their faults that they were
not so much afraid as ashamed to repeat them.--ATTERBURY.
Reprove thy friend privately; commend him publicly.--SOLON.
REPUTATION.--The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be
what you desire to appear.--SOCRATES.
How many people live on the reputation of the reputation they might
have made!--HOLMES.
O, reputation! dearer far than life,
Thou precious balsam, lovely, sweet of smell,
Whose cordial drops once spilt by some rash hand,
Not all the owner's care, nor the repenting toil
Of the rude spiller, ever can collect
To its first purity and native sweetness.
--SEWELL.
One may be better than his reputation or his conduct, but never better
than his principles.--LATÉNA.
Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God
and angels know of us.--THOMAS PAINE.
If a man were only to deal in the world for a day, and should never
have occasion to converse more with mankind, never more need their
good opinion or good word, it were then no great matter (speaking as
to the concernments of this world), if a man spent his reputation all
at once, and ventured it at one throw; but if he be to continue in the
world, and would have the advantage of conversation while he is in it,
let him make use of truth and sincerity in all his words and actions;
for nothing but this will last and hold out to the end.--TILLOTSON.
RESIGNATION.--Resignation is the courage of Christian sorrow.
--PROFESSOR VINET.
If God send thee a cross, take it up willingly and follow him. Use it
wisely, lest it be unprofitable. Bear it patiently, lest it be
intolerable. If it be light, slight it not. If it be heavy, murmur
not. After the cross is the crown.--QUARLES.
"My will, not thine, be done," turned Paradise into a desert. "Thy
will, not mine, be done," turned the desert into a paradise, and made
Gethsemane the gate of heaven.--PRESSENSÉ.
With a sigh for what we have not, we must be thankful for what we
have, and leave to One wiser than ourselves the deeper problems of the
human soul and of its discipline.--GLADSTONE.
The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of
the Lord.--JOB 1:21.
Dare to look up to God and say: "Deal with me in the future as thou
wilt. I am of the same mind as thou art; I am thine. I refuse nothing
that pleases Thee. Lead me where Thou wilt; cloth me in any dress Thou
choosest."--EPICTETUS.
No cloud can overshadow a true Christian but his faith will discern a
rainbow in it.--BISHOP HORNE.
Let God do with me what He will, anything He will; and, whatever it
be, it will be either heaven itself, or some beginning of it.--MOUNTFORD.
Is it reasonable to take it ill, that anybody desires of us that which
is their own? All we have is the Almighty's; and shall not God have
his own when he calls for it?--WILLIAM PENN.
RESOLUTION.--He only is a well-made man who has a good termination.
--EMERSON.
Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose
That you resolved to effect.
--SHAKESPEARE.
REST.--Rest is a fine medicine. Let your stomachs rest, ye dyspeptics;
let your brain rest, you wearied and worried men of business; let your
limbs rest, ye children of toil!--CARLYLE.
Absence of occupation is not rest.
A mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd.
--COWPER.
God giveth quietness at last.--WHITTIER.
Of all our loving Father's gifts
I often wonder which is best,
And cry: Dear God, the one that lifts
Our soul from weariness to rest,
The rest of silence--that is best.
--MARY CLEMMER.
The word "rest" is not in my vocabulary.--HORACE GREELEY.
RETIREMENT.--How much they err who, to their interest blind, slight
the calm peace which from retirement flows!--MRS. TIGHE.
Nature I'll court in her sequester'd haunts,
By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove or cell;
Where the poised lark his evening ditty chaunts,
And health, and peace, and contemplation dwell.
--SMOLLETT.
O, blest retirement! friend to life's decline--
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these,
A youth of labor with an age of ease!
--GOLDSMITH.
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
--GRAY.
Depart from the highway, and transplant thyself in some enclosed
ground; for it is hard for a tree that stands by the wayside to keep
her fruit till it be ripe.--ST. CHRYSOSTOM.
Exert your talents and distinguish yourself, and don't think of
retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire.
I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a
corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let
him come out as I do, and bark.--DR. JOHNSON.
The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade
Pants for the refuge of some rural shade,
Where all his long anxieties forgot
Amid the charms of a sequester'd spot,
Or recollected only to gild o'er
And add a smile to what was sweet before,
He may possess the joys he thinks he sees,
Lay his old age upon the lap of ease,
Improve the remnant of his wasted span.
And having lived a trifler, die a man.
--COWPER.
But what, it may be asked, are the requisites for a life of
retirement? A man may be weary of the toils and torments of business,
and yet quite unfit for the tranquil retreat. Without literature,
friendship, and religion, retirement is in most cases found to be a
dead, flat level, a barren waste, and a blank. Neither the body nor
the soul can enjoy health and life in a vacuum.--RUSTICUS.
RICHES.--Riches exclude only one inconvenience,--that is, poverty.
--DR. JOHNSON.
Great abundance of riches cannot of any man be both gathered and kept
without sin.--ERASMUS.
Riches, honors, and pleasures are the sweets which destroy the mind's
appetite for its heavenly food; poverty, disgrace, and pain are the
bitters which restore it.--BISHOP HORNE.
A man's true wealth is the good he does in this world.--MOHAMMED.
Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.
--SHAKESPEARE.
He is rich whose income is more than his expenses; and he is poor
whose expenses exceed his income.--LA BRUYÈRE.
No man can tell whether he is rich or poor by turning to his ledger.
It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich or poor according to
what he is, not according to what he has.--BEECHER.
Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.--FRANKLIN.
He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.--PROVERBS 28:20.
Riches without charity are nothing worth. They are a blessing only to
him who makes them a blessing to others.--FIELDING.
SABBATH.--The Sunday is the core of our civilization, dedicated to
thought and reverence. It invites to the noblest solitude and to the
noblest society.--EMERSON.
Students of every age and kind, beware of secular study on the Lord's
day.--PROFESSOR MILLER.
A world without a Sabbath would be like a man without a smile, like a
summer without flowers, and like a homestead without a garden. It is
the joyous day of the whole week.--BEECHER.
He who ordained the Sabbath loved the poor.--O.W. HOLMES.
SCANDAL.--If there is any person to whom you feel dislike, that is the
person of whom you ought never to speak.--CECIL.
There is a lust in man no charm can tame,
Of loudly publishing his neighbor's shame;--
On eagle's wings immortal scandals fly,
While virtuous actions are but born and die.
--ELLA LOUISA HERVEY.
No one loves to tell of scandal except to him who loves to hear it.
Learn, then, to rebuke and check the detracting tongue by showing that
you do not listen to it with pleasure.--ST. JEROME.
Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil
speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.--EPHESIANS 4:31.
SCEPTICISM.--Scepticism has never founded empires, established
principles, or changed the world's heart. The great doers in history
have always been men of faith.--CHAPIN.
Scepticism is a barren coast, without a harbor or lighthouse.--BEECHER.
Freethinkers are generally those who never think at all.--STERNE.
I know not any crime so great that a man could contrive to commit as
poisoning the sources of eternal truth.--DR. JOHNSON.
SECRECY.--The secret known to two is no longer a secret.--NINON DE
LENCLOS.
Secrecy has been well termed the soul of all great designs. Perhaps
more has been effected by concealing our own intentions, than by
discovering those of our enemy. But great men succeed in both.
A woman can keep one secret,--the secret of her age.--VOLTAIRE.
To tell your own secrets is generally folly, but that folly is without
guilt; to communicate those with which we are intrusted is always
treachery, and treachery for the most part combined with folly.
--DR. JOHNSON.
To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is
folly.--HOLMES.
To whom you betray your secret you sell your liberty.--FRANKLIN.
He who trusts a secret to his servant makes his own man his master.
--DRYDEN.
SELF-CONTROL.--He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh
a city.--PROVERBS 16:32.
What is the best government? That which teaches us to govern
ourselves.--GOETHE.
He who reigns within himself, and rules passions, desires, and fears,
is more than a king.--MILTON.
Real glory springs from the silent conquest of ourselves.--THOMSON.
He is a fool who cannot be angry: but he is a wise man who will
not.--ENGLISH PROVERB.
SELF-DENIAL.--Self-denial is the quality of which Jesus Christ set us
the example.--ARY SCHEFFER.
Only the soul that with an overwhelming impulse and a perfect trust
gives itself up forever to the life of other men, finds the delight
and peace which such complete self-surrender has to give.--PHILLIPS
BROOKS.
Self-denial is a virtue of the highest quality, and he who has it not,
and does not strive to acquire it, will never excel in anything.
--CONYBEARE.
The more a man denies himself the more he shall obtain from God.
--HORACE.
The worst education which teaches self-denial is better than the best
which teaches everything else, and not that.--JOHN STERLING.
SELFISHNESS.--Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will
forgive in others, and no one is without in himself.--BEECHER.
It is to be doubted whether he will ever find the way to heaven who
desires to go thither alone.--FELTHAM.
Take the selfishness out of this world and there would be more
happiness than we should know what to do with.--H.W. SHAW.
We erect the idol self, and not only wish others to worship, but
worship ourselves.--CECIL.
SILENCE.--Be silent, or say something better than silence.--PYTHAGORAS.
God's poet is silence! His song is unspoken,
And yet so profound, so loud, and so far,
It fills you, it thrills you with measures unbroken,
And as soft, and as fair, and as far as a star.
--JOAQUIN MILLER.
Silence is the safest course for any man to adopt who distrusts
himself.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
If thou desire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue.
--QUARLES.
As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle
silence.--FRANKLIN.
Learn to hold thy tongue. Five words cost Zacharias forty weeks'
silence.--FULLER.
Silence is a virtue in those who are deficient in understanding.
--BOUHOURS.
Silence, when nothing need be said, is the eloquence of discretion.
--BOVEE.
Silence does not always mark wisdom.--S.T. COLERIDGE.
Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise.--PROVERBS 17:28.
SIN.--Suffer anything from man, rather than sin against God.--SIR
HENRY VANE.
Let him that sows the serpent's teeth not hope to reap a joyous
harvest. Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, its own
avenging angel,--dark misgivings at the inmost heart.--SCHILLER.
I could not live in peace if I put the shadow of a willful sin between
myself and God.--GEORGE ELIOT.
Never let any man imagine that he can pursue a good end by evil means,
without sinning against his own soul! Any other issue is doubtful; the
evil effect on himself is certain.--SOUTHEY.
Many afflictions will not cloud and obstruct peace of mind so much as
one sin: therefore, if you would walk cheerfully, be most careful to
walk holily. All the winds about the earth make not an earthquake, but
only that within.--ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.
Think not for wrongs like these unscourged to live;
Long may ye sin, and long may Heaven forgive;
But when ye least expect, in sorrow's day,
Vengeance shall fall more heavy for delay.
--CHURCHILL.
Sin is never at a stay; if we do not retreat from it, we shall advance
in it; and the farther on we go, the more we have to come back.--BARROW.
Other men's sins are before our eyes, our own are behind our back.
--SENECA.
Take steadily some one sin, which seems to stand out before thee, to
root it out, by God's grace, and every fibre of it. Purpose strongly,
by the grace and strength of God, wholly to sacrifice this sin or
sinful inclination to the love of God, to spare it not, until thou
leave of it none remaining, neither root nor branch.--E.B. PUSEY.
Cast out thy Jonah--every sleeping and secure sin that brings a
tempest upon thy ship, vexation to thy spirit.--REYNOLDS.
Use sin as it will use you; spare it not, for it will not spare you;
it is your murderer, and the murderer of the whole world. Use it,
therefore, as a murderer should be used; kill it before it kills you;
and though it brings you to the grave, as it did your head, it shall
not be able to keep you there. You love not death; love not the cause
of death.--BAXTER.
SINCERITY.--I think you will find that people who honestly mean to be
true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try
to be "consistent."--HOLMES.
If the show of any thing be good for any thing, I am sure sincerity is
better; for why does any man dissemble, or seem to be that which he is
not, but because he thinks it good to have such a quality as he
pretends to?--TILLOTSON.
The only conclusive evidence of a man's sincerity is that he gives
himself for a principle. Words, money, all things else, are
comparatively easy to give away; but when a man makes a gift of his
daily life and practice, it is plain that the truth, whatever it may
be, has taken possession of him.--LOWELL.
Private sincerity is a public welfare.--BARTOL.
I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain,
what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an
"honest man."--WASHINGTON.
Sincerity is to speak as we think, to do as we pretend and profess, to
perform and make good what we promise, and really to be what we would
seem and appear to be.--TILLOTSON.
Let us then be what we are, and speak what we think, and in all things
keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sacred professions of
friendship.--LONGFELLOW.
SLANDER.--When will talkers refrain from evil-speaking? When listeners
refrain from evil-hearing.--HARE.
Never throw mud. You may miss your mark, but you must have dirty
hands.--JOSEPH PARKER.
Remember, when incited to slander, that it is only he among you who is
without sin that may cast the first stone.--HOSEA BALLOU.
Slander,
Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue
Out-venoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie
All corners of the world: kings, queens, and states,
Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave
This viperous slander enters.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Nor do they trust their tongues alone,
But speak a language of their own;
Can read a nod, a shrug, a look,
Far better than a printed book;
Convey a libel in a frown,
And wink a reputation down;
Or, by the tossing of the fan,
describe the lady and the man.
--SWIFT.
Those men who carry about and who listen to accusations, should all be
hanged, if so it could be at my decision--the carriers by their
tongues, the listeners by their ears.--PLAUTUS.
Oh! many a shaft, at random sent,
Finds mark the archer little meant;
And many a word, at random spoken,
May soothe or wound a heart that's broken.
--WALTER SCOTT.
SLEEP.--One hour's sleep before midnight is worth two after.--FIELDING.
God gives sleep to the bad, in order that the good may be undisturbed.
--SAADI.
Put off thy cares with thy clothes; so shall thy rest strengthen thy
labor; and so shall thy labor sweeten thy rest.--QUARLES.
We sleep, but the loom of life never stops; and the pattern which was
weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up to-morrow.
--BEECHER.
Heaven trims our lamps while we sleep.--ALCOTT.
There are many ways of inducing sleep,--the thinking of purling rills,
or waving woods; reckoning of numbers; droppings from a wet sponge
fixed over a brass pan, etc. But temperance and exercise answer much
better than any of these succedaneums.--STERNE.
Sleep is a generous thief; he gives to vigor what he takes from time.
--ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF ROUMANIA.
O sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole.
--COLERIDGE.
SOCIETY.--Society is ever ready to worship success, but rarely
forgives failure.--MME. ROLAND.
Society is a troop of thinkers, and the best heads among them take the
best places.--EMERSON.
Society is like a lawn, where every roughness is smoothed, every
bramble eradicated, and where the eye is delighted by the smiling
verdure of a velvet surface.--WASHINGTON IRVING.
Heaven forming each on other to depend,
A master, or a servant, or a friend,
Bids each on other for assistance call,
Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all.
Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally
The common interest, or endear the tie.
To these we owe true friendship, love sincere,
Each home-felt joy that life inherits here.
--POPE.
Every man depends on the quantity of sense, wit, or good manners he
brings into society for the reception he meets with in it.--HAZLITT.
A man's reception depends upon his coat; his dismissal upon the wit he
shows.--BERANGER.
Man in society is like a flow'r,
Blown in its native bed. 'Tis there alone
His faculties expanded in full bloom
Shine out, there only reach their proper use.
--COWPER.
There is a sort of economy in Providence that one shall excel where
another is defective, in order to make men more useful to each other,
and mix them in society.--ADDISON.
Society is composed of two great classes,--those who have more dinners
than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners.--CHAMFORT.
SUCCESS.--Nothing is impossible to the man that can will. Is that
necessary? That shall be. This is the only law of success.--MIRABEAU.
Nothing succeeds so well as success.--TALLEYRAND.
To know how to wait is the great secret of success.--DE MAISTRE.
The path of success in business is invariably the path of
common-sense. Nothwithstanding all that is said about "lucky hits,"
the best kind of success in every man's life is not that which comes
by accident. The only "good time coming" we are justified in hoping
for is that which we are capable of making for ourselves.--SAMUEL
SMILES.
The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well,
and doing well whatever you do without a thought of fame. If it comes
at all it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought
after.--LONGFELLOW.
The surest way not to fail is to determine to succeed.--SHERIDAN.
The great highroad of human welfare lies along the old highway of
steadfast well-doing; and they who are the most persistent, and work
in the truest spirit, will invariably be the most successful; success
treads on the heels of every right effort.--SAMUEL SMILES.
It is possible to indulge too great contempt for mere success, which
is frequently attended with all the practical advantages of merit
itself, and with several advantages that merit alone can never
command.--W.B. CLULOW.
'Tis not in mortals to command success,
But we'll do more, Sempronius; we'll deserve it.
--ADDISON.
If fortune wishes to make a man estimable, she gives him virtues; if
she wishes to make him esteemed, she gives him success.--JOUBERT.
Successful minds work like a gimlet,--to a single point.--BOVEE.
If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend,
experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope
your guardian genius.--ADDISON.
Success does not consist in never making blunders, but in never making
the same one the second time.--H.W. SHAW.
SUICIDE.--Bid abhorrence hiss it round the world.--YOUNG.
God has appointed us captains of this our bodily fort, which, without
treason to that majesty, are never to be delivered over till they are
demanded.--SIR P. SIDNEY.
To die in order to avoid the pains of poverty, love, or anything that
is disagreeable, is not the part of a brave man, but of a coward.
--ARISTOTLE.
Our time is fix'd; and all our days are number'd;
How long, how short, we know not: this we know,
Duty requires we calmly wait the summons,
Nor dare to stir till Heaven shall give permission.
Like sentries that must keep their destined stand,
And wait th' appointed hour, till they're relieved,
Those only are the brave who keep their ground,
And keep it to the last.
--BLAIR.
Suicide is not a remedy.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day,
Live till to-morrow, will have pass'd away.
--COWPER.
The coward sneaks to death; the brave live on.--DR. GEORGE SEWELL.
SUPERSTITION.--I think we cannot too strongly attack superstition,
which is the disturber of society; nor too highly respect genuine
religion, which is the support of it.--ROUSSEAU.
There is but one thing that can free a man from superstition, and that
is belief. All history proves it. The most sceptical have ever been
the most credulous.--GEORGE MACDONALD.
Superstition! that horrid incubus which dwelt in darkness, shunning
the light, with all its racks, and poison chalices, and foul sleeping
draughts, is passing away without return. Religion cannot pass away.
The burning of a little straw may hide the stars of the sky; but the
stars are there and will reappear.--CARLYLE.
Religion worships God, while superstition profanes that worship.--SENECA.
Superstition is the only religion of which base souls are capable.
--JOUBERT.
Superstition always inspires littleness, religion grandeur of mind;
the superstitious raises beings inferior to himself to deities.--LAVATER.
The child taught to believe any occurrence a good or evil omen, or any
day of the week lucky, hath a wide inroad made upon the soundness of
his understanding.--DR. WATTS.
Superstition is a senseless fear of God; religion, the pious worship
of God.--CICERO.
Superstition renders a man a fool, and scepticism makes him mad.
--FIELDING.
I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and
detesting superstition.--VOLTAIRE.
SYMPATHY.--Sympathy is the first great lesson which man should learn.
It will be ill for him if he proceeds no farther; if his emotions are
but excited to roll back on his heart, and to be fostered in luxurious
quiet. But unless he learns to feel for things in which he has no
personal interest, he can achieve nothing generous or noble.--TALFOURD.
To commiserate is sometimes more than to give; for money is external
to a man's self, but he who bestows compassion communicates his own
soul.--MOUNTFORD.
A helping word to one in trouble is often like a switch on a railroad
track,--but one inch between wreck and smooth-rolling prosperity.
--BEECHER.
The greatest pleasures of which the human mind is susceptible are the
pleasures of consciousness and sympathy.--PARKE GODWIN.
What gem hath dropp'd and sparkles o'er his chain?
The tear most sacred, shed for other's pain,
That starts at once--bright--pure--from pity's mine,
Already polish'd by the Hand Divine.
--BYRON.
Sympathy is especially a Christian duty.--SPURGEON.
TACT.--Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely, and conciliate
those you cannot conquer.--COLTON.
A little management may often evade resistance, which a vast force
might vainly strive to overcome.
TALENT.--Talent of the highest order, and such as is calculated to
command admiration, may exist apart from wisdom.--ROBERT HALL.
Whatever you are from nature, keep to it; never desert your own line
of talent. Be what Nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be
anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing.
--SYDNEY SMITH.
Talent without tact is only half talent.--HORACE GREELEY.
TALKING.--Though we have two eyes, we are supplied with but one
tongue. Draw your own moral.--ALPHONSE KARR.
No great talker ever did any great thing yet, in this world.--OUIDA.
If you light upon an impertinent talker, that sticks to you like a
bur, to the disappointment of your important occasions, deal freely
with him, break off the discourse, and pursue your business.--PLUTARCH.
What you keep by you, you may change and mend;
But words once spoken can never be recalled.
--ROSCOMMON.
Such as thy words are, such will thy affections be esteemed; and such
will thy deeds as thy affections, and such thy life as thy deeds.
--SOCRATES.
But far more numerous was the herd of such,
Who think too little, and who talk too much.
--DRYDEN.
He who indulges in liberty of speech, will hear things in return which
he will not like.--TERENCE.
The tongue is the instrument of the greatest good and the greatest
evil that is done in the world.--SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
He who seldom speaks, and with one calm well-timed word can strike
dumb the loquacious, is a genius or a hero.--LAVATER.
A wise man reflects before he speaks; a fool speaks, and then reflects
on what he has uttered.--FROM THE FRENCH.
Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less
men think, the more they talk.--MONTESQUIEU.
Speaking much is a sign of vanity; for he that is lavish in words, is
a niggard in deed.--SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
TEARS.--Tears of joy are the dew in which the sun of righteousness is
mirrored.--RICHTER.
There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but
of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They
are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of
unspeakable love.--WASHINGTON IRVING.
The tear down childhood's cheek that flows,
Is like the dewdrop on the rose;
When next the summer breeze comes by,
And waves the bush, the flower is dry.
--WALTER SCOTT.
Shame on those breasts of stone that cannot melt in soft adoption of
another's sorrow.--AARON HILL.
Tears may soothe the wounds they cannot heal.--THOMAS PAINE.
Hide not thy tears; weep boldly, and be proud to give the flowing
virtue manly way; it is nature's mark to know an honest heart
by.--AARON HILL.
Tears are a good alterative, but a poor diet.--H.W. SHAW.
They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.--PSALM 126:5.
Every tear is a verse, and every heart is a poem.--MARC ANDRÉ.
Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
--PSALM 30:5.
TEMPER.--The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than
fortune.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
In vain he seeketh others to suppress,
Who hath not learn'd himself first to subdue.
--SPENSER.
With "gentleness" in his own character, "comfort" in his house, and
"good temper" in his wife, the earthly felicity of man is complete.
--FROM THE GERMAN.
Nothing leads more directly to the breach of charity, and to the
injury and molestation of our fellow-creatures, than the indulgence of
an ill temper.--BLAIR.
Too many have no idea of the subjection of their temper to the
influence of religion, and yet what is changed, if the temper is not?
If a man is as passionate, malicious, resentful, sullen, moody, or
morose after his conversion as before it, what is he converted from or
to?--JOHN ANGELL JAMES.
If we desire to live securely, comfortably, and quietly, that by all
honest means we should endeavor to purchase the good will of all men,
and provoke no man's enmity needlessly; since any man's love may be
useful, and every man's hatred is dangerous.--ISAAC BARROW.
A sunny temper gilds the edges of life's blackest cloud.--GUTHRIE.
TEMPERANCE.--Temperance puts wood on the fire, meal in the barrel,
flour in the tub, money in the purse, credit in the country,
contentment in the house, clothes on the back, and vigor in the
body.--FRANKLIN.
Fools! not to know how far an humble lot
Exceeds abundance by injustice got;
How health and temperance bless the rustic swain,
While luxury destroys her pamper'd train.
--HESIOD.
Men live best on moderate means: Nature has dispensed to all men
wherewithal to be happy, if mankind did but understand how to use her
gifts.--CLAUDIAN.
Temperance is a virtue which casts the truest lustre upon the person
it is lodged in, and has the most general influence upon all other
particular virtues of any that the soul of man is capable of; indeed
so general, that there is hardly any noble quality or endowment of the
mind, but must own temperance either for its parent or its nurse; it
is the greatest strengthener and clearer of reason, and the best
preparer of it for religion, the sister of prudence, and the handmaid
to devotion.--DEAN SOUTH.
It is all nonsense about not being able to work without ale and cider
and fermented liquors. Do lions and cart-horses drink ale?--SYDNEY SMITH.
Temperance is a bridle of gold; he who uses it rightly, is more like a
god than a man.--BURTON.
Except thou desire to hasten thine end, take this for a general rule,
that thou never add any artificial heat to thy body by wine or spice.
--SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
Drinking water neither makes a man sick, nor in debt, nor his wife a
widow.--JOHN NEAL.
Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all
virtues.--FULLER.
If you wish to keep the mind clear and the body healthy, abstain from
all fermented liquors.--SYDNEY SMITH.
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty, for in my youth I never
did apply hot and rebellious liquors in my blood.--SHAKESPEARE.
TEMPTATION.--'Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Some temptations come to the industrious, but all temptations attack
the idle.--SPURGEON.
If men had only temptations to great sins, they would always be good;
but the daily fight with little ones accustoms them to defeat.--RICHTER.
Better shun the bait than struggle in the snare.--DRYDEN.
Every temptation is an opportunity of our getting nearer to God.
--J.Q. ADAMS.
When a man resists sin on human motives only, he will not hold out
long.--BISHOP WILSON.
We must not willfully thrust ourselves into the mouth of danger, or
draw temptations upon us. Such forwardness is not resolution, but
rashness; nor is it the fruit of a well-ordered faith, but an
overdaring presumption.--KING.
But Satan now is wiser than of yore,
And tempts by making rich, not making poor.
--POPE.
God is better served in resisting a temptation to evil than in many
formal prayers.--WILLIAM PENN.
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.--MATTHEW 26:41.
THOUGHT.--Thought is the first faculty of man; to express it is one of
his first desires; to spread it, his dearest privilege.--ABBÉ RAYNAL.
Those who have finished by making all others think with them, have
usually been those who began by daring to think with themselves.--COLTON.
Our brains are seventy year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them up
once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the hands
of the Angel of the Resurrection.--HOLMES.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears;
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
--WORDSWORTH.
In matters of conscience first thoughts are best, in matters of
prudence last thoughts are best.--ROBERT HALL.
Man thinks, and at once becomes the master of the beings that do not
think.--BUFFON.
Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes
heroes.--DISRAELI.
Thinking leads man to knowledge. He may see and hear, and read and
learn, as much as he please; he will never know any of it, except that
which he has thought over, that which by thinking he has made the
property of his mind. Is it then saying too much if I say, that man by
thinking only becomes truly man? Take away thought from man's life,
and what remains?--PESTALOZZI.
One thought cannot awake without awakening others.--MARIE
EBNER-ESCHENBACH.
Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.--HARE.
A man would do well to carry a pencil in his pocket, and write down
the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly
the most valuable, and should be secured, because they seldom
return.--BACON.
Every pure thought is a glimpse of God.--C.A. BARTOL.
Speech is external thought, and thought internal speech.--RIVAROL.
Learning without thought is labor lost.--CONFUCIUS.
The three foundations of thought: Perspicuity, amplitude and justness.
The three ornaments of thought: Clearness, correctness and novelty.
--CATHERALL.
As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.--PROVERBS 23:7.
TIME.--Time is like money; the less we have of it to spare, the
further we make it go.--H.W. SHAW.
Youth is not rich in time, it may be poor;
Part with it as with money, sparing; pay
No moment but in purchase of its worth;
And what it's worth, ask death-beds; they can tell.
--YOUNG.
Redeem the misspent time that's past,
And live this day as 'twere thy last.
--KEN.
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.--COLTON.
The time which passes over our heads so imperceptibly makes the same
gradual change in habits, manners and character, as in personal
appearance. At the revolution of every five years we find ourselves
another and yet the same;--there is a change of views, and no less of
the light in which we regard them; a change of motives as well as of
action.--WALTER SCOTT.
Let me therefore live as if every moment were to be my last.--SENECA.
The great rule of moral conduct is, next to God, to respect time.
--LAVATER.
Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden
hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for
they are gone forever!--HORACE MANN.
As every thread of gold is valuable, so is every minute of time.--MASON.
No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who
never loses any.--THOMAS JEFFERSON.
Make use of time, if thou valuest eternity. Yesterday cannot be
recalled; to-morrow cannot be assured; to-day only is thine, which, if
thou procrastinatest, thou losest; which loss is lost forever.--JEREMY
TAYLOR.
He is a good time-server that improves the present for God's glory and
his own salvation.--THOMAS FULLER.
Our lives are either spent in doing nothing at all, or in doing
nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We
are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though
there would be no end to them.--SENECA.
Time is given us that we may take care for eternity; and eternity will
not be too long to regret the loss of our time if we have misspent
it.--FÉNELON.
Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.--HAWTHORNE.
Dost thou love life, then do not squander time, for that is the stuff
life is made of.--FRANKLIN.
TOLERATION.--Let us be very gentle with our neighbors' failings, and
forgive our friends their debts as we hope ourselves to be forgiven.
--THACKERAY.
There is nothing to do with men but to love them; to contemplate their
virtues with admiration, their faults with pity and forbearance, and
their injuries with forgiveness.--DEWEY.
Tolerance is the only real test of civilization.--ARTHUR HELPS.
It requires far more of constraining love of Christ to love our
cousins and neighbors as members of the heavenly family than to feel
the heart warm to our suffering brethren in Tuscany and Madeira.
--ELIZABETH CHARLES.
If thou canst not make thyself such an one as thou wouldst, how canst
thou expect to have another in all things to thy liking?--THOMAS À
KEMPIS.
The religion that fosters intolerance needs another Christ to die for
it.--BEECHER.
Let us often think of our own infirmities, and we shall become
indulgent toward those of others.--FÉNELON.
Has not God borne with you these many years? Be ye tolerant to
others.--HOSEA BALLOU.
TRAVEL.--A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.--SAADI.
He who never leaves his country is full of prejudices.--CARLO GOLDONI.
Railway traveling is not traveling at all; it is merely being sent to
a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel.--RUSKIN.
To roam giddily, and be everywhere but at home, such freedom doth a
banishment become.--DONNE.
The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead
of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.--DR. JOHNSON.
He travels safest in the dark who travels lightest.--CORTES.
Usually speaking, the worst-bred person in company is a young traveler
just returned from abroad.--SWIFT.
TRUST.--I think we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.
--THOREAU.
Trust with a child-like dependence upon God, and you shall fear no
evil, for be assured that even "if the enemy comes in like a flood"
the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him. While at
that dread hour, when the world cannot help you, when all the powers
of nature are in vain, yea, when your heart and your flesh shall fail
you, you will be enabled still to rely with peace upon Him who has
said "I will be the strength of thy heart and thy portion for ever."
--H. BLUNT.
To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.--GEORGE
MACDONALD.
Whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he.--PROVERBS 16:20.
TRUTH.--There is no right faith in believing what is true, unless we
believe it because it is true.--WHATELY.
Truth crushed to earth shall rise again;
The eternal years of God are hers;
But error, wounded, writhes with pain,
And dies among his worshipers.
--BRYANT.
Truth is simple, requiring neither study nor art.--AMMIAN.
And all the people then shouted, and said, Great is truth, and mighty
above all things.--ESDRAS.
I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to
have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting
myself in now and then finding a smooth pebble, or a prettier shell
than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered
before me.--NEWTON.
For truth has such a face and such a mien,
As to be lov'd needs only to be seen.
--DRYDEN.
Without courage there cannot be truth, and without truth there can be
no other virtue.--WALTER SCOTT.
Truth is violated by falsehood, and it may be equally outraged by
silence.--AMMIAN.
Truth is always consistent with itself, and needs nothing to help it
out. It is always near at hand, and sits upon our lips, and is ready
to drop out before we are aware; whereas a lie is troublesome, and
sets a man's invention upon the rack; and one trick needs a great many
more to make it good.--TILLOTSON.
You need not tell all the truth, unless to those who have a right to
know it; but let all you tell be truth.--HORACE MANN.
No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of
truth.--BACON.
Nothing from man's hands, nor law, nor constitution, can be final.
Truth alone is final.--CHARLES SUMNER.
The greatest friend of truth is time; her greatest enemy is prejudice;
and her constant companion is humility.--COLTON.
I have seldom known any one who deserted truth in trifles that could
be trusted in matters of importance.--PALEY.
Bodies are cleansed by water; the mind is purified by truth.--HORACE
MANN.
Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication,
a duty.--MME. DE STAEL.
Truth is one;
And, in all lands beneath the sun,
Whoso hath eyes to see may see
The tokens of its unity.
--WHITTIER.
Truth is the shortest and nearest way to our end, carrying us thither
in a straight line.--TILLOTSON.
The expression of truth is simplicity.--SENECA.
What we have in us of the image of God is the love of truth and
justice.--DEMOSTHENES.
Truth should be the first lesson of the child and the last aspiration
of manhood; for it has been well said that the inquiry of truth, which
is the love-making of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the
presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it,
is the sovereign good of human nature.--WHITTIER.
The firmest and noblest ground on which people can live is truth; the
real with the real; a ground on which nothing is assumed, but where
they speak and think and do what they must, because they are so and
not otherwise.--EMERSON.
UNHAPPINESS.--The most unhappy of all men is he who believes himself
to be so.--HENRY HOME.
A perverse temper and fretful disposition will, wherever they prevail
render any state of life whatsoever unhappy.--CICERO.
What do people mean when they talk about unhappiness? It is not so
much unhappiness as impatience that from time to time possesses men,
and then they choose to call themselves miserable.--GOETHE.
VANITY.--All men are selfish, but the vain man is in love with
himself. He admires, like the lover his adored one, everything which
to others is indifferent.--AUERBACH.
There is no limit to the vanity of this world. Each spoke in the wheel
thinks the whole strength of the wheel depends upon it.--H.W. SHAW.
Every man has just as much vanity as he wants understanding.--POPE.
Vanity is the natural weakness of an ambitious man, which exposes him
to the secret scorn and derision of those he converses with, and ruins
the character he is so industrious to advance by it.--ADDISON.
An egotist will always speak of himself, either in praise or in
censure; but a modest man ever shuns making himself the subject of his
conversation.--LA BRUYÈRE.
Vanity is the foundation of the most ridiculous and contemptible
vices--the vices of affectation and common lying.--ADAM SMITH.
Vanity keeps persons in favor with themselves who are out of favor
with all others.--SHAKESPEARE.
There is no restraining men's tongues or pens when charged with a
little vanity.--WASHINGTON.
Vanity makes men ridiculous, pride odious and ambition terrible.--STEELE.
It is our own vanity that makes the vanity of others intolerable to
us.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
Vanity is a strange passion; rather than be out of a job it will brag
of its vices.--H.W. SHAW.
Extreme vanity sometimes hides under the garb of ultra modesty.
--MRS. JAMESON.
She neglects her heart who too closely studies her glass.--LAVATER.
Verily, every man at his best state is altogether vanity.--PSALM 39:5.
VICE.--Vice has more martyrs than virtue; and it often happens that
men suffer more to be lost than to be saved.--COLTON.
The vicious obey their passions, as slaves do their masters.--DIOGENES.
A few vices are sufficient to darken many virtues.--PLUTARCH.
Vice stings us, even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us, even in
our pains.--COLTON.
One sin another doth provoke.--SHAKESPEARE.
What maintains one vice would bring up two children.--FRANKLIN.
Vice and virtue chiefly imply the relation of our actions to men in
this world; sin and holiness rather imply their relation to God and
the other world.--DR. WATTS.
He that has energy enough in his constitution to root out a vice
should go a little farther, and try to plant in a virtue in its place,
otherwise he will have his labor to renew.--COLTON.
Vices that are familiar we pardon, and only new ones reprehend.
--PUBLIUS SYRUS.
This is the essential evil of vice: it debases a man.--CHAPIN.
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
--POPE.
Vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but
forbidden because they are hurtful.--FRANKLIN.
VIRTUE.--Virtue has many preachers, but few martyrs.--HELVETIUS.
Virtue alone is sweet society,
It keeps the key to all heroic hearts,
And opens you a welcome in them all.
--EMERSON.
The virtue of a man ought to be measured not by his extraordinary
exertions, but by his every-day conduct.--PASCAL.
Virtue consisteth of three parts,--temperance, fortitude, and
justice.--EPICURUS.
Virtue maketh men on the earth famous, in their graves illustrious, in
the heavens immortal.--CHILD.
When we pray for any virtue, we should cultivate the virtue as well as
pray for it; the form of your prayers should be the rule of your
life.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
To be ambitious of true honor, of the true glory and perfection of our
natures, is the very principle and incentive of virtue.--SIR P. SIDNEY.
Virtue is everywhere the same, because it comes from God, while
everything else is of men.--VOLTAIRE.
O let us still the secret joy partake,
To follow virtue even for virtue's sake.
--POPE.
Well may your heart believe the truths I tell;
'Tis virtue makes the bliss where'er we dwell.
--COLLINS.
The only impregnable citadel of virtue is religion; for there is no
bulwark of mere morality which some temptation may not overtop, or
undermine and destroy.--SIR P. SIDNEY.
Virtue is not to be considered in the light of mere innocence, or
abstaining from harm; but as the exertion of our faculties in doing
good.--BISHOP BUTLER.
What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy,
The soul's calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy,
Is virtue's prize.
--POPE.
Live virtuously, my lord, and you cannot die too soon, nor live too
long.--LADY RACHEL RUSSELL.
If you can be well without health, you can be happy without virtue.
--BURKE.
Recommend to your children virtue; that alone can make happy, not
gold.--BEETHOVEN.
I would be virtuous for my own sake, though nobody were to know it; as
I would be clean for my own sake, though nobody were to see me.
--SHAFTESBURY.
Know then this truth, enough for man to know,
Virtue alone is happiness below.
--POPE.
An effort made with ourselves for the good of others, with the
intention of pleasing God alone.--BERNARDIN DE ST. PIERRE.
Good sense, good health, good conscience, and good fame,--all these
belong to virtue, and all prove that virtue has a title to your
love.--COWPER.
Our virtues live upon our incomes; our vices consume our capital.
--J. PETIT-SENN.
Do not be troubled because you have not great virtues. God made a
million spears of grass where he made one tree. The earth is fringed
and carpeted, not with forests, but with grasses. Only have enough of
little virtues and common fidelities, and you need not mourn because
you are neither a hero nor a saint.--BEECHER.
WANT.--How few our real wants, and how vast our imaginary ones!--LAVATER.
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.--COLTON.
Where necessity ends, curiosity begins; and no sooner are we supplied
with everything that nature can command, than we sit down to contrive
artificial appetites.--DR. JOHNSON.
Hundreds would never have known want if they had not first known
waste.--SPURGEON.
Constantly choose rather to want less, than to have more.--THOMAS À
KEMPIS.
Every one is the poorer in proportion as he has more wants, and counts
not what he has, but wishes only what he has not.--MANILIUS.
If any one say that he has seen a just man in want of bread, I answer
that it was in some place where there was no other just man.
--ST. CLEMENT.
It is not from nature, but from education and habits, that our wants
are chiefly derived.--FIELDING.
WAR.--War will never yield but to the principles of universal justice
and love; and these have no sure root but in the religion of Jesus
Christ.--CHANNING.
Most of the debts of Europe represent condensed drops of blood.--BEECHER.
Battles are never the end of war; for the dead must be buried and the
cost of the conflict must be paid.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
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.--COLTON.
War is a crime which involves all other crimes.--BROUGHAM.
To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of
preserving peace.--WASHINGTON.
War is a terrible trade; but in the cause that is righteous sweet is
the smell of powder.--LONGFELLOW.
Although a soldier by profession, I have never felt any fondness for
war, and I have never advocated it except as a means of peace.
--U.S. GRANT.
I prefer the hardest terms of peace to the most just war.--C.J. FOX.
Take my word for it, if you had seen but one day of war, you would
pray to Almighty God that you might never see such a thing again.
--WELLINGTON.
War, even in the best state of an army, with all the alleviations of
courtesy and honor, with all the correctives of morality and religion,
is nevertheless so great an evil, that to engage in it without a clear
necessity is a crime of the blackest dye. When the necessity is clear,
it then becomes a crime to shrink from it.--SOUTHEY.
WASTE.--Waste cannot be accurately told, though we are sensible how
destructive it is. Economy, on the one hand, by which a certain income
is made to maintain a man genteelly; and waste, on the other, by which
on the same income another man lives shabbily, cannot be defined. It
is a very nice thing; as one man wears his coat out much sooner than
another, we cannot tell how.--DR. JOHNSON.
WEALTH.--Wealth, after all, is a relative thing, since he that has
little, and wants less, is richer than he that has much, but wants
more.--COLTON.
Riches are gotten with pain, kept with care, and lost with grief. The
cares of riches lie heavier upon a good man than the inconveniences of
an honest poverty.--L'ESTRANGE.
Seek not proud wealth; but such as thou mayest get justly, use
soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly.--BACON.
Conscience and wealth are not always neighbors.--MASSINGER.
He that will not permit his wealth to do any good to others while he
is living, prevents it from doing any good to himself when he is dead;
and by an egotism that is suicidal, and has a double edge, cuts
himself off from the truest pleasure here, and the highest happiness
hereafter.--COLTON.
It is far more easy to acquire a fortune like a knave than to expend
it like a gentleman.--COLTON.
The pulpit and the press have many commonplaces denouncing the thirst
for wealth, but if men should take these moralists at their word, and
leave off aiming to be rich, the moralists would rush to rekindle at
all hazards this love of power in the people, lest civilization should
be undone.--EMERSON.
Wealth is not acquired, as many persons suppose, by fortunate
speculations and splendid enterprises, but by the daily practice of
industry, frugality, and economy. He who relies upon these means will
rarely be found destitute, and he who relies upon any other will
generally become bankrupt.--WAYLAND.
There is a burden of care in getting riches, fear in keeping them,
temptation in using them, guilt in abusing them, sorrow in losing
them, and a burden of account at last to be given up concerning
them.--MATTHEW HENRY.
What does competency in the long run mean? It means, to all reasonable
beings, cleanliness of person, decency of dress, courtesy of manners,
opportunities for education, the delights of leisure, and the bliss of
giving.--WHIPPLE.
The way to wealth is as plain as the road to market. It depends
chiefly on two words,--industry and frugality.--FRANKLIN.
Wealth brings noble opportunities, and competence is a proper object
of pursuit; but wealth, and even competence, may be bought at too high
a price. Wealth itself has no moral attribute. It is not money, but
the love of money, which is the root of all evil. It is the relation
between wealth and the mind and the character of its possessor which
is the essential thing.--HILLARD.
Let us not envy some men their accumulated riches; their burden would
be too heavy for us; we could not sacrifice, as they do, health,
quiet, honor, and conscience, to obtain them: it is to pay so dear for
them, that the bargain is a loss.--LA BRUYÈRE.
It is only when the rich are sick, that they fully feel the impotence
of wealth.--COLTON.
To purchase Heaven has gold the power?
Can gold remove the mortal hour?
In life can love be bought with gold?
Are friendship's pleasures to be sold?
No--all that's worth a wish--a thought,
Fair virtue gives unbribed, unbought.
Cease then on trash thy hopes to bind,
Let nobler views engage thy mind.
--DR. JOHNSON.
WIFE.--The good wife is none of our dainty dames, who love to appear
in a variety of suits every day new; as if a good gown, like a
stratagem in war, were to be used but once. But our good wife sets up
a sail according to the keel of her husband's estate; and if of high
parentage, she doth not so remember what she was by birth, that she
forgets what she is by match.--FULLER.
All other goods by fortune's hand are given,
A wife is the peculiar gift of heaven.
--POPE.
A good wife is heaven's last, best gift to man,--his gem of many
virtues, his casket of jewels; her voice is sweet music, her smiles
his brightest day, her kiss the guardian of his innocence, her arms
the pale of his safety, her industry his surest wealth, her economy
his safest steward, her lips his faithful counselors, her bosom the
softest pillow of his care.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
She is not made to be the admiration of everybody, but the happiness
of one.--BURKE.
Nothing can be more touching than to behold a soft and tender female,
who had been all weakness and dependence, and alive to every trivial
roughness while treading the prosperous paths of life, suddenly rising
in mental force to be the comforter and supporter of her husband under
misfortune, and abiding with unshrinking firmness the bitterest blast
of adversity.--WASHINGTON IRVING.
Thy wife is a constellation of virtues, she's the moon, and thou art
the man in the moon.--CONGREVE.
For nothing lovelier can be found
In woman, than to study household good,
And good works in her husband to promote.
--MILTON.
What is there in the vale of life
Half so delightful as a wife;
When friendship, love and peace combine
To stamp the marriage-bond divine?
--COWPER.
O woman! thou knowest the hour when the goodman of the house will
return, when the heat and burden of the day are past; do not let him
at such time, when he is weary with toil and jaded with
discouragement, find upon his coming to his habitation that the foot
which should hasten to meet him is wandering at a distance, that the
soft hand which should wipe the sweat from his brow is knocking at the
door of other houses.--WASHINGTON IRVING.
WISDOM.--It is more easy to be wise for others than for ourselves.
--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
The clouds may drop down titles and estates, both may seek us; but
wisdom must be sought.--YOUNG.
True wisdom is to know what is best worth knowing, and to do what is
best worth doing.--HUMPHREYS.
Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth
understanding: for the merchandise of it is better than the
merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is
more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are
not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand; and
in her left hand riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay
hold upon her; and happy is every one that retaineth her.--PROV. 3:13-18.
The fool is willing to pay for anything but wisdom. No man buys that
of which he supposes himself to have an abundance already.--SIMMS.
Where the eye of pity weep,
And the sway of passion sleeps,
Where the lamp of faith is burning,
And the ray of hope returning,
Where the "still small voice" within
Whispers not of wrath or sin,
Resting with the righteous dead--
Beaming o'er the drooping head--
Comforting the lowly mind,
Wisdom dwelleth--seek and find.
The first point of wisdom is to discern that which is false; the
second, to know that which is true.--LACTANTIUS.
Seek wisdom where it may be found. Seek it in the knowledge of God,
the holy, the just and the merciful God, as revealed to us in the
gospel; of Him who is just, and yet the justifier of them that believe
in Jesus.--ARCHDEACON RAIKES.
Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop
Than when we soar.
--WORDSWORTH.
He who learns the rules of wisdom, without conforming to them in his
life, is like a man who labored in his fields, but did not sow.--SAADI.
Wisdom is to the mind what health is to the body.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
As whole caravans may light their lamps from one candle without
exhausting it, so myriads of tribes may gain wisdom from the great
Book without impoverishing it.--RABBI BEN-AZAI.
Wisdom is the only thing which can relieve us from the sway of the
passions and the fear of danger, and which can teach us to bear the
injuries of fortune itself with moderation, and which shows us all the
ways which lead to tranquillity and peace.--CICERO.
Wisdom consists not in seeing what is directly before us, but in
discerning those things which may come to pass.--TERENCE.
That man strangely mistakes the manner of spirit he is of who knows
not that peaceableness, and gentleness, and mercy, as well as purity,
are inseparable characteristics of the wisdom that is from above; and
that Christian charity ought never to be sacrificed even for the
promotion of evangelical truth.--BISHOP MANT.
So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto
wisdom.--PSALM 90:12.
WIT.--I fear nothing so much as a man who is witty all day long.
--MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ.
Witticisms never are agreeable, which are injurious to others.--FROM
THE LATIN.
Man could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his life by
tasteless food; but God has given us wit and flavor and brightness and
laughter and perfumes, to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage, and to
"charm his pained steps over the burning marle."--SYDNEY SMITH.
Wit, without wisdom, is salt without meat; and that is but a
comfortless dish to set a hungry man down to.--BISHOP HORNE.
Wit consists in assembling, and putting together with quickness, ideas
in which can be found resemblance and congruity, by which to make up
pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy.--LOCKE.
There is many a man hath more hair than wit.--SHAKESPEARE.
You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come;
Knock as you please, there's nobody at home.
--POPE.
Wit does not take the place of knowledge.--VAUVENARGUES.
To place wit before good sense is to place the superfluous before the
necessary.--M. DE MONTLOSIER.
WOMAN.--Honor to women! they twine and weave the roses of heaven into
the life of man; it is they that unite us in the fascinating bonds of
love; and, concealed in the modest veil of the graces, they cherish
carefully the external fire of delicate feeling with holy hands.
--SCHILLER.
The world was sad!--the garden was a wild!
And man, the hermit, sigh'd--till woman smiled.
--CAMPBELL.
A young man rarely gets a better vision of himself than that which is
reflected from a true woman's eyes; for God himself sits behind them.
--J.G. HOLLAND.
O, if the loving, closed heart of a good woman should open before a
man, how much controlled tenderness, how many veiled sacrifices and
dumb virtues, would he see reposing therein?--RICHTER.
Seek to be good, but aim not to be great;
A woman's noblest station is retreat;
Her fairest virtues fly from public sight;
Domestic worth,--that shuns too strong a light.
--LORD LYTTLETON.
Nature sent women into the world with this bridal dower of love, for
this reason, that they might be, what their destination is, mothers,
and love children, to whom sacrifices must ever be offered and from
whom none are to be obtained.--RICHTER.
A woman's whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her
world; it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her
avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on
adventure, she embarks her whole soul in the traffic of affection;
and, if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless, for it is a bankruptcy of
the heart.--WASHINGTON IRVING.
A woman impudent and mannish grown
Is not more loath'd than an effeminate man.
--SHAKESPEARE.
What's a table richly spread,
Without a woman at its head?
--T. WHARTON.
O woman! in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!
--WALTER SCOTT.
The modest virgin, the prudent wife, or the careful matron, are much
more serviceable in life, than petticoated philosophers, blustering
heroines, or virago queens. She who makes her husband and her children
happy, who reclaims the one from vice, and trains up the other to
virtue, is a much greater character than ladies described in romance,
whose whole occupation is to murder mankind with shafts from their
quiver or their eyes.--GOLDSMITH.
If the heart of a man is depress'd with cares,
The mist is dispell'd when a woman appears.
--GAY.
Women are a new race, recreated since the world received Christianity.
--BEECHER.
Not she with trait'rous kiss her Saviour stung,
Not she denied him with unholy tongue;
She, while apostles shrank, could danger brave,
Last at his cross, and earliest at his grave.
--E.S. BARRETT.
O loving woman, man's fulfillment, sweet,
Completing him not otherwise complete!
How void and useless the sad remnant left
Were he of her, his nobler part, bereft.
--ABRAHAM COLES.
As the vine which has long twined its graceful foliage about the oak,
and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is
rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing tendrils,
and bind up its shattered boughs; so it is beautifully ordered by
Providence, that woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of man
in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with
sudden calamity; winding herself into the rugged recesses of his
nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head, and binding up the
broken heart.--WASHINGTON IRVING.
Women in health are the hope of the nation. Men who exercise a
controlling influence--the master spirits--with a few exceptions, have
had country-born mothers. They transmit to their sons those traits of
character--moral, intellectual, and physical--which give stability to
institutions, and promote order, security, and justice.--DR. J.V.C.
SMITH.
Man has subdued the world, but woman has subdued man. Mind and muscle
have won his victories; love and loveliness have gained hers. No
monarch has been so great, no peasant so lowly, that he has not been
glad to lay his best at the feet of a woman.--GAIL HAMILTON.
American ladies are known abroad for two distinguishing traits
(besides, possibly, their beauty and self-reliance), and these are
their ill-health and their extravagant devotion to dress.--ABBA GOOLD
WOOLSON.
Where is the man who has the power and skill
To stem the torrent of a woman's will?
For if she will, she will, you may depend on't,
And if she won't, she won't, and there's an end on't.
I have often had occasion to remark the fortitude with which women
sustain the most overwhelming reverses of fortune. Those disasters
which break down the spirit of a man and prostrate him in the dust
seem to call forth all the energies of the softer sex, and give such
intrepidity and elevation to their character, that at times it
approaches to sublimity.--WASHINGTON IRVING.
To feel, to love, to suffer, to devote herself will always be the text
of the life of women.--BALZAC.
All a woman has to do in this world is contained within the duties of
a daughter, a sister, a wife and a mother.--STEELE.
I have always said it--nature meant to make woman its master-piece.
--LESSING.
The Christian religion alone contemplates the conjugal union in the
order of nature; it is the only religion which presents woman to man
as a companion; every other abandons her to him as a slave. To
religion alone do European women owe their liberty.--ST. PIERRE.
Nature has given women two painful but heavenly gifts, which
distinguish them, and often raise them above human nature,--compassion
and enthusiasm. By compassion, they devote themselves; by enthusiasm
they exalt themselves.--LAMARTINE.
The brain women never interest us like the heart women; white roses
please less than red.--HOLMES.
There is nothing by which I have, through life, more profited than by
the just observations, the good opinion, and the sincere and gentle
encouragement of amiable and sensible women.--ROMILLY.
WORDS.--A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up
anger.--PROVERBS 15:1.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below,
Words, without thoughts, never to Heaven go.
--SHAKESPEARE.
We should be as careful of our words as of our actions, and as far
from speaking ill as from doing ill.--CICERO.
Immodest words admit of no defence,
For want of decency is want of sense.
--EARL OF ROSCOMMON.
Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?--JOB 38:2.
It is with a word as with an arrow: the arrow once loosed does not
return to the bow; nor a word to the lips.--ABDEL-KADER.
Words are often seen hunting for an idea, but ideas are never seen
hunting for words.--H.W. SHAW.
I hate anything that occupies more space than it is worth. I hate to
see a load of bandboxes go along the street, and I hate to see a
parcel of big words without anything in them.--HAZLITT.
Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to
the bones.--PROVERBS 16:24.
Men who have much to say use the fewest words.--H.W. SHAW.
What you keep by you you may change and mend; but words once spoken
can never be recalled.--ROSCOMMON.
If you do not wish a man to do a thing, you had better get him to talk
about it; for the more men talk, the more likely they are to do
nothing else.--CARLYLE.
It would be well for us all, old and young, to remember that our words
and actions, ay, and our thoughts also, are set upon never-stopping
wheels, rolling on and on unto the pathway of eternity.--M.M. BREWSTER.
"Words, words, words!" says Hamlet, disparagingly. But God preserve us
from the destructive power of words! There are words which can
separate hearts sooner than sharp swords. There are words whose sting
can remain through a whole life!--MARY HOWITT.
A word spoken in due season, how good is it!--PROVERBS 15:22, 23.
WORK.--Get work. Be sure it is better than what you work to get.--MRS.
BROWNING.
No man is happier than he who loves and fulfills that particular work
for the world which falls to his share. Even though the full
understanding of his work, and of its ultimate value, may not be
present with him; if he but love it--always assuming that his
conscience approves--it brings an abounding satisfaction.--LEO W.
GRINDON.
Nothing is impossible to industry.--PERIANDER.
In work consists the true pride of life; grounded in active
employment, though early ardor may abate, it never degenerates into
indifference, and age lives in perennial youth. Life is a weariness
only to the idle, or where the soul is empty.--LEO W. GRINDON.
This we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he
eat.--II THESS. 3:10.
If you do not wish for His kingdom do not pray for it. But if you do
you must do more than pray for it, you must work for it.--RUSKIN.
No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him. There
is always work, and tools to work withal, for those who will; and
blessed are the horny hands of toil.--LOWELL.
I doubt if hard work, steadily and regularly carried on, ever yet hurt
anybody.--LORD STANLEY.
Women are certainly more happy in this than we men: their employments
occupy a smaller portion of their thoughts, and the earnest longing of
the heart, the beautiful inner life of the fancy, always commands the
greater part.--SCHLEIERMACHER.
On bravely through the sunshine and the showers!
Time hath his work to do, and we have ours.
--EMERSON.
We enjoy ourselves only in our work, our doing; and our best doing is
our best enjoyment.--JACOBI.
The modern majesty consists in work. What a man can do is his greatest
ornament, and he always consults his dignity by doing it.--CARLYLE.
Work, according to my feeling, is as much of a necessity to man as
eating and sleeping. Even those who do nothing which to a sensible man
can be called work, still imagine that they are doing something. The
world possesses not a man who is an idler in his own eyes.--WILHELM
VON HUMBOLDT.
It is not work that kills men; it is worry. Work is healthy; you could
hardly put more upon a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the
blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery, but the
friction.--BEECHER.
WORLD.--The world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by
description; one must travel through it one's self to be acquainted
with it. The scholar, who in the dust of his closet talks or writes of
the world, knows no more of it than that orator did of war, who
judiciously endeavored to instruct Hannibal in it.--CHESTERFIELD.
To know the world, not love her, is thy point;
She gives but little, nor that little long.
--YOUNG.
I am not at all uneasy that I came into, and have so far passed my
course in this world; because I have so lived in it that I have reason
to believe I have been of some use to it; and when the close comes, I
shall quit life as I would an inn, and not as a real home. For nature
appears to me to have ordained this station here for us, as a place of
sojournment, a transitory abode only, and not as a fixed settlement or
permanent habitation.--CICERO.
The world is a fine thing to save, but a wretch to worship.--GEORGE
MACDONALD.
The world is a bride superbly dressed; who weds her, for a dowry must
pay his soul.--HAFIZ.
O who would trust this world, or prize what's in it,
That gives and takes, and chops and changes, ev'ry minute?
--QUARLES.
This world is God's world, after all.--CHARLES KINGSLEY.
There is another and a better world.--KOTZEBUE.
God, we are told, looked upon the world after he had created it and
pronounced it good; but ascetic pietists, in their wisdom, cast their
eyes over it, and substantially pronounce it a dead failure, a
miserable production, a poor concern.--BOVEE.
The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.--LOCKE.
Take this as a most certain expedient to prevent many afflictions,
and to be delivered from them: meddle as little with the world, and
the honors, places and advantages of them, as thou canst. And
extricate thyself from them as much, and as quickly as possible.--FULLER.
There is no knowledge for which so great a price is paid as a
knowledge of the world; and no one ever became an adept in it except
at the expense of a hardened or wounded heart.--LADY BLESSINGTON.
A good man and a wise man may at times be angry with the world, at
times grieved for it; but be sure no man was ever discontented with
the world who did his duty in it.--SOUTHEY.
Thou must content thyself to see the world so imperfect as it is. Thou
wilt never have any quiet if thou vexest thyself, because thou canst
not bring mankind to that exact notion of things and rule of life
which thou hast formed in thy own mind.--FULLER.
I am glad to think I am not bound to make the world go right, but only
to discover and to do, with cheerful heart, the work that God
appoints.--JEAN INGELOW.
Everybody in this world wants watching, but nobody more than
ourselves.--H.W. SHAW.
O what a glory doth this world put on,
For him who with a fervent heart goes forth,
Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks
On duties well performed and days well spent.
--LONGFELLOW.
Trust not the world, for it never payeth that it promiseth.
--ST. AUGUSTINE.
WORSHIP.--The act of divine worship is the inestimable privilege of
man, the only created being who bows in humility and adoration.--HOSEA
BALLOU.
It is for the sake of man, not of God, that worship and prayers are
required; not that God may be rendered more glorious, but that man may
be made better,--that he may be confirmed in a proper sense of his
dependent state, and acquire those pious and virtuous dispositions in
which his highest improvement consists.--BLAIR.
Lord, let us to thy gates repair
To hear the gladdening sound,
That we may find salvation there,
While yet it may be found.
There let us joy and comfort reap;
There teach us how to pray,
For grace to choose, and strength to keep
The strait, the narrow way.
And so increase our love for Thee,
That all our future days
May one continued Sabbath be
Of gratitude and praise.
--OKE.
Remember that God will not be mocked; that it is the heart of the
worshiper which He regards. We are never safe till we love Him with
our whole heart whom we pretend to worship.--BISHOP HENSHAWE.
The best way of worshiping God is in allaying the distress of the
times and improving the condition of mankind.--ABULFAZZI.
YOUTH.--The strength of opening manhood is never so well employed as
in practicing subserviency to God's revealed will; it lends a grace
and a beauty to religion, and produces an abundant harvest.--BISHOP
MANT.
He who cares only for himself in youth will be a very niggard in
manhood, and a wretched miser in old age.--J. HAWES.
Unless a tree has borne blossoms in spring, you will vainly look for
fruit on it in autumn.--HARE.
Youth, enthusiasm, and tenderness are like the days of spring.
Instead of complaining, O my heart, of their brief duration, try to
enjoy them.--RÜCKERT.
Every period of life has its peculiar temptations and dangers. But
youth is the time when we are most likely to be ensnared. This,
pre-eminently, is the forming, fixing period, the spring season of
disposition and habit; and it is during this season, more than any
other, that the character assumes its permanent shape and color, and
the young are wont to take their course for time and for eternity.
--J. HAWES.
The best rules to form a young man are, to talk little, to hear much,
to reflect alone upon what has passed in company, to distrust one's
own opinions, and value others' that deserve it.--SIR W. TEMPLE.
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.--ECCLESIASTES 12:1.
What we sow in youth we reap in age; the seed of the thistle always
produces the thistle.--J.T. FIELDS.
I love the acquaintance of young people; because, in the first place,
I do not like to think myself growing old. In the next place, young
acquaintances must last longest, if they do last; and then, sir, young
men have more virtue than old men; they have more generous sentiments
in every respect.--DR. JOHNSON.
Girls we love for what they are; young men for what they promise to
be.--GOETHE.
Reckless youth makes rueful age.--FRANKLIN.
Oh! the joy
Of young ideas painted on the mind,
In the warm glowing colors fancy spreads
On objects not yet known, when all is new,
And all is lovely.
--HANNAH MORE.
In the lexicon of youth which fate reserves for a bright manhood,
there is no such word as fail.--LYTTON.
If the world does improve on the whole, yet youth must always begin
anew, and go through the stages of culture from the beginning.--GOETHE.
Young men think old men fools, and old men know young men to be
so.--DR. METCALF.
As I approve of a youth, that has something of the old man in him, so
I am no less pleased with an old man, that has something of the
youth.--CICERO.
Youth is not the era of wisdom; let us therefore have due
consideration.--RIVAROL.
ZEAL.--Motives by excess reverse their very nature and instead of
exciting, stun and stupefy the mind.--COLERIDGE.
Nothing has wrought more prejudice to religion, or brought more
disparagement upon truth, than boisterous and unseasonable zeal.--BARROW.
Through zeal knowledge is gotten, through lack of zeal knowledge is
lost; let a man who knows this double path of gain and loss thus place
himself that knowledge may grow.--BUDDHA.
Zealous men are ever displaying to you the strength of their belief,
while judicious men are showing you the grounds of it.--SHENSTONE.
He that does a base thing in zeal for his friend burns the golden
thread that ties their hearts together.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
Never let your zeal outrun your charity. The former is but human, the
latter is divine.--HOSEA BALLOU.
It is a coal from God's altar must kindle our fire; and without fire,
true fire, no acceptable sacrifice.--WILLIAM PENN.
Every deviation from the rules of charity and brotherly love, of
gentleness and forbearance, of meekness and patience, which our Lord
prescribes to his disciples, however it may appear to be founded on an
attachment to Him and zeal for His service, is in truth a departure
from the religion of Him, "the Son of Man," who "came not to destroy
men's lives, but to save them."--BISHOP MANT.
Violent zeal for truth has a hundred to one odds to be either
petulancy, ambition, or pride.--SWIFT.
Zeal without knowledge is like expedition to a man in the dark.--NEWTON.
Zeal, unless it be rightly guided, when it endeavors the most busily
to please God, forceth upon Him those unseasonable offices which
please Him not.--HOOKER.
We do that in our zeal our calmer moments would be afraid to answer.
--SCOTT.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes: The following have been changed from the
original book:
Publius Syrius (twice) changed to: Publius Syrus (for consistency).
A shining glass, that fadeth suddenly; changed to A shining gloss,
that fadeth suddenly; (typo).
Proverbs 11:24 changed to Proverbs 11:25 (correct verse).
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Many Thoughts of Many Minds, by Various
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