The Project Gutenberg eBook of Many Thoughts of Many Minds, by Louis Klopsch.

PUBLISHED BY
THE CHRISTIAN HERALD,
Louis Klopsch, Proprietor,
BIBLE HOUSE, NEW YORK.

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.

Topics Grouped by Alphabet

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.

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.[Pg 6]

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 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.

Active natures are rarely melancholy. Activity and melancholy are incompatible.—Bovee.

Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.—Lowell.

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.

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.[Pg 8]

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.

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.—Horace.

[Pg 9]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.

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.

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.

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.[Pg 10]

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.

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 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.

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.

[Pg 12]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 13]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.

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.

[Pg 14]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.

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.

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.

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.

Lamentation is the only musician that always, like a screech-owl, alights and sits on the roof of an angry man.—Plutarch.

[Pg 16]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.

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.

[Pg 17]Art must anchor in nature, or it is the sport of every breath of folly.—Hazlitt.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 20]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.

Though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold.—Shakespeare.

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.

[Pg 21]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.

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.

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.[Pg 22]

Avarice.—It is surely very narrow policy that supposes money to be the chief good.—Johnson.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 24]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 25]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.

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.

[Pg 27]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 29]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.

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.

[Pg 30]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.

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.

[Pg 31]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.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 32]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.

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.

[Pg 33]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 35]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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 37]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.

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.

[Pg 38]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.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 41]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 42]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.

[Pg 43]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.

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'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.

[Pg 44]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.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 45]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.

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.[Pg 46]

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.

[Pg 47]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.

[Pg 48]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 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.

[Pg 49]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.

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.

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.

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.[Pg 51]

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 52]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.

[Pg 53]There is one court whose "findings" are incontrovertible, and whose sessions are held in the chambers of our own breast.—Hosea Ballou.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 54]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.

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.

[Pg 55]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.

Unless we find repose within ourselves, it is vain to seek it elsewhere.—Hosea Ballou.

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.

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.

[Pg 56]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 57]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.

Courage.—The conscience of every man recognizes courage as the foundation of manliness, and manliness as the perfection of human character.—Thomas Hughes.

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.

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.

[Pg 59]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.

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.

[Pg 60]He deservedly loses his own property who covets that of another.—Phaedrus.

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.

[Pg 61]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.

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.

Cunning.—In a great business there is nothing so fatal as cunning management.—Junius.

[Pg 62]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 63]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.

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 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.

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.

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.

[Pg 66]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.

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.

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.

He that despairs measures Providence by his own little contracted model.—South.

[Pg 67]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.

Religion converts despair, which destroys, into resignation, which submits.—Lady Blessington.

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.

[Pg 68]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 is more necessary to women than eloquence, because they have less trouble to speak well than to speak little.—Father du Bosc.

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.

[Pg 70]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.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 72]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.

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.

[Pg 73]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 74]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.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 76]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.

If you know how to spend less than you get you have the philosopher's stone.—Franklin.

[Pg 77]Be saving, but not at the cost of all liberality. Have the soul of a king and the hand of a wise economist.—Joubert.

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.

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.

[Pg 78]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.

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.

[Pg 79]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.

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.

[Pg 80]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.

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.

[Pg 81]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 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.

[Pg 82]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.

We ought to be guarded against every appearance of envy, as a passion that always implies inferiority wherever it resides.—Pliny.

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.

[Pg 83]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.

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.

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.

"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.

To overcome evil with good is good, to resist evil with evil is evil.—Mohammed.

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.

As sure as God is good, so surely there is no such thing as necessary evil.—Southey.

[Pg 85]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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

[Pg 87]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.

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 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.

[Pg 88]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.

Extravagance.—He who is extravagant will quickly become poor; and poverty will enforce dependence, and invite corruption.—Dr. Johnson.

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.

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.

[Pg 89]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.

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.

[Pg 90]Though fame is smoke, its fumes are frankincense to human thoughts.—Byron.

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.

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.

Fashion.—Fashion's smile has given wit to dullness and grace to deformity, and has brought everything into vogue, by turns, except virtue.—Colton.

[Pg 91]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.

Change of fashions is the tax which industry imposes on the vanity of the rich.—Chamfort.

[Pg 92]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 93]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.

A man who flatters a woman hopes either to find her a fool or to make her one.—Richardson.

It is better to fall among crows than flatterers; for those devour the dead only, these the living.—Antisthenes.

Flattery is false money, which would not be current were it not for our vanity.—La Rochefoucauld.

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.

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.

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.

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others, and to forget his own.—Cicero.

[Pg 96]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 97]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.

[Pg 98]Fortune.—It is a madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because in herself she is nothing, but is ruled by prudence.—Dryden.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 100]The only freedom worth possessing is that which gives enlargement to a people's energy, intellect, and virtues.—Channing.

Friendship.—Friendship is the only thing in the world concerning the usefulness of which all mankind are agreed.—Cicero.

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.

[Pg 101]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.

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.

[Pg 102]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.

True friends visit us in prosperity only when invited, but in adversity they come without invitation.—Theophrastus.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 104]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.

The secret pleasure of a generous act is the great mind's great bribe.—Dryden.

[Pg 105]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.

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.

[Pg 106]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 is the gold in the mine, talent is the miner who works and brings it out.—Lady Blessington.

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.

[Pg 107]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.

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.

[Pg 109]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.

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.

[Pg 110]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.

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.

[Pg 111]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 113]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.

"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.

[Pg 114]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.

Gold is the fool's curtain, which hides all his defects from the world.—Feltham.

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.

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.

[Pg 115]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.

[Pg 116]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.

Grace.—Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections.—Dryden.

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.

[Pg 117]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 119]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 120]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.

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.

Great grief makes sacred those upon whom its hand is laid. Joy may elevate, ambition glorify, but sorrow alone can consecrate.—Horace Greeley.

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.

[Pg 121]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.

[Pg 122]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.

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.

[Pg 123]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.

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.

[Pg 124]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.

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.

[Pg 125]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.

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.

[Pg 126]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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The heart that has once been bathed in love's pure fountain retains the pulse of youth forever.—Landor.

[Pg 128]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.

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'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.

[Pg 129]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.

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.

[Pg 130]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.

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.

[Pg 131]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.

The first sure symptom of a mind in health is rest of heart, and pleasure felt at home.—Young.

[Pg 132]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.

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.

[Pg 133]Honesty.—To be honest as this world goes is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.—Shakespeare.

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 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.

[Pg 134]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 135]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 136]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.

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.

[Pg 137]"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.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 139]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.

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.

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.

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.

Time, with all its celerity, moves slowly on to him whose whole employment is to watch its flight.—Dr. Johnson.

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.

[Pg 141]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.

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.

[Pg 142]These two things, contradictory as they may seem, must go together,—manly dependence and manly independence, manly reliance and manly self-reliance.—Wordsworth.

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.

[Pg 143]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.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 145]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 146]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.

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.

[Pg 147]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.

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.

[Pg 148]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.

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.

[Pg 149]The jealous man's disease is of so malignant a nature that it converts all it takes into its own nourishment.—Addison.

Jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.—Song of Solomon 8:6.

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.

[Pg 150]Judgment.—How are we justly to determine in a world where there are no innocent ones to judge the guilty?—Madame de Genlis.

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.

Judge thyself with a judgment of sincerity, and thou wilt judge others with a judgment of charity.—Mason.

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.

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.

[Pg 152]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.

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.

[Pg 153]There is no beautifier of complexion or form or behavior like the wish to scatter joy, and not pain, around us.—Emerson.

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.

[Pg 154]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.

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 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.

[Pg 155]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.

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.

[Pg 156]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.

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.

Love labor; for if thou dost not want it for food, thou mayest for physic.—William Penn.

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.

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 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.

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.

[Pg 158]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 159]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 160]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.

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.

Life in itself is neither good nor evil, it is the scene of good or evil, as you make it.—Montaigne.

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.

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.—Charlotte Bronte.

He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best; and he whose heart beats the quickest lives the longest.—James Martineau.

Live virtuously, my lord, and you cannot die too soon, nor live too long.—Lady Rachel Russell.

[Pg 162]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 163]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.

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.

[Pg 164]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.

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 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 and 7.

Love's sweetest meanings are unspoken; the full heart knows no rhetoric of words.—Bovee.

[Pg 165]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.

Nothing more excites to everything noble and generous, than virtuous love.—Henry Home.

Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak. It serves for food and raiment.—Longfellow.

All these inconveniences are incidents to love: reproaches, jealousies, quarrels, reconcilements, war, and then peace.—Terence.

[Pg 166]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 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.

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.

[Pg 167]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.

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 makes bargains; no other animal does this,—one dog does not change a bone with another.—Adam Smith.

[Pg 168]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.

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.

[Pg 169]In the society of ladies, want of sense is not so unpardonable as want of manners.—Lavater.

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.

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.

[Pg 170]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.

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.

[Pg 171]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 172]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.

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.

7. Never find fault unless it is perfectly certain that a fault has been committed, and always speak lovingly.

[Pg 173]15. Never let any fault you have committed go by until you have frankly confessed it and asked forgiveness.

18. Never forget that marriage is ordained of God, and that His blessing alone can make it what it should ever be.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 174]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.

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.

[Pg 175]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.[Pg 176]

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 177]Underneath the wings of the seraphim are stretched the arms of the divine mercy, ever ready to receive sinners.—The Talmud.

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.

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.

[Pg 178]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.

A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things, but cannot receive great ones.—Chesterfield.

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.

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.

As the mind must govern the hands, so in every society the man of intelligence must direct the man of labor.—Dr. Johnson.

[Pg 179]As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without culture, so the mind without cultivation can never produce good fruit.—Seneca.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 181]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.

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.

[Pg 182]The mob have neither judgment nor principle,—ready to bawl at night for the reverse of what they desired in the morning.—Tacitus.

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.

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.

[Pg 183]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 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.

[Pg 184]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 185]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.

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.

[Pg 186]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.

[Pg 187]"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 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.

[Pg 188]"An ounce of mother," says the Spanish proverb, "is worth a pound of clergy."—T.W. Higginson.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 189]Music is the fourth great material want of our natures,—first food, then raiment, then shelter, then music.—Bovee.

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 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.

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.

[Pg 191]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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 194]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.

Obedience.—The virtue of paganism was strength; the virtue of Christianity is obedience.—Hare.

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.

[Pg 195]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.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 196]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.

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.

[Pg 197]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.

[Pg 198]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.

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.

[Pg 199]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.

[Pg 200]To make a young couple love each other, it is only necessary to oppose and separate them.—Goethe.

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.

Fretfulness of temper will generally characterize those who are negligent of order.—Blair.

Paradise.—Every man has a paradise around him till he sins, and the angel of an accusing conscience drives him from his Eden.—Longfellow.

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.

[Pg 201]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.

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.

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.

Men spend their lives in the service of their passions, instead of employing their passions in the service of their lives.—Steele.

[Pg 202]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 203]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 204]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.

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.[Pg 205]

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.

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.

[Pg 206]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.

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.

I love my country's good, with a respect more tender, more holy and profound, than my own life.—Shakespeare.

If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot.—John A. Dix.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 209]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.

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.

[Pg 210]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.

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 212]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.

[Pg 213]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.

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.

[Pg 214]The world is full of love and pity. Had there been less suffering, there would have been less kindness.—Thackeray.

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.

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.

[Pg 215]The seeds of repentance are sown in youth by pleasure, but the harvest is reaped in age by pain.—Colton.

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.[Pg 216]

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.

Poetry is the blossom and the fragrance of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emotions, language.—Coleridge.

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.

[Pg 217]Poesy is of so subtle a spirit, that in the pouring out of one language into another it will evaporate.—Denham.

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.

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.[Pg 218]

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.

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.[Pg 219]

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.

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.

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.[Pg 221]

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 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.

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.

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.[Pg 223]

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.

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.

What a person praises is perhaps a surer standard, even than what he condemns, of his own character, information and abilities.—Hare.

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.[Pg 224]

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.[Pg 225]

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.

If He prayed who was without sin, how much more it becometh a sinner to pray!—St. Cyprian.

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.[Pg 226]

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.

It is so natural for a man to pray that no theory can prevent him from doing it.—James Freeman Clarke.

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.[Pg 227]

Our prayer and God's mercy are like two buckets in a well; while the one ascends, the other descends.—Bishop Hopkins.

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.

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.[Pg 228]

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.

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.

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 and self-sufficiency naturally proceed from inexperience of the world and ignorance of mankind.—Addison.

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.[Pg 230]

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.

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.[Pg 231]

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.[Pg 232]

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.

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.

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.

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.[Pg 234]

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.

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.

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.[Pg 235]

By one delay after another they spin out their whole lives, till there's no more future left for them.—L'Estrange.

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.

An original sentence, a step forward, is worth more than all the centuries.—Emerson.[Pg 236]

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.[Pg 237]

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 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.

We must distinguish between felicity and prosperity; for prosperity leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment.—Landor.

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.

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.

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.[Pg 239]

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.

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.[Pg 240]

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.

I could never think well of a man's intellectual or moral character if he was habitually unfaithful to his appointments.—Emmons.

God be thanked that there are some in the world to whose hearts the barnacles will not cling.—J.G. Holland.

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.

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.[Pg 242]

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.

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.[Pg 244]

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.

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.[Pg 246]

Each year one vicious habit rooted out, in time might make the worst man good.—Franklin.

Whatever you dislike in another person take care to correct in yourself.—Sprat.

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.[Pg 247]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.[Pg 249]

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.

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.[Pg 251]

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.

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.

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.[Pg 252]

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.

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.

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.[Pg 253]

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.

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.

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.[Pg 254]

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.[Pg 255]

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.

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.

Retirement.—How much they err who, to their interest blind, slight the calm peace which from retirement flows!—Mrs. Tighe.

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.

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.[Pg 257]

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.

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.

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.

Scandal.—If there is any person to whom you feel dislike, that is the person of whom you ought never to speak.—Cecil.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 worst education which teaches self-denial is better than the best which teaches everything else, and not that.—John Sterling.[Pg 260]

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 is the safest course for any man to adopt who distrusts himself.—La Rochefoucauld.

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.

Sin.—Suffer anything from man, rather than sin against God.—Sir Henry Vane.[Pg 261]

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.

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.

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.[Pg 262]

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.

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.[Pg 263]

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.

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.

God gives sleep to the bad, in order that the good may be undisturbed.—Saadi.[Pg 264]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.[Pg 266]

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.

If fortune wishes to make a man estimable, she gives him virtues; if she wishes to make him esteemed, she gives him success.—Joubert.

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.

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.[Pg 267]

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.

Superstition always inspires littleness, religion grandeur of mind; the superstitious raises beings inferior to himself to deities.—Lavater.[Pg 268]

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.

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.

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.

Talking.—Though we have two eyes, we are supplied with but one tongue. Draw your own moral.—Alphonse Karr.

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.

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.

He who indulges in liberty of speech, will hear things in return which he will not like.—Terence.[Pg 270]

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.

Shame on those breasts of stone that cannot melt in soft adoption of another's sorrow.—Aaron Hill.

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.[Pg 271]

Temper.—The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune.—La Rochefoucauld.

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.

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.

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.[Pg 273]

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.

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.

God is better served in resisting a temptation to evil than in many formal prayers.—William Penn.

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.[Pg 274]

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.

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.

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.[Pg 275]

The three foundations of thought: Perspicuity, amplitude and justness. The three ornaments of thought: Clearness, correctness and novelty.—Catherall.

Time.—Time is like money; the less we have of it to spare, the further we make it go.—H.W. Shaw.

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.[Pg 276]

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.

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.

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.[Pg 277]

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.

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.

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.

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.

Truth.—There is no right faith in believing what is true, unless we believe it because it is true.—Whately.

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.[Pg 279]

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.

Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication, a duty.—Mme. de Stael.

Truth is the shortest and nearest way to our end, carrying us thither in a straight line.—Tillotson.

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.

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.

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.

Vice.—Vice has more martyrs than virtue; and it often happens that men suffer more to be lost than to be saved.—Colton.

Vice stings us, even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us, even in our pains.—Colton.

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.

Vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful.—Franklin.

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.[Pg 283]

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.

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.

Live virtuously, my lord, and you cannot die too soon, nor live too long.—Lady Rachel Russell.

Recommend to your children virtue; that alone can make happy, not gold.—Beethoven.[Pg 284]

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.

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.

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.[Pg 285]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.[Pg 287]

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.[Pg 288]

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.

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.

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.[Pg 289]

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.

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.[Pg 290]

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.

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.

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.[Pg 291]

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.[Pg 292]

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.

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.

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.

[Pg 293] 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.

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.

[Pg 294] Women are a new race, recreated since the world received Christianity.—Beecher.

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.

[Pg 295] 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.

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.

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.

[Pg 296] 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.

We should be as careful of our words as of our actions, and as far from speaking ill as from doing ill.—Cicero.

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.

[Pg 297]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.

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.

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.

[Pg 298]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.

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.

[Pg 299]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.

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 bride superbly dressed; who weds her, for a dowry must pay his soul.—Hafiz.

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.

[Pg 300]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.

Worship.—The act of divine worship is the inestimable privilege of man, the only created being who bows in humility and adoration.—Hosea Ballou.

[Pg 301]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.

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.

[Pg 302]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.

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.

[Pg 303]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.

[Pg 304]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, 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.

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