MANY THOUGHTS OF
MANY MINDS

A Treasury of Quotations from the
Literature of Every Land
and Every Age.

COMPILED BY

LOUIS KLOPSCH

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

Copyright, 1896,
By Louis Klopsch.

PREFACE.

In the limited compass of this small volume, the compiler has endeavored to employ only such material as is likely to prove of service to the largest circle of readers. Nearly four hundred subjects have received consideration at his hands, and the quotations given are from standard authors of recognized ability. Upwards of twenty-five hundred extracts from the choicest literature of all ages and tongues, topically arranged, and in scope so wide as to touch on nearly every subject that engages the human mind, constitute a treasury of thought which, it is hoped, will be acceptable and helpful to all into whose hands this volume may chance to fall.

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.

Ability is a poor man's wealth.—Matthew Wren.

The measure of capacity is the measure of sphere to either man or woman.—Elizabeth Oakes Smith.

Natural ability can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation; but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural ability.—Schopenhauer.

An able man shows his spirit by gentle words and resolute actions.—Chesterfield.

Absolution.—No man taketh away sins (which the law, though holy, just and good, could not take away), but He in whom there is no sin.—Bede.

He alone can remit sins who is appointed our Master by the Father of all; He only is able to discern obedience from disobedience.—St. Clement of Alexandria.

It is not the ambassador, it is not the messenger, but the Lord Himself that saveth His people. The Lord remaineth alone, for no man can be partner with God in forgiving sins; this office belongs solely to Christ, who taketh away the sins of the world.—St. Ambrose.

It appertaineth to the true God alone to be able to loose men from their sins.—St. Cyril.

Neither angel, nor archangel, nor yet even the Lord Himself (who alone can say "I am with you"), can, when we have sinned, release us, unless we bring repentance with us.—St. Ambrose.

Action.—The thing done avails, and not what is said about it.—Emerson.

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.—Beaconsfield.

There are three sorts of actions: those that are good, those that are bad, and those that are doubtful; and we ought to be most cautious of those that are doubtful; for we are in most danger of these doubtful actions, because they do not alarm us; and yet they insensibly lead to greater transgressions, just as the shades of twilight gradually reconcile us to darkness.—A. Reed.

To the valiant actions speak alone.—Smollett.

It is well to think well: it is divine to act well.—Horace Mann.

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

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to-day.

* * * *

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, act, in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
—Longfellow.

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

Prodigious actions may as well be done
By weaver's issue, as by prince's son.
—Dryden.

It is not to taste sweet things, but to do noble and true things, and vindicate himself under God's heaven as a God-made man, that the poorest son of Adam dimly longs. Show him the way of doing that, the dullest day-drudge kindles into a hero.—Carlyle.

Deliberate with caution, but act with decision; and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness.—Colton.

When our souls shall leave this dwelling, the glory of one fair and virtuous action is above all the scutcheons on our tomb, or silken banners over us.—J. Shirley.

Our acts make or mar us,—we are the children of our own deeds.—Victor Hugo.

Man, being essentially active, must find in activity his joy, as well as his beauty and glory; and labor, like everything else that is good, is its own reward.—Whipple.

Adversity.—Times of great calamity and confusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm.—Colton.

In the day of prosperity we have many refuges to resort to; in the day of adversity only one.—Horatius Bonar.

Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortunes; but great minds rise above them.—Washington Irving.

A wretched soul, bruis'd with adversity,
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;
But were we burden'd with like weight of pain,
As much, or more, we should ourselves complain.
—Shakespeare.

Heaven is not always angry when he strikes,
But most chastises those whom most he likes.
—Pomfret.

The fire of my adversity has purged the mass of my acquaintance.—Bolingbroke.

On every thorn delightful wisdom grows;
In every rill a sweet instruction flows.
—Dr. Young.

When Providence, for secret ends,
Corroding cares, or sharp affliction, sends;
We must conclude it best it should be so,
And not desponding or impatient grow.
—Pomfret.

If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small.—Proverbs 24:10.

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

In this wild world the fondest and the best
Are the most tried, most troubled and distress'd.
—Crabbe.

The lessons of adversity are often the most benignant when they seem the most severe. The depression of vanity sometimes ennobles the feeling. The mind which does not wholly sink under misfortune rises above it more lofty than before, and is strengthened by affliction.—Chenevix.

There is healing in the bitter cup.—Southey.

Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favor.—Bacon.

In all cases of heart-ache, the application of another man's disappointment draws out the pain and allays the irritation.—Lytton.

Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.—Hebrews 12:6.

The brightest crowns that are worn in heaven have been tried and smelted and polished and glorified through the furnace of tribulation.—Chapin.

Genuine morality is preserved only in the school of adversity, and a state of continuous prosperity may easily prove a quicksand to virtue.—Schiller.

Affectation.—Affectation is the wisdom of fools, and the folly of many a comparatively wise man.

We are never rendered so ridiculous by qualities which we possess, as by those which we aim at, or affect to have.—From the French.

Affectation is a greater enemy to the face than the small-pox.—St. Evremond.

All affectation is the vain and ridiculous attempt of poverty to appear rich.—Lavater.

Affectation hides three times as many virtues as charity does sins.—Horace Mann.

Affection.—A loving heart is the truest wisdom.—Dickens.

Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.—Colossians 3:2.

Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are wholly restrained love will die at the roots.—Hawthorne.

A solitary blessing few can find,
Our joys with those we love are intertwined,
And he whose wakeful tenderness removes
The obstructing thorn that wounds the breast he loves,
Smooths not another's rugged path alone,
But scatters roses to adorn his own.

Affection is a garden, and without it there would not be a verdant spot on the surface of the globe.

Of all earthly music, that which reaches the farthest into heaven is the beating of a loving heart.—Beecher.

If there is anything that keeps the mind open to angel visits, and repels the ministry of ill, it is human love.—Willis.

Affliction.—God sometimes washes the eyes of his children with tears in order that they may read aright His providence and His commandments.—T.L. Cuyler.

The truest help we can render an afflicted man is not to take his burden from him, but to call out his best energy, that he may be able to bear the burden.—Phillips Brooks.

Every man deems that he has precisely the trials and temptations which are the hardest of all for him to bear; but they are so, because they are the very ones he needs.—Richter.

Affliction is but the shadow of God's wing.—George Macdonald.

Aromatic plants bestow
No spicy fragrance where they grow;
But crushed and trodden to the ground,
Diffuse their balmy sweets around.
—Goldsmith.

Affliction appears to be the guide to reflection; the teacher of humility; the parent of repentance; the nurse of faith; the strengthener of patience, and the promoter of charity.

Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.—Matthew Henry.

If you would not have affliction visit you twice, listen at once to what it teaches.—Burgh.

Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.—Job 5:7.

Affliction is the wholesome soul of virtue;
Where patience, honor, sweet humanity,
Calm fortitude, take root, and strongly flourish.
—Mallet and Thomson.

Affliction's sons are brothers in distress;
A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!
—Burns.

With the wind of tribulation God separates in the floor of the soul, the chaff from the corn.—Molinos.

No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.—Hebrews 12:11.

Age.—No wise man ever wished to be younger.—Swift.

I venerate old age; and I love not the man who can look without emotion upon the sunset of life, when the dusk of evening begins to gather over the watery eye, and the shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper upon the understanding.—Longfellow.

It is only necessary to grow old to become more indulgent. I see no fault committed that I have not committed myself.—Goethe.

That which is usually called dotage is not the weak point of all old men, but only of such as are distinguished by their levity.—Cicero.

We must not take the faults of our youth into our old age; for old age brings with it its own defects.—Goethe.

Learn to live well, or fairly make your will;
You've play'd, and lov'd, and ate, and drank your fill;
Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age
Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage.
—Pope.

If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should not grow old.—James A. Garfield.

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.—Victor Hugo.

Remember that some of the brightest drops in the chalice of life may still remain for us in old age. The last draught which a kind Providence gives us to drink, though near the bottom of the cup, may, as is said of the draught of the Roman of old, have at the very bottom, instead of dregs, most costly pearls.—W.A. Newman.

Begin to patch up thine old body for heaven.—Shakespeare.

Few people know how to be old.—La Rochefoucauld.

When men grow virtuous in their old age, they are merely making a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.—Swift.

The defects of the mind, like those of the countenance, increase with age.—La Rochefoucauld.

He who would pass the declining years of his life with honor and comfort, should when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young.—Addison.

Winter, which strips the leaves from around us, makes us see the distant regions they formerly concealed; so does old age rob us of our enjoyments, only to enlarge the prospect of eternity before us.—Richter.

The easiest thing for our friends to discover in us, and the hardest thing for us to discover in ourselves, is that we are growing old.—H.W. Shaw.

Ambition.—Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.—Longfellow.

He who ascends to mountain tops, shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind,
Must look down on the hate of those below.
—Southey.

They that stand high, have many blasts to shake them;
And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.
—Shakespeare.

The path of glory leads but to the grave.—Gray.

We should be careful to deserve a good reputation by doing well; and when that care is once taken, not to be over anxious about the success.—Rochester.

Say what we will, you may be sure that ambition is an error; its wear and tear of heart are never recompensed,—it steals away the freshness of life,—it deadens its vivid and social enjoyments,—it shuts our souls to our own youth,—and we are old ere we remember that we have made a fever and a labor of our raciest years.—Lytton.

I charge thee, fling away ambition:
By that sin fell the angels.
—Shakespeare.

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself, and a mean man by one which is lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other, ambition. Ambition is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.—Beecher.

It is not for man to rest in absolute contentment. He is born to hopes and aspirations, as the sparks fly upward, unless he has brutified his nature, and quenched the spirit of immortality, which is his portion.—Southey.

Ambition has but one reward for all:
A little power, a little transient fame,
A grave to rest in, and a fading name!
—William Winter.

All my ambition is, I own,
To profit and to please unknown;
Like streams supplied from springs below,
Which scatter blessings as they go.
—Dr. Cotton.

Angels.—If you woo the company of the angels in your waking hours, they will be sure to come to you in your sleep.—G.D. Prentice.

The accusing spirit, which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in; and the recording angel, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever.—Sterne.

There are two angels that attend unseen
Each one of us, and in great books record
Our good and evil deeds. He who writes down
The good ones, after every action closes
His volume, and ascends with it to God.
The other keeps his dreadful day-book open
Till sunset, that we may repent; which doing,
The record of the action fades away,
And leaves a line of white across the page.
Now if my act be good, as I believe it,
It cannot be recalled. It is already
Sealed up in heaven, as a good deed accomplished.
The rest is yours.
—Longfellow.

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.
—Milton.

Anger.—And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain.
—Coleridge.

Anger is implanted in us as a sort of sting, to make us gnash with our teeth against the devil, to make us vehement against him, not to set us in array against each other.

When anger rushes unrestrain'd to action,
Like a hot steed, it stumbles in its way.
—Savage.

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

He is a fool who cannot be angry; but he is a wise man who will not.—Seneca.

Men in rage strike those that wish them best.—Shakespeare.

Men often make up in wrath what they want in reason.—W.R. Alger.

Anger is the most impotent passion that accompanies the mind of man; it effects nothing it goes about; and hurts the man who is possessed by it more than any other against whom it is directed.—Clarendon.

When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.—Jefferson.

An angry man opens his mouth and shuts up his eyes.—Cato.

When a man is wrong and won't admit it, he always gets angry.—Haliburton.

Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.—Ephesians 4:26.

Anger begins with folly and ends with repentance.—Pythagoras.

Anger causes us often to condemn in one what we approve of in another.—Pasquier Quesnel.

Anxiety.—Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions than ruined by too confident a security.—Burke.

Can your solicitude alter the cause or unravel the intricacy of human events?—Blair.

Almost all men are over-anxious. No sooner do they enter the world than they lose that taste for natural and simple pleasures so remarkable in early life. Every hour do they ask themselves what progress they have made in the pursuit of wealth or honor; and on they go as their fathers went before them, till, weary and sick at heart, they look back with a sigh of regret to the golden time of their childhood.—Rogers.

Nothing in life is more remarkable than the unnecessary anxiety which we endure and generally occasion ourselves.—Beaconsfield.

Art.—The perfection of art is to conceal art.—Quintilian.

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

Beauty is at once the ultimate principle and the highest aim of art.—Goethe.

Art does not imitate, but interpret.—Mazzini.

Art is the gift of God, and must be used unto his glory.—Longfellow.

Associates.—Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.—1 Corinthians 15:20.

He who comes from the kitchen smells of its smoke; he who adheres to a sect has something of its cant; the college air pursues the student, and dry inhumanity him who herds with literary pedants.—Lavater.

He that walketh with wise men shall be wise.—Solomon.

If you always live with those who are lame, you will yourself learn to limp.—From the Latin.

If men wish to be held in esteem, they must associate with those only who are estimable.—La Bruyère.

Be very circumspect in the choice of thy company. In the society of thine equals thou shalt enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thy superiors thou shalt find more profit. To be the best in the company is the way to grow worse; the best means to grow better is to be the worst there.—Quarles.

A companion of fools shall be destroyed.—Proverbs 13:20.

Choose the company of your superiors whenever you can have it.—Lord Chesterfield.

I set it down as a maxim, that it is good for a man to live where he can meet his betters, intellectual and social.—Thackeray.

Keep good company, and you shall be of the number.—George Herbert.

It is best to be with those in time that we hope to be with in eternity.—Fuller.

Astronomy.—The contemplation of celestial things will make a man both speak and think more sublimely and magnificently when he descends to human affairs.—Cicero.

The sun rejoicing round the earth, announced
Daily the wisdom, power and love of God.
The moon awoke, and from her maiden face,
Shedding her cloudy locks, looked meekly forth,
And with her virgin stars walked in the heavens,—
Walked nightly there, conversing as she walked,
Of purity, and holiness, and God.
—Robert Pollok.

I love to rove amidst the starry height,
To leave the little scenes of Earth behind,
And let Imagination wing her flight
On eagle pinions swifter than the wind.
I love the planets in their course to trace;
To mark the comets speeding to the sun,
Then launch into immeasurable space,
Where, lost to human sight, remote they run.
I love to view the moon, when high she rides
Amidst the heav'ns, in borrowed lustre bright;
To fathom how she rules the subject tides,
And how she borrows from the sun her light.
O! these are wonders of th' Almighty hand,
Whose wisdom first the circling orbits planned.
—T. Rodd.

Atheism.—I should like to see a man sober in his habits, moderate, chaste, just in his dealings, assert that there is no God; he would speak at least without interested motives; but such a man is not to be found.—La Bruyère.

An Atheist-laugh's a poor exchange
For Deity offended!
—Burns.

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.—Psalm 14:1.

Kircher, the astronomer, having an acquaintance who denied the existence of a Supreme Being, took the following method to convince him of his error. Expecting him on a visit, he placed a handsome celestial globe in a part of the room where it could not escape the notice of his friend, who, on observing it, inquired whence it came, and who was the maker.

"It was not made by any person," said the astronomer.

"That is impossible," replied the sceptic; "you surely jest."

Kircher then took occasion to reason with his friend upon his own atheistical principles, explaining to him that he had adopted this plan with a design to show him the fallacy of his scepticism.

"You will not," said he, "admit that this small body originated in mere chance, and yet you contend that those heavenly bodies, to which it bears only a faint and diminutive resemblance, came into existence without author or design."

He pursued this chain of reasoning till his friend was totally confounded, and cordially acknowledged the absurdity of his notions.

By night an atheist half believes a God.—Young.

No one is so much alone in the world as a denier of God.—Richter.

When men live as if there were no God, it becomes expedient for them that there should be none; and then they endeavor to persuade themselves so.—Tillotson.

Atheism is the result of ignorance and pride, of strong sense and feeble reasons, of good eating and ill living.—Jeremy Collier.

Atheism can benefit no class of people,—neither the unfortunate, whom it bereaves of hope, nor the prosperous, whose joys it renders insipid.—Chateaubriand.

Authority.—Self-possession is the backbone of authority.—Haliburton.

Man, proud man!
Dressed in a little brief authority:
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd.
His glassy essence—like an angry ape
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep.
—Shakespeare.

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

Authors.—Choose an author as you choose a friend.—Earl of Roscommon.

The motives and purposes of authors are not always so pure and high, as, in the enthusiasm of youth, we sometimes imagine. To many the trumpet of fame is nothing but a tin horn to call them home, like laborers from the field, at dinner-time, and they think themselves lucky to get the dinner.—Longfellow.

It is a doubt whether mankind are most indebted to those who, like Bacon and Butler, dig the gold from the mine of literature, or to those who, like Paley, purify it, stamp it, fix its real value, and give it currency and utility.—Colton.

Twenty to one offend more in writing too much than too little.—Roger Ascham.

He who proposes to be an author should first be a student.—Dryden.

Nothing is so beneficial to a young author as the advice of a man whose judgment stands constitutionally at the freezing-point.—Douglas Jerrold.

No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly; and this self-deceit is yet stronger with respect to the offspring of the mind.—Cervantes.

There are three difficulties in authorship—to write anything worth the publishing, to find honest men to publish it, and to get sensible men to read it.—Colton.

An author! 'Tis a venerable name!
How few deserve it, and what numbers claim!
Unblest with sense above their peers refin'd,
Who shall stand up, dictators to mankind?
Nay, who dare shine, if not in virtue's cause?
That sole proprietor of just applause.
—Young.

Never write on a subject without having first read yourself full on it; and never read on a subject till you have thought yourself hungry on it.—Richter.

How many great ones may remember'd be,
Which in their days most famously did flourish,
Of whom no word we hear, nor sign now see,
But as things wip'd out with a sponge do perish,
Because the living cared not to cherish
No gentle wits, through pride or covetize,
Which might their names for ever memorize!
—Spenser.

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, and familiar things new.—Thackeray.

To write well is to think well, to feel well, and to render well; it is to possess at once intellect, soul and taste.—Buffon.

Young authors give their brains much exercise and little food.—Joubert.

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

Poverty is in want of much, but avarice of everything.—Publius Syrus.

There are two considerations which always imbitter the heart of an avaricious man—the one is a perpetual thirst after more riches, the other the prospect of leaving what he has already acquired.—Fielding.

O cursed lust of gold: when for thy sake
The fool throws up his interest in both worlds,
First starved in this, then damn'd in that to come.
—Blair.

Many have been ruined by their fortunes; many have escaped ruin by the want of fortune. To obtain it, the great have become little, and the little great.—Zimmermann.

Avarice is the vice of declining years.—George Bancroft.

Riches, like insects, when conceal'd they lie,
Wait but for wings, and in their season fly.
Who sees pale Mammon pine amidst his store,
Sees but a backward steward for the poor;
This year a reservoir, to keep and spare;
The next a fountain, spouting thro' his heir
In lavish streams to quench a country's thirst,
And men and dogs shall drink him till they burst.
—Pope.

The love of money is the root of all evil.—1 Timothy 6:10.

The avaricious man is like the barren, sandy ground of the desert, which sucks in all the rain and dews with greediness, but yields no fruitful herbs or plants for the benefit of others.—Zeno.

Avarice in old age, is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road, the nearer we approach to our journey's end?—Cicero.

Poverty wants some, luxury many, and avarice all things.—Cowley.

Bashfulness.—Modesty is the graceful, calm virtue of maturity; bashfulness the charm of vivacious youth.—Mary Wollstonecraft.

As those that pull down private houses adjoining to the temples of the gods, prop up such parts as are contiguous to them; so, in undermining bashfulness, due regard is to be had to adjacent modesty, good-nature and humanity.—Plutarch.

Bashfulness is an ornament to youth, but a reproach to old age.—Aristotle.

Women who are the least bashful are not unfrequently the most modest; and we are never more deceived than when we would infer any laxity of principle from that freedom of demeanor which often arises from a total ignorance of vice.—Colton.

Beauty.—It is beauty that begins to please, and tenderness that completes the charm.—Fontenelle.

Keats spoke for all time when he said, "A thing of beauty is a joy forever."—Thackeray.

Beauty is an outward gift which is seldom despised except by those to whom it has been refused.—Gibbon.

What is beauty? Not the show
Of shapely limbs and features. No.
These are but flowers
That have their dated hours
To breathe their momentary sweets, then go.
'Tis the stainless soul within
That outshines the fairest skin.
—Sir A. Hunt.

I pray Thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within.—Socrates.

Happily there exists more than one kind of beauty. There is the beauty of infancy, the beauty of youth, the beauty of maturity, and, believe me, ladies and gentlemen, the beauty of age.—G.A. Sala.

There is no beauty on earth which exceeds the natural loveliness of woman.—J. Petit-Senn.

There is a self-evident axiom, that she who is born a beauty is half married.—Ouida.

Beauty attracts us men, but if, like an armed magnet it is pointed with gold or silver beside, it attracts with tenfold power.—Richter.

If thou marry beauty, thou bindest thyself all thy life for that which, perchance, will neither last nor please thee one year.—Raleigh.

It is seldom that beautiful persons are otherwise of great virtue.—Bacon.

The most natural beauty in the world is honesty and moral truth.—Shaftesbury.

Every year of my life I grow more convinced that it is wisest and best to fix our attention on the beautiful and good and dwell as little as possible on the dark and the base.—Cecil.

A woman possessing nothing but outward advantages is like a flower without fragrance, a tree without fruit.—Regnier.

All orators are dumb, when beauty pleadeth.—Shakespeare.

Who has not experienced how, on near acquaintance, plainness becomes beautified, and beauty loses its charm, exactly according to the quality of the heart and mind? And from this cause am I of opinion that the want of outward beauty never disquiets a noble nature or will be regarded as a misfortune. It never can prevent people from being amiable and beloved in the highest degree.—Frederika Bremer.

Good nature will always supply the absence of beauty; but beauty cannot supply the absence of good nature.—Addison.

There should be, methinks, as little merit in loving a woman for her beauty as in loving a man for his prosperity; both being equally subject to change.—Pope.

Socrates called beauty a short-lived tyranny; Plato, a privilege of nature; Theophrastus, a silent cheat; Theocritus, a delightful prejudice; Carneades, a solitary kingdom; Domitian said, that nothing was more grateful; Aristotle affirmed that beauty was better than all the letters of recommendation in the world; Homer, that 'twas a glorious gift of nature, and Ovid, alluding to him, calls it a favor bestowed by the gods.—From the Italian.

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good,
A shining gloss, that fadeth suddenly;
A flower that dies, when first it 'gins to bud;
A brittle glass, that's broken presently;
A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour.
And as good lost is seld or never found,
As fading gloss no rubbing will refresh,
As flowers dead lie wither'd on the ground,
As broken glass no cement can redress,
So beauty blemish'd once, for ever's lost,
In spite of physic, painting, pain and cost.
—Shakespeare.

Give me a look, give me a face,
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free!
Such sweet neglect more taketh me,
Than all the adulteries of art;
That strike mine eyes, but not my heart.
—Ben Jonson.

Benevolence.—Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.—Beecher.

The disposition to give a cup of cold water to a disciple is a far nobler property than the finest intellect. Satan has a fine intellect but not the image of God.—Howells.

Animated by Christian motives and directed to Christian ends, it shall in no wise go unrewarded; here, by the testimony of an approving conscience; hereafter, by the benediction of our blessed Redeemer, and a brighter inheritance in His Father's house.—Bishop Mant.

God will excuse our prayers for ourselves whenever we are prevented from them by being occupied in such good works as to entitle us to the prayers of others.—Colton.

The lower a man descends in his love, the higher he lifts his life.—W.R. Alger.

There is nothing that requires so strict an economy as our benevolence. We should husband our means as the agriculturalist his fertilizer, which if he spread over too large a superficies produces no crop, if over too small a surface, exuberates in rankness and in weeds.—Colton.

The conqueror is regarded with awe, the wise man commands our esteem; but it is the benevolent man who wins our affections.—From the French.

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. As Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but he took an acorn out of his pocket and popped it in, so deal with your compliments through life. An acorn costs nothing; but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of timber.—Thackeray.

You will find people ready enough to do the Samaritan without the oil and twopence.—Sydney Smith.

Genuine benevolence is not stationary, but peripatetic. It goeth about doing good.—Nevins.

Benevolence is not in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth. It is a business with men as they are, and with human life as drawn by the rough hand of experience. It is a duty which you must perform at the call of principle; though there be no voice of eloquence to give splendor to your exertions, and no music of poetry to lead your willing footsteps through the bowers of enchantment. It is not the impulse of high and ecstatic emotion. It is an exertion of principle. You must go to the poor man's cottage, though no verdure flourish around it, and no rivulet be nigh to delight you by the gentleness of its murmurs. If you look for the romantic simplicity of fiction you will be disappointed; but it is your duty to persevere, in spite of every discouragement. Benevolence is not merely a feeling but a principle; not a dream of rapture for the fancy to indulge in, but a business for the hand to execute.—Chalmers.

The only way to be loved, is to be and to appear lovely; to possess and display kindness, benevolence, tenderness; to be free from selfishness and to be alive to the welfare of others.—Jay.

Beneficence is a duty. He who frequently practices it, and sees his benevolent intentions realized, at length comes really to love him to whom he has done good. When, therefore, it is said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," it is not meant, thou shalt love him first and do him good in consequence of that love, but, thou shalt do good to thy neighbor; and this thy beneficence will engender in thee that love to mankind which is the fulness and consummation of the inclination to do good.—Kant.

The lessons of prudence have charms,
And slighted, may lead to distress;
But the man whom benevolence warms
Is an angel who lives but to bless.
—Bloomfield.

Every virtue carries with it its own reward, but none in so distinguished and pre-eminent a degree as benevolence.

Bible.—The Bible begins gloriously with Paradise, the symbol of youth, and ends with the everlasting kingdom, with the holy city. The history of every man should be a Bible.—Novalis.

The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying.—Flavel.

Within that awful volume lies
The mystery of mysteries!
Happiest they of human race,
To whom God has granted grace
To read, to fear, to hope, to pray,
To lift the latch and force the way;
And better had they ne'er been born,
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.
—Scott.

Like the needle to the North Pole, the Bible points to heaven.—R.B. Nichol.

There are two books laid before us to study, to prevent our falling into error: first, the volume of the Scriptures, which reveal the will of God; then the volume of the Creatures, which express His power.—Bacon.

Men cannot be well educated without the Bible. It ought, therefore, to hold the chief place in every situation of learning throughout Christendom; and I do not know of a higher service that could be rendered to this republic than the bringing about this desirable result.—Dr. Nutt.

What is the Bible in your house? It is not the Old Testament, it is not the New Testament, it is not the gospel according to Matthew, or Mark, or Luke, or John; it is the Gospel according to William, it is the Gospel according to Mary, it is the Gospel according to Henry and James, it is the Gospel according to your name. You write your own Bible.—Beecher.

A single book has saved me; but that book is not of human origin. Long had I despised it; long had I deemed it a class-book for the credulous and ignorant; until, having investigated the Gospel of Christ, with an ardent desire to ascertain its truth or falsity, its pages proffered to my inquiries the simplest knowledge of man and nature, and the simplest, and at the same time the most exalted system of moral ethics. Faith, hope and charity were enkindled in my bosom; and every advancing step strengthened me in the conviction that the morals of this book are as infinitely superior to human morals as its oracles are superior to human opinions.—M.L. Bautin.

Whence but from Heaven, could men unskill'd in arts,
In several ages born, in several parts,
Weave such agreeing truths? or how, or why
Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie?
—Dryden.

Good, the more communicated, more abundant grows.—Milton.

I will answer for it, the longer you read the Bible, the more you will like it; it will grow sweeter and sweeter; and the more you get into the spirit of it, the more you will get into the spirit of Christ.—Romaine.

It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter: it is all pure, all sincere, nothing too much, nothing wanting.—Locke.

A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district—all studied and appreciated as they merit—are the principal support of virtue, morality and civil liberty.—Franklin.

Here there is milk for babes, whilst there is manna for angels; truth level with the mind of a peasant; truth soaring beyond the reach of a seraph.—Rev. Hugh Stowell.

It is belief in the Bible, the fruits of deep meditation, which has served me as the guide of my moral and literary life. I have found capital safely invested and richly productive of interest, although I have sometimes made but a bad use of it.—Goethe.

Bigotry.—All looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.—Pope.

Bigotry dwarfs the soul by shutting out the truth.—Chapin.

A man must be excessively stupid, as well as uncharitable, who believes there is no virtue but on his own side.—Addison.

Show me the man who would go to heaven alone if he could, and in that man I will show you one who will never be admitted into heaven.—Feltham.

Biography.—The great lesson of biography is to show what man can be and do at his best. A noble life put fairly on record acts like an inspiration to others.—Samuel Smiles.

Biography, especially the biography of the great and good, who have risen by their own exertions from poverty and obscurity to eminence and usefulness, is an inspiring and ennobling study. Its direct tendency is to reproduce the excellence it records.—Horace Mann.

To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days.—Plutarch.

Boasting.—Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed; nature never pretends.—Lavater.

Where boasting ends, there dignity begins.—Young.

A gentleman that loves to hear himself talk will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month.—Shakespeare.

Men of real merit, and whose noble and glorious deeds we are ready to acknowledge, are yet not to be endured when they vaunt their own actions.—Æschines.

The less people speak of their greatness the more we think of it.—Bacon.

Conceit, more rich in matter than in words,
Brags of his substance, not of ornament:
They are but beggars that can count their worth.
—Shakespeare.

Books.—When friends grow cold, and the converse of intimates languishes into vapid civility and commonplace, books only continue the unaltered countenance of happier days, and cheer us with that true friendship which never deceived hope nor deserted sorrow.—Washington Irving.

No book can be so good as to be profitable when negligently read.—Seneca.

He who loves not books before he comes to thirty years of age, will hardly love them enough afterward to understand them.—Clarendon.

I like books. I was born and bred among them, and have the easy feeling, when I get in their presence, that a stable-boy has among horses.—O.W. Holmes.

Many readers judge of the power of a book by the shock it gives their feelings—as some savage tribes determine the power of muskets by their recoil; that being considered best which fairly prostrates the purchaser.—Longfellow.

Nothing can supply the place of books. They are cheering or soothing companions in solitude, illness, affliction. The wealth of both continents would not compensate for the good they impart.—Channing.

We should have a glorious conflagration if all who cannot put fire into their works would only consent to put their works into the fire.—Colton.

Books, dear books,
Have been, and are my comforts; morn and night,
Adversity, prosperity, at home,
Abroad, health, sickness—good or ill report,
The same firm friends; the same refreshment rich,
And source of consolation.
—Dr. Dodd.

When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and courageous feelings, seek for no other rule to judge the work by; it is good, and made by a good workman.—La Bruyère.

Books are a guide in youth, and an entertainment for age. They support us under solitude, and keep us from becoming a burden to ourselves. They help us to forget the crossness of men and things, compose our cares and our passions, and lay our disappointments asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride or design in their conversation.—Jeremy Collier.

He that studies books alone, will know how things ought to be; and he that studies men will know how things are.—Colton.

It is with books as with men: a very small number play a great part; the rest are confounded with the multitude.—Voltaire.

Good books are to the young mind what the warming sun and the refreshing rain of spring are to the seeds which have lain dormant in the frosts of winter. They are more, for they may save from that which is worse than death, as well as bless with that which is better than life.—Horace Mann.

The books which help you most are those which make you think the most. The hardest way of learning is by easy reading: but a great book that comes from a great thinker—it is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and with beauty.—Theodore Parker.

Books, like friends, should be few, and well chosen.

Thou mayst as well expect to grow stronger by always eating as wiser by always reading. Too much overcharges nature, and turns more into disease than nourishment. 'Tis thought and digestion which makes books serviceable, and gives health and vigor to the mind.—Fuller.

Brevity.—Brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes.—Shakespeare.

Brevity in writing is what charity is to all other virtues—righteousness is nothing without the one, nor authorship without the other.—Sydney Smith.

If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams—the more they are condensed the deeper they burn.—Southey.

The more an idea is developed the more concise becomes its expression; the more a tree is pruned, the better is the fruit.—Alfred Bougeant.

The more you say the less people remember. The fewer the words, the greater the profit.—Fénelon.

With vivid words your just conceptions grace,
Much truth compressing in a narrow space;
Then many shall peruse, but few complain,
And envy frown, and critics snarl in vain.
—Pindar.

Brevity is the child of silence, and is a credit to its parentage.—H.W. Shaw.

A verse may find him whom a sermon flies.—George Herbert.

When a man has no design but to speak plain truth, he may say a great deal in a very narrow compass.—Steele.

Business.—That which is everybody's business is nobody's business.—Izaak Walton.

Formerly when great fortunes were only made in war, war was a business; but now, when great fortunes are only made by business, business is war.—Bovee.

Call on a business man at business times only, and on business, transact your business and go about your business, in order to give him time to finish his business.—Duke of Wellington.

Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination.—Swift.

Rare almost as great poets, rarer, perhaps, than veritable saints and martyrs, are consummate men of business. A man, to be excellent in this way, requires a great knowledge of character, with that exquisite tact which feels unerringly the right moment when to act. A discreet rapidity must pervade all the movements of his thought and action. He must be singularly free from vanity, and is generally found to be an enthusiast who has the art to conceal his enthusiasm.—Helps.

It is very sad for a man to make himself servant to a thing, his manhood all taken out of him by the hydraulic pressure of excessive business. I should not like to be merely a great doctor, a great lawyer, a great minister, a great politician—I should like to be also something of a man.—Theodore Parker.

Not because of any extraordinary talents did he succeed, but because he had a capacity on a level for business and not above it.—Tacitus.

The great secret both of health and successful industry is the absolute yielding up of one's consciousness to the business and diversion of the hour—never permitting the one to infringe in the least degree upon the other.—Sismondi.

Few people do business well who do nothing else.—Chesterfield.

To men addicted to delights, business is an interruption; to such as are cold to delights, business is an entertainment. For which reason it was said to one who commended a dull man for his application, "No thanks to him; if he had no business, he would have nothing to do."—Steele.

Care.—To carry care to bed is to sleep with a pack on your back.—Haliburton.

Cast all your care on God: that anchor holds.—Tennyson.

Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt,
And every grin, so merry, draws one out.
—Dr. Wolcot.

He who climbs above the cares of this world, and turns his face to his God, has found the sunny side of life.—Spurgeon.

Caution.—It is a good thing to learn caution by the misfortunes of others.—Publius Syrus.

Vessels large may venture more,
But little boats should keep near shore.
—Benjamin Franklin.

Caution is the eldest child of wisdom.—Victor Hugo.

All is to be feared where all is to be lost.—Byron.

Censure.—Few persons have sufficient wisdom to prefer censure which is useful to them to praise which deceives them.—La Rochefoucauld.

To arrive at perfection, a man should have very sincere friends, or inveterate enemies; because he would be made sensible of his good or ill conduct either by the censures of the one or the admonitions of the others.—Diogenes.

Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.—Swift.

The villain's censure is extorted praise.—Pope.

Character.—How wonderfully beautiful is the delineation of the characters of the three patriarchs in Genesis! To be sure if ever man could, without impropriety, be called, or supposed to be, "the friend of God," Abraham was that man. We are not surprised that Abimelech and Ephron seem to reverence him so profoundly. He was peaceful, because of his conscious relation to God.—S.T. Coleridge.

The great hope of society is individual character.—Channing.

A man is known to his dog by the smell, to his tailor by the coat, to his friend by the smile; each of these know him, but how little or how much depends on the dignity of the intelligence. That which is truly and indeed characteristic of the man is known only to God.—Ruskin.

Never does a man portray his own character more vividly than in his manner of portraying another.—Richter.

There are beauties of character which, like the night-blooming cereus, are closed against the glare and turbulence of every-day life, and bloom only in shade and solitude, and beneath the quiet stars.—Tuckerman.

There are many persons of whom it may be said that they have no other possession in the world but their character, and yet they stand as firmly upon it as any crowned king.—Samuel Smiles.

The man that makes a character makes foes.—Young.

He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer
The worst that man can breathe;
And make his wrongs his outsides,
To wear them like his raiment, carelessly;
And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart,
To bring it into danger.
—Shakespeare.

Every man has three characters—that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.—Alphonse Karr.

The best rules to form a young man are to talk little, to hear much, to reflect alone upon what has passed in company, to distrust one's own opinions, and value others that deserve it.—Sir William Temple.

Brains and character rule the world. The most distinguished Frenchman of the last century said, "Men succeed less by their talents than their character." There were scores of men a hundred years ago who had more intellect than Washington. He outlives and overrides them all by the influence of his character.—Wendell Phillips.

All men are like in their lower natures; it is in their higher characters that they differ.—Bovee.

You may depend upon it that he is a good man whose intimate friends are all good.—Lavater.

Give me the character and I will forecast the event. Character, it has in substance been said, is "victory organized."—Bovee.

A good character is in all cases the fruit of personal exertion. It is not inherited from parents, it is not created by external advantages, it is no necessary appendage of birth, wealth, talents, or station; but it is the result of one's own endeavors.—Hawes.

Actions, looks, words, steps, form the alphabet by which you may spell characters.—Lavater.

Charity.—I have much more confidence in the charity which begins in the home and diverges into a large humanity, than in the world-wide philanthropy which begins at the outside of our horizon to converge into egotism.—Mrs. Jameson.

To complain that life has no joys while there is a single creature whom we can relieve by our bounty, assist by our counsels, or enliven by our presence, is to lament the loss of that which we possess, and is just as irrational as to die of thirst with the cup in our hands.—Fitzosborne.

But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.—Matthew 6:3.

The spirit of the world encloses four kinds of spirits, diametrically opposed to charity—the spirit of resentment, spirit of aversion, spirit of jealousy, and the spirit of indifference.—Bossuet.

Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness, when bequeathed by those who, when alive, would part with nothing.—Colton.

The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.
—Byron.

Be charitable and indulgent to every one but yourself.—Joubert.

Almost all the virtues that can be named are enwrapt in one virtue of charity and love:—for "it suffereth long," and so it is longanimity; it "is kind," and so it is courtesy; it "vaunteth not itself," and so it is modesty; it "is not puffed up," and so it is humility; it "is not easily provoked," and so it is lenity; it "thinketh no evil," and so it is simplicity; it "rejoiceth in the truth," and so it is verity; it "beareth all things," and so it is fortitude; it "believeth all things," and so it is faith; it "hopeth all things," and so it is confidence; it "endureth all things," and so it is patience; it "never faileth," and so it is perseverance.—Chillingworth.

As every lord giveth a certain livery to his servants, charity is the very livery of Christ. Our Saviour, who is the Lord above all lords, would have his servants known by their badge, which is love.—Latimer.

You must have a genius for charity as well as for anything else.—Thoreau.

Prayer carries us half way to God, fasting brings us to the door of his palace, and alms-giving procures us admission.—Koran.

Above all things have fervent charity among yourselves; for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.—1 Peter 4:8.

It is an old saying, that charity begins at home; but this is no reason it should not go abroad. A man should live with the world as a citizen of the world; he may have a preference for the particular quarter or square, or even alley, in which he lives, but he should have a generous feeling for the welfare of the whole.—Cumberland.

Alas for the rarity of Christian charity under the sun!—Hood.

You cannot separate charity and religion.—Colton.

Think not you are charitable if the love of Jesus and His brethren be not purely the motive of your gifts. Alas! you might not give your superfluities, but "bestow all your goods to feed the poor;" you might even "give your body to be burned" for them, and yet be utterly destitute of charity, if self-seeking, self-pleasing or self-ends guide you; and guide you they must, until the love of God be by the Holy Ghost shed abroad in your heart.—Haweis.

Whoever would entitle himself after death, through the merits of his Redeemer, to the noblest of rewards, let him serve God throughout life in this most excellent of all duties, doing good to our brethren. Whoever is sensible of his offences, let him take this way especially of evidencing his repentance.—Archbishop Secker.

I have learned from Jesus Christ himself what charity is, and how we ought to practise it; for He says, "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another." Never can I, therefore, please myself in the hope that I may obtain the name of a servant of Christ, if I possess not a true and unfeigned charity within me.—St. Basil.

There is a debt of mercy and pity, of charity and compassion, of relief and succor due to human nature, and payable from one man to another; and such as deny to pay it the distressed in the time of their abundance may justly expect it will be denied themselves in a time of want. "With what measure you mete it shall be measured to you again."—Burkitt.

We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.—Seneca.

As the purse is emptied the heart is filled.—Victor Hugo.

Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler, sister woman;
Though they may gang a kennin' wrang,
To step aside is human.
—Burns.

Cheerfulness.—Cheerfulness is full of significance: it suggests good health, a clear conscience, and a soul at peace with all human nature.—Charles Kingsley.

As in our lives so also in our studies, it is most becoming and most wise, so to temper gravity with cheerfulness, that the former may not imbue our minds with melancholy, nor the latter degenerate into licentiousness.—Pliny.

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.—Proverbs 17:22.

Be of good cheer.—John 16:33.

The mind that is cheerful in its present state, will be averse to all solicitude as to the future, and will meet the bitter occurrences of life with a placid smile.—Horace.

An ounce of cheerfulness is worth a pound of sadness to serve God with.—Fuller.

If good people would but make their goodness agreeable, and smile instead of frowning in their virtue, how many would they win to the good cause!—Archbishop Usher.

Between levity and cheerfulness there is a wide distinction; and the mind which is most open to levity is frequently a stranger to cheerfulness.—Blair.

You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheerful people. Why not make earnest effort to confer that pleasure on others? You will find half the battle is gained if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy.—Mrs. L.M. Child.

Inner sunshine warms not only the heart of the owner, but all who come in contact with it.—J.T. Fields.

The way to cheerfulness is to keep our bodies in exercise and our minds at ease.—Steele.

Let us be of good cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never happen.—Lowell.

A cheerful temper, joined with innocence, will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful and wit good-natured. It will lighten sickness, poverty and affliction, convert ignorance into an amiable simplicity, and render deformity itself agreeable.—Addison.

Children.—If I were to choose among all gifts and qualities that which, on the whole, makes life pleasantest, I should select the love of children. No circumstance can render this world wholly a solitude to one who has this possession.—T.W. Higginson.

I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us.—Dickens.

They are idols of hearts and of households;
They are angels of God in disguise;
His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses;
His glory still gleams in their eyes.
Oh those truants from home and from heaven,
They have made me more manly and mild,
And I know now how Jesus could liken
The kingdom of God to a child.
—Dickens.

The child is father of the man.
—Wordsworth.

The smallest children are nearest to God, as the smallest planets are nearest the sun.—Richter.

In trying to teach children a great deal in a short time, they are treated not as though the race they were to run was for life, but simply a three-mile heat.—Horace Mann.

Childhood shows the man
As morning shows the day.
—Milton.

Be very vigilant over thy child in the April of his understanding, lest the frost of May nip his blossoms. While he is a tender twig, straighten him; whilst he is a new vessel, season him; such as thou makest him, such commonly shalt thou find him. Let his first lesson be obedience, and his second shall be what thou wilt.—Quarles.

A child is an angel dependent on man.—Count de Maistre.

A child's eyes, those clear wells of undefiled thought—what on earth can be more beautiful? Full of hope, love and curiosity, they meet your own. In prayer, how earnest; in joy, how sparkling; in sympathy, how tender! The man who never tried the companionship of a little child has carelessly passed by one of the great pleasures of life, as one passes a rare flower without plucking it or knowing its value.—Mrs. Norton.

If a boy is not trained to endure and to bear trouble, he will grow up a girl; and a boy that is a girl has all a girl's weakness without any of her regal qualities. A woman made out of a woman is God's noblest work; a woman made out of a man is his meanest.—Beecher.

Children are the keys of Paradise.
* * * They alone are good and wise,
Because their thoughts, their very lives are prayer.
—Stoddard.

Blessed be the hand that prepares a pleasure for a child, for there is no saying when and where it may bloom forth.—Douglas Jerrold.

Many children, many cares; no children, no felicity.—Bovee.

If there is anything that will endure
The eye of God because it still is pure,
It is the spirit of a little child,
Fresh from His hand, and therefore undefiled.
Nearer the gate of Paradise than we,
Our children breathe its airs, its angels see;
And when they pray, God hears their simple prayer,
Yea, even sheathes His sword, in judgment bare.
—Stoddard.

Every child walks into existence through the golden gate of love.—Beecher.

Of all sights which can soften and humanize the heart of man, there is none that ought so surely to reach it as that of innocent children enjoying the happiness which is their proper and natural portion.—Southey.

Ah! what would the world be to us,
If the children were no more?
We should dread the desert behind us
Worse than the dark before.
—Longfellow.

Jesus was the first great teacher of men who showed a genuine sympathy for childhood. When He said, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven," it was a revelation.—Edward Eggleston.

Where children are there is the golden age.—Novalis.

Christ.—The best of men that ever wore earth about him was a sufferer, a soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit; the first true gentleman that ever breathed.—Decker.

All the glory and beauty of Christ are manifested within, and there He delights to dwell; His visits there are frequent, His condescension amazing, His conversation sweet, His comforts refreshing; and the peace that He brings passeth all understanding.—Thomas à Kempis.

From first to last Jesus is the same; always the same, majestic and simple, infinitely severe and infinitely gentle.—Napoleon I.

He, the Holiest among the mighty, and the Mightiest among the holy, has lifted with His pierced hands empires off their hinges, has turned the stream of centuries out of its channel, and still governs the ages.—Richter.

In His death He is a sacrifice, satisfying for our sins; in the resurrection, a conqueror; in the ascension, a king; in the intercession, a high priest.—Luther.

Jesus Christ was more than man.—Napoleon I.

The sages and heroes of history are receding from us, and history contracts the record of their deeds into a narrower and narrower page. But time has no power over the name and deeds and words of Jesus Christ.—Channing.

Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne and I myself have founded empires; but upon what do these creations of our genius depend? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire upon love; and to this very day millions would die for Him.—Napoleon I.

If the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus were those of a God.—Rousseau.

Those who have minutely studied the character of the Saviour will find it difficult to determine whether there is most to admire or to imitate in it—there is so much of both.

Christianity.—A Christian is God Almighty's gentleman.—Hare.

The real security of Christianity is to be found in its benevolent morality, in its exquisite adaptation to the human heart, in the facility with which its scheme accommodates itself to the capacity of every human intellect, in the consolation which it bears to every house of mourning, in the light with which it brightens the great mystery of the grave.—Macaulay.

It is the truth divine, speaking to our whole being: occupying, calling into action, and satisfying man's every faculty, supplying the minutest wants of his being, and speaking in one and the same moment to his reason, his conscience and his heart. It is the light of reason, the life of the heart, and the strength of the will.—Pierre.

Since its introduction, human nature has made great progress, and society experienced great changes; and in this advanced condition of the world, Christianity, instead of losing its application and importance, is found to be more and more congenial and adapted to man's nature and wants. Men have outgrown the other institutions of that period when Christianity appeared, its philosophy, its modes of warfare, its policy, its public and private economy; but Christianity has never shrunk as intellect has opened, but has always kept in advance of men's faculties, and unfolded nobler views in proportion as they have ascended. The highest powers and affections which our nature has developed, find more than adequate objects in this religion. Christianity is indeed peculiarly fitted to the more improved stages of society, to the more delicate sensibilities of refined minds, and especially to that dissatisfaction with the present state, which always grows with the growth of our moral powers and affections.—Channing.

It is a refiner as well as a purifier of the heart; it imparts correctness of perception, delicacy of sentiment, and all those nicer shades of thought and feeling which constitute elegance of mind.—Mrs. John Sanford.

I desire no other evidence of the truth of Christianity than the Lord's Prayer.—Madame de Stael.

Had it been published by a voice from heaven, that twelve poor men, taken out of boats and creeks, without any help of learning, should conquer the world to the cross, it might have been thought an illusion against all reason of men; yet we know it was undertaken and accomplished by them.—Stephen Charnock.

A few persons of an odious and despised country could not have filled the world with believers, had they not shown undoubted credentials from the divine person who sent them on such a message.—Addison.

Company.—Nature has left every man a capacity of being agreeable, though not of shining in company; and there are a hundred men sufficiently qualified for both who, by a very few faults, that they might correct in half an hour, are not so much as tolerable.—Swift.

It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught as men take diseases one of another; therefore, let men take heed of their company.—Shakespeare.

The most agreeable of all companions is a simple, frank man, without any high pretensions to an oppressive greatness; one who loves life, and understands the use of it; obliging alike at all hours; above all, of a golden temper and steadfast as an anchor. For such an one we gladly exchange the greatest genius, the most brilliant wit, the profoundest thinker.—Lessing.

No man can possibly improve in any company for which he has not respect enough to be under some degree of restraint.—Chesterfield.

A companion is but another self; wherefore it is an argument that a man is wicked if he keep company with the wicked.—St. Clement.

Let them have ever so learned lectures of breeding, that which will most influence their carriage will be the company they converse with, and the fashion of those about them.—Locke.

Conceit.—Be not wise in your own conceits.—Romans 12:16.

Conceit is the most contemptible and one of the most odious qualities in the world. It is vanity driven from all other shifts, and forced to appeal to itself for admiration.—Hazlitt.

The certain way to be cheated is to fancy one's self more cunning than others.—Charron.

Conceit is to nature what paint is to beauty; it is not only needless, but impairs what it would improve.—Pope.

Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error. Where one has been saved by a true estimation of another's weakness, thousands have been destroyed by a false appreciation of their own strength.—Colton.

We go and fancy that everybody is thinking of us. But he is not; he is like us—he is thinking of himself.—Charles Reade.

Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him.—Proverbs 26:12.

A man who is proud of small things shows that small things are great to him.—Madame de Girardin.

Self-made men are most always apt to be a little too proud of the job.—H.W. Shaw.

Nature has sometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of a man's own making.—Addison.

He who gives himself airs of importance exhibits the credentials of impotence.—Lavater.

The more any one speaks of himself, the less he likes to hear another talked of.—Lavater.

Conduct.—I will govern my life, and my thoughts, as if the whole world were to see the one, and to read the other; for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God (who is the searcher of our hearts) all our privacies are open?—Seneca.

The integrity of men is to be measured by their conduct, not by their professions.—Junius.

Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest,
Learn more than thou trowest,
Set less than thou throwest.
—Shakespeare.

A man, like a watch, is to be valued for his manner of going.—William Penn.

I would, God knows, in a poor woodman's hut
Have spent my peaceful days, and shared my crust
With her who would have cheer'd me, rather far
Than on this throne; but being what I am,
I'll be it nobly.
—Joanna Baillie.

Only add
Deeds to thy knowledge answerable, add faith,
Add virtue, patience, temperance, add love,
By name to come call'd charity, the soul
Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loath
To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess
A Paradise within thee, happier far.
—Milton.

Take heed lest passion sway
Thy judgment to do aught which else free-will
Would not admit.
—Milton.

Confidence.—Whatever distrust we may have of the sincerity of those who converse with us, we always believe they will tell us more truth than they do to others.—La Rochefoucauld.

Never put much confidence in such as put no confidence in others.—Hare.

When young, we trust ourselves too much, and we trust others too little when old. Rashness is the error of youth, timid caution of age. Manhood is the isthmus between the two extremes; the ripe and fertile season of action, when alone we can hope to find the head to contrive, united with the hand to execute.—Colton.

He who believes in nobody knows that he himself is not to be trusted.—Auerbach.

Trust not him that hath once broken faith.—Shakespeare.

People have generally three epochs in their confidence in man. In the first they believe him to be everything that is good, and they are lavish with their friendship and confidence. In the next, they have had experience, which has smitten down their confidence, and they then have to be careful not to mistrust every one, and to put the worst construction upon everything. Later in life, they learn that the greater number of men have much more good in them than bad, and that even when there is cause to blame, there is more reason to pity than condemn; and then a spirit of confidence again awakens within them.—Fredrika Bremer.

Trust him little who praises all, him less who censures all, and him least who is indifferent about all.—Lavater.

Conscience.—Conscience is a clock which, in one man, strikes aloud and gives warning; in another, the hand points silently to the figure, but strikes not. Meantime, hours pass away, and death hastens, and after death comes judgment.—Jeremy Taylor.

Oh! Conscience! Conscience! Man's most faithful friend,
Him canst thou comfort, ease, relieve, defend:
But if he will thy friendly checks forego,
Thou art, oh! wo for me, his deadliest foe!
—Crabbe.

In the commission of evil, fear no man so much as thyself; another is but one witness against thee, thou art a thousand; another thou mayest avoid, thyself thou canst not. Wickedness is its own punishment.—Quarles.

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.—Franklin.

Be mine that silent calm repast,
A conscience cheerful to the last:
That tree which bears immortal fruit,
Without a canker at the root;
That friend which never fails the just,
When other friends desert their trust.
—Dr. Cotton.

No man ever offended his own conscience, but first or last it was revenged upon him for it.—South.

He that loses his conscience has nothing left that is worth keeping. Therefore be sure you look to that, and in the next place look to your health; and if you have it praise God and value it next to a good conscience.—Izaak Walton.

Our secret thoughts are rarely heard except in secret. No man knows what conscience is until he understands what solitude can teach him concerning it.—Joseph Cook.

A man never outlives his conscience, and that, for this cause only, he cannot outlive himself.—South.

Rules of society are nothing, one's conscience is the umpire.—Madame Dudevant.

A man, so to speak, who is not able to bow to his own conscience every morning is hardly in a condition to respectfully salute the world at any other time of the day.—Douglas Jerrold.

In matters of conscience first thoughts are best; in matters of prudence last thoughts are best—Rev. Robert Hall.

A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart; his next, to escape the censures of the world. If the last interferes with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; but otherwise there cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind, than to see those approbations which it gives itself seconded by the applause of the public.—Addison.

Conscience raises its voice in the breast of every man, a witness for his Creator.

We should have all our communications with men, as in the presence of God; and with God, as in the presence of men.—Colton.

I am more afraid of my own heart than of the pope and all his cardinals. I have within me the great pope, self.—Luther.

The most reckless sinner against his own conscience has always in the background the consolation that he will go on in this course only this time, or only so long, but that at such a time he will amend. We may be assured that we do not stand clear with our own consciences so long as we determine or project, or even hold it possible, at some future time to alter our course of action.—Fichte.

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

Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything.—Sterne.

He that hath a blind conscience which sees nothing, a dead conscience which feels nothing, and a dumb conscience which says nothing, is in as miserable a condition as a man can be on this side of hell.—Patrick Henry.

Conscience is its own readiest accuser.—Chapin.

If thou wouldst be informed what God has written concerning thee in Heaven look into thine own bosom, and see what graces He hath there wrought in thee.—Fuller.

Yet still there whispers the small voice within,
Heard thro' gain's silence, and o'er glory's din;
Whatever creed be taught or land be trod,
Man's conscience is the oracle of God!
—Byron.

The world will never be in any manner of order or tranquillity until men are firmly convinced that conscience, honor and credit are all in one interest; and that without the concurrence of the former the latter are but impositions upon ourselves and others.—Steele.

Contentment.—To secure a contented spirit, measure your desires by your fortune, and not your fortune by your desires.—Jeremy Taylor.

I press to bear no haughty sway;
I wish no more than may suffice:
I do no more than well I may,
Look what I lack, my mind supplies;
Lo, thus I triumph like a king,
My mind's content with anything.
—Byrd.

Enjoy your own life without comparing it with that of another.—Condorcet.

To be content with little is difficult; to be content with much, impossible.—Marie Ebner-Eschenbach.

My God, give me neither poverty nor riches; but whatsoever it may be Thy will to give, give me with it a heart which knows humbly to acquiesce in what is Thy will.—Gotthold.

One who is contented with what he has done will never become famous for what he will do. He has lain down to die. The grass is already growing over him.—Bovee.

Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires makes a wise and a happy purchase.—Balguy.

If men knew what felicity dwells in the cottage of a godly man, how sound he sleeps, how quiet his rest, how composed his mind, how free from care, how easy his position, how moist his mouth, how joyful his heart, they would never admire the noises, the diseases, the throngs of passions, and the violence of unnatural appetites that fill the house of the luxurious and the heart of the ambitious.—Jeremy Taylor.

He is richest who is content with the least; for content is the wealth of nature.—Socrates.

Poor and content, is rich and rich enough;
But riches, fineless, is as poor as winter,
To him that ever fears he shall be poor.
—Shakespeare.

Learn to be pleased with everything, with wealth so far as it makes us beneficial to others; with poverty, for not having much to care for; and with obscurity, for being unenvied.—Plutarch.

It is right to be contented with what we have, but never with what we are.—Sir James Mackintosh.

Without content, we shall find it almost as difficult to please others as ourselves.—Greville.

True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.—Colton.

Content with poverty my soul I arm;
And virtue, though in rags, will keep me warm.
—Dryden.

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

The noblest mind the best contentment has.—Spenser.

I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.—Philippians 4:11.

Conversation.—The pith of conversation does not consist in exhibiting your own superior knowledge on matters of small consequence, but in enlarging, improving and correcting the information you possess by the authority of others.—Sir Walter Scott.

There are three things in speech that ought to be considered before some things are spoken—the manner, the place and the time.—Southey.

The secret of tiring is to say everything that can be said on the subject.—Voltaire.

Speak little and well if you wish to be considered as possessing merit.—From the French.

The less men think, the more they talk.—Montesquieu.

He who sedulously attends, pointedly asks, calmly speaks, coolly answers, and ceases when he has no more to say, is in possession of some of the best requisites of man.—Lavater.

Amongst such as out of cunning hear all and talk little, be sure to talk less; or if you must talk, say little.—La Bruyère.

Not only to say the right thing in the right place, but, far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.—G.A. Sala.

When we are in the company of sensible men, we ought to be doubly cautious of talking too much, lest we lose two good things, their good opinion and our own improvement; for what we have to say we know, but what they have to say we know not.—Colton.

Never hold any one by the button or the hand in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them.—Chesterfield.

There is speaking well, speaking easily, speaking justly and speaking seasonably: It is offending against the last, to speak of entertainments before the indigent; of sound limbs and health before the infirm; of houses and lands before one who has not so much as a dwelling; in a word, to speak of your prosperity before the miserable; this conversation is cruel, and the comparison which naturally arises in them betwixt their condition and yours is excruciating.—La Bruyère.

Egotists cannot converse, they talk to themselves only.—A. Bronson Alcott.

The extreme pleasure we take in talking of ourselves should make us fear that we give very little to those who listen to us.—La Rochefoucauld.

Many can argue, not many converse.—A. Bronson Alcott.

One thing which makes us find so few people who appear reasonable and agreeable in conversation is, that there is scarcely any one who does not think more of what he is about to say than of answering precisely what is said to him.—La Rochefoucauld.

The first ingredient in conversation is truth, the next good sense, the third good humor, and the fourth wit.

It is a secret known but to few, yet of no small use in the conduct of life, that when you fall into a man's conversation, the first thing you should consider is, whether he has a greater inclination to hear you, or that you should hear him.—Steele.

In my whole life I have only known ten or twelve persons with whom it was pleasant to speak—i.e., who keep to the subject, do not repeat themselves, and do not talk of themselves; men who do not listen to their own voice, who are cultivated enough not to lose themselves in commonplaces, and, lastly, who possess tact and good taste enough not to elevate their own persons above their subjects.—Metternich.

Counsel.—I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.—Shakespeare.

The best receipt—best to work and best to take—is the admonition of a friend.—Bacon.

Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful, where your own self-love might impair your judgment.—Seneca.

Let no man value at little price a virtuous woman's counsel.—George Chapman.

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

To struggle when hope is banished!
To live when life's salt is gone!
To dwell in a dream that's vanished!
To endure, and go calmly on!

The brave man is not he who feels no fear,
For that were stupid and irrational;
But he, whose noble soul its fear subdues,
And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from.
—Joanna Baillie.

A valiant man
Ought not to undergo or tempt a danger,
But worthily, and by selected ways;
He undertakes by reason, not by chance.
—Ben Jonson.

True courage is cool and calm. The bravest of men have the least of a brutal bullying insolence, and in the very time of danger are found the most serene and free. Rage, we know, can make a coward forget himself and fight. But what is done in fury or anger can never be placed to the account of courage.—Shaftesbury.

Much danger makes great hearts most resolute.—Marston.

Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it and conquering it.—Richter.

The truest courage is always mixed with circumspection; this being the quality which distinguishes the courage of the wise from the hardiness of the rash and foolish.—Jones of Nayland.

Physical courage, which despises all danger, will make a man brave in one way; and moral courage, which despises all opinion, will make a man brave in another. The former would seem most necessary for the camp, the latter for council; but to constitute a great man, both are necessary.—Colton.

He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he that loses his courage loses all.—Cervantes.

Courtship.—Every man ought to be in love a few times in his life, and to have a smart attack of the fever. You are better for it when it is over: the better for your misfortune, if you endure it with a manly heart; how much the better for success, if you win it and a good wife into the bargain!—Thackeray.

Men dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake!—Pope.

With women worth the being won,
The softest lover ever best succeeds.
—Hill.

The pleasantest part of a man's life is generally that which passes in courtship, provided his passion be sincere, and the party beloved kind with discretion. Love, desire, hope, all the pleasing emotions of the soul, rise in the pursuit.—Addison.

How would that excellent mystery, wedded life, irradiate the world with its blessed influences, were the generous impulses and sentiments of courtship but perpetuated in all their exuberant fullness during the sequel of marriage!—Frederic Saunders.

Rejected lovers need never despair! There are four-and-twenty hours in a day, and not a moment in the twenty-four in which a woman may not change her mind.—De Finod.

Courtship consists in a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood.—Sterne.

Covetousness.—Covetousness, like a candle ill made, smothers the splendor of a happy fortune in its own grease.—F. Osborn.

The only instance of a despairing sinner left upon record in the New Testament is that of a treacherous and greedy Judas.

He deservedly loses his own property who covets that of another.—Phaedrus.

Covetousness, which is idolatry.—Colossians 3:5.

There is not a vice which more effectually contracts and deadens the feelings, which more completely makes a man's affections centre in himself, and excludes all others from partaking in them, than the desire of accumulating possessions. When the desire has once gotten hold on the heart, it shuts out all other considerations, but such as may promote its views. In its zeal for the attainment of its end, it is not delicate in the choice of means. As it closes the heart, so also it clouds the understanding. It cannot discern between right and wrong; it takes evil for good, and good for evil; it calls darkness light, and light darkness. Beware, then, of the beginning of covetousness, for you know not where it will end.—Bishop Mant.

The covetous person lives as if the world were made altogether for him, and not he for the world; to take in everything, and part with nothing.—South.

Covetous men are fools, miserable wretches, buzzards, madmen, who live by themselves, in perpetual slavery, fear, suspicion, sorrow, discontent, with more of gall than honey in their enjoyments; who are rather possessed by their money than possessors of it.—Burton.

Why are we so blind? That which we improve, we have, that which we hoard is not for ourselves.—Madame Deluzy.

If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that it may be said to possess him.—Bacon.

Those who give not till they die show that they would not then if they could keep it any longer.—Bishop Hall.

Criticism.—He whose first emotion, on the view of an excellent production, is to undervalue it, will never have one of his own to show.—Aiken.

Neither praise nor blame is the object of true criticism. Justly to discriminate, firmly to establish, wisely to prescribe and honestly to award—these are the true aims and duties of criticism.—Simms.

Censure and criticism never hurt anybody. If false, they can't hurt you unless you are wanting in manly character; and if true, they show a man his weak points, and forewarn him against failure and trouble.—Gladstone.

It is easy to criticise an author, but it is difficult to appreciate him.—Vauvenargues.

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.—Beaconsfield.

There is a certain meddlesome spirit, which, in the garb of learned research, goes prying about the traces of history, casting down its monuments, and marring and mutilating its fairest trophies. Care should be taken to vindicate great names from such pernicious erudition.—Washington Irving.

He who would reproach an author for obscurity should look into his own mind to see whether it is quite clear there. In the dusk the plainest writing is illegible.—Goethe.

A man must serve his time to ev'ry trade,
Save censure; critics all are ready-made.

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

Cunning leads to knavery; it is but a step from one to the other, and that very slippery; lying only makes the difference; add that to cunning, and it is knavery.—La Bruyère.

Cunning is the art of concealing our own defects, and discovering other people's weaknesses.—Hazlitt.

A cunning man overreaches no one half as much as himself.—Beecher.

The animals to whom nature has given the faculty we call cunning know always when to use it, and use it wisely; but when man descends to cunning, he blunders and betrays.—Thomas Paine.

The most sure method of subjecting yourself to be deceived, is to consider yourself more cunning than others.—La Rochefoucauld.

Death.—God's finger touch'd him, and he slept.—Tennyson.

But no! that look is not the last;
We yet may meet where seraphs dwell,
Where love no more deplores the past,
Nor breathes that withering word—Farewell!
—Peabody.

How beautiful it is for a man to die on the walls of Zion! to be called like a watch-worn and weary sentinel, to put his armor off, and rest in heaven.—N.P. Willis.

I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death.—Revelation 6:8.

When we see our enemies and friends gliding away before us, let us not forget that we are subject to the general law of mortality, and shall soon be where our doom will be fixed forever.—Dr. Johnson.

I have seen those who have arrived at a fearless contemplation of the future, from faith in the doctrine which our religion teaches. Such men were not only calm and supported, but cheerful in the hour of death; and I never quitted such a sick chamber without a hope that my last end might be like theirs.—Sir Henry Halford.

One may live as a conqueror, a king or a magistrate; but he must die as a man. The bed of death brings every human being to his pure individuality; to the intense contemplation of that deepest and most solemn of all relations, the relation between the creature and his Creator. Here it is that fame and renown cannot assist us; that all external things must fail to aid us; that even friends, affection and human love and devotedness cannot succor us.—Webster.

There is no death. The thing that we call death
Is but another, sadder name for life.
—Stoddard.

To die,—to sleep,—
No more;—and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to.
—Shakespeare.

All that nature has prescribed must be good; and as death is natural to us, it is absurdity to fear it. Fear loses its purpose when we are sure it cannot preserve us, and we should draw resolution to meet it, from the impossibility to escape it.—Steele.

There is nothing certain in man's life but this, that he must lose it.—Owen Meredith.

Death robs the rich and relieves the poor.—J.L. Basford.

Death is the liberator of him whom freedom cannot release, the physician of him whom medicine cannot cure, and the comforter of him whom time cannot console.—Colton.

Death, so called, is a thing that makes men weep,
And yet a third of life is pass'd in sleep.
—Byron.

The finest day of life is that on which one quits it.—Frederick the Great.

Death is delightful. Death is dawn—
The waking from a weary night
Of fevers unto truth and light.
—Joaquin Miller.

The hour conceal'd and so remote the fear,
Death still draws nearer, never seeming near.
—Pope.

All that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
—Shakespeare.

Death gives us sleep, eternal youth, and immortality.—Richter.

You should not fear, nor yet should you wish for your last day.—Martial.

No man but knows that he must die; he knows that in whatever quarter of the world he abides—whatever be his circumstances—however strong his present hold of life—however unlike the prey of death he looks—that it is his doom beyond reverse to die.—Stebbing.

It is by no means a fact that death is the worst of all evils; when it comes, it is an alleviation to mortals who are worn out with sufferings.—Metastasio.

God giveth quietness at last.—Whittier.

Death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exits.
—John Webster.

Death will have his day.—Shakespeare.

Death comes but once.—Beaumont and Fletcher.

It is not I who die, when I die, but my sin and misery.—Gotthold.

Death is the crown of life.—Young.

So live, that, when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon; but sustain'd and sooth'd
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one that draws the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
—Bryant.

Debt.—Who goes a-borrowing goeth a-sorrowing.—Tusser.

Creditors have better memories than debtors; and creditors are a superstitious sect, great observers of set days and times.—Franklin.

Man hazards the condition and loses the virtues of freeman, in proportion as he accustoms his thoughts to view without anguish or shame his lapse into the bondage of debtor.—Lytton.

Paying of debts is, next to the grace of God, the best means in the world to deliver you from a thousand temptations to sin and vanity.—Delany.

Run not into debt, either for wares sold, or money borrowed; be content to want things that are not of absolute necessity, rather than to run up the score.—Sir M. Hale.

Debt is the worst poverty.—M.G. Lichtwer.

Delicacy.—Delicacy is the genuine tint of virtue.—Marguerite de Valois.

Many things are too delicate to be thought; many more, to be spoken.—Novalis.

An appearance of delicacy is inseparable from sweetness and gentleness of character.—Mrs. Sigourney.

True delicacy, that most beautiful heart-leaf of humanity, exhibits itself most significantly in little things.—Mary Howitt.

Delicacy is to the affections what grace is to the beauty.—Degerando.

Weak men often, from the very principle of their weakness, derive a certain susceptibility, delicacy and taste which render them, in those particulars, much superior to men of stronger and more consistent minds, who laugh at them.—Greville.

Delicacy is to the mind what fragrance is to the fruit.—Achilles Poincelot.

Delusion.—Delusions, like dreams, are dispelled by our awaking to the stern realities of life.—A.R.C. Dallas.

No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.—Bovee.

We are always living under some delusion, and instead of taking things as they are, and making the best of them, we follow an ignis fatuus, and lose, in its pursuit, the joy we might attain.—James Ellis.

Despair.—It is impossible for that man to despair who remembers that his Helper is omnipotent.—Jeremy Taylor.

Despair is the conclusion of fools.—Beaconsfield.

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

Despair is infidelity and death.—Whittier.

Despair makes a despicable figure, and descends from a mean original. 'Tis the offspring of fear, of laziness and impatience; it argues a defect of spirit and resolution, and oftentimes of honesty too. I would not despair, unless I saw misfortune recorded in the book of fate, and signed and sealed by necessity.—Collier.

Where Christ brings His cross, He brings His presence; and where He is, none are desolate, and there is no room for despair.—Mrs. Browning.

He is the truly courageous man who never desponds.—Confucius.

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

Dreadful is their doom, whom doubt has driven
To censure fate, and pious hope forego.
—Beattie.

Diet.—Simple diet is best.—Pliny.

Things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.—Shakespeare.

In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eat about twice as much as nature requires.—Franklin.

Difficulties.—Difficulties strengthen the mind, as well as labor does the body.—Seneca.

There is no merit where there is no trial; and, till experience stamps the mark of strength, cowards may pass for heroes, faith for falsehood.—Aaron Hill.

Difficulties are God's errands; and when we are sent upon them we should esteem it a proof of God's confidence—as a compliment from God.—Beecher.

It is difficulties which give birth to miracles.—Rev. Dr. Sharpe.

What is difficulty? Only a word indicating the degree of strength requisite for accomplishing particular objects; a mere notice of the necessity for exertion; a bugbear to children and fools; only a mere stimulus to men.—Samuel Warren.

Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the supreme ordinance of a paternal guardian and legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.—Burke.

There are few difficulties that hold out against real attacks; they fly, like the visible horizon, before those who advance.

Discipline.—No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.—William Penn.

No evil propensity of the human heart is so powerful that it may not be subdued by discipline.—Seneca.

Discord.—Our life is full of discord; but by forbearance and virtue this same discord can be turned to harmony.—James Ellis.

The peacemakers shall be called the sons of God, who came to make peace between God and man. What then shall the sowers of discord be called, but the children of the devil? And what must they look for but their father's portion?—St. Bernard.

Discretion.—Remember the divine saying, He that keepeth his mouth, keepeth his life.—Sir Walter Raleigh.

There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there is none so useful as discretion.—Addison.

Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.—Bacon.

Discretion and hard valor are the twins of honor.—Beaumont and Fletcher.

The better part of valor is discretion.—Shakespeare.

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

Let's teach ourselves that honorable stop
Not to outsport discretion.
—Shakespeare.

Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to win all the duties of life.—Addison.

Great ability without discretion comes almost invariably to a tragic end.—Gambetta.

Dissimulation.—Dissimulation, even the most innocent in its nature, is ever productive of embarrassment; whether the design is evil or not, artifice is always dangerous and almost inevitably disgraceful.—La Bruyère.

Dress.—In the matter of dress people should always keep below their ability.—Montesquieu.

Those who are incapable of shining but by dress would do well to consider, that the contrast between them and their clothes turns out much to their disadvantage.—Shenstone.

And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin.—Matthew 6:28.

A majority of women seem to consider themselves sent into the world for the sole purpose of displaying dry goods; and it is only when acting the part of an animated milliner's block that they feel they are performing their appropriate mission.—Abba Goold Woolson.

No man is esteemed for gay garments but by fools and women.—Sir Walter Raleigh.

Those who think that in order to dress well it is necessary to dress extravagantly or grandly make a great mistake. Nothing so well becomes true feminine beauty as simplicity.—George D. Prentice.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy; for the apparel oft proclaims the man.—Shakespeare.

No real happiness is found
In trailing purple o'er the ground.
—Parnell.

If a woman were about to proceed to her execution, she would demand a little time to perfect her toilet.—Chamfort.

Men of quality never appear more amiable than when their dress is plain. Their birth, rank, title and its appendages are at best invidious; and as they do not need the assistance of dress, so, by their disclaiming the advantage of it, they make their superiority sit more easy.—Shenstone.

It is well known that a loose and easy dress contributes much to give to both sexes those fine proportions of body that are observable in the Grecian statues, and which serve as models to our present artists.—Rousseau.

As soon as a woman begins to dress "loud," her manners and conversation partake of the same element.—Haliburton.

Dress has a moral effect on the conduct of mankind. Let any gentleman find himself with dirty boots, old surtout, soiled neckcloth and a general negligence of dress, he will in all probability find a corresponding disposition by negligence of address.—Sir Jonah Barrington.

We sacrifice to dress, till household joys
And comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry,
And keeps our larder clean; puts out our fires,
And introduces hunger, frost and woe,
Where peace and hospitality might reign.

Dress changes the manners.—Voltaire.

Drink.—Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink.—Isaiah 5:11.

All excess is ill, but drunkenness is of the worst sort. It spoils health, dismounts the mind, and unmans men. It reveals secrets, is quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous and mad. He that is drunk is not a man, because he is, for so long, void of reason that distinguishes a man from a beast.—William Penn.

Some of the domestic evils of drunkenness are houses without windows, gardens without fences, fields without tillage, barns without roofs, children without clothing, principles, morals or manners.—Franklin.

Drunkenness is the vice of a good constitution or of a bad memory—of a constitution so treacherously good that it never bends till it breaks; or of a memory that recollects the pleasures of getting intoxicated, but forgets the pains of getting sober.—Colton.

Habitual intoxication is the epitome of every crime.—Douglas Jerrold.

O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee—devil! * * * O, that men should put an enemy to their mouths to steal away their brains; that we should, with joy, revel, pleasure and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!—Shakespeare.

Every inordinate cup is unbless'd, and the ingredient is a devil.—Shakespeare.

It were better for a man to be subject to any vice, than to drunkenness: for all other vanities and sins are recovered, but a drunkard will never shake off the delight of beastliness.—Sir Walter Raleigh.

Man has evil as well as good qualities peculiar to himself. Drunkenness places him as much below the level of the brutes as reason elevates him above them.—Sir G. Sinclair.

Of all vices take heed of drunkenness; other vices are but fruits of disordered affections—this disorders, nay, banishes reason; other vices but impair the soul—this demolishes her two chief faculties, the understanding and the will; other vices make their own way—this makes way for all vices; he that is a drunkard is qualified for all vice.—Quarles.

There is scarcely a crime before me that is not directly or indirectly caused by strong drink.—Judge Coleridge.

Beware of drunkenness, lest all good men beware of thee; where drunkenness reigns, there reason is an exile, virtue a stranger, God an enemy; blasphemy is wit, oaths are rhetoric, and secrets are proclamations.—Quarles.

Duty.—Duty grows everywhere, like children, like grass.—Emerson.

Perish discretion when it interferes with duty.—Hannah More.

The people of this country have shown by the highest proofs human nature can give, that wherever the path of duty and honor may lead, however steep and rugged it may be, they are ready to walk in it.—James A. Garfield.

The true way to render ourselves happy is to love our duty and find in it our pleasure.—Mme. de Motteville.

Let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this precept well to heart: "Do the duty which lies nearest to thee," which thou knowest to be a duty! Thy second duty will already have become clearer.—Carlyle.

Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.—Ecclesiastes 12:13.

Commonplace though it may appear, this doing of one's duty embodies the highest ideal of life and character. There may be nothing heroic about it; but the common lot of men is not heroic.—Samuel Smiles.

Who escapes a duty avoids a gain.—Theodore Parker.

Let us do our duty in our shop or our kitchen, the market, the street, the office, the school, the home, just as faithfully as if we stood in the front rank of some great battle, and we knew that victory for mankind depended upon our bravery, strength, and skill. When we do that the humblest of us will be serving in that great army which achieves the welfare of the world.—Theodore Parker.

In every profession the daily and common duties are the most useful.

Let men laugh when you sacrifice desire to duty, if they will. You have time and eternity to rejoice in.—Theodore Parker.

Be not diverted from your duty by any idle reflections the silly world may make upon you, for their censures are not in your power, and consequently should not be any part of your concern.—Epictetus.

It is thy duty oftentimes to do what thou wouldst not; thy duty, too, to leave undone that thou wouldst do.—Thomas à Kempis.

There is no evil that we cannot either face or fly from but the consciousness of duty disregarded. A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the utmost parts of the seas, duty performed, or duty violated, is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us. We cannot escape their power, nor fly from their presence. They are with us in this life, will be with us at its close, and in that scene of inconceivable solemnity which lies yet further onward we shall still find ourselves surrounded by the consciousness of duty, to pain us wherever it has been violated, and to console us so far as God may have given us grace to perform it.—Webster.

Early Rising.—Whoever has tasted the breath of morning, knows that the most invigorating and most delightful hours of the day are commonly spent in bed; though it is the evident intention of Nature that we should enjoy and profit by them.—Southey.

Who would in such a gloomy state remain
Longer than nature craves; when ev'ry muse
And every blooming pleasure wait without,
To bless the wildly devious morning walk?
—Thomson.

The difference between rising at five and seven o'clock in the morning, for the space of forty years, supposing a man to go to bed at the same hour at night, is nearly equivalent to ten additional years to a man's life.—Doddridge.

I would have inscribed on the curtains of your bed, and the walls of your chamber: "If you do not rise early, you can make progress in nothing."—Chatham.

When one begins to turn in bed, it is time to get up.—Wellington.

Few ever lived to a great age, and fewer still ever became distinguished, who were not in the habit of early rising.—Dr. John Todd.

Next to temperance, a quiet conscience, a cheerful mind and active habits, I place early rising as a means of health and happiness.—Flint.

Thus we improve the pleasures of the day,
While tasteless mortals sleep their time away.
—Mrs. Centlivre.

No man can promise himself even fifty years of life, but any man may, if he please, live in the proportion of fifty years in forty;—let him rise early, that he may have the day before him, and let him make the most of the day, by determining to expend it on two sorts of acquaintance only,—those by whom something may be got, and those from whom something may be learnt.—Colton.

The famous Apollonius being very early at Vespasian's gate, and finding him stirring, from thence conjectured that he was worthy to govern an empire, and said to his companion, "This man surely will be emperor, he is so early."—Caussin.

Earnestness.—Without earnestness no man is ever great, or does really great things. He may be the cleverest of men, he may be brilliant, entertaining, popular; but he will want weight. No soul-moving picture was ever painted that had not in it the depth of shadow.—Peter Bayne.

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give no peace.—Emerson.

Patience is only one faculty; earnestness the devotion of all the faculties. Earnestness is the cause of patience; it gives endurance, overcomes pain, strengthens weakness, braves dangers, sustains hope, makes light of difficulties, and lessens the sense of weariness in overcoming them.—Bovee.

There is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent and sincere earnestness.—Dickens.

He who would do some great thing in this short life, must apply himself to the work with such a concentration of his forces as to the idle spectators, who live only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity.—John Foster.

Economy.—Economy is a savings-bank, into which men drop pennies, and get dollars in return.—H.W. Shaw.

Economy is half the battle of life; it is not so hard to earn money as to spend it well.—Spurgeon.

Let honesty and industry be thy constant companions and spend one penny less than thy clear gains; then shall thy hide-bound pocket soon begin to thrive and will never again cry with the empty belly-ache; neither will creditors insult thee, nor want oppress, nor hunger bite, nor nakedness freeze thee.—Franklin.

He that, when he should not, spends too much, shall, when he would not, have too little to spend.—Feltham.

Economy is the parent of integrity, of liberty and of ease, and the beauteous sister of temperance, of cheerfulness and health.—Dr. Johnson.

Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.—Franklin.

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

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

A penny saved is two pence clear,
A pin a day's a groat a year.
—Franklin.

Those individuals who save money are better workmen; if they do not the work better, they behave better and are more respectable; and I would sooner have in my trade a hundred men who save money than two hundred who would spend every shilling they get. In proportion as individuals save a little money their morals are much better; they husband that little, and there is a superior tone given to their morals, and they behave better for knowing that they have a little stake in society.

No man is rich whose expenditures exceed his means; and no one is poor whose incomings exceed his outgoings.—Haliburton.

Education.—The true order of learning should be first, what is necessary; second, what is useful, and third, what is ornamental. To reverse this arrangement is like beginning to build at the top of the edifice.—Mrs. Sigourney.

A father inquires whether his boy can construe Homer, if he understands Horace, and can taste Virgil; but how seldom does he ask, or examine, or think whether he can restrain his passions,—whether he is grateful, generous, humane, compassionate, just and benevolent.—Lady Hervey.

The world is only saved by the breath of the school children.—The Talmud.

It was the German schoolhouse which destroyed Napoleon III. France, since then, is making monster cannon and drilling soldiers still, but she is also building schoolhouses.—Beecher.

A complete and generous education fits a man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the offices of peace and war.—Milton.

Knowledge does not comprise all which is contained in the large term of education. The feelings are to be disciplined, the passions are to be restrained; true and worthy motives are to be inspired; a profound religious feeling is to be instilled, and pure morality inculcated under all circumstances. All this is comprised in education.—Webster.

It is not scholarship alone, but scholarship impregnated with religion, that tells on the great mass of society. We have no faith in the efficacy of mechanics' institutes, or even of primary and elementary schools, for building up a virtuous and well conditioned peasantry so long as they stand dissevered from the lessons of Christian piety.

Unless your cask is perfectly clean, whatever you pour into it turns sour.—Horace.

Prussia is great because her people are intelligent. They know the alphabet. The alphabet is conquering the world.—G.W. Curtis.

Next in importance to freedom and justice, is popular education, without which neither justice nor freedom can be permanently maintained.—James A. Garfield.

A boy is better unborn than untaught.—Gascoigne.

On the diffusion of education among the people rests the preservation and perpetuation of our free institutions.—Webster.

Education commences at the mother's knee, and every word spoken within the hearing of little children tends toward the formation of character. Let parents bear this ever in mind.—Hosea Ballou.

Do not ask if a man has been through college; ask if a college has been through him; if he is a walking university.—Chapin.

The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think than what to think,—rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men.—Beattie.

Into what boundless life does education admit us. Every truth gained through it expands a moment of time into illimitable being—positively enlarges our existence, and endows us with qualities which time cannot weaken or destroy.—Chapin.

All that a university or final highest school can do for us is still but what the first school began doing—teach us to read. We learn to read in various languages, in various sciences; we learn the alphabet and letters of all manner of books. But the place where we are to get knowledge, even theoretic knowledge, is the books themselves. It depends on what we read, after all manner of professors have done their best for us. The true university of these days is a collection of books.—Carlyle.

If you suffer your people to be ill educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them—you first make thieves and then punish them.—Sir Thomas More.

'Tis education forms the common mind,
Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.
—Pope.

Egotism.—When all is summed up, a man never speaks of himself without loss; his accusations of himself are always believed, his praises never.—Montaigne.

Be your character what it will, it will be known; and nobody will take it upon your word.—Chesterfield.

We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not to talk of ourselves at all.—La Rochefoucauld.

It is never permissible to say, I say.—Madame Necker.

The more you speak of yourself, the more you are likely to lie.—Zimmermann.

What hypocrites we seem to be whenever we talk of ourselves! Our words sound so humble, while our hearts are so proud.—Hare.

The more anyone speaks of himself, the less he likes to hear another talked of.—Lavater.

Do you wish men to speak well of you? Then never speak well of yourself.—Pascal.

He who thinks he can find in himself the means of doing without others is much mistaken; but he who thinks that others cannot do without him is still more mistaken.—La Rochefoucauld.

Eloquence.—Extemporaneous and oral harangues will always have this advantage over those that are read from a manuscript; every burst of eloquence or spark of genius they may contain, however studied they may have been beforehand, will appear to the audience to be the effect of the sudden inspiration of talent.—Colton.

True eloquence consists in saying all that is necessary, and nothing but what is necessary.—La Rochefoucauld.

True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion.—Webster.

There is as much eloquence in the tone of voice, in the eyes, and in the air of a speaker, as in his choice of words.—La Rochefoucauld.

Employment.—Life will frequently languish, even in the hands of the busy, if they have not some employment subsidiary to that which forms their main pursuit.—Blair.

The rust rots the steel which use preserves.—Lytton.

Indolence is stagnation; employment is life.—Seneca.

The devil does not tempt people whom he finds suitably employed.—Jeremy Taylor.

Employment, which Galen calls "nature's physician," is so essential to human happiness, that indolence is justly considered as the mother of misery.—Burton.

Enthusiasm.—Enthusiasm is the height of man; it is the passing from the human to the divine.—Emerson.

Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.—Beaconsfield.

Let us recognize the beauty and power of true enthusiasm; and whatever we may do to enlighten ourselves and others, guard against checking or chilling a single earnest sentiment.—Tuckerman.

Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm; it moves stones, it charms brutes. Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it.—Lytton.

Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph of enthusiasm.—Emerson.

The most enthusiastic man in a cause is rarely chosen as a leader.—Arthur Helps.

Let us beware of losing our enthusiasms. Let us ever glory in something, and strive to retain our admiration for all that would ennoble, and our interest in all that would enrich and beautify our life.—Phillips Brooks.

Envy.—There is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as envy.—Sheridan.

An envious man waxeth lean with the fatness of his neighbors. Envy is the daughter of pride, the author of murder and revenge, the beginner of secret sedition and the perpetual tormentor of virtue. Envy is the filthy slime of the soul; a venom, a poison, or quicksilver which consumeth the flesh and drieth up the marrow of the bones.—Socrates.

As a moth gnaws a garment, so doth envy consume a man.—St. Chrysostom.

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

Base envy withers at another's joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
—Thomson.

The envious man is in pain upon all occasions which ought to give him pleasure. The relish of his life is inverted; and the objects which administer the highest satisfaction to those who are exempt from this passion give the quickest pangs to persons who are subject to it. All the perfections of their fellow-creatures are odious. Youth, beauty, valor and wisdom are provocations of their displeasure. What a wretched and apostate state is this! to be offended with excellence, and to hate a man because we approve him!—Steele.

The truest mark of being born with great qualities is being born without envy.—La Rochefoucauld.

The praise of the envious is far less creditable than their censure; they praise only that which they can surpass, but that which surpasses them they censure.—Colton.

Envy—the rottenness of the bones.—Proverbs 14:30.

There is no guard to be kept against envy, because no man knows where it dwells, and generous and innocent men are seldom jealous and suspicious till they feel the wound.

Stones and sticks are thrown only at fruit-bearing trees.—Saadi.

Emulation looks out for merits, that she may exalt herself by a victory; envy spies out blemishes, that she may lower another by a defeat.—Colton.

Envy is a passion so full of cowardice and shame, that nobody ever had the confidence to own it.—Rochester.

Eternity.—He that will often put eternity and the world before him, and who will dare to look steadfastly at both of them, will find that the more often he contemplates them, the former will grow greater, and the latter less.—Colton.

Let us be adventurers for another world. It is at least a fair and noble chance; and there is nothing in this worth our thoughts or our passions. If we should be disappointed, we are still no worse than the rest of our fellow-mortals; and if we succeed in our expectations, we are eternally happy.—Burnet.

Eternity has no gray hairs! The flowers fade, the heart withers, man grows old and dies, the world lies down in the sepulchre of ages, but time writes no wrinkles on the brow of eternity.—Bishop Heber.

The vaulted void of purple sky
That everywhere extends,
That stretches from the dazzled eye,
In space that never ends;
A morning whose uprisen sun
No setting e'er shall see;
A day that comes without a noon,
Such is eternity.
—Clare.

"What is eternity?" was a question once asked at the Deaf and Dumb Institution at Paris, and the beautiful and striking answer was given by one of the pupils, "The lifetime of the Almighty."—John Bate.

If people would but provide for eternity with the same solicitude and real care as they do for this life, they could not fail of heaven.—Tillotson.

Evil.—The doing an evil to avoid an evil cannot be good.—Coleridge.

The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
—Shakespeare.

Evil is wrought by want of thought,
As well as want of heart.
—Hood.

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

We cannot do evil to others without doing it to ourselves.—Desmahis.

Every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor. As the Sandwich Islander believes that the strength and valor of the enemy he kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of the temptation we resist.—Emerson.

If you do what you should not, you must bear what you would not.—Franklin.

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

In the history of man it has been very generally the case that when evils have grown insufferable they have touched the point of cure.—Chapin.

Even in evil, that dark cloud which hangs over the creation, we discern rays of light and hope, and gradually come to see in suffering and temptation proofs and instruments of the sublimest purposes of wisdom and love.—Channing.

Example.—Example is more forcible than precept. People look at my six days in the week to see what I mean on the seventh.—Rev. R. Cecil.

People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.—Goldsmith.

A wise and good man will turn examples of all sorts to his own advantage. The good he will make his patterns, and strive to equal or excel them. The bad he will by all means avoid.—Thomas à Kempis.

None preaches better than the ant, and she says nothing.—Franklin.

No reproof or denunciation is so potent as the silent influence of a good example.—Hosea Ballou.

I am satisfied that we are less convinced by what we hear than by what we see.—Herodotus.

Advice may be wrong, but examples prove themselves.—H.W. Shaw.

If thou desire to see thy child virtuous, let him not see his father's vices; thou canst not rebuke that in children that they behold practised in thee; till reason be ripe, examples direct more than precepts; such as thy behavior is before thy children's faces, such commonly is theirs behind their parents' backs.—Quarles.

Example is contagious behavior.—Charles Reade.

The pulpit only "teaches" to be honest; the market-place "trains" to overreaching and fraud; and teaching has not a tithe of the efficiency of training. Christ never wrote a tract, but he went about doing good.—Horace Mann.

The best teachers of humanity are the lives of great men.—Dr. Johnson.

Excess.—Excess always carries its own retribution.—Ouida.

The misfortune is, that when man has found honey, he enters upon the feast with an appetite so voracious, that he usually destroys his own delight by excess and satiety.—Knox.

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
—Shakespeare.

The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age, payable with interest, about thirty years after date.—Colton.

The body oppressed by excesses, bears down the mind, and depresses to the earth any portion of the divine spirit we had been endowed with.—Horace.

Every morsel to a satisfied hunger is only a new labor to a tired digestion.—South.

Let pleasure be ever so innocent, the excess is always criminal.—St. Evremond.

Exercise.—A man must often exercise or fast or take physic, or be sick.—Sir W. Temple.

It is exercise alone that supports the spirits, and keeps the mind in vigor.—Cicero.

There are many troubles which you cannot cure by the Bible and the hymn-book, but which you can cure by a good perspiration and a breath of fresh air.—Beecher.

Exercise is the chief source of improvement in all our faculties.—Blair.

You will never live to my age without you keep yourself in breath with exercise.—Sir P. Sidney.

Experience.—To Truth's house there is a single door, which is experience.—Bayard Taylor.

Experience join'd with common sense,
To mortals is a providence.
—Green.

Experience does take dreadfully high school-wages, but he teaches like no other.—Carlyle.

No man was ever endowed with a judgment so correct and judicious, in regulating his life, but that circumstances, time and experience, would teach him something new, and apprize him that of those things with which he thought himself the best acquainted, he knew nothing; and that those ideas, which in theory appeared the most advantageous, were found, when brought into practice, to be altogether inapplicable.—Terence.

Experience is a grindstone; and it is lucky for us if we can get brightened by it, and not ground.—H.W. Shaw.

It may serve as a comfort to us in all our calamities and afflictions that he that loses anything and gets wisdom by it is a gainer by the loss.—L'Estrange.

To wilful men,
The injuries that they themselves procure,
Must be their schoolmasters.
—Shakespeare.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that; for it is true we may give advice, but we cannot give conduct.—Franklin.

All is but lip wisdom which wants experience.—Sir P. Sidney.

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

The man who builds, and wants wherewith to pay,
Provides a home from which to run away.
—Young.

Faith.—What we believe, we must believe wholly and without reserve; wherefore the only perfect and satisfying object of faith is God. A faith that sets bounds to itself, that will believe so much and no more, that will trust thus far and no farther, is none.

Faith is the key that unlocks the cabinet of God's treasures; the king's messenger from the celestial world, to bring all the supplies we need out of the fullness that there is in Christ.—J. Stephens.

Faith builds a bridge from this world to the next.—Young.

It is impossible to be a hero in anything unless one is first a hero in faith.—Jacobi.

Faith is not the lazy notion that a man may with careless confidence throw his burden upon the Saviour and trouble himself no further, a pillow upon which he lulls his conscience to sleep, till he drops into perdition; but a living and vigorous principle, working by love, and inseparably connected with true repentance as its motive and with holy obedience as its fruits.

Faith is the root of all good works. A root that produces nothing is dead.—Bishop Wilson.

The person who has a firm trust in the Supreme Being is powerful in his power, wise by his wisdom, happy by his happiness.—Addison.

The highest historical probability can be adduced in support of the proposition that, if it were possible to annihilate the Bible, and with it all its influences, we should destroy with it the whole spiritual system of the moral world.—Edward Everett.

He had great faith in loaves of bread
For hungry people, young and old,
And hope inspired; kind words he said
To those he sheltered from the cold.
In words he did not put his trust;
His faith in words he never writ;
He loved to share his cup and crust
With all mankind who needed it.
He put his trust in Heaven and he
Worked well with hand and head;
And what he gave in charity
Sweetened his sleep and daily bread.

No cloud can overshadow a true Christian but his faith will discern a rainbow in it.—Bishop Horne.

Faith in God, faith in man, faith in work: this is the short formula in which we may sum up the teachings of the founders of New England,—a creed ample enough for this life and the next.—Lowell.

Fame.—None despise fame more heartily than those who have no possible claim to it.—J. Petit-Senn.

He who would acquire fame must not show himself afraid of censure. The dread of censure is the death of genius.—Simms.

Though fame is smoke, its fumes are frankincense to human thoughts.—Byron.

He lives in fame that died in virtue's cause.—Shakespeare.

Whatever may be the temporary applause of men, or the expressions of public opinion, it may be asserted without fear of contradiction, that no true and permanent fame can be founded, except in labors which promote the happiness of mankind.—Charles Sumner.

Fame usually comes to those who are thinking about something else,—very rarely to those who say to themselves, "Go to, now let us be a celebrated individual!"—Holmes.

It is a very indiscreet and troublesome ambition which cares so much about fame; about what the world says of us; to be always looking in the faces of others for approval; to be always anxious about the effect of what we do or say; to be always shouting, to hear the echoes of our own voices.—Longfellow.

The way to fame is like the way to heaven—through much tribulation.—Sterne.

Nor fame I slight, nor for her favors call:
She comes unlook'd for, if she comes at all.
—Pope.

Write your name in kindness, love and mercy on the hearts of the thousands you come in contact with year by year, and you will never be forgotten.—Chalmers.

The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.
—Byron.

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

A woman would be in despair if Nature had formed her as fashion makes her appear.—Mlle. De l'Espinasse.

Fashion is not public opinion, or the result of embodiment of public opinion. It may be that public opinion will condemn the shape of a bonnet, as it may venture to do always, and with the certainty of being right nine times in ten: but fashion will place it upon the head of every woman in America; and, were it literally a crown of thorns, she would smile contentedly beneath the imposition.—J.G. Holland.

Fashion is among the last influences under which a human being who respects himself, or who comprehends the great end of life, would desire to be placed.—Channing.

The Empress of France had but to change the position of a ribbon to set all the ribbons in Christendom to rustling. A single word from her convulsed the whalebone market of the world.—J.G. Holland.

A fashionable woman is always in love—with herself.—La Rochefoucauld.

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

Fashion, a word which knaves and fools may use
Their knavery and folly to excuse.
—Churchill.

Fear.—The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.—Psalm 111:10.

O, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know ere long,—
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.
—Longfellow.

Fear not the proud and the haughty; fear rather him who fears God.—Saadi.

Fear guides more to their duty than gratitude; for one man who is virtuous from the love of virtue, from the obligation he thinks he lies under to the Giver of all, there are ten thousand who are good only from their apprehension of punishment.—Goldsmith.

The fear of God is freedom, joy, and peace;
And makes all ills that vex us here to cease.
—Waller.

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?—Psalm 27:1.

Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil.—Dr. Johnson.

God planted fear in the soul as truly as He planted hope or courage. Fear is a kind of bell, or gong, which rings the mind into quick life and avoidance upon the approach of danger. It is the soul's signal for rallying.—Beecher.

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment.—1 John 4:18.

Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt.—George Sewell.

Fear not; for I am with thee.—Isaiah 43:5.

Fidelity.—To God, thy country, and thy friend be true.—Vaughan.

He who is faithful over a few things is a lord of cities. It does not matter whether you preach in Westminster Abbey or teach a ragged class, so you be faithful. The faithfulness is all.—George Macdonald.

His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles;
His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate;
His tears, pure messengers sent from his heart;
His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.
—Shakespeare.

Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity. Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind.—Cicero.

Give us a man, young or old, high or low, on whom we know we can thoroughly depend, who will stand firm when others fail; the friend faithful and true, the adviser honest and fearless, the adversary just and chivalrous,—in such a one there is a fragment of the Rock of Ages.—Dean Stanley.

Flattery.—Those are generally good at flattering who are good for nothing else.—South.

If any man flatters me, I'll flatter him again, though he were my best friend.—Franklin.

No flatt'ry, boy! an honest man can't live by't;
It is a little sneaking art, which knaves
Use to cajole and soften fools withal.
If thou hast flatt'ry in thy nature, out with't;
Or send it to a court, for there 'twill thrive.
—Otway.

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

Flatterers are the worst kind of enemies.—Tacitus.

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

Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flattery.—Swift.

Men find it more easy to flatter than to praise.—Jean Paul.

'Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery's the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit.
—Swift.

Ah! when the means are gone, that buy this praise,
The breath is gone whereof this praise is made.
—Shakespeare.

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

Who flatters is of all mankind the lowest,
Save he who courts the flattery.
—Hannah More.

Meddle not with him that flattereth with his lips.—Proverbs 20:19.

Men are like stone jugs,—you may lug them where you like by the ears.—Dr. Johnson.

Commend a fool for his wit and a knave for his honesty, and they will receive you into their bosoms.—Fielding.

Flowers.—Flowers are the sweetest things that God ever made and forgot to put a soul into.—Beecher.

In Eastern lands they talk in flowers,
And they tell in a garland their loves and cares:
Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers
On its leaves a mystic language bears.
—Percival.

How the universal heart of man blesses flowers! They are wreathed round the cradle, the marriage altar, and the tomb.—Mrs. L.M. Child.

There is not the least flower but seems to hold up its head and to look pleasantly, in the secret sense of the goodness of its Heavenly Maker.—South.

Flowers knew how to preach divinity before men knew how to dissect and botanize them.—H.N. Hudson.

And with childlike credulous affection
We behold their tender buds expand;
Emblems of our own great resurrection,
Emblems of the bright and better land.
—Longfellow.

Fools.—He who provides for this life, but takes no care for eternity, is wise for a moment, but a fool forever.—Tillotson.

The wise man has his follies no less than the fool; but it has been said that herein lies the difference,—the follies of the fool are known to the world, but are hidden from himself; the follies of the wise are known to himself, but hidden from the world.—Colton.

People are never so near playing the fool as when they think themselves wise.—Lady Montagu.

To pardon those absurdities in ourselves which we cannot suffer in others is neither better nor worse than to be more willing to be fools ourselves than to have others so.—Pope.

Surely he is not a fool that hath unwise thoughts, but he that utters them.—Bishop Hall.

It would be easier to endow a fool with intellect than to persuade him that he had none.—Babinet.

At thirty man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty, chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve,
Resolves—and re-resolves; then dies the same.
—Young.

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

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.—Pope.

A fool is often as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and always more incorrigible.—Colton.

Always win fools first. They talk much, and what they have once uttered they will stick to; whereas there is always time, up to the last moment, to bring before a wise man arguments that may entirely change his opinion.—Helps.

Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools.—Chapman.

None but a fool is always right.—Hare.

People have no right to make fools of themselves, unless they have no relations to blush for them.—Haliburton.

Forbearance.—Learn from Jesus to love and to forgive. Let the blood of Jesus, which implores pardon for you in heaven, obtain it from you for your brethren here upon earth.—Valpy.

The kindest and the happiest pair
Will find occasion to forbear;
And something every day they live
To pity, and perhaps forgive.
—Cowper.

It is a noble and a great thing to cover the blemishes and to excuse the failings of a friend; to draw a curtain before his stains, and to display his perfections; to bury his weaknesses in silence, but to proclaim his virtues upon the house-top.—South.

Forgiveness.—If ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.—Matthew 6:14.

He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven.—Lord Herbert.

They who forgive most shall be most forgiven.—Bailey.

The brave only know how to forgive.—Sterne.

The gospel comes to the sinner at once with nothing short of complete forgiveness as the starting-point of all his efforts to be holy. It does not say, "Go and sin no more, and I will not condemn thee." It says at once, "Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no more."—Horatius Bonar.

Life, that ever needs forgiveness, has, for its first duty, to forgive.—Lytton.

Alas! if my best Friend, who laid down His life for me, were to remember all the instances in which I have neglected Him, and to plead them against me in judgment, where should I hide my guilty head in the day of recompense? I will pray, therefore, for blessings on my friends, even though they cease to be so, and upon my enemies, though they continue such.—Cowper.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.—The Lord's Prayer.

God's way of forgiving is thorough and hearty,—both to forgive and to forget; and if thine be not so, thou hast no portion of His.—Leighton.

Fortitude.—The greatest man is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution; who resists the sorest temptations from within and without; who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully; who is the calmest in storms, and whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on God, is the most unfaltering.—Channing.

Fortitude implies a firmness and strength of mind, that enables us to do and suffer as we ought. It rises upon an opposition, and, like a river, swells the higher for having its course stopped.—Jeremy Collier.

True fortitude I take to be the quiet possession of a man's self, and an undisturbed doing his duty, whatever evil besets or danger lies in his way.—Locke.

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

The prudent man really frames his own fortunes for himself.—Plautus.

Let fortune do her worst, whatever she makes us lose, so long as she never makes us lose our honesty and our independence.—Pope.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.—Shakespeare.

Every man is the architect of his own fortune.—Sallust.

The bad fortune of the good turns their faces up to heaven; and the good fortune of the bad bows their heads down to the earth.—Saadi.

Fortune favors the bold.—Cicero.

The less we deserve good fortune, the more we hope for it.—Molière.

Freedom.—I would rather be a freeman among slaves than a slave among freemen.—Swift.

There are two freedoms,—the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where a man is free to do what he ought.—Charles Kingsley.

The cause of freedom is the cause of God.—Bowles.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.
—Richard Lovelace.

And ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.
—Robert Treat Paine.

Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.—Macaulay.

To have freedom is only to have that which is absolutely necessary to enable us to be what we ought to be, and to possess what we ought to possess.—Rahel.

When Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white
With streakings of the morning light.
—Joseph Rodman Drake.

Freedom is not caprice but room to enlarge.—C.A. Bartol.

Blandishments will not fascinate us, nor will threats of a "halter" intimidate. For, under God, we are determined that, wheresoever, whensoever, or howsoever we shall be called to make our exit, we will die freemen.—Josiah Quincy.

Who then is free?—the wise, who well maintains
An empire o'er himself; whom neither chains,
Nor want, nor death, with slavish fear inspire;
Who boldly answers to his warm desire;
Who can ambition's vainest gifts despise;
Firm in himself, who on himself relies;
Polish'd and round, who runs his proper course,
And breaks misfortune with superior force.
—Horace.

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

He was the freeman whom the truth made free;
Who first of all, the bands of Satan broke;
Who broke the bands of sin, and for his soul,
In spite of fools consulted seriously.
—Pollock.

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

The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves by thumping on your back
His sense of your great merit,
Is such a friend, that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon or to bear it.
—Cowper.

He is a friend indeed who proves himself a friend in need.—Plautus.

Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not.—Proverbs 27:10.

To God, thy country, and thy friend be true.—Vaughan.

There is no man so friendless but that he can find a friend sincere enough to tell him disagreeable truths.—Lytton.

A friendship that makes the least noise is very often the most useful; for which reason I should prefer a prudent friend to a zealous one.—Addison.

A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of friends; and that the most liberal professions of good-will are very far from being the surest marks of it.—George Washington.

No friend's a friend till he shall prove a friend.—Beaumont and Fletcher.

The qualities of your friends will be those of your enemies,—cold friends, cold enemies; half friends, half enemies; fervid enemies, warm friends.—Lavater.

Purchase no friends by gifts; when thou ceasest to give such will cease to love.—Fuller.

The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend as to find a friend worth dying for.—Henry Home.

Real friendship is a slow grower, and never thrives unless engrafted upon a stock of known and reciprocal merit.—Chesterfield.

There is nothing more becoming any wise man, than to make choice of friends, for by them thou shalt be judged what thou art: let them therefore be wise and virtuous, and none of those that follow thee for gain; but make election rather of thy betters, than thy inferiors.—Sir Walter Raleigh.

'Tis thus that on the choice of friends
Our good or evil name depends.
—Gay.

We may have many acquaintances, but we can have but few friends; this made Aristotle say that he that hath many friends hath none.—Dr. Johnson.

An act, by which we make one friend and one enemy, is a losing game; because revenge is a much stronger principle than gratitude.—Colton.

That friendship will not continue to the end that is begun for an end.—Quarles.

Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in continue firm and constant.—Socrates.

We cannot expect the deepest friendship unless we are willing to pay the price, a self-sacrificing love.—Peloubet.

False friends are like our shadow, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us the instant we cross into the shade.—Bovee.

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.—Franklin.

The greatest medicine is a true friend.—Sir W. Temple.

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

Sudden friendships rarely live to ripeness.—Mlle. de Scudéri.

Who friendship with a knave hath made,
Is judg'd a partner in the trade.
—Gay.

Thou mayest be sure that he who will in private tell thee of thy faults is thy friend, for he adventures thy dislike and doth hazard thy hatred.—Sir Walter Raleigh.

He is happy that hath a true friend at his need; but he is more truly happy that hath no need of his friend.—Warwick.

I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
—Cowper.

True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in the worth and choice.—Dr. Johnson.

Frugality.—Frugality is founded on the principle that all riches have limits.—Burke.

Frugality may be termed the daughter of prudence, the sister of temperance, and the parent of liberty.—Dr. Johnson.

The world has not yet learned the riches of frugality.—Cicero.

Futurity.—It is vain to be always looking toward the future and never acting toward it.—J.F. Boyes.

The best preparation for the future is the present well seen to, the last duty done.—George Macdonald.

Trust no future howe'er pleasant;
Let the dead past bury its dead;
Act,—act in the living present,
Heart within and God o'erhead!
—Longfellow.

The state of that man's mind who feels too intense an interest as to future events, must be most deplorable.—Seneca.

God will not suffer man to have the knowledge of things to come; for if he had prescience of his prosperity, he would be careless; and, understanding of his adversity, he would be senseless.—St. Augustine.

Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.—Proverbs 27:1.

The golden age is not in the past, but in the future; not in the origin of human experience, but in its consummate flower; not opening in Eden, but out from Gethsemane.—Chapin.

Why will any man be so impertinently officious as to tell me all prospect of a future state is only fancy and delusion? Is there any merit in being the messenger of ill news. If it is a dream, let me enjoy it, since it makes me both the happier and better man.—Addison.

How narrow our souls become when absorbed in any present good or ill! it is only the thought of the future that makes them great.—Richter.

If there was no future life, our souls would not thirst for it.—Richter.

Gambling.—There is nothing that wears out a fine face like the vigils of the card-table, and those cutting passions which naturally attend them. Hollow eyes, haggard looks and pale complexions are the natural indications.—Steele.

Games of chance are traps to catch school boy novices and gaping country squires, who begin with a guinea and end with a mortgage.—Cumberland.

All gaming, since it implies a desire to profit at the expense of another, involves a breach of the tenth commandment.—Whately.

There is but one good throw upon the dice, which is, to throw them away.—Chatfield.

I look upon every man as a suicide from the moment he takes the dice-box desperately in his hand; and all that follows in his fatal career from that time is only sharpening the dagger before he strikes it to his heart.—Cumberland.

It is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity and the father of mischief.—Washington.

Generosity.—All my experience of the world teaches me that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the safe side and the just side of a question is the generous side and the merciful side.—Mrs. Jameson.

He who gives what he would as readily throw away gives without generosity; for the essence of generosity is in self-sacrifice.—Henry Taylor.

Generosity is only benevolence in practice.—Bishop Ken.

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

If there be any truer measure of a man than by what he does, it must be by what he gives.—South.

Some are unwisely liberal; and more delight to give presents than to pay debts.—Sir P. Sidney.

When you give, take to yourself no credit for generosity, unless you deny yourself something in order that you may give.—Henry Taylor.

The generous who is always just, and the just who is always generous, may, unannounced, approach the throne of heaven.—Lavater.

Men of the noblest dispositions think themselves happiest when others share their happiness with them.—Duncan.

In giving, a man receives more than he gives; and the more is in proportion to the worth of the thing given.—George Macdonald.

Let us proportion our alms to our ability, lest we provoke God to proportion His blessings to our alms.—Beveridge.

A friend to everybody is often a friend to nobody, or else in his simplicity he robs his family to help strangers, and becomes brother to a beggar. There is wisdom in generosity, as in everything else.—Spurgeon.

Genius.—Genius is an immense capacity for taking trouble.—Carlyle.

Genius always gives its best at first, prudence at last.—Lavater.

There is hardly a more common error than that of taking the man who has but one talent for a genius.—Helps.

Talent wears well, genius wears itself out; talent drives a brougham in fact; genius, a sun-chariot in fancy.—Ouida.

Genius unexerted is no more genius than a bushel of acorns is a forest of oaks.—Beecher.

The first and last thing which is required of genius is the love of truth.—Goethe.

Genius can never despise labor.—Abel Stevens.

And genius hath electric power,
Which earth can never tame;
Bright suns may scorch, and dark clouds lower—
Its flash is still the same.
—Lydia M. Child.

Genius must be born, and never can be taught.—Dryden.

Genius is the gold in the mine, talent is the miner who works and brings it out.—Lady Blessington.

One science only will one genius fit;
So vast is art, so narrow human wit.
—Pope.

I know no such thing as genius,—genius is nothing but labor and diligence.—Hogarth.

Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone.—Longfellow.

Genius, without religion, is only a lamp on the outer gate of a palace. It may serve to cast a gleam of light on those that are without while the inhabitant sits in darkness.—Hannah More.

Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellences which are out of the reach of the rules of art: a power which no precepts can teach, and which no industry can acquire.—Sir J. Reynolds.

Gentleman.—Propriety of manners, and consideration for others, are the two main characteristics of a gentleman.—Beaconsfield.

To be a gentleman does not depend upon the tailor or the toilet. Good clothes are not good habits. A gentleman is just a gentle-man,—no more, no less; a diamond polished, that was first a diamond in the rough.—Bishop Doane.

What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought a gentleman to be a loyal son, a true husband, an honest father? Ought his life to be decent, his bills to be paid, his taste to be high and elegant, his aims in life lofty and noble?—Thackeray.

The taste of beauty, and the relish of what is decent, just and amiable, perfects the character of the gentleman and the philosopher. And the study of such a taste or relish will, as we suppose, be ever the great employment and concern of him who covets as well to be wise and good, as agreeable and polite.—Shaftesbury.

Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company, and reflection must finish him.—Locke.

You may depend upon it, religion is, in its essence, the most gentlemanly thing in the world. It will alone gentilize, if unmixed with cant; and I know nothing else that will, alone. Certainly not the army, which is thought to be the grand embellisher of manners.—Coleridge.

He is the best gentleman that is the son of his own deserts, and not the degenerated heir of another's virtue.—Victor Hugo.

Perhaps propriety is as near a word as any to denote the manners of the gentleman; elegance is necessary to the fine gentleman; dignity is proper to noblemen; and majesty to kings.—Hazlitt.

He is gentle that doth gentle deeds.