Various - Many Thoughts of Many Minds
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Various >> Many Thoughts of Many Minds
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The opportunity to do mischief is found a hundred times a day, and
that of doing good once a year.--VOLTAIRE.
There is an hour in each man's life appointed to make his happiness,
if then he seize it.--BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
There is no man whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when
she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door
and flies out at the window.--CARDINAL IMPERIALI.
Nothing is so often irrevocably neglected as an opportunity of daily
occurrence.--MARIE EBNER-ESCHENBACH.
Give me a chance, says Stupid, and I will show you. Ten to one he has
had his chance already, and neglected it.--HALIBURTON.
That policy that can strike only while the iron is hot will be
overcome by that perseverance which, like Cromwell's, can make the
iron hot by striking; and he that can only rule the storm must yield
to him who can both raise and rule it.--COLTON.
Opportunity has hair in front; behind she is bald. If you seize her by
the forelock, you may hold her; but if suffered to escape, not Jupiter
himself can catch her again.--SENECA.
OPPOSITION.--The effects of opposition are wonderful. There are men
who rise refreshed on hearing of a threat; men to whom a crisis which
intimidates and paralyzes the majority--demanding, not the faculties
of prudence and thrift, but comprehension, immovableness, the
readiness of sacrifice,--comes graceful and beloved as a bride.
--EMERSON.
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our
skill. Our antagonist is our helper.--BURKE.
A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise
against and not with the wind. Even a head wind is better than none.
No man ever worked his passage anywhere in a dead calm. Let no man wax
pale, therefore, because of opposition.--JOHN NEAL.
It is not ease, but effort,--not facility, but difficulty, that makes
men. There is, perhaps, no station in life in which difficulties have
not to be encountered and overcome before any decided measure of
success can be achieved.--SAMUEL SMILES.
To make a young couple love each other, it is only necessary to
oppose and separate them.--GOETHE.
ORDER.--Order is heaven's first law.--POPE.
Order is to arrangement what the soul is to the body, and what mind is
to matter.--JOUBERT.
Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of
the city, the security of the State. As the beams to a house, as the
bones to the microcosm of man, so is order to all things.--SOUTHEY.
The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre,
Observe degree, priority, and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office, and custom, in all line of order.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Fretfulness of temper will generally characterize those who are
negligent of order.--BLAIR.
Let all things be done decently and in order.--1 CORINTHIANS 14:40.
PARADISE.--Every man has a paradise around him till he sins, and the
angel of an accusing conscience drives him from his Eden.--LONGFELLOW.
Gentleness and kindness will make our homes a paradise upon earth.
--BARTOL.
PARENTS.--The sacred books of the ancient Persians say: "If you would
be holy instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform
will be imputed to you."--MONTESQUIEU.
Of all hardness of heart there is none so inexcusable as that of
parents toward their children. An obstinate, inflexible, unforgiving
temper is odious upon all occasions; but here it is unnatural.--ADDISON.
Children, honor your parents in your hearts; bear them not only awe
and respect, but kindness and affection: love their persons, fear to
do anything that may justly provoke them; highly esteem them as the
instruments under God of your being: for "Ye shall fear every man his
mother and his father."--JEREMY TAYLOR.
Next to God, thy parents.--WILLIAM PENN.
Whoever makes his father's heart to bleed,
Shall have a child that will revenge the deed.
--RANDOLPH.
How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child's board. It is
like the aged man reclining under the shadow of the oak which he has
planted.--SCOT'S MAGAZINE.
With joy the parent loves to trace
Resemblance in his children's face:
And, as he forms their docile youth
To walk the steady paths of truth,
Observes them shooting into men,
And lives in them life o'er again.
--LLOYD.
Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the
land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.--EXODUS 20:12.
PASSION.--The passions are the gales of life; and it is religion only
that can prevent them from rising into a tempest.--DR. WATTS.
Strong as our passions are, they may be starved into submission, and
conquered without being killed.--COLTON.
The ruling passion, be it what it will,
The ruling passion conquers reason still.
--POPE.
Men spend their lives in the service of their passions, instead of
employing their passions in the service of their lives.--STEELE.
The art of governing the passions is more useful, and more important,
than many things in the search and pursuit of which we spend our days.
Without this art, riches and health, and skill and knowledge, will
give us little satisfaction; and whatsoever else we be, we can be
neither happy, nor wise, nor good.--JORTIN.
Hold not conference, debate, or reasoning with any lust; 'tis but a
preparatory for thy admission of it. The way is at the very first
flatly to deny it.--FULLER.
In the human breast two master-passions cannot coexist.--CAMPBELL.
The passions act as winds to propel our vessel, our reason is the
pilot that steers her; without the winds she would not move, without
the pilot she would be lost.--FROM THE FRENCH.
Even virtue itself, all perfect as it is, requires to be inspirited by
passion; for duties are but coldly performed which are but
philosophically fulfilled.--MRS. JAMESON.
Our headstrong passions shut the door of our souls against God.
--CONFUCIUS.
Men will always act according to their passions. Therefore the best
government is that which inspires the nobler passions and destroys the
meaner.--JACOBI.
The passions should be purged; all may become innocent if they are
well directed and moderated. Even hatred maybe a commendable feeling
when it is caused by a lively love of good. Whatever makes the
passions pure, makes them stronger, more durable, and more enjoyable.
--JOUBERT.
The most common-place people become highly imaginative when they are
in a passion. Whole dramas of insult, injury, and wrong pass before
their minds,--efforts of creative genius, for there is sometimes not a
fact to go upon.--HELPS.
As rivers, when they overflow, drown those grounds, and ruin those
husbandmen, which, whilst they flowed calmly betwixt their banks, they
fertilized and enriched; so our passions, when they grow exorbitant
and unruly, destroy those virtues, to which they may be very
serviceable whilst they keep within their bounds.--BOYLE.
Passion costs too much to bestow it upon every trifle.--REV. THOMAS ADAM.
Words may be counterfeit, false coined, and current only from the
tongue, without the mind; but passion is in the soul, and always
speaks the heart.--SOUTHERN.
A genuine passion is like a mountain stream; it admits of no
impediment; it cannot go backward; it must go forward.--BOVEE.
Passion is the drunkenness of the mind.--SOUTH.
Exalted souls
Have passions in proportion violent,
Resistless, and tormenting; they're a tax
Imposed by nature on pre-eminence,
And fortitude and wisdom must support them.
--LILLO.
One master-passion in the breast,
Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest.
--POPE.
Oh how the passions, insolent and strong,
Bear our weak minds their rapid course along;
Make us the madness of their will obey;
Then die and leave us to our griefs a prey!
--CRABBE.
A great passion has no partner.--LAVATER.
When the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of passion, it is
the man, and not the subject, that becomes exhausted.--THOMAS PAINE.
He who is passionate and hasty is generally honest. It is your cool,
dissembling hypocrite of whom you should beware.--LAVATER.
The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous
only in one, through their excess.--BOVEE.
It is not the absence, but the mastery, of our passions which affords
happiness.--MME. DE MAINTENON.
PAST.--The past is utterly indifferent to its worshipers.--WILLIAM
WINTER.
Not to know what happened before we were born is always to remain a
child; to know, and blindly to adopt that knowledge as an implicit
rule of life, is never to be a man.--CHATFIELD.
No hand can make the clock strike for me the hours that are passed.
--BYRON.
The present is only intelligible in the light of the past.--TRENCH.
Study the past if you would divine the future.--CONFUCIUS.
The best of prophets of the future is the past.--BYRON.
Many classes are always praising the by-gone time, for it is natural
that the old should extol the days of their youth; the weak, the area
of their strength; the sick, the season of their vigor; and the
disappointed, the springtide of their hopes!--C. BINGHAM.
Some are so very studious of learning what was done by the ancients
that they know not how to live with the moderns.--WILLIAM PENN.
The past and future are veiled; but the past wears the widow's veil;
the future, the virgin's.--RICHTER.
PATIENCE.--He that can have patience can have what he will.--FRANKLIN.
Patience! why, it is the soul of peace; of all the virtues, it is
nearest kin to heaven; it makes men look like gods. The best of men
that ever wore earth about him was a sufferer,--a soft, meek, patient,
humble, tranquil spirit; the first true gentleman that ever breathed.
--DECKER.
Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses
and disappointments; but let us have patience, and we soon shall see
them in their proper figures.--ADDISON.
If we could have a little patience, we should escape much mortification;
time takes away as much as it gives.--MADAME DE SEVIGNE.
Never think that God's delays are God's denials. Hold on; hold fast;
hold out. Patience is genius.--BUFFON.
There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a
virtue.--BURKE.
We usually learn to wait only when we have no longer anything to wait
for.--MARIE EBNER-ESCHENBACH.
No school is more necessary to children than patience, because either
the will must be broken in childhood or the heart in old age.--RICHTER.
We have only to be patient, to pray, and to do His will, according to
our present light and strength, and the growth of the soul will go on.
The plant grows in the mist and under clouds as truly as under
sunshine; so does the heavenly principle within.--CHANNING.
He that will have a cake of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Patience is a nobler motion than any deed.--C.A. BARTOL.
Patience is the guardian of faith, the preserver of peace, the
cherisher of love, the teacher of humility; Patience governs the
flesh, strengthens the spirit, sweetens the temper, stifles anger,
extinguishes envy, subdues pride; she bridles the tongue, refrains the
hand, tramples upon temptations, endures persecutions, consummates
martyrdom; Patience produces unity in the church, loyalty in the
State, harmony in families and societies; she comforts the poor and
moderates the rich; she makes us humble in prosperity, cheerful in
adversity, unmoved by calumny and reproach; she teaches us to forgive
those who have injured us, and to be the first in asking forgiveness
of those whom we have injured; she delights the faithful, and invites
the unbelieving; she adorns the woman, and approves the man; is loved
in a child, praised in a young man, admired in an old man; she is
beautiful in either sex and every age.--BISHOP HORNE.
Patience is the ballast of the soul, that will keep it from rolling
and tumbling in the greatest storms; and he that will venture out
without this to make him sail even and steady will certainly make
shipwreck and drown himself, first in the cares and sorrows of this
world, and then in perdition.--BISHOP HOPKINS.
There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and
without undue haste; there are no honors too distant to the man who
prepares himself for them with patience.--LA BRUYERE.
Patience is the support of weakness; impatience is the ruin of
strength.--COLTON.
If the wicked flourish and thou suffer, be not discouraged. They are
fatted for destruction; thou art dieted for health.--FULLER.
Patience is sorrow's salve.--CHURCHILL.
PATRIOTISM.--He serves his party best, who serves the country best.
--RUTHERFORD B. HAYES.
This is a maxim which I have received by hereditary tradition, not
only from my father, but also from my grandfather and his ancestors,
that after what I owe to God, nothing should be more dear or more
sacred than the love and respect I owe to my country.--DE THOU.
Be just, and fear not;
Let all the ends thou aim'st at, be thy country's,
Thy God's, and Truth's.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,
His first, best country ever is at home.
--GOLDSMITH.
I love my country's good, with a respect more tender, more holy and
profound, than my own life.--SHAKESPEARE.
Hail, Columbia! happy land!
Hail, ye heroes! heaven born band!
Who fought and bled in freedom's cause,
Who fought and bled in freedom's cause,
And when the storm of war was gone,
Enjoyed the peace your valor won.
Let Independence be our boast,
Ever mindful what it cost;
Ever grateful for the prize,
Let its altar reach the skies!
--JOSEPH HOPKINSON.
Strike--for your altars and your fires;
Strike--for the green graves of your sires;
God, and your native land!
--FITZ-GREENE HALLECK.
One flag, one land, one heart, one hand,
One nation evermore!
--HOLMES.
If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the
spot.--JOHN A. DIX.
The noblest motive is the public good.--VIRGIL.
The union of lakes, the union of lands,
The union of States none can sever,
The union of hearts, the union of hands,
And the flag of our Union forever!
--GEORGE P. MORRIS.
I was born an American; I live an American; I shall die an American.
--DANIEL WEBSTER.
Our country--whether bounded by the St. John's and the Sabine, or
however otherwise bounded or described, and be the measurement more or
less--still our country, to be cherished in all our hearts, to be
defended by all our hands.--ROBERT C. WINTHROP.
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears,
Are all with thee,--are all with thee!
--LONGFELLOW.
I am not accustomed to the language of eulogy; I have never studied
the art of paying compliments to women; but I must say that if all
that has been said by orators and poets, since the creation of the
world, in praise of woman, was applied to the women of America, it
would not do them justice for their conduct during this war.--ABRAHAM
LINCOLN.
How dear is fatherland to all noble hearts!--VOLTAIRE.
Let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing but our
country. And, by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a
vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of
wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with
admiration forever.--DANIEL WEBSTER.
PEACE.--Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the
children of God.--MATTHEW 5:9.
I could not live in peace if I put the shadow of a wilful sin between
myself and God.--GEORGE ELIOT.
Five great enemies of peace inhabit with us--avarice, ambition, envy,
anger and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly
enjoy perpetual peace.--PETRARCH.
There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to
meet the enemy.--WASHINGTON.
They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into
pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither
shall they learn war any more.--ISAIAH 2:4.
I never advocated war except as a means of peace.--U.S. GRANT.
There are interests by the sacrifice of which peace is too dearly
purchased. One should never be at peace to the shame of his own
soul--to the violation of his integrity or of his allegiance to
God.--CHAPIN.
Peace, above all things, is to be desired; but blood must sometimes be
spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.--ANDREW JACKSON.
PERSEVERANCE.--The block of granite, which was an obstacle in the
pathway of the weak, becomes a stepping stone in the pathway of the
strong.--CARLYLE.
It is all very well to tell me that a young man has distinguished
himself by a brilliant first speech. He may go on, or he may be
satisfied with his first triumph; but show me a young man who has not
succeeded at first, and nevertheless has gone on, and I will back that
young man to do better than most of those who have succeeded at the
first trial.--CHARLES JAMES FOX.
I hold a doctrine, to which I owe not much, indeed, but all the
little I ever had, namely, that with ordinary talent and extraordinary
perseverance, all things are attainable.--SIR T.F. BUXTON.
Those who would attain to any marked degree of excellence in a chosen
pursuit must work, and work hard for it, prince or peasant.--BAYARD
TAYLOR.
All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or
wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance; it is
by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries
are united by canals. If a man was to compare the effect of a single
stroke of a pickaxe, or of one impression of the spade, with the
general design and last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense
of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly
continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains
are levelled, and oceans bounded, by the slender force of human
beings.--DR. JOHNSON.
Even in social life, it is persistency which attracts confidence, more
than talents and accomplishments.--WHIPPLE.
A falling drop at last will carve a stone.--LUCRETIUS.
Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt;
Nothing so hard but search will find it out.
--LOVELACE.
It is interesting to notice how some minds seem almost to create
themselves, springing up under every disadvantage, and working their
solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles.
--WASHINGTON IRVING.
Press on! a better fate awaits thee.--VICTOR HUGO.
PHILOSOPHY.--True philosophy is that which renders us to ourselves,
and all others who surround us, better, and at the same time more
content, more patient, more calm and more ready for all decent and
pure enjoyment.--LAVATER.
Philosophy abounds more than philosophers, and learning more than
learned men.--W.B. CLULOW.
The road to true philosophy is precisely the same with that which
leads to true religion; and from both the one and the other, unless we
would enter in as little children, we must expect to be totally
excluded.--BACON.
Philosophy is the art and law of life, and it teaches us what to do in
all cases, and, like good marksmen, to hit the white at any distance.
--SENECA.
A little philosophy inclineth men's minds to atheism; but depth in
philosophy bringeth men's minds to religion.--BACON.
Whence? whither? why? how?--these questions cover all philosophy.
--JOUBERT.
PHYSIOGNOMY.--Children are marvelously and intuitively correct
physiognomists. The youngest of them exhibit this trait.--BARTOL.
As the language of the face is universal, so 'tis very comprehensive;
no laconism can reach it; 'tis the short-hand of the mind, and crowds
a great deal in a little room.--JEREMY COLLIER.
Spite of Lavater, faces are oftentimes great lies. They are the paper
money of society, for which, on demand, there frequently proves to be
no gold in the human coffer.--F.G. TRAFFORD.
The scope of an intellect is not to be measured with a tape-string, or
a character deciphered from the shape or length of a nose.--BOVEE.
People's opinions of themselves are legible in their countenances.
--JEREMY COLLIER.
PIETY.--True piety hath in it nothing weak, nothing sad, nothing
constrained. It enlarges the heart; it is simple, free, and attractive.
--FENELON.
We may learn by practice such things upon earth as shall be of use to
us in heaven. Piety, unostentatious piety, is never out of place.
--CHAPIN.
Piety does not mean that a man should make a sour face about things,
and refuse to enjoy in moderation what his Maker has given.--CARLYLE.
Piety raises and fortifies the mind for trying occasions and painful
events. When our country is threatened by dangers and pressed by
difficulties who are the best bulwarks of its defence? Not the sons of
dissipation and folly, not the smooth-tongued sycophants of a court,
nor sceptics and blasphemers, from the school of infidelity; but the
man whose moral conduct is animated and sustained by the doctrines and
consolations of religion. Happy is that country where patriotism is
sustained and sanctified by piety; where authority respects and guards
freedom, and freedom reveres and loves legitimate authority; where
truth and mercy meet together, righteousness and peace embrace each
other.--TON.
It is impossible for the mind which is not totally destitute of piety,
to behold the sublime, the awful, the amazing works of creation and
providence; the heavens with their luminaries, the mountains, the
ocean, the storm, the earthquake, and the volcano; the circuit of the
seasons and the revolutions of empires; without marking in them all
the mighty hand of God, and feeling strong emotions of reverence
toward the Author of these stupendous works.--DWIGHT.
John Wesley quaintly observed that the road to heaven is a narrow
path, not intended for wheels, and that to ride in a coach here and to
go to heaven hereafter, was a happiness too much for man.--BEECHER.
We are surrounded by motives to piety and devotion, if we would but
mind them. The poor are designed to excite our liberality; the
miserable, our pity; the sick, our assistance; the ignorant, our
instruction; those that are fallen, our helping hand. In those who are
vain, we see the vanity of the world; in those who are wicked, our own
frailty. When we see good men rewarded, it confirms our hope; and when
evil men are punished, it excites our fear.--BISHOP WILSON.
PITY.--Pity, though it may often relieve, is but, at best, a
short-lived passion, and seldom affords distress more than transitory
assistance; with some it scarce lasts from the first impulse till the
hand can be put into the pocket.--GOLDSMITH.
We pity in others only those evils which we have ourselves experienced.
--ROUSSEAU.
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.--SHAKESPEARE.
Pity and forbearance, and long-sufferance and fair interpretation, and
excusing our brother, and taking in the best sense, and passing the
gentlest sentence, are as certainly our duty, and owing to every
person that does offend and can repent, as calling to account can be
owing to the law, and are first to be paid; and he that does not so is
an unjust person.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
O, brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother, where pity dwells, the
peace of God is there.--WHITTIER.
The world is full of love and pity. Had there been less suffering,
there would have been less kindness.--THACKERAY.
Pity melts the mind to love.--DRYDEN.
PLEASURE.--Would you judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of
pleasures, take this rule:--Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the
tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes
off the relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the
strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin
to you, however innocent it may be in itself.--SOUTHEY.
Let not the enjoyment of pleasures now within your grasp be carried to
such excess as to incapacitate you from future repetition.--SENECA.
The inward pleasure of imparting pleasure--that is the choicest of
all.--HAWTHORNE.
He who can at all times sacrifice pleasure to duty approaches
sublimity.--LAVATER.
The end of pleasure is to support the offices of life, to relieve the
fatigues of business, to reward a regular action, and to encourage the
continuance.--JEREMY COLLIER.
Choose such pleasures as recreate much and cost little.--FULLER.
The pleasures of the world are deceitful; they promise more than they
give. They trouble us in seeking them, they do not satisfy us when
possessing them, and they make us despair in losing them.--MADAME DE
LAMBERT.
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