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Various - Many Thoughts of Many Minds

V >> Various >> Many Thoughts of Many Minds




When the idea of any pleasure strikes your imagination, make a just
computation between the duration of the pleasure and that of the
repentance that is likely to follow it.--EPICTETUS.

The seeds of repentance are sown in youth by pleasure, but the
harvest is reaped in age by pain.--COLTON.

Pleasure's the only noble end
To which all human powers should tend;
And virtue gives her heavenly lore,
But to make pleasure please us more!
Wisdom and she were both design'd
To make the senses more refined,
That man might revel free from cloying,
Then most a sage, when most enjoying!
--MOORE.

Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood,
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.
--POPE.

People should be guarded against temptation to unlawful pleasures by
furnishing them the means of innocent ones. In every community there
must be pleasures, relaxations, and means of agreeable excitement; and
if innocent are not furnished, resort will be had to criminal. Man was
made to enjoy as well as labor, and the state of society should be
adapted to this principle of human nature.--CHANNING.

Mental pleasures never cloy; unlike those of the body, they are
increased by repetition, approved of by reflection, and strengthened
by enjoyment.--COLTON.

I should rejoice if my pleasures were as pleasing to God as they are
to myself.--MARGUERITE DE VALOIS.

We tire of those pleasures we take, but never of those we give.
--J. PETIT-SENN.

Mistake not. Those pleasures are not pleasures that trouble the quiet
and tranquillity of thy life.--JEREMY TAYLOR.


POETRY.--True poetry, like the religious prompting itself, springs
from the emotional side of a man's complex nature, and is ever in
harmony with his highest intuitions and aspirations.--EPES SARGENT.

Then, rising with aurora's light,
The muse invoked, sit down to write;
Blot out, correct, insert, refine,
Enlarge, diminish, interline;
Be mindful, when invention fails,
To scratch your head and bite your nails.
--SWIFT.

It is uninspired inspiration.--HENRY REED.

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

Blessings be with them, and eternal praise,
Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares,
The poets, who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays!
--WORDSWORTH.

Poetry is the music of thought, conveyed to us in music of language.
--CHATFIELD.

He who finds elevated and lofty pleasures in the feeling of poetry is
a true poet, though he has never composed a line of verse in his
entire lifetime.--MADAME DUDEVANT.

Poetry is enthusiasm with wings of fire; it is the angel of high
thoughts, that inspires us with the power of sacrifice.--MAZZINI.

Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest
and best minds.--SHELLEY.

Poetry is unfallen speech. Paradise knew no other, for no other would
suffice to answer the need of those ecstatic days of innocence.
--ABRAHAM COLES.

Poesy is of so subtle a spirit, that in the pouring out of one
language into another it will evaporate.--DENHAM.

Poetry is the child of enthusiasm.--SIGMA.

The art of poetry is to touch the passions, and its duty to lead them
on the side of virtue.--COWPER.

Poetry has been to me its own exceeding great reward; it has given me
the habit of wishing to discover the good and beautiful in all that
meets and surrounds me.--S.T. COLERIDGE.

When the Divine Artist would produce a poem, He plants a germ of it in
a human soul, and out of that soul the poem springs and grows as from
the rose-tree the rose.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.

He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great
poet, must first become a little child.--MACAULAY.

Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling
souls.--VOLTAIRE.

There is as much difference between good poetry and fine verses, as
between the smell of a flower-garden and of a perfumer's shop.--HARE.

The world is full of poetry. The air is living with its spirit; and
the waves dance to the music of its melodies, and sparkle in its
brightness.--PERCIVAL.

You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some with you.--JOUBERT.

Poetry is the robe, the royal apparel, in which truth asserts its
divine origin.--BEECHER.

The poet may say or sing, not as things were, but as they ought to
have been; but the historian must pen them, not as they ought to have
been, but as they really were.--CERVANTES.


POLITENESS.--True politeness is perfect ease and freedom. It simply
consists in treating others just as you love to be treated yourself.
--CHESTERFIELD.

Politeness has been defined to be artificial good-nature; but we may
affirm, with much greater propriety, that good-nature is natural
politeness.--STANISLAUS.

Christianity is designed to refine and to soften; to take away the
heart of stone, and to give us hearts of flesh; to polish off the
rudeness and arrogances of our manners and tempers; and to make us
blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke.--JAY.

Politeness is to goodness what words are to thoughts.--JOUBERT.

Avoid all haste; calmness is an essential ingredient of politeness.
--ALPHONSE KARR.

There is no policy like politeness; and a good manner is the best
thing in the world, either to get one a good name or to supply the
want of it.--LYTTON.

There is no accomplishment so easy to acquire as politeness, and none
more profitable.--H.W. SHAW.

Fine manners are like personal beauty,--a letter of credit everywhere.
--BARTOL.

True politeness is the spirit of benevolence showing itself in a
refined way. It is the expression of good-will and kindness. It
promotes both beauty in the man who possesses it, and happiness in
those who are about him. It is a religious duty, and should be a part
of religious training.--BEECHER.

Politeness induces morality. Serenity of manners requires serenity of
mind.--JULIA WARD HOWE.

To the acquisition of the rare quality of politeness, so much of the
enlightened understanding is necessary that I cannot but consider
every book in every science, which tends to make us wiser, and of
course better men, as a treatise on a more enlarged system of
politeness.--MONRO.

Bowing, ceremonious, formal compliments, stiff civilities, will never
be politeness; that must be easy, natural, unstudied; and what will
give this but a mind benevolent and attentive to exert that amiable
disposition in trifles to all you converse and live with?--CHATHAM.

As charity covers a multitude of sins before God, so does politeness
before men.--GREVILLE.

The polite of every country seem to have but one character. A
gentleman of Sweden differs but little, except in trifles, from one of
any other country. It is among the vulgar we are to find those
distinctions which characterize a people.--GOLDSMITH.

When two goats met on a bridge which was too narrow to allow either to
pass or return, the goat which lay down that the other might walk over
it was a finer gentleman than Lord Chesterfield.--CECIL.

Good-breeding is not confined to externals, much less to any
particular dress or attitude of the body; it is the art of pleasing,
or contributing as much as possible to the ease and happiness of those
with whom you converse.--FIELDING.


POPULARITY.--Avoid popularity, if you would have peace.--ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Avoid popularity, it has many snares, and no real benefit.--WILLIAM PENN.

Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you!--LUKE 6:26.

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and
lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices,
but weigh them.--KANT.

Those men who are commended by everybody must be very extraordinary
men; or, which is more probable, very inconsiderable men.--LORD
GREVILLE.


POVERTY.--Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few
would be poor.--DR. JOHNSON.

In one important respect a man is fortunate in being poor. His
responsibility to God is so much the less.--BOVEE.

Morality and religion are but words to him who fishes in gutters for
the means of sustaining life, and crouches behind barrels in the
street for shelter from the cutting blasts of a winter night.--HORACE
GREELEY.

Poverty is the only burden which is not lightened by being shared with
others.--RICHTER.

We should not so much esteem our poverty as a misfortune, were it not
that the world treats it so much as a crime.--BOVEE.

Poverty is the test of civility and the touchstone of friendship.
--HAZLITT.

There is not such a mighty difference as some men imagine between the
poor and the rich; in pomp, show, and opinion there is a great deal,
but little as to the pleasures and satisfactions of life: they enjoy
the same earth and air and heavens; hunger and thirst make the poor
man's meat and drink as pleasant and relishing as all the varieties
which cover the rich man's table; and the labor of a poor man is more
healthful, and many times more pleasant, too, than the ease and
softness of the rich.--SHERLOCK.

Want is a bitter and a hateful good,
Because its virtues are not understood;
Yet many things, impossible to thought,
Have been by need to full perfection brought.
The daring of the soul proceeds from thence,
Sharpness of wit, and active diligence;
Prudence at once, and fortitude it gives;
And, if in patience taken, mends our lives.
--DRYDEN.

Few things in this world more trouble people than poverty, or the fear
of poverty; and, indeed, it is a sore affliction; but, like all other
ills that flesh is heir to, it has its antidote, its reliable remedy.
The judicious application of industry, prudence and temperance is a
certain cure.--HOSEA BALLOU.

That man is to be accounted poor, of whatever rank he be, and suffers
the pains of poverty, whose expenses exceed his resources; and no man
is, properly speaking, poor, but he.--PALEY.

That some of the indigent among us die of scanty food is undoubtedly
true; but vastly more in this community die from eating too much than
from eating too little.--CHANNING.

Poverty is the only load which is the heavier the more loved ones
there are to assist in supporting it.--RICHTER.


POWER.--Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest
heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with
unlimited power.--COLTON.

The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall.--BACON.

Even in war, moral power is to physical as three parts out of four.
--NAPOLEON.

The less power a man has, the more he likes to use it.--J. PETIT-SENN.

The greater a man is in power above others, the more he ought to excel
them in virtue. None ought to govern who is not better than the
governed.--PUBLIUS SYRUS.

It is an observation no less just than common, that there is no
stronger test of a man's real character than power and authority,
exciting, as they do, every passion, and discovering every latent
vice.--PLUTARCH.


PRAISE.--Words of praise, indeed, are almost as necessary to warm a
child into a genial life as acts of kindness and affection. Judicious
praise is to children what the sun is to flowers.--BOVEE.

Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and
not thine own lips.--PROVERBS 27:2.

For if good were not praised more than ill,
None would chuse goodness of his own free will.
--SPENSER.

Praise has different effects, according to the mind it meets with; it
makes a wise man modest, but a fool more arrogant, turning his weak
brain giddy.--FELTHAM.

Solid pudding against empty praise.--POPE.

It is always esteemed the greatest mischief a man can do to those whom
he loves, to raise men's expectations of them too high by undue and
impertinent commendations.--SPRAT.

Speak not in high commendation of any man to his face, nor censure any
man behind his back; but if thou knowest anything good of him, tell it
unto others; if anything ill, tell it privately and prudently to
himself.--BURKITT.

As the Greek said, "Many men know how to flatter, few men know how to
praise."--WENDELL PHILLIPS.

It is singular how impatient men are with overpraise of others, how
patient of overpraise of themselves; and yet the one does them no
injury, while the other may be their ruin.--LOWELL.

Good things should be praised.--SHAKESPEARE.

He hurts me most who lavishly commends.--CHURCHILL.

The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art,
Reigns more or less and glows in every heart.
--YOUNG.

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.
It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no longer raise
expectation or animate enterprise.--DR. JOHNSON.

It is the greatest possible praise to be praised by a man who is
himself deserving of praise.--FROM THE LATIN.

He who praises you for what you have not, wishes to take from you what
you have.--MANUEL.

Thou may'st be more prodigal of praise when thou writest a letter than
when thou speakest in presence.--FULLER.

Those who are greedy of praise prove that they are poor in merit.
--PLUTARCH.

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

Allow no man to be so free with you as to praise you to your face.
--STEELE.

Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.--PSALM 150:6.

Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so; it is this which
distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of
sycophants and admiration of fools.--STEELE.


PRAYER.--The first petition that we are to make to Almighty God is for
a good conscience, the next for health of mind, and then of body.
--SENECA.

Prayers are heard in heaven very much in proportion to our faith.
Little faith gets very great mercies, but great faith still greater.
--SPURGEON.

When we pray for any virtue, we should cultivate the virtue as well as
pray for it; the form of your prayers should be the rule of your life;
every petition to God is a precept to man. Look not, therefore, upon
your prayers as a short method of duty and salvation only, but as a
perpetual monition of duty; by what we require of God we see what He
requires of us.--JEREMY TAYLOR.

How happy it is to believe, with a steadfast assurance, that our
petitions are heard even while we are making them; and how delightful
to meet with a proof of it in the effectual and actual grant of
them.--COWPER.

We have assurance that we shall be heard in what we pray, because we
pray to that God that heareth prayer, and is the rewarder of all that
come unto Him; and in His name, to whom God denieth nothing; and,
therefore, howsoever we are not always answered at the present, or in
the same kind that we desire, yet, sooner or later, we are sure to
receive even above that we are able to ask or think, if we continue to
sue unto Him according to His will.--ARCHBISHOP USHER.

The best answer to all objections urged against prayer is the fact
that man cannot help praying; for we may be sure that that which is so
spontaneous and ineradicable in human nature has its fitting objects
and methods in the arrangements of a boundless Providence.--CHAPIN.

So much of our lives is celestial and divine as we spend in the
exercise of prayer.--HOOKER.

Leave not off praying to God: for either praying will make thee leave
off sinning; or continuing in sin will make thee desist from praying.
--FULLER.

Let our prayers, like the ancient sacrifices, ascend morning and
evening; let our days begin and end with God.--CHANNING.

Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed,
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.
--MONTGOMERY.

If He prayed who was without sin, how much more it becometh a sinner
to pray!--ST. CYPRIAN.

No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.--EMERSON.

He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small.
--COLERIDGE.

More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of.
--TENNYSON.

It is as natural and reasonable for a dependent creature to apply to
its Creator for what it needs, as for a child thus to solicit the aid
of a parent who is believed to have the disposition and ability to
bestow what it needs.--ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER.

Prayer is the first breath of Divine life; it is the pulse of the
believing soul;--by prayer "we draw water with joy from the wells of
salvation;" by prayer faith puts forth its energy, in apprehending the
promised blessings, and receiving from the Redeemer's fullness; in
leaning on His almighty arm, and making His name our strong tower; and
in overcoming the world, the flesh and the devil.--T. SCOTT.

No man can hinder our private addresses to God; every man can build a
chapel in his breast, himself the priest, his heart the sacrifice, and
the earth he treads on the altar.--JEREMY TAYLOR.

When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy
door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which
seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.--MATTHEW 6:6.

Prayer moves the hand that moves the universe.

Holy beginning of a holy cause,
When heroes, girt for freedom's combat, pause
Before high Heaven, and, humble in their might,
Call down its blessing on that coming fight.
--MOORE.

It is so natural for a man to pray that no theory can prevent him from
doing it.--JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.

The Lord's Prayer contains the sum total of religion and morals.
--WELLINGTON.

It lightens the stroke to draw near to Him who handles the rod.
--WASHINGTON IRVING.

I desire no other evidence of the truth of Christianity than the
Lord's Prayer.--MADAME DE STAEL.

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words
without a heart.--BUNYAN.

Between the humble and contrite heart and the majesty of Heaven there
are no barriers. The only password is prayer.--HOSEA BALLOU.

Prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness of our thoughts, the
evenness of recollection, the seat of meditation, the rest of our
cares and the calm of our tempest: prayer is the issue of a quiet
mind, of untroubled thoughts; it is the daughter of charity and the
sister of meekness.--JEREMY TAYLOR.

Our prayer and God's mercy are like two buckets in a well; while the
one ascends, the other descends.--BISHOP HOPKINS.

Prayer is the voice of faith.--HORNE.

We should pray with as much earnestness as those who expect everything
from God; we should act with as much energy as those who expect
everything from themselves.--COLTON.


PREACHING.--That is not the best sermon which makes the hearers go
away talking to one another, and praising the speaker, but which makes
them go away thoughtful and serious, and hastening to be alone.--BURNET.

Be short in all religious exercises. Better leave the people longing
than loathing.--NATHANIEL EMMONS.

A good discourse is that from which one can take nothing without
taking the life.--FENELON.

We must judge religious movements, not by the men who make them, but
by the men they make.--JOSEPH COOK.

The world looks at ministers out of the pulpit to know what they mean
when in it.--CECIL.

I preached as never sure to preach again,
And as a dying man to dying men.
--BAXTER.

Let all your preaching be in the most simple and plainest manner; look
not to the prince, but to the plain, simple, gross, unlearned people,
of which cloth the prince also himself is made. If I, in my preaching,
should have regard to Philip Melancthon and other learned doctors,
then should I do but little good. I preach in the simplest manner to
the unskillful, and that giveth content to all. Hebrew, Greek and
Latin I spare until we learned ones come together.--LUTHER.

It requires as much reflection and wisdom to know what is not to be
put into a sermon as what is.--CECIL.

To endeavor to move by the same discourse hearers who differ in age,
sex, position and education is to attempt to open all locks with the
same key.--J. PETIT-SENN.

Men of God have always, from time to time, walked among men, and made
their commission felt in the heart and soul of the commonest
hearer.--EMERSON.

I would not have preachers torment their hearers, and detain them with
long and tedious preaching.--LUTHER.

I love a serious preacher, who speaks for my sake and not for his own;
who seeks my salvation, and not his own vainglory. He best deserves to
be heard who uses speech only to clothe his thoughts, and his thoughts
only to promote truth and virtue.--MASSILLON.


PRECEPT.--Precepts are the rules by which we ought to square our
lives. When they are contracted into sentences, they strike the
affections; whereas admonition is only blowing of the coal.--SENECA.

He that lays down precepts for the government of our lives and
moderating our passions obliges human nature, not only in the present,
but in all succeeding generations.--SENECA.

Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones at hand
do more toward a happy life than whole volumes that we know not where
to find.--SENECA.

Precept must be upon precept.--ISAIAH 28:10.


PREJUDICE.--Prejudice is the child of ignorance.--HAZLITT.

As those who believe in the visibility of ghosts can easily see them,
so it is always easy to see repulsive qualities in those we despise
and hate.--FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

Prejudice squints when it looks, and lies when it talks.--DUCHESS
D'ABRANTES.

Human nature is so constituted that all see and judge better in the
affairs of other men than in their own.--TERENCE.

To all intents and purposes, he who will not open his eyes is, for the
present, as blind as he who cannot.--SOUTH.

The prejudices of ignorance are more easily removed than the
prejudices of interest; the first are all blindly adopted, the second
willfully preferred.--BANCROFT.

Prejudice may be considered as a continual false medium of viewing
things, for prejudiced persons not only never speak well, but also
never think well, of those whom they dislike, and the whole character
and conduct is considered with an eye to that particular thing which
offends them.--BUTLER.

Prejudice is the twin of illiberality.--G.D. PRENTICE.

Remember, when the judgment is weak the prejudice is strong.--KANE
O'HARA.

Prejudice and self-sufficiency naturally proceed from inexperience of
the world and ignorance of mankind.--ADDISON.

How immense to us appear the sins we have not committed.--MADAME NECKER.


PRESENT.--Busy not yourself in looking forward to the events of
to-morrow; but whatever may be those of the days Providence may yet
assign you neglect not to turn them to advantage.--HORACE.

Make use of time, if thou lovest eternity; know yesterday cannot be
recalled, to-morrow cannot be assured: to-day is only thine; which if
thou procrastinate, thou losest; which lost, is lost forever: one
to-day is worth two to-morrows.--QUARLES.

He who neglects the present moment throws away all he has.--SCHILLER.

Abridge your hopes in proportion to the shortness of the span of human
life; for while we converse, the hours, as if envious of our pleasure,
fly away: enjoy, therefore, the present time, and trust not too much
to what to-morrow may produce.--HORACE.

If we stand in the openings of the present moment, with all the length
and breadth of our faculties unselfishly adjusted to what it reveals,
we are in the best condition to receive what God is always ready to
communicate.--T.C. UPHAM.

Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly
happy at some period or other, when they have time. But the present
time has one advantage over every other--it is our own. Past
opportunities are gone, future are not come.--COLTON.

Try to be happy in this present moment, and put not off being so to a
time to come,--as though that time should be of another make from
this, which has already come and is ours.--FULLER.

Let us attend to the present, and as to the future we shall know how
to manage when the occasion arrives.--CORNEILLE.

We may make our future by the best use of the present. There is no
moment like the present.--MISS EDGEWORTH.

Take all reasonable advantage of that which the present may offer you.
It is the only time which is ours. Yesterday is buried forever, and
to-morrow we may never see.--VICTOR HUGO.

Every day is a gift I receive from Heaven; let us enjoy to-day that
which it bestows on me. It belongs not more to the young than to me,
and to-morrow belongs to no one.--MANCROIX.

One of the illusions is that the present hour is not the critical,
decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day
in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that
every day is Doomsday.--EMERSON.

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