Various - Many Thoughts of Many Minds

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A feeling of sadness and longing
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
--LONGFELLOW.

The present only is a man's possession; the past is gone out of his
hand wholly, irrevocably. He may suffer from it, learn from it,--in
degree, perhaps, expiate it; but to brood over it is utter madness.
--MISS MULOCK.

Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
--WHITTIER.

RELIGION.--A religion that never suffices to govern a man will never
suffice to save him; that which does not sufficiently distinguish one
from a wicked world will never distinguish him from a perishing
world.--HOWE.

Religion crowns the statesman and the man,
Sole source of public and of private peace.
--YOUNG.

A true religious instinct never deprived man of one single joy;
mournful faces and a sombre aspect are the conventional affectations
of the weak-minded.--HOSEA BALLOU.

The source of all good and of all comfort.--BURKE.

You may depend upon it, religion is, in its essence, the most
gentlemanly thing in the world. It will _alone_ gentilize, if unmixed
with cant; and I know nothing else that will _alone_.--S.T. COLERIDGE.

If we traverse the world, it is possible to find cities without walls,
without letters, without kings, without wealth, without coin, without
schools and theatres; but a city without a temple, or that practiseth
not worship, prayer, and the like, no one ever saw.--PLUTARCH.

Religion, if in heavenly truths attired,
Needs only to be seen to be admired.
--COWPER.

Ah! what a divine religion might be found out if charity were really
made the principle of it instead of faith.--SHELLEY.

Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the
private school, supported entirely by private contributions; keep the
Church and the State forever apart.--U.S. GRANT.

Religion is the mortar that binds society together; the granite
pedestal of liberty; the strong backbone of the social system.--GUTHRIE.

All belief which does not render more happy, more free, more loving,
more active, more calm, is, I fear, an erroneous and superstitious
belief.--LAVATER.

Never trust anybody not of sound religion, for he that is false to God
can never be true to man.--LORD BURLEIGH.

A man devoid of religion, is like a horse without a bridle.--FROM THE
LATIN.

It is a great disgrace to religion, to imagine that it is an enemy to
mirth and cheerfulness, and a severe exacter of pensive looks and
solemn faces.--WALTER SCOTT.

Nowhere would there be consolation, if religion were not.--JACOBI.

A man with no sense of religious duty is he whom the Scriptures
describe in such terse but terrific language, as living "without God
in the world." Such a man is out of his proper being, out of the
circle of all his duties, out of the circle of all his happiness, and
away, far, far away, from the purposes of his creation.--WEBSTER.

All who have been great and good without Christianity, would have been
much greater and better with it.--COLTON.

There are a good many pious people who are as careful of their
religion as of their best service of china, only using it on holy
occasions, for fear it should get chipped or flawed in working-day
wear.--DOUGLAS JERROLD.

Wonderful! that the Christian religion, which seems to have no other
object than the felicity of another life, should also constitute the
happiness of this.--MONTESQUIEU.

Pour the balm of the Gospel into the wounds of bleeding nations. Plant
the tree of life in every soil, that suffering kingdoms may repose
beneath its shade and feel the virtue of its healing leaves, till all
the kindred of the human family shall be bound together in one common
bond of amity and love, and the warrior shall be a character unknown
but in the page of history.--THOMAS RAFFLES.

There are three modes of bearing the ills of life; by indifference,
which is the most common; by philosophy, which is the most
ostentatious; and by religion, which is the most effectual.--COLTON.

A house without family worship has neither foundation nor covering.
--MASON.

Religion is the best armor in the world, but the worst cloak.--BUNYAN.

A good name is better than precious ointment.--ECCLESIASTES 7:1.

I have lived long enough to know what I did not at one time
believe--that no society can be upheld in happiness and honor without
the sentiment of religion.--LA PLACE.

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,
religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that
man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these
great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of
men and citizens. And let us with caution indulge the supposition that
morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded
to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure,
reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality
can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.--WASHINGTON.

"When I was young, I was sure of many things; there are only two
things of which I am sure now; one is, that I am a miserable sinner;
and the other, that Jesus Christ is an all sufficient Saviour." He is
well taught who gets these two lessons.--JOHN NEWTON.

If we make religion our business, God will make it our blessedness.
--H.G.J. ADAM.

The call to religion is not a call to be better than your fellows, but
to be better than yourself. Religion is relative to the individual.
--BEECHER.

REMEMBRANCE.--Remembrance is the only paradise out of which we cannot
be driven away.--RICHTER.

You can't order remembrance out of the mind; and a wrong that was a
wrong yesterday must be a wrong to-morrow.--THACKERAY.

I cannot but remember such things were
That were most precious to me.
--SHAKESPEARE.

REMORSE.--Remorse is the punishment of crime; repentance, its
expiation. The former appertains to a tormented conscience; the latter
to a soul changed for the better.--JOUBERT.

Remorse, the fatal egg by pleasure laid,
In every bosom where her nest is made,
Hatched by the beams of truth, denies him rest,
And proves a raging scorpion in his breast.
--COWPER.

We can prostrate ourselves in the dust when we have committed a fault,
but it is not best to remain there.--CHATEAUBRIAND.

There is no man that is knowingly wicked but is guilty to himself; and
there is no man that carries guilt about him but he receives a sting
in his soul.--TILLOTSON.

REPENTANCE.--Repentance, without amendment, is like continually
pumping without mending the leak.--DILWYN.

Repentance is but another name for aspiration.--BEECHER.

If you would be good, first believe that you are bad.--EPICTETUS.

Repentance is a goddess and the preserver of those who have erred.
--JULIAN.

Some well-meaning Christians tremble for their salvation, because they
have never gone through that valley of tears and of sorrow, which they
have been taught to consider as an ordeal that must be passed through
before they can arrive at regeneration. To satisfy such minds, it may
be observed, that the slightest sorrow for sin is sufficient, if it
produce amendment, and that the greatest is insufficient, if it do
not.--COLTON.

Let us be quick to repent of injuries while repentance may not be a
barren anguish.--DR. JOHNSON.

Our hearts must not only be broken with sorrow, but be broken from
sin, to constitute repentance.--DEWEY.

Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every
time we fall.--GOLDSMITH.

I will to-morrow, that I will,
I will be sure to do it;
To-morrow comes, to-morrow goes,
And still thou art to do it.
Thus still repentance is deferred.
From one day to another:
Until the day of death is come,
And judgment is the other.
--DREXELIUS.

As it is never too soon to be good, so it is never too late to amend:
I will, therefore, neither neglect the time present, nor despair of
the time past. If I had been sooner good, I might perhaps have been
better; if I am longer bad, I shall, I am sure, be worse.--ARTHUR
WARWICK.

Repentance is heart's sorrow, and a clear life ensuing.--SHAKESPEARE.

REPOSE.--Power rests in tranquillity.--CECIL.

Have you known how to compose your manners? You have done a great deal
more than he who has composed books. Have you known how to take repose?
You have done more than he who has taken cities and empires.--MONTAIGNE.

Repose without stagnation is the state most favorable to happiness.
"The great felicity of life," says Seneca, "is to be without
perturbations."--BOVEE.

There is no mortal truly wise and restless at once; wisdom is the
repose of minds.--LAVATER.

REPROOF.--If you have a thrust to make at your friend's expense, do it
gracefully, it is all the more effective. Some one says the reproach
that is delivered with hat in hand is the most telling.--HALIBURTON.

The severest punishment suffered by a sensitive mind, for injury
inflicted upon another, is the consciousness of having done it.--HOSEA
BALLOU.

No reproach is like that we clothe in a smile, and present with a
bow.--LYTTON.

Reproof is a medicine like mercury or opium; if it be improperly
administered, it will do harm instead of good.--HORACE MANN.

He had such a gentle method of reproving their faults that they were
not so much afraid as ashamed to repeat them.--ATTERBURY.

Reprove thy friend privately; commend him publicly.--SOLON.

REPUTATION.--The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be
what you desire to appear.--SOCRATES.

How many people live on the reputation of the reputation they might
have made!--HOLMES.

O, reputation! dearer far than life,
Thou precious balsam, lovely, sweet of smell,
Whose cordial drops once spilt by some rash hand,
Not all the owner's care, nor the repenting toil
Of the rude spiller, ever can collect
To its first purity and native sweetness.
--SEWELL.

One may be better than his reputation or his conduct, but never better
than his principles.--LATENA.

Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God
and angels know of us.--THOMAS PAINE.

If a man were only to deal in the world for a day, and should never
have occasion to converse more with mankind, never more need their
good opinion or good word, it were then no great matter (speaking as
to the concernments of this world), if a man spent his reputation all
at once, and ventured it at one throw; but if he be to continue in the
world, and would have the advantage of conversation while he is in it,
let him make use of truth and sincerity in all his words and actions;
for nothing but this will last and hold out to the end.--TILLOTSON.

RESIGNATION.--Resignation is the courage of Christian sorrow.
--PROFESSOR VINET.

If God send thee a cross, take it up willingly and follow him. Use it
wisely, lest it be unprofitable. Bear it patiently, lest it be
intolerable. If it be light, slight it not. If it be heavy, murmur
not. After the cross is the crown.--QUARLES.

"My will, not thine, be done," turned Paradise into a desert. "Thy
will, not mine, be done," turned the desert into a paradise, and made
Gethsemane the gate of heaven.--PRESSENSE.

With a sigh for what we have not, we must be thankful for what we
have, and leave to One wiser than ourselves the deeper problems of the
human soul and of its discipline.--GLADSTONE.

The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of
the Lord.--JOB 1:21.

Dare to look up to God and say: "Deal with me in the future as thou
wilt. I am of the same mind as thou art; I am thine. I refuse nothing
that pleases Thee. Lead me where Thou wilt; cloth me in any dress Thou
choosest."--EPICTETUS.

No cloud can overshadow a true Christian but his faith will discern a
rainbow in it.--BISHOP HORNE.

Let God do with me what He will, anything He will; and, whatever it
be, it will be either heaven itself, or some beginning of it.--MOUNTFORD.

Is it reasonable to take it ill, that anybody desires of us that which
is their own? All we have is the Almighty's; and shall not God have
his own when he calls for it?--WILLIAM PENN.

RESOLUTION.--He only is a well-made man who has a good termination.
--EMERSON.

Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose
That you resolved to effect.
--SHAKESPEARE.

REST.--Rest is a fine medicine. Let your stomachs rest, ye dyspeptics;
let your brain rest, you wearied and worried men of business; let your
limbs rest, ye children of toil!--CARLYLE.

Absence of occupation is not rest.
A mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd.
--COWPER.

God giveth quietness at last.--WHITTIER.

Of all our loving Father's gifts
I often wonder which is best,
And cry: Dear God, the one that lifts
Our soul from weariness to rest,
The rest of silence--that is best.
--MARY CLEMMER.

The word "rest" is not in my vocabulary.--HORACE GREELEY.

RETIREMENT.--How much they err who, to their interest blind, slight
the calm peace which from retirement flows!--MRS. TIGHE.

Nature I'll court in her sequester'd haunts,
By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove or cell;
Where the poised lark his evening ditty chaunts,
And health, and peace, and contemplation dwell.
--SMOLLETT.

O, blest retirement! friend to life's decline--
How blest is he who crowns, in shades like these,
A youth of labor with an age of ease!
--GOLDSMITH.

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
--GRAY.

Depart from the highway, and transplant thyself in some enclosed
ground; for it is hard for a tree that stands by the wayside to keep
her fruit till it be ripe.--ST. CHRYSOSTOM.

Exert your talents and distinguish yourself, and don't think of
retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire.
I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a
corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let
him come out as I do, and bark.--DR. JOHNSON.

The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade
Pants for the refuge of some rural shade,
Where all his long anxieties forgot
Amid the charms of a sequester'd spot,
Or recollected only to gild o'er
And add a smile to what was sweet before,
He may possess the joys he thinks he sees,
Lay his old age upon the lap of ease,
Improve the remnant of his wasted span.
And having lived a trifler, die a man.
--COWPER.

But what, it may be asked, are the requisites for a life of
retirement? A man may be weary of the toils and torments of business,
and yet quite unfit for the tranquil retreat. Without literature,
friendship, and religion, retirement is in most cases found to be a
dead, flat level, a barren waste, and a blank. Neither the body nor
the soul can enjoy health and life in a vacuum.--RUSTICUS.

RICHES.--Riches exclude only one inconvenience,--that is, poverty.
--DR. JOHNSON.

Great abundance of riches cannot of any man be both gathered and kept
without sin.--ERASMUS.

Riches, honors, and pleasures are the sweets which destroy the mind's
appetite for its heavenly food; poverty, disgrace, and pain are the
bitters which restore it.--BISHOP HORNE.

A man's true wealth is the good he does in this world.--MOHAMMED.

Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.
--SHAKESPEARE.

He is rich whose income is more than his expenses; and he is poor
whose expenses exceed his income.--LA BRUYERE.

No man can tell whether he is rich or poor by turning to his ledger.
It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich or poor according to
what he is, not according to what he has.--BEECHER.

Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.--FRANKLIN.

He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.--PROVERBS 28:20.

Riches without charity are nothing worth. They are a blessing only to
him who makes them a blessing to others.--FIELDING.

SABBATH.--The Sunday is the core of our civilization, dedicated to
thought and reverence. It invites to the noblest solitude and to the
noblest society.--EMERSON.

Students of every age and kind, beware of secular study on the Lord's
day.--PROFESSOR MILLER.

A world without a Sabbath would be like a man without a smile, like a
summer without flowers, and like a homestead without a garden. It is
the joyous day of the whole week.--BEECHER.

He who ordained the Sabbath loved the poor.--O.W. HOLMES.

SCANDAL.--If there is any person to whom you feel dislike, that is the
person of whom you ought never to speak.--CECIL.

There is a lust in man no charm can tame,
Of loudly publishing his neighbor's shame;--
On eagle's wings immortal scandals fly,
While virtuous actions are but born and die.
--ELLA LOUISA HERVEY.

No one loves to tell of scandal except to him who loves to hear it.
Learn, then, to rebuke and check the detracting tongue by showing that
you do not listen to it with pleasure.--ST. JEROME.

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil
speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.--EPHESIANS 4:31.

SCEPTICISM.--Scepticism has never founded empires, established
principles, or changed the world's heart. The great doers in history
have always been men of faith.--CHAPIN.

Scepticism is a barren coast, without a harbor or lighthouse.--BEECHER.

Freethinkers are generally those who never think at all.--STERNE.

I know not any crime so great that a man could contrive to commit as
poisoning the sources of eternal truth.--DR. JOHNSON.

SECRECY.--The secret known to two is no longer a secret.--NINON DE
LENCLOS.

Secrecy has been well termed the soul of all great designs. Perhaps
more has been effected by concealing our own intentions, than by
discovering those of our enemy. But great men succeed in both.

A woman can keep one secret,--the secret of her age.--VOLTAIRE.

To tell your own secrets is generally folly, but that folly is without
guilt; to communicate those with which we are intrusted is always
treachery, and treachery for the most part combined with folly.
--DR. JOHNSON.

To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is
folly.--HOLMES.

To whom you betray your secret you sell your liberty.--FRANKLIN.

He who trusts a secret to his servant makes his own man his master.
--DRYDEN.

SELF-CONTROL.--He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh
a city.--PROVERBS 16:32.

What is the best government? That which teaches us to govern
ourselves.--GOETHE.

He who reigns within himself, and rules passions, desires, and fears,
is more than a king.--MILTON.

Real glory springs from the silent conquest of ourselves.--THOMSON.

He is a fool who cannot be angry: but he is a wise man who will
not.--ENGLISH PROVERB.

SELF-DENIAL.--Self-denial is the quality of which Jesus Christ set us
the example.--ARY SCHEFFER.

Only the soul that with an overwhelming impulse and a perfect trust
gives itself up forever to the life of other men, finds the delight
and peace which such complete self-surrender has to give.--PHILLIPS
BROOKS.

Self-denial is a virtue of the highest quality, and he who has it not,
and does not strive to acquire it, will never excel in anything.
--CONYBEARE.

The more a man denies himself the more he shall obtain from God.
--HORACE.

The worst education which teaches self-denial is better than the best
which teaches everything else, and not that.--JOHN STERLING.

SELFISHNESS.--Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will
forgive in others, and no one is without in himself.--BEECHER.

It is to be doubted whether he will ever find the way to heaven who
desires to go thither alone.--FELTHAM.

Take the selfishness out of this world and there would be more
happiness than we should know what to do with.--H.W. SHAW.

We erect the idol self, and not only wish others to worship, but
worship ourselves.--CECIL.

SILENCE.--Be silent, or say something better than silence.--PYTHAGORAS.

God's poet is silence! His song is unspoken,
And yet so profound, so loud, and so far,
It fills you, it thrills you with measures unbroken,
And as soft, and as fair, and as far as a star.
--JOAQUIN MILLER.

Silence is the safest course for any man to adopt who distrusts
himself.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

If thou desire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue.
--QUARLES.

As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle
silence.--FRANKLIN.

Learn to hold thy tongue. Five words cost Zacharias forty weeks'
silence.--FULLER.

Silence is a virtue in those who are deficient in understanding.
--BOUHOURS.

Silence, when nothing need be said, is the eloquence of discretion.
--BOVEE.

Silence does not always mark wisdom.--S.T. COLERIDGE.

Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise.--PROVERBS 17:28.

SIN.--Suffer anything from man, rather than sin against God.--SIR
HENRY VANE.

Let him that sows the serpent's teeth not hope to reap a joyous
harvest. Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, its own
avenging angel,--dark misgivings at the inmost heart.--SCHILLER.

I could not live in peace if I put the shadow of a willful sin between
myself and God.--GEORGE ELIOT.

Never let any man imagine that he can pursue a good end by evil means,
without sinning against his own soul! Any other issue is doubtful; the
evil effect on himself is certain.--SOUTHEY.

Many afflictions will not cloud and obstruct peace of mind so much as
one sin: therefore, if you would walk cheerfully, be most careful to
walk holily. All the winds about the earth make not an earthquake, but
only that within.--ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.

Think not for wrongs like these unscourged to live;
Long may ye sin, and long may Heaven forgive;
But when ye least expect, in sorrow's day,
Vengeance shall fall more heavy for delay.
--CHURCHILL.

Sin is never at a stay; if we do not retreat from it, we shall advance
in it; and the farther on we go, the more we have to come back.--BARROW.

Other men's sins are before our eyes, our own are behind our back.
--SENECA.

Take steadily some one sin, which seems to stand out before thee, to
root it out, by God's grace, and every fibre of it. Purpose strongly,
by the grace and strength of God, wholly to sacrifice this sin or
sinful inclination to the love of God, to spare it not, until thou
leave of it none remaining, neither root nor branch.--E.B. PUSEY.

Cast out thy Jonah--every sleeping and secure sin that brings a
tempest upon thy ship, vexation to thy spirit.--REYNOLDS.

Use sin as it will use you; spare it not, for it will not spare you;
it is your murderer, and the murderer of the whole world. Use it,
therefore, as a murderer should be used; kill it before it kills you;
and though it brings you to the grave, as it did your head, it shall
not be able to keep you there. You love not death; love not the cause
of death.--BAXTER.

SINCERITY.--I think you will find that people who honestly mean to be
true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try
to be "consistent."--HOLMES.

If the show of any thing be good for any thing, I am sure sincerity is
better; for why does any man dissemble, or seem to be that which he is
not, but because he thinks it good to have such a quality as he
pretends to?--TILLOTSON.

The only conclusive evidence of a man's sincerity is that he gives
himself for a principle. Words, money, all things else, are
comparatively easy to give away; but when a man makes a gift of his
daily life and practice, it is plain that the truth, whatever it may
be, has taken possession of him.--LOWELL.

Private sincerity is a public welfare.--BARTOL.

I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain,
what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an
"honest man."--WASHINGTON.

Sincerity is to speak as we think, to do as we pretend and profess, to
perform and make good what we promise, and really to be what we would
seem and appear to be.--TILLOTSON.

Let us then be what we are, and speak what we think, and in all things
keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sacred professions of
friendship.--LONGFELLOW.

SLANDER.--When will talkers refrain from evil-speaking? When listeners
refrain from evil-hearing.--HARE.

Never throw mud. You may miss your mark, but you must have dirty
hands.--JOSEPH PARKER.

Remember, when incited to slander, that it is only he among you who is
without sin that may cast the first stone.--HOSEA BALLOU.

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