Various - Many Thoughts of Many Minds

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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.--AESCHINES.

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 BRUYERE.

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.--FENELON.

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.

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