Various - Many Thoughts of Many Minds
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Various >> Many Thoughts of Many Minds
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GREATNESS.--He who, in questions of right, virtue, or duty, sets
himself above all ridicule, is truly great, and shall laugh in the end
with truer mirth than ever he was laughed at.--LAVATER.
The greatest man is he who chooses the right with invincible
resolution, who resists the sorest temptations from within and
without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in
storms and most fearless under menace and frowns, whose reliance on
truth, on virtue, on God, is most unfaltering. I believe this
greatness to be most common among the multitude, whose names are never
heard.--CHANNING.
Great minds, like heaven, are pleased in doing good,
Though the ungrateful subjects of their favors
Are barren in return.
--ROWE.
Great truths are portions of the soul of man;
Great souls are the portions of eternity.
--LOWELL.
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than
disbelief in great men.--CARLYLE.
If the title of great man ought to be reserved for him who cannot be
charged with an indiscretion or a vice, who spent his life in
establishing the independence, the glory and durable prosperity of his
country; who succeeded in all that he undertook, and whose successes
were never won at the expense of honor, justice, integrity, or by the
sacrifice of a single principle--this title will not be denied to
Washington.--SPARKS.
He only is great who has the habits of greatness; who, after
performing what none in ten thousand could accomplish, passes on like
Samson, and "tells neither father nor mother of it."--LAVATER.
He who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a
very low standard of it in his mind.--HAZLITT.
In life, we shall find many men that are great, and some men that are
good, but very few men that are both great and good.--COLTON.
A really great man is known by three signs,--generosity in the design,
humanity in the execution, and moderation in success.--BISMARCK.
Nothing can make a man truly great but being truly good and partaking
of God's holiness.--MATTHEW HENRY.
The greatest truths are the simplest; so are the greatest men.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness
thrust upon them.--SHAKESPEARE.
No man has come to true greatness who has not felt in some degree that
his life belongs to his race, and that what God gives him, He gives
him for mankind.--PHILLIPS BROOKS.
Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be
great.--EMERSON.
GRIEF.--Grief is the culture of the soul, it is the true fertilizer.
--MADAME DE GIRARDIN.
Light griefs are plaintive, but great ones are dumb.--SENECA.
If the internal griefs of every man could be read, written on his
forehead, how many who now excite envy would appear to be the objects
of pity?--METASTASIO.
Excess of grief for the deceased is madness; for it is an injury to
the living, and the dead know it not.--XENOPHON.
All the joys of earth will not assuage our thirst for happiness; while
a single grief suffices to shroud life in a sombre veil, and smite it
with nothingness at all points.--MADAME SWETCHINE.
What an argument in favor of social connections is the observation
that by communicating our grief we have less, and by communicating our
pleasure we have more.--GREVILLE.
They truly mourn that mourn without a witness.--BYRON.
Alas! I have not words to tell my grief;
To vent my sorrow would be some relief;
Light sufferings give us leisure to complain;
We groan, we cannot speak, in greater pain.
--DRYDEN.
It is folly to tear one's hair in sorrow, as if grief could be
assuaged by baldness.--CICERO.
Dr. Holmes says, both wittily and truly, that crying widows are
easiest consoled.--H.W. SHAW.
Who fails to grieve, when just occasion calls,
Or grieves too much, deserves not to be blest:
Inhuman, or effeminate, his heart.
--YOUNG.
Great grief makes sacred those upon whom its hand is laid. Joy may
elevate, ambition glorify, but sorrow alone can consecrate.--HORACE
GREELEY.
Every one can master a grief but he that has it.--SHAKESPEARE.
GRUMBLING.--When a man is full of the Holy Ghost, he is the very last
man to be complaining of other people.--D.L. MOODY.
Every one must see daily instances of people who complain from a mere
habit of complaining.--GRAVES.
There is an unfortunate disposition in a man to attend much more to
the faults of his companions which offend him, than to their
perfections which please him.--GREVILLE.
No talent, no self-denial, no brains, no character, is required to set
up in the grumbling business; but those who are moved by a genuine
desire to do good have little time for murmuring or complaint.--ROBERT
WEST.
I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, "It is
all barren."--STERNE.
GUILT.--Think not that guilt requires the burning torches of the
Furies to agitate and torment it. Their own frauds, their crimes,
their remembrances of the past, their terrors of the future,--these
are the domestic furies that are ever present to the mind of the
impious.--ROBERT HALL.
Guilt alone, like brain-sick frenzy in its feverish mood, fills the
light air with visionary terrors, and shapeless forms of fear.--JUNIUS.
Guilt, though it may attain temporal splendor, can never confer real
happiness; the evil consequences of our crimes long survive their
commission, and, like the ghosts of the murdered, forever haunt the
steps of the malefactor; while the paths of virtue, though seldom
those of worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and
peace.--SIR WALTER SCOTT.
He who is conscious of secret and dark designs, which, if known, would
blast him, is perpetually shrinking and dodging from public observation,
and is afraid of all around him, and much more of all above him.--WIRT.
They whose guilt within their bosom lies, imagine every eye beholds
their blame.--SHAKESPEARE.
Life is not the supreme good; but of all earthly ills the chief is
guilt.--SCHILLER.
They who once engage in iniquitous designs miserably deceive
themselves when they think that they will go so far and no farther;
one fault begets another, one crime renders another necessary; and
thus they are impelled continually downward into a depth of guilt,
which at the commencement of their career they would have died rather
than have incurred.--SOUTHEY.
Let wickedness escape as it may at the bar, it never fails of doing
justice upon itself; for every guilty person is his own hangman.
--SENECA.
HABIT.--Habits are soon assumed; but when we strive to strip them off,
'tis being flayed alive.--COWPER.
The law of the harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act, and
you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a character; sow a
character, and you reap a destiny.--G.D. BOARDMAN.
A single bad habit will mar an otherwise faultless character, as an
ink drop soileth the pure white page.--HOSEA BALLOU.
Habits are like the wrinkles on a man's brow; if you will smooth out
the one, I will smooth out the other.--H.W. SHAW.
A large part of Christian virtue consists in right habits.--PALEY.
Habit is ten times nature.--WELLINGTON.
Habit is the most imperious of all masters.--GOETHE.
I will govern my life and my thoughts as if the whole world were to
see the one and to read the other; for what does it signify to make
anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God (who is the searcher of
our hearts) all our privacies are open?--SENECA.
The will that yields the first time with some reluctance does so the
second time with less hesitation, and the third time with none at all,
until presently the habit is adopted.--HENRY GILES.
It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors as his
knowledge.--COLTON.
Habits, though in their commencement like the filmy line of the
spider, trembling at every breeze, may in the end prove as links of
tempered steel, binding a deathless being to eternal felicity or
woe.--MRS. SIGOURNEY.
I will be a slave to no habit; therefore farewell tobacco.--HOSEA
BALLOU.
HAPPINESS.--He who is good is happy.--HABBINGTON.
If solid happiness we prize,
Within our breast this jewel lies;
And they are fools who roam:
The world has nothing to bestow,
From our own selves our joys must flow,
And that dear hut, our home.
--COTTON.
The common course of things is in favor of happiness; happiness is the
rule, misery the exception. Were the order reversed, our attention
would be called to examples of health and competency, instead of
disease and want.--PALEY.
Happiness and virtue react upon each other,--the best are not only the
happiest, but the happiest are usually the best.--LYTTON.
God loves to see his creatures happy; our lawful delight is His; they
know not God that think to please Him with making themselves
miserable. The idolaters thought it a fit service for Baal to cut and
lance themselves; never any holy man looked for thanks from the true
God by wronging himself.--BISHOP HALL.
Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its
counterfeit!--HOSEA BALLOU.
Degrees of happiness vary according to the degrees of virtue, and
consequently, that life which is most virtuous is most happy.--NORRIS.
Without strong affection, and humanity of heart, and gratitude to that
Being whose code is mercy, and whose great attribute is benevolence to
all things that breathe, true happiness can never be attained.--DICKENS.
The utmost we can hope for in this world is contentment; if we aim at
anything higher, we shall meet with nothing but grief and
disappointment. A man should direct all his studies and endeavors at
making himself easy now and happy hereafter.--ADDISON.
To be happy is not only to be freed from the pains and diseases of the
body, but from anxiety and vexation of spirit; not only to enjoy the
pleasures of sense, but peace of conscience and tranquillity of mind.
--TILLOTSON.
Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it
the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is
never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may
find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.--HAWTHORNE.
The happiness of the tender heart is increased by what it can take
away from the wretchedness of others.--J. PETIT-SENN.
There is no man but may make his paradise.--BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions,--the little,
soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt
compliment in the disguise of a playful raillery, and the countless
other infinitesimals of pleasant thought and feeling.--COLERIDGE.
To be happy is not the purpose for which you are placed in this world.
--FROUDE.
The happiness of the human race in this world does not consist in our
being devoid of passions, but in our learning to command them.--FROM
THE FRENCH.
Our happiness in this world depends on the affections we are enabled
to inspire.--DUCHESSE DE PRASLIN.
HATRED.--The passion of hatred is so durable and so inveterate that
the surest prognostic of death in a sick man is a wish for
reconciliation.--BRUYERE.
We hate some persons because we do not know them; and we will not know
them because we hate them.--COLTON.
If you hate your enemies, you will contract such a vicious habit of
mind, as by degrees will break out upon those who are your friends, or
those who are indifferent to you.--PLUTARCH.
Hatred is the vice of narrow souls; they feed it with all their
littlenesses, and make it the pretext of base tyrannies.--BALZAC.
It is the nature of the human disposition to hate him whom you have
injured.--TACITUS.
Life is too short to spare an hour of it in the indulgence of this
evil passion.--LAMARTINE.
The hatred we bear our enemies injures their happiness less than our
own.--J. PETIT-SENN.
The hatred of persons related to each other is the most violent.
--TACITUS.
When our hatred is too keen it places us beneath those we hate.
--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
HEALTH.--The only way for a rich man to be healthy is, by exercise and
abstinence, to live as if he was poor.--SIR W. TEMPLE.
There is this difference between those two temporal blessings, health
and money: Money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed; health is
the most enjoyed, but the least envied: and this superiority of the
latter is still more obvious when we reflect that the poorest man
would not part with health for money, but that the richest would
gladly part with all their money for health.--COLTON.
Refuse to be ill. Never tell people you are ill; never own it to
yourself. Illness is one of those things which a man should resist on
principle at the onset.--LYTTON.
Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words, health, peace and competence:
But health consists with temperance alone;
And peace, O Virtue! peace is all thy own.
--POPE.
O blessed Health! thou art above all gold and treasure; 'tis thou who
enlargest the soul, and openest all its powers to receive instruction,
and to relish virtue. He that has thee has little more to wish for,
and he that is so wretched as to want thee, wants everything with
thee.--STERNE.
People who are always taking care of their health are like misers, who
are hoarding up a treasure which they have never spirit enough to
enjoy.--STERNE.
Health and good humor are to the human body like sunshine to
vegetation.--MASSILLON.
One means very effectual for the preservation of health is a quiet and
cheerful mind, not afflicted with violent passions or distracted with
immoderate cares.--JOHN RAY.
The requirements of health, and the style of female attire which
custom enjoins, are in direct antagonism to each other.--ABBA GOOLD
WOOLSON.
For life is not to live, but to be well.--MARTIAL.
From labor health, from health contentment springs.--BEATTIE.
In these days half our diseases come from neglect of the body in
overwork of the brain--LYTTON.
The rule is simple: Be sober and temperate, and you will be
healthy.--FRANKLIN.
HEART.--Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the
issues of life.--PROVERBS 4:23.
The poor too often turn away unheard,
From hearts that shut against them with a sound
That will be heard in heaven.
--LONGFELLOW.
He who has most of heart knows most of sorrow.--BAILEY.
All offences come from the heart.--SHAKESPEARE.
Many flowers open to the sun, but only one follows him constantly.
Heart, be thou the sunflower, not only open to receive God's blessing,
but constant in looking to Him.--RICHTER.
Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.--MATTHEW 12:34.
Do you think that any one can move the heart but He that made it?
--JOHN LYLY.
When a young man complains that a young lady has no heart, it is
pretty certain that she has his.--G.D. PRENTICE.
The heart never grows better by age, I fear rather worse; always
harder. A young liar will be an old one; and a young knave will only
be a greater knave as he grows older.--CHESTERFIELD.
A heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute.--GIBBON.
The heart that has once been bathed in love's pure fountain retains
the pulse of youth forever.--LANDOR.
A loving heart carries with it, under every parallel of latitude, the
warmth and light of the tropics. It plants its Eden in the wilderness
and solitary place, and sows with flowers the gray desolation of rock
and mosses.--WHITTIER.
None but God can satisfy the longings of an immortal soul; that as the
heart was made for Him, so He only can fill it.--TRENCH.
There are treasures laid up in the heart,--treasures of charity,
piety, temperance, and soberness. These treasures a man takes with him
beyond death, when he leaves this world.--BUDDHIST SCRIPTURES.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who
can know it?--JEREMIAH 17:9.
HEAVEN.--The generous who is always just, and the just who is always
generous, may, unannounced, approach the throne of heaven.--LAVATER.
The redeemed shall walk there.--ISAIAH 35:9.
If our Creator has so bountifully provided for our existence here,
which is but momentary, and for our temporal wants, which will soon be
forgotten, how much more must He have done for our enjoyment in the
everlasting world!--HOSEA BALLOU.
Heaven does not make holiness, but holiness makes heaven.--PHILLIPS
BROOKS.
I cannot be content with less than heaven.--BAILEY.
Heaven's gates are not so highly arched as princes' palaces; they that
enter there must go upon their knees.--DANIEL WEBSTER.
He who seldom thinks of heaven is not likely to get thither; as the
only way to hit the mark is to keep the eye fixed upon it.--BISHOP
HORNE.
Perfect purity, fullness of joy, everlasting freedom, perfect rest,
health and fruition, complete security, substantial and eternal
good.--HANNAH MORE.
Heaven is the day of which grace is the dawn; the rich, ripe fruit of
which grace is the lovely flower; the inner shrine of that most
glorious temple to which grace forms the approach and outer
court.--REV. DR. GUTHRIE.
Nothing is farther than earth from heaven; nothing is nearer than
heaven to earth.--HARE.
Heaven will be inherited by every man who has heaven in his soul. "The
kingdom of God is within you."--BEECHER.
Blessed is the pilgrim, who in every place, and at all times of this
his banishment in the body, calling upon the holy name of Jesus,
calleth to mind his native heavenly land, where his blessed Master,
the King of saints and angels, waiteth to receive him. Blessed is the
pilgrim who seeketh not an abiding place unto himself in this world;
but longeth to be dissolved, and be with Christ in heaven.--THOS. A
KEMPIS.
HEROES.--Great men need to be lifted upon the shoulders of the whole
world, in order to conceive their great ideas or perform their great
deeds. That is, there must be an atmosphere of greatness round about
them. A hero cannot be a hero unless in an heroic world.--HAWTHORNE.
Troops of heroes undistinguished die.--ADDISON.
Nobody, they say, is a hero to his valet. Of course; for a man must be
a hero to understand a hero. The valet, I dare say, has great respect
for some person of his own stamp.--GOETHE.
There is more heroism in self-denial than in deeds of arms.--SENECA.
We can all be heroes in our virtues, in our homes, in our
lives.--JAMES ELLIS.
Each man is a hero and an oracle to somebody; and to that person
whatever he says has an enhanced value.--EMERSON.
HISTORY.--History maketh a young man to be old, without either
wrinkles or gray hairs,--privileging him with the experience of age,
without either the infirmities or inconveniences thereof.--THOMAS
FULLER.
History teaches everything, even the future.--LAMARTINE.
It is when the hour of the conflict is over that history comes to a
right understanding of the strife, and is ready to exclaim, "Lo, God
is here, and we knew him not!"--BANCROFT.
This I hold to be the chief office of history, to rescue virtuous
actions from the oblivion to which a want of records would consign
them, and that men should feel a dread of being considered infamous in
the opinions of posterity, from their depraved expressions and base
actions.--TACITUS.
Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to continue
always a child. If no use is made of the labors of past ages, the
world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge.--CICERO.
History is the depository of great actions, the witness of what is
past, the example and instructor of the present, and monitor to the
future.--CERVANTES.
There is no history worthy of attention but that of a free people; the
history of a people subjected to despotism is only a collection of
anecdotes.--CHAMFORT.
History is but the unrolled scroll of prophecy.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
The world's history is a divine poem of which the history of every
nation is a canto and every man a word. Its strains have been pealing
along down the centuries, and though there have been mingled the
discords of warring cannon and dying men, yet to the Christian
philosopher and historian--the humble listener--there has been a
divine melody running through the song which speaks of hope and
halcyon days to come.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
HOME.--There is no happiness in life, there is no misery, like that
growing out of the dispositions which consecrate or desecrate a
home.--CHAPIN.
It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel
that home was the happiest place in the world; and I value this
delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a parent can
bestow.--WASHINGTON IRVING.
He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his
home.--GOETHE.
'Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark
Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home;
'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark
Our coming, and look brighter when we come.
--BYRON.
'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
--JOHN HOWARD PAYNE.
There's a strange something, which without a brain
Fools feel, and which e'en wise men can't explain,
Planted in man, to bind him to that earth,
In dearest ties, from whence he drew his birth.
--CHURCHILL.
The first sure symptom of a mind in health is rest of heart, and
pleasure felt at home.--YOUNG.
Are you not surprised to find how independent of money peace of
conscience is, and how much happiness can be condensed in the humblest
home?--JAMES HAMILTON.
Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
--SCOTT.
When home is ruled according to God's Word, angels might be asked to
stay a night with us, and they would not find themselves out of their
element.--SPURGEON.
Stint yourself, as you think good, in other things; but don't scruple
freedom in brightening home. Gay furniture and a brilliant garden are
a sight day by day, and make life blither.--CHARLES BUXTON.
In all my wanderings round this world of care,
In all my griefs--and God has given my share--
I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down;
To husband out life's taper at the close,
And keep the flame from wasting, by repose:
I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,
Amidst the swains to show my book-learn'd skill,
Around my fire an evening group to draw,
And tell of all I felt, and all I saw;
And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue,
Pants to the place from whence at first she flew,
I still had hopes, my long vexations past,
Here to return--and die at home at last.
--GOLDSMITH.
Home is the seminary of all other institutions.--CHAPIN.
HONESTY.--To be honest as this world goes is to be one man picked out
of ten thousand.--SHAKESPEARE.
The man who pauses in his honesty wants little of a villain.--H. MARTYN.
The man who is so conscious of the rectitude of his intentions as to
be willing to open his bosom to the inspection of the world is in
possession of one of the strongest pillars of a decided character. The
course of such a man will be firm and steady, because he has nothing
to fear from the world, and is sure of the approbation and support of
heaven.--WIRT.
Honesty needs no disguise nor ornament; be plain.--OTWAY.
"Honesty is the best policy;" but he who acts on that principle is not
an honest man.--WHATELY.
The first step toward greatness is to be honest, says the proverb; but
the proverb fails to state the case strong enough. Honesty is not only
"the first step toward greatness,"--it is greatness itself.--BOVEE.
Let honesty be as the breath of thy soul, and never forget to have a
penny, when all thy expenses are enumerated and paid: then shalt thou
reach the point of happiness, and independence shall be thy shield and
buckler, thy helmet and crown; then shall thy soul walk upright nor
stoop to the silken wretch because he hath riches, nor pocket an abuse
because the hand which offers it wears a ring set with diamonds.
--FRANKLIN.
Nothing really succeeds which is not based on reality; sham, in a
large sense, is never successful. In the life of the individual, as in
the more comprehensive life of the State, pretension is nothing and
power is everything.--WHIPPLE.
The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint.
--LAVATER.
No man is bound to be rich or great,--no, nor to be wise; but every
man is bound to be honest.--SIR BENJAMIN RUDYARD.
An honest man's the noblest work of God.--POPE.
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