If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will
efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we
work upon immortal minds, if we imbue them with principles, with the
just fear of God and love of our fellow-men, we engrave on those tablets
something which will brighten to all eternity.--_Daniel Webster._
The education of life perfects the thinking mind, but depraves the
frivolous.--_Mme. de Stael._
What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.
The philosopher, the saint, and the hero,--the wise, the good, and the
great man, very often lie hid and concealed in a plebeian, which a
proper education might have disinterred and brought to
light.--_Addison._
Very few men are wise by their own counsel, or learned by their own
teaching; for he that was only taught by himself had a fool to his
master.--_Ben Jonson._
I am always for getting a boy forward in his learning, for that is sure
good. I would let him at first read _any_ English book which happens to
engage his attention; because you have done a great deal when you have
brought him to have entertainment from a book. He'll get better books
afterwards.--_Johnson._
The essential difference between a good and a bad education is this,
that the former draws on the child to learn by making it sweet to him;
the latter drives the child to learn, by making it sour to him if he
does not.--_Charles Buxton._
Nothing so good as a university education, nor worse than a university
without its education.--_Bulwer-Lytton._
Education is all paint: it does not alter the nature of the wood that is
under it, it only improves its appearance a little. Why I dislike
education so much is that it makes all people alike, until you have
examined into them; and it is sometimes so long before you get to see
under the varnish!--_Lady Hester Stanhope._
~Eloquence.~--The poetry of speech.--_Byron._
This is that eloquence the ancients represented as lightning, bearing
down every opposer; this the power which has turned whole assemblies
into astonishment, admiration, and awe; that is described by the
torrent, the flame, and every other instance of irresistible
impetuosity.--_Goldsmith._
~Eminence.~--I do not hesitate to say that the road to eminence and power
from an obscure condition ought not to be made too easy, nor a thing too
much of course. If rare merit be the rarest of all things, it ought to
pass through some sort of probation. The Temple of Honor ought to be
seated on an eminence. If it be open through virtue, let it be
remembered, too, that virtue is never tried but by some difficulty and
some struggle.--_Burke._
~Emotions.~--All loving emotions, like plants, shoot up most rapidly in
the tempestuous atmosphere of life.--_Richter._
Emotion has no value in the Christian system save as it stands connected
with right conduct as the cause of it. Emotion is the bud, not the
flower, and never is it of value until it expands into a flower. Every
religious sentiment; every act of devotion which does not produce a
corresponding elevation of life, is worse than useless; it is absolutely
pernicious, because it ministers to self-deception and tends to lower
the line of personal morals.--_W. H. H. Murray._
There are three orders of emotions: those of pleasure, which refer to
the senses; those of harmony, which refer to the mind; and those of
happiness, which are the natural result of a union between harmony and
pleasure.--_Chapone._
Emotion, whether of ridicule, anger, or sorrow; whether raised at a
puppet-show, a funeral, or a battle, is your grandest of levelers. The
man who would be always superior should be always
apathetic.--_Bulwer-Lytton._
~Employment.~--The wise prove, and the foolish confess, by their conduct,
that a life of employment is the only life worth leading.--_Paley._
Life will frequently languish, even in the hands of the busy, if they
have not some employment subsidiary to that which forms their main
pursuit.--_Blair._
~Emulation.~--Emulation embalms the dead; envy, the vampire, blasts the
living.--_Fuseli._
~Enemies.~--It is the enemy whom we do not suspect who is the most
dangerous.--_Rojas._
~Energy.~--The longer I live, the more deeply am I convinced that that
which makes the difference between one man and another--between the weak
and powerful, the great and insignificant--is energy, invincible
determination; a purpose once formed, and then death or victory. This
quality will do anything that is to be done in the world; and no
two-legged creature can become a man without it.--_Charles Buxton._