Errors such as are but acorns in our younger brows grow oaks in our
older heads, and become inflexible.--_Sir Thomas Browne._
~Erudition.~--'Tis of great importance to the honor of learning that men
of business should know erudition is not like a lark, which flies high,
and delights in nothing but singing; but that 't is rather like a hawk,
which soars aloft indeed, but can stoop when she finds it convenient,
and seize her prey.--_Bacon._
~Estimation.~--A life spent worthily should be measured by a nobler
line,--by deeds, not years.--_Sheridan._
To judge of the real importance of an individual, one should think of
the effect his death would produce.--_Leves._
~Eternity.~--Upon laying a weight in one of the scales, inscribed
eternity, though I threw in that of time, prosperity, affliction,
wealth, and poverty, which seemed very ponderous, they were not able to
stir the opposite balance.--_Addison._
Eternity is a negative idea clothed with a positive name. It supposes in
that to which it is applied a present existence; and is the negation of
a beginning or of an end of that existence.--_Paley._
~Etiquette.~--Whoever pays a visit that is not desired, or talks longer
than the listener is willing to attend, is guilty of an injury that he
cannot repair, and takes away that which he cannot give.--_Johnson._
The forms required by good breeding, or prescribed by authority, are to
be observed in social or official life.--_Prescott._
Good taste rejects excessive nicety; it treats little things as little
things, and is not hurt by them.--_Fenelon._
The law of the table is beauty, a respect to the common soul of the
guests. Everything is unreasonable which is private to two or three, or
any portion of the company. Tact never violates for a moment this law;
never intrudes the orders of the house, the vices of the absent, or a
tariff of expenses, or professional privacies; as we say, we never "talk
shop" before company. Lovers abstain from caresses, and haters from
insults, while they sit in one parlor with common friends.--_Emerson._
~Events.~--Man reconciles himself to almost any event however trying, if
it happens in the ordinary course of nature. It is the extraordinary
alone that he rebels against. There is a moral idea associated with this
feeling; for the extraordinary appears to be something like an injustice
of Heaven.--_Humboldt._
There can be no peace in human life without the contempt of all events.
He that troubles his head with drawing consequences from mere
contingencies shall never be at rest.--_L'Estrange._
~Evil.~--Evil is in antagonism with the entire creation.--_Zschokke._
Even in evil, that dark cloud which hangs over the creation, we discern
rays of light and hope; and gradually come to see in suffering and
temptation proofs and instruments of the sublimest purposes of wisdom
and love.--_Channing._