Men always grow vicious before they become unbelievers; but if you would
once convince profligates by topics drawn from the view of their own
quiet, reputation, and health, their infidelity would soon drop
off.--_Swift._
Infidelity gives nothing in return for what it takes away. What, then,
is it worth? Everything valuable has a compensating power. Not a blade
of grass that withers, or the ugliest weed that is flung away to rot and
die, but reproduces something.--_Dr. Chalmers._
~Infirmities.~--Never mind what a man's virtues are; waste no time in
learning them. Fasten at once on his infirmities.--_Bulwer-Lytton._
~Influence.~--He who wishes to exert a useful influence must be careful to
insult nothing. Let him not be troubled by what seems absurd, but let
him consecrate his energies to the creation of what is good. He must not
demolish, but build. He must raise temples where mankind may come and
partake of the purest pleasures.--_Goethe._
If I can put one touch of a rosy sunset into the life of any man or
woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God.--_George MacDonald._
The city reveals the moral ends of being, and sets the awful problem of
life. The country soothes us, refreshes us, lifts us up with religious
suggestion.--_Chapin._
It is the age that forms the man, not the man that forms the age. Great
minds do indeed react on the society which has made them what they are,
but they only pay with interest what they have received.--_Macaulay._
In families well ordered there is always one firm, sweet temper, which
controls without seeming to dictate. The Greeks represented Persuasion
as crowned.--_Bulwer-Lytton._
~Ingratitude.~--The great bulk of mankind resemble the swine, which in
harvest gather and fatten upon the acorns beneath the oak, but show to
the tree which bore them no other thanks than rubbing off its bark, and
tearing up the sod around it.--_Scriver._
One great cause of our insensibility to the goodness of our Creator is
the very extensiveness of his bounty.--_Paley._
~Injustice.~--The injustice of men subserves the justice of God, and often
his mercy.--_Madame Swetchine._
~Ink.~--A drop of ink may make a million think.--_Byron._
Let there be gall enough in thy ink; though thou write with a goose-pen,
no matter.--_Shakespeare._