A true man never frets about his place in the world, but just slides
into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as
a star.--_Chapin._
~Plagiarism.~--Nothing is sillier than this charge of plagiarism. There is
no sixth commandment in art. The poet dare help himself wherever he
lists--wherever he finds material suited to his work. He may even
appropriate entire columns with their carved capitals, if the temple he
thus supports be a beautiful one. Goethe understood this very well, and
so did Shakespeare before him.--_Heinrich Heine._
~Pleasure.~--Consider pleasures as they depart, not as they
come.--_Aristotle._
We have not an hour of life in which our pleasures relish not some pain,
our sours some sweetness.--_Massinger._
How many there are that take pleasure in toil: that can outrise the sun,
outwatch the moon, and outrun the field's wild beasts! merely out of
fancy and delectation, they can find out mirth in vociferation, music in
the barking of dogs, and be content to be led about the earth, over
hedges and through sloughs, by the windings and the shifts of poor
affrighted vermin; yet, after all, come off, as Messalina, tired, and
not satisfied with all that the brutes can do. But were a man enjoined
to this that did not like it, how tedious and how punishable to him
would it prove! since, in itself, it differs not from riding
post.--_Feltham._
Boys immature in knowledge pawn their experience to their present
pleasure.--_Shakespeare._
'Tis a wrong way to proportion other men's pleasures to ourselves. 'Tis
like a child's using a little bird--"Oh, poor bird, thou shalt sleep
with me"--so lays it in his bosom and stifles it with his hot breath.
The bird had rather be in the cold air. And yet, too, 'tis the most
pleasing flattery to like what other men like.--_Selden._
There is no pleasure but that some pain is nearly allied to
it.--_Menander._
All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor;
'tis like spending this year part of the next year's revenue.--_Swift._