The greatest medicine is a true friend.--SIR W. TEMPLE.
True friends visit us in prosperity only when invited, but in
adversity they come without invitation.--THEOPHRASTUS.
Sudden friendships rarely live to ripeness.--MLLE. DE SCUDÉRI.
Who friendship with a knave hath made,
Is judg'd a partner in the trade.
--GAY.
Thou mayest be sure that he who will in private tell thee of thy
faults is thy friend, for he adventures thy dislike and doth hazard
thy hatred.--SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
He is happy that hath a true friend at his need; but he is more truly
happy that hath no need of his friend.--WARWICK.
I would not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
--COWPER.
True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in the
worth and choice.--DR. JOHNSON.
FRUGALITY.--Frugality is founded on the principle that all riches have
limits.--BURKE.
Frugality may be termed the daughter of prudence, the sister of
temperance, and the parent of liberty.--DR. JOHNSON.
The world has not yet learned the riches of frugality.--CICERO.
FUTURITY.--It is vain to be always looking toward the future and never
acting toward it.--J.F. BOYES.
The best preparation for the future is the present well seen to, the
last duty done.--GEORGE MACDONALD.
Trust no future howe'er pleasant;
Let the dead past bury its dead;
Act,--act in the living present,
Heart within and God o'erhead!
--LONGFELLOW.
The state of that man's mind who feels too intense an interest as to
future events, must be most deplorable.--SENECA.
God will not suffer man to have the knowledge of things to come; for
if he had prescience of his prosperity, he would be careless; and,
understanding of his adversity, he would be senseless.--ST. AUGUSTINE.
Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may
bring forth.--PROVERBS 27:1.
The golden age is not in the past, but in the future; not in the
origin of human experience, but in its consummate flower; not opening
in Eden, but out from Gethsemane.--CHAPIN.
Why will any man be so impertinently officious as to tell me all
prospect of a future state is only fancy and delusion? Is there any
merit in being the messenger of ill news. If it is a dream, let me
enjoy it, since it makes me both the happier and better man.--ADDISON.
How narrow our souls become when absorbed in any present good or ill!
it is only the thought of the future that makes them great.--RICHTER.
If there was no future life, our souls would not thirst for it.--RICHTER.
GAMBLING.--There is nothing that wears out a fine face like the vigils
of the card-table, and those cutting passions which naturally attend
them. Hollow eyes, haggard looks and pale complexions are the natural
indications.--STEELE.
Games of chance are traps to catch school boy novices and gaping
country squires, who begin with a guinea and end with a mortgage.
--CUMBERLAND.
All gaming, since it implies a desire to profit at the expense of
another, involves a breach of the tenth commandment.--WHATELY.
There is but one good throw upon the dice, which is, to throw them
away.--CHATFIELD.
I look upon every man as a suicide from the moment he takes the
dice-box desperately in his hand; and all that follows in his fatal
career from that time is only sharpening the dagger before he strikes
it to his heart.--CUMBERLAND.
It is the child of avarice, the brother of iniquity and the father of
mischief.--WASHINGTON.
GENEROSITY.--All my experience of the world teaches me that in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the safe side and the just side of
a question is the generous side and the merciful side.--MRS. JAMESON.
He who gives what he would as readily throw away gives without
generosity; for the essence of generosity is in self-sacrifice.--HENRY
TAYLOR.
Generosity is only benevolence in practice.--BISHOP KEN.
The secret pleasure of a generous act is the great mind's great bribe.
--DRYDEN.
If there be any truer measure of a man than by what he does, it must
be by what he gives.--SOUTH.
Some are unwisely liberal; and more delight to give presents than to
pay debts.--SIR P. SIDNEY.
When you give, take to yourself no credit for generosity, unless you
deny yourself something in order that you may give.--HENRY TAYLOR.
The generous who is always just, and the just who is always generous,
may, unannounced, approach the throne of heaven.--LAVATER.
Men of the noblest dispositions think themselves happiest when others
share their happiness with them.--DUNCAN.
In giving, a man receives more than he gives; and the more is in
proportion to the worth of the thing given.--GEORGE MACDONALD.
Let us proportion our alms to our ability, lest we provoke God to
proportion His blessings to our alms.--BEVERIDGE.
A friend to everybody is often a friend to nobody, or else in his
simplicity he robs his family to help strangers, and becomes brother
to a beggar. There is wisdom in generosity, as in everything else.
--SPURGEON.
GENIUS.--Genius is an immense capacity for taking trouble.--CARLYLE.
Genius always gives its best at first, prudence at last.--LAVATER.
There is hardly a more common error than that of taking the man who
has but one talent for a genius.--HELPS.
Talent wears well, genius wears itself out; talent drives a brougham
in fact; genius, a sun-chariot in fancy.--OUIDA.
Genius unexerted is no more genius than a bushel of acorns is a
forest of oaks.--BEECHER.
The first and last thing which is required of genius is the love of
truth.--GOETHE.
Genius can never despise labor.--ABEL STEVENS.
And genius hath electric power,
Which earth can never tame;
Bright suns may scorch, and dark clouds lower--
Its flash is still the same.
--LYDIA M. CHILD.
Genius must be born, and never can be taught.--DRYDEN.
Genius is the gold in the mine, talent is the miner who works and
brings it out.--LADY BLESSINGTON.
One science only will one genius fit;
So vast is art, so narrow human wit.
--POPE.
I know no such thing as genius,--genius is nothing but labor and
diligence.--HOGARTH.
Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing
meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone.--LONGFELLOW.
Genius, without religion, is only a lamp on the outer gate of a
palace. It may serve to cast a gleam of light on those that are
without while the inhabitant sits in darkness.--HANNAH MORE.
Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellences which are
out of the reach of the rules of art: a power which no precepts can
teach, and which no industry can acquire.--SIR J. REYNOLDS.
GENTLEMAN.--Propriety of manners, and consideration for others, are
the two main characteristics of a gentleman.--BEACONSFIELD.
To be a gentleman does not depend upon the tailor or the toilet. Good
clothes are not good habits. A gentleman is just a gentle-man,--no
more, no less; a diamond polished, that was first a diamond in the
rough.--BISHOP DOANE.
What is it to be a gentleman? Is it to be honest, to be gentle, to be
generous, to be brave, to be wise, and, possessing all these
qualities, to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner? Ought
a gentleman to be a loyal son, a true husband, an honest father? Ought
his life to be decent, his bills to be paid, his taste to be high and
elegant, his aims in life lofty and noble?--THACKERAY.
The taste of beauty, and the relish of what is decent, just and
amiable, perfects the character of the gentleman and the philosopher.
And the study of such a taste or relish will, as we suppose, be ever
the great employment and concern of him who covets as well to be wise
and good, as agreeable and polite.--SHAFTESBURY.
Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company, and
reflection must finish him.--LOCKE.
You may depend upon it, religion is, in its essence, the most
gentlemanly thing in the world. It will alone gentilize, if unmixed
with cant; and I know nothing else that will, alone. Certainly not the
army, which is thought to be the grand embellisher of manners.
--COLERIDGE.
He is the best gentleman that is the son of his own deserts, and not
the degenerated heir of another's virtue.--VICTOR HUGO.
Perhaps propriety is as near a word as any to denote the manners of
the gentleman; elegance is necessary to the fine gentleman; dignity is
proper to noblemen; and majesty to kings.--HAZLITT.
He is gentle that doth gentle deeds.
Gentleman is a term which does not apply to any station, but to the
mind and the feelings in every station.--TALFOURD.
Of the offspring of the gentilman Jafeth, came Habraham, Moyses, Aron
and the profettys; and also the kyng of the right line of Mary, of
whom that gentilman Jhesus was borne.--JULIANA BERNERS.
GENTLENESS.--True gentleness is founded on a sense of what we owe to
Him who made us, and to the common nature which we all share. It
arises from reflection on our own failings and wants, and from just
views of the condition and the duty of man. It is native feeling
heightened and improved by principle.--BLAIR.
We do not believe, or we forget, that "the Holy Ghost came down, not
in shape of a vulture, but in the form of a dove."--EMERSON.
Gentleness in the gait is what simplicity is in the dress. Violent
gestures or quick movements inspire involuntary disrespect.--BALZAC.
The best and simplest cosmetic for women is constant gentleness and
sympathy for the noblest interests of her fellow-creatures. This
preserves and gives to her features an indelibly gay, fresh, and
agreeable expression. If women would but realize that harshness makes
them ugly, it would prove the best means of conversion.--AUERBACH.
Gentleness, which belongs to virtue, is to be carefully distinguished
from the mean spirit of cowards and the fawning assent of sycophants.
--BLAIR.
GIFTS.--Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness, when
bequeathed by those who, when alive, would part with nothing.--COLTON.
Give freely to him that deserveth well, and asketh nothing: and that
is a way of giving to thyself.--FULLER.
The gift, to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me,
correspondent to my flowing unto him.--EMERSON.
The only gift is a portion of thyself. * * * Therefore the poet brings
his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, corn; the miner, a gem;
the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his picture; the girl, a
handkerchief of her own sewing.--EMERSON.
A gift--its kind, its value and appearance; the silence or the pomp
that attends it; the style in which it reaches you--may decide the
dignity or vulgarity of the giver.--LAVATER.
God's love gives in such a way that it flows from a Father's heart,
the well-spring of all good. The heart of the giver makes the gift
dear and precious; as among ourselves we say of even a trifling gift,
"It comes from a hand we love," and look not so much at the gift as at
the heart.--LUTHER.
There is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.--SENECA.
GLORY.--Real glory springs from the quiet conquest of ourselves; and
without that the conqueror is nought but the first slave.--THOMSON.
Wood burns because it has the proper stuff for that purpose in it; and
a man becomes renowned because he has the necessary stuff in him.
Renown is not to be sought, and all pursuit of it is vain. A person
may, indeed, by skillful conduct and various artificial means, make a
sort of name for himself; but if the inner jewel is wanting, all is
vanity, and will not last a day.--GOETHE.
The road to glory would cease to be arduous if it were trite and
trodden; and great minds must be ready not only to take opportunities
but to make them.--COLTON.
True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written, in writing
what deserves to be read, and in so living as to make the world
happier and better for our living in it.--PLINY.
Glory relaxes often and debilitates the mind; censure stimulates and
contracts,--both to an extreme. Simple fame is, perhaps, the proper
medium.--SHENSTONE.
GLUTTONY.--Gluttony is the source of all our infirmities, and the
fountain of all our diseases. As a lamp is choked by a superabundance
of oil, a fire extinguished by excess of fuel, so is the natural
health of the body destroyed by intemperate diet.--BURTON.
I have come to the conclusion that mankind consume twice too much
food.--SYDNEY SMITH.
Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits
Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.
--SHAKESPEARE.
The pleasures of the palate deal with us like Egyptian thieves who
strangle those whom they embrace.--SENECA.
When I behold a fashionable table set out in all its magnificence, I
fancy that I see gouts and dropsies, fevers and lethargies, with other
innumerable distempers lying in ambuscade among the dishes. Nature
delights in the most plain and simple diet. Every animal but man keeps
to one dish. Herbs are the food of this species, fish of that, and
flesh of a third. Man falls upon everything that comes in his way; not
the smallest fruit or excrescence of the earth, scarce a berry or a
mushroom can escape him.--ADDISON.
GOD.--In all thy actions think God sees thee; and in all His actions
labor to see Him; that will make thee fear Him; this will move thee to
love Him; the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge, and the
knowledge of God is the perfection of love.--QUARLES.
God should be the object of all our desires, the end of all our
actions, the principle of all our affections, and the governing power
of our whole souls.--MASSILLON.
God governs the world, and we have only to do our duty wisely, and
leave the issue to Him.--JOHN JAY.
They that deny a God destroy man's nobility; for certainly man is like
the beasts in his body; and if he is not like God in his spirit, he is
an ignoble creature.--BACON.
God is all love; it is He who made everything, and He loves everything
that He has made.--HENRY BROOKE.
How calmly may we commit ourselves to the hands of Him who bears up
the world,--of Him who has created, and who provides for the joys even
of insects, as carefully as if He were their father.--RICHTER.
I fear God, and next to God, I chiefly fear him who fears Him not.
--SAADI.
A foe to God was never true friend to man.--YOUNG.
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
--COWPER.
There never was a man of solid understanding, whose apprehensions are
sober, and by a pensive inspection advised, but that he hath found by
an irresistible necessity one true God and everlasting being.--SIR
WALTER RALEIGH.
Who guides below, and rules above,
The great disposer, and the mighty king;
Than He none greater, next Him none,
That can be, is, or was.
--HORACE.
Thou art, O God, the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see;
Its glow by day, its smile by night,
Are but reflections caught from Thee!
Where'er we turn thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are thine!
--MOORE.
From God derived, to God by nature join'd.
We act the dictates of His mighty mind:
And though the priests are mute and temples still,
God never wants a voice to speak His will.
--ROWE.
The very impossibility in which I find myself to prove that God is
not, discovers to me His existence.--BRUYÈRE.
We find in God all the excellences of light, truth, wisdom, greatness,
goodness and life. Light gives joy and gladness; truth gives
satisfaction; wisdom gives learning and instruction; greatness excites
admiration; goodness produces love and gratitude; life gives
immortality and insures enjoyment.--JONES OF NAYLAND.
We have a friend and protector, from whom, if we do not ourselves
depart from Him, nor power nor spirit can separate us. In His strength
let us proceed on our journey, through the storms, and troubles, and
dangers of the world. However they may rage and swell, though the
mountains shake at the tempests, our rock will not be moved: we have
one friend who will never forsake us; one refuge, where we may rest in
peace and stand in our lot at the end of the days. That same is He who
liveth, and was dead; who is alive forevermore; and hath the keys of
hell and of death.--BISHOP HEBER.
It is a most unhappy state to be at a distance with God: man needs no
greater infelicity than to be left to himself.--FELTHAM.
The man who forgets the wonders and mercies of the Lord is without any
excuse; for we are continually surrounded with objects which may serve
to bring the power and goodness of God strikingly to mind.--SLADE.
God is the light which, never seen itself, makes all things visible,
and clothes itself in colors. Thine eye feels not its ray, but thine
heart feels its warmth.--RICHTER.
A secret sense of God's goodness is by no means enough. Men should
make solemn and outward expressions of it, when they receive His
creatures for their support; a service and homage not only due to Him,
but profitable to themselves.--DEAN STANHOPE.
All is of God. If He but wave His hand,
The mists collect, the rains fall thick and loud;
Till, with a smile of light on sea and land,
Lo! He looks back from the departing cloud.
Angels of life and death alike are His;
Without His leave they pass no threshold o'er;
Who, then, would wish or dare, believing this,
Against His messengers to shut the door?
--LONGFELLOW.
"God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good."
* * * Wheresoever I turn my eyes, behold the memorials of His greatness!
of His goodness! * * * What the world contains of good is from His
free and unrequited mercy: what it presents of real evil arises from
ourselves.--BISHOP BLOMFIELD.
GOLD.--Gold, like the sun, which melts wax and hardens clay, expands
great souls and contracts bad hearts.--RIVAROL.
There are two metals, one of which is omnipotent in the cabinet, and
the other in the camp,--gold and iron. He that knows how to apply them
both may indeed attain the highest station.--COLTON.
Gold is Cæsar's treasure, man is God's; thy gold hath Cæsar's image,
and thou hast God's; give, therefore, those things unto Cæsar which
are Cæsar's, and unto God which are God's.--QUARLES.
Foul-cankering rust the hidden treasure frets;
But gold, that's put to use, more gold begets.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Gold is the fool's curtain, which hides all his defects from the
world.--FELTHAM.
O cursed lust of gold! when for thy sake
The fool throws up his interest in both worlds.
--BLAIR.
How few, like Daniel, have God and gold together!--GEORGE VILLIERS.
Gold adulterates one thing only,--the human heart.--MARGUERITE DE
VALOIS.
GOODNESS.--A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps
friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.--BASIL.
It is only great souls that know how much glory there is in being
good.--SOPHOCLES.
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.--POPE.
Every day should be distinguished by at least one particular act of
love.--LAVATER.
He that is a good man is three-quarters of his way towards the being a
good Christian, wheresoever he lives, or whatsoever he is
called.--SOUTH.
A good man is kinder to his enemy than bad men are to their friends.
--BISHOP HALL.
Live for something. Do good, and leave behind you a monument of
virtue that the storm of time can never destroy. Write your name in
kindness, love, and mercy, on the hearts of thousands you come in
contact with year by year; you will never be forgotten. No, your name,
your deeds, will be as legible on the hearts you leave behind as the
stars on the brow of evening. Good deeds will shine as the stars of
heaven.--CHALMERS.
He that does good for good's sake seeks neither praise nor reward,
though sure of both at last.--WILLIAM PENN.
What is good-looking, as Horace Smith remarks, but looking good? Be
good, be womanly, be gentle, generous in your sympathies, heedful of
the well-being of all around you; and, my word for it, you will not
lack kind words of admiration.--WHITTIER.
Some good we all can do; and if we do all that is in our power,
however little that power may be, we have performed our part, and may
be as near perfection as those whose influence extends over kingdoms,
and whose good actions are felt and applauded by thousands.--BOWDLER.
GOVERNMENT.--The administration of government, like a guardianship,
ought to be directed to the good of those who confer and not of those
who receive the trust.--CICERO.
Power exercised with violence has seldom been of long duration, but
temper and moderation generally produce permanence in all things.
--SENECA.
No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected
without being truly respectable.--MADISON.
The best government is not that which renders men the happiest, but
that which renders the greatest number happy.--DUCLOS.
No man undertakes a trade he has not learned, even the meanest; yet
every one thinks himself sufficiently qualified for the hardest of all
trades,--that of government.--SOCRATES.
In the early ages men ruled by strength; now they rule by brain, and
so long as there is only one man in the world who can think and plan,
he will stand head and shoulders above him who cannot.--BEECHER.
The proper function of a government is to make it easy for people to
do good, and difficult for them to do evil.--GLADSTONE.
All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of
the people.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
Those who think must govern those who toil.--GOLDSMITH.
GRACE.--Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy
affections.--DRYDEN.
The mother grace of all the graces is Christian good-will.--BEECHER.
All actions and attitudes of children are graceful because they are
the luxuriant and immediate offspring of the moment,--divested of
affectation and free from all pretence.--FUSELI.
Grace has been defined, the outward expression of the inward harmony
of the soul.--HAZLITT.
GRATITUDE.--Gratitude is a virtue disposing the mind to an inward
sense and an outward acknowledgment of a benefit received, together
with a readiness to return the same, or the like, as occasions of the
doer of it shall require, and the abilities of the receiver extend to.
He who receives a good turn, should never forget it: he who does one,
should never remember it.--CHARRON.
O Lord, that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with
thankfulness.--SHAKESPEARE.
What causes such a miscalculation in the amount of gratitude which men
expect for the favors they have done, is, that the pride of the giver
and that of the receiver can never agree as to the value of the
benefit.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
If gratitude is due from children to their earthly parents, how much
more is the gratitude of the great family of man due to our Father in
heaven!--HOSEA BALLOU.
GRAVE.--There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be
at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of
the oppressor. The small and great are there; and the servant is free
from his master.--JOB 3:17, 18, 19.
We go to the grave of a friend saying, "A man is dead;" but angels
throng about him, saying, "A man is born."--BEECHER.
Always the idea of unbroken quiet broods around the grave. It is a
port where the storms of life never beat, and the forms that have been
tossed on its chafing waves lie quiet forevermore. There the child
nestles as peacefully as ever it lay in its mother's arms, and the
workman's hands lie still by his side, and the thinker's brain is
pillowed in silent mystery, and the poor girl's broken heart is
steeped in a balm that extracts its secret woe, and is in the keeping
of a charity that covers all blame.--CHAPIN.
There is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a
remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the
living. Oh, the grave!--the grave! It buries every error, covers every
defect, extinguishes every resentment! From its peaceful bosom spring
none but fond regrets and tender recollections.--WASHINGTON IRVING.
What is the grave?
'Tis a cool, shady harbor, where the Christian
Wayworn and weary with life's rugged road,
Forgetting all life's sorrows, joys, and pains,
Lays his poor body down to rest--
Sleeps on--and wakes in heaven.