When men cease to be faithful to their God, he who expects to find
them so to each other will be much disappointed.--BISHOP HORNE.
If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue
and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.
--DR. JOHNSON.
All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not honesty and
good-nature.--MONTAIGNE.
No legacy is so rich as honesty.--SHAKESPEARE.
What is becoming is honest, and whatever is honest must always be
becoming.--CICERO.
HOPE.--All which happens in the whole world happens through hope. No
husbandman would sow a grain of corn if he did not hope it would
spring up and bring forth the ear. How much more are we helped on by
hope in the way to eternal life!--LUTHER.
"Hast thou hope?" they asked of John Knox, when he lay a-dying. He
spoke nothing, but raised his finger and pointed upward, and so
died.--CARLYLE.
The riches of heaven, the honor which cometh from God only, and the
pleasures at His right hand, the absence of all evil, the presence and
enjoyment of all good, and this good enduring to eternity, never more
to be taken from us, never more to be in any, the least degree,
diminished, but forever increasing, these are the wreaths which form
the contexture of that crown held forth to our hopes.--BISHOP HORNE.
A religious hope does not only bear up the mind under her sufferings
but makes her rejoice in them.--ADDISON.
Hope is like the wing of an angel, soaring up to heaven, and bearing
our prayers to the throne of God.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
Hope is our life when first our life grows clear,
Hope and delight, scarce crossed by lines of fear:
Yet the day comes when fain we would not hope--
But forasmuch as we with life must cope,
Struggling with this and that--and who knows why?
Hope will not give us up to certainty,
But still must bide with us.
--WM. MORRIS.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast,
Man never is, but always to be blest.
--POPE.
A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow,
real poverty.--HUME.
True hope is based on the energy of character. A strong mind always
hopes, and has always cause to hope, because it knows the mutability
of human affairs, and how slight a circumstance may change the whole
course of events. Such a spirit, too, rests upon itself; it is not
confined to partial views or to one particular object. And if at last
all should be lost, it has saved itself.--VON KNEBEL.
Hope, like the glimmering taper's light,
Adorns and cheers the way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.
--GOLDSMITH.
HOSPITALITY.--Like many other virtues, hospitality is practiced in its
perfection by the poor. If the rich did their share, how would the
woes of this world be lightened!--MRS. KIRKLAND.
It is not the quantity of the meat, but the cheerfulness of the
guests, which makes the feast.--CLARENDON.
There is an emanation from the heart in genuine hospitality which
cannot be described, but is immediately felt and puts the stranger at
once at his ease.--WASHINGTON IRVING.
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have
entertained angels unawares.--HEBREWS 13:2.
Blest be that spot, where cheerful guests retire
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire;
Blest that abode, where want and pain repair,
And every stranger finds a ready chair:
Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd,
Where all the ruddy family around
Laugh at the jest or pranks, that never fail,
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale,
Or press the bashful stranger to his food,
And learn the luxury of doing good.
--GOLDSMITH.
HUMILITY.--The sufficiency of my merit is to know that my merit is not
sufficient.--ST. AUGUSTINE.
The high mountains are barren, but the low valleys are covered over
with corn; and accordingly the showers of God's grace fall into lowly
hearts and humble souls.--WORTHINGTON.
He who sacrifices a whole offering shall be rewarded for a whole
offering; he who offers a burnt-offering shall have the reward of a
burnt-offering; but he who offers humility to God and man shall be
rewarded with a reward as if he had offered all the sacrifices in the
world.--THE TALMUD.
True humility--the basis of the Christian system--is the low but deep
and firm foundation of all virtues.--BURKE.
By humility, and the fear of the Lord, are riches, honor, and life.
--PROVERBS 22:4.
"If you ask, what is the first step in the way of truth? I answer
humility," saith St. Austin. "If you ask, what is the second? I say
humility. If you ask, what is the third? I answer the same--humility."
Is it not as the steps of degree in the Temple, whereby we descend to
the knowledge of ourselves, and ascend to the knowledge of God? Would
we attain mercy? humility will help us.--C. SUTTON.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.--MATTHEW 5:5.
Nothing can be further apart than true humility and servility.--BEECHER.
Some one called Sir Richard Steele the "vilest of mankind," and he
retorted with proud humility, "It would be a glorious world if I
were."--BOVEE.
Humility is the Christian's greatest honor; and the higher men climb,
the farther they are from heaven.--BURDER.
The grace which makes every other grace amiable.--ALFRED MERCIER.
If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble; for the proud
heart, as it loves none but itself, so it is beloved of none but by
itself; the voice of humility is God's music, and the silence of
humility is God's rhetoric. Humility enforces where neither virtue nor
strength can prevail nor reason.--QUARLES.
The fullest and best ears of corn hang lowest toward the ground.
--BISHOP REYNOLDS.
If thou wouldst find much favor and peace with God and man, be very
low in thine own eyes; forgive thyself little, and others much.
--LEIGHTON.
After crosses and losses men grow humbler and wiser.--FRANKLIN.
HURRY.--No two things differ more than hurry and despatch. Hurry is
the mark of a weak mind, despatch of a strong one. A weak man in
office, like a squirrel in a cage, is laboring eternally, but to no
purpose, and in constant motion without getting on a jot; like a
turnstile, he is in everybody's way, but stops nobody; he talks a
great deal, but says very little; looks into everything, but sees into
nothing; and has a hundred irons in the fire, but very few of them are
hot, and with those few that are he only burns his fingers.--COLTON.
HYPOCRISY.--If the world despises hypocrites, what must be the
estimate of them in heaven?--MADAME ROLAND.
Hypocrisy itself does great honor, or rather justice, to religion, and
tacitly acknowledges it to be an ornament to human nature. The
hypocrite would not be at so much pains to put on the appearance of
virtue, if he did not know it was the most proper and effectual means
to gain the love and esteem of mankind.--ADDISON.
The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his
heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.
--PSALM 55:21.
Hypocrisy is folly. It is much easier, safer, and pleasanter to be the
thing which a man aims to appear, than to keep up the appearance of
being what he is not.--CECIL.
Hypocrites do the devil's drudgery in Christ's livery.--MATTHEW HENRY.
To wear long faces, just as if our Maker,
The God of goodness, was an undertaker.
--PETER PINDAR.
Hypocrisy is oftenest clothed in the garb of religion.--HOSEA BALLOU.
Such a man will omit neither family worship, nor a sneer at his
neighbor. He will neither milk his cows on the first day of the week
without a Sabbath mask on his face, nor remove it while he waters the
milk for his customers.--GEORGE MACDONALD.
If Satan ever laughs, it must be at hypocrites; they are the greatest
dupes he has.--COLTON.
IDLENESS.--I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide.--CHESTERFIELD.
Some people have a perfect genius for doing nothing, and doing it
assiduously.--HALIBURTON.
Laziness grows on people; it begins in cobwebs, and ends in iron
chains. The more business a man has to do, the more he is able to
accomplish; for he learns to economize his time.--JUDGE HALE.
If you ask me which is the real hereditary sin of human nature, do you
imagine I shall answer pride or luxury or ambition or egotism? No; I
shall say indolence. Who conquers indolence will conquer all the rest.
Indeed, all good principles must stagnate without mental activity.
--ZIMMERMANN.
A poor idle man cannot be an honest man.--ACHILLES POINCELOT.
Absence of occupation is not rest,
A mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd.
--COWPER.
Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry all easy; and he that
riseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business
at night; while laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes
him.--FRANKLIN.
Evil thoughts intrude in an unemployed mind, as naturally as worms are
generated in a stagnant pool.--FROM THE LATIN.
An idle man's brain is the devil's workshop.--BUNYAN.
If you are idle, you are on the road to ruin; and there are few
stopping-places upon it. It is rather a precipice than a road.--BEECHER.
The ruin of most men dates from some idle moment.--HILLARD.
Time, with all its celerity, moves slowly on to him whose whole
employment is to watch its flight.--DR. JOHNSON.
An idler is a watch that wants both hands,
As useless if it goes as when it stands.
--COWPER.
IMMIGRATION.--If you should turn back from this land to Europe the
foreign ministers of the Gospel, and the foreign attorneys, and the
foreign merchants, and the foreign philanthropists, what a robbery of
our pulpits, our court rooms, our storehouses, and our beneficent
institutions, and what a putting back of every monetary, merciful,
moral, and religious interest of the land! This commingling here of
all nationalities under the blessing of God will produce in
seventy-five or one hundred years the most magnificent style of man
and woman the world ever saw. They will have the wit of one race, the
eloquence of another race, the kindness of another, the generosity of
another, the æsthetic taste of another, the high moral character of
another, and when that man and woman step forth, their brain and nerve
and muscle an intertwining of the fibres of all nationalities, nothing
but the new electric photographic apparatus, that can see clear
through body and mind and soul, can take of them an adequate picture.
--T. DEWITT TALMAGE.
IMMORTALITY.--Immortality is the glorious discovery of Christianity.
--CHANNING.
We are born for a higher destiny than that of earth; there is a realm
where the rainbow never fades, where the stars will be spread before
us like islands that slumber on the ocean, and where the beings that
pass before us like shadows will stay in our presence forever.--LYTTON.
It must be so--Plato, thou reasonest well--
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or whence this secret dread and inward horror
Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the Divinity that stirs within us;
'Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years,
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,
The wreck of matter, and the crash of worlds.
--ADDISON.
Faith in the hereafter is as necessary for the intellectual as the
moral character; and to the man of letters, as well as to the
Christian, the present forms but the slightest portion of his
existence.--SOUTHEY.
The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I hear around me the
immortal symphonies which invite me.--VICTOR HUGO.
All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are
immortal and divine.--SOCRATES.
Immortality o'ersweeps all pains, all tears, all time, all fears, and
peals, like the eternal thunder of the deep, into my ears this truth:
Thou livest forever!--BYRON.
INDEPENDENCE.--It is not the greatness of a man's means that makes him
independent, so much as the smallness of his wants.--COBBETT.
These two things, contradictory as they may seem, must go
together,--manly dependence and manly independence, manly reliance and
manly self-reliance.--WORDSWORTH.
Ourselves are to ourselves the cause of ill;
We may be independent if we will.
--CHURCHILL.
Let fortune do her worst, whatever she makes us lose, as long as she
never makes us lose our honesty and our independence.--POPE.
INDUSTRY.--Industry is a Christian obligation, imposed on our race
to develop the noblest energies, and insures the highest reward.
--E.L. MAGOON.
Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before
kings.--PROVERBS 22:29.
If you have great talents, industry will improve them; if moderate
abilities, industry will supply their deficiencies. Nothing is denied
to well-directed labor; nothing is ever to be attained without it.
--SIR J. REYNOLDS.
If we are industrious, we shall never starve; for, at the workingman's
house hunger looks in, but dares not enter. Nor will the bailiff or
the constable enter, for industry pays debts, while despair increaseth
them.--FRANKLIN.
There is no art or science that is too difficult for industry to
attain to; it is the gift of tongues, and makes a man understood and
valued in all countries and by all nations; it is the philosopher's
stone, that turns all metals, and even stones, into gold, and suffers
not want to break into its dwelling; it is the northwest passage, that
brings the merchant's ship as soon to him as he can desire. In a word,
it conquers all enemies, and makes fortune itself pay contribution.
--CLARENDON.
The way to wealth is as plain as the way to market. It depends
chiefly on two words, industry and frugality: that is, waste neither
time nor money, but make the best use of both. Without industry and
frugality nothing will do, and with them everything.--FRANKLIN.
The celebrated Galen said employment was nature's physician. It is
indeed so important to happiness that indolence is justly considered
the parent of misery.--COLTON.
In every rank, or great or small,
'Tis industry supports us all.
--GAY.
INFIDELITY.--There is but one thing without honor, smitten with
eternal barrenness, inability to do or to be,--insincerity, unbelief.
--CARLYLE.
Infidelity is one of those coinages,--a mass of base money that won't
pass current with any heart that loves truly, or any head that thinks
correctly. And infidels are poor sad creatures; they carry about them
a load of dejection and desolation, not the less heavy that it is
invisible. It is the fearful blindness of the soul.--CHALMERS.
A sceptical young man one day conversing with the celebrated Dr. Parr,
observed that he would believe nothing which he could not understand.
"Then, young man, your creed will be the shortest of any man's I
know."--HELPS.
Infidelity and faith look both through the perspective glass, but at
contrary ends. Infidelity looks through the wrong end of the glass;
and, therefore, sees those objects near which are afar off, and makes
great things little,--diminishing the greatest spiritual blessings,
and removing far from us threatened evils. Faith looks at the right
end, and brings the blessings that are far off in time close to our
eye, and multiplies God's mercies, which, in a distance, lost their
greatness.--BISHOP HALL.
No one is so much alone in the universe as a denier of God.--RICHTER.
Mere negation, mere Epicurean infidelity, as Lord Bacon most justly
observes, has never disturbed the peace of the world. It furnishes no
motive for action; it inspires no enthusiasm; it has no missionaries,
no crusades, no martyrs.--MACAULAY.
When once infidelity can persuade men that they shall die like beasts,
they will soon be brought to live like beasts also.--SOUTH.
INGRATITUDE.--If there be a crime of deeper dye than all the guilty
train of human vices, it is ingratitude.--H. BROOKE.
Men may be ungrateful, but the human race is not so.--DE BOUFFLERS.
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude.
--SHAKESPEARE.
He that forgets his friend is ungrateful to him; but he that forgets
his Saviour is unmerciful to himself.--BUNYAN.
You may rest upon this as an unfailing truth, that there neither is,
nor never was, any person remarkably ungrateful, who was not also
insufferably proud. In a word, ingratitude is too base to return a
kindness, too proud to regard it, much like the tops of mountains,
barren indeed, but yet lofty; they produce nothing; they feed nobody;
they clothe nobody; yet are high and stately, and look down upon all
the world.--SOUTH.
Ingratitude is always a kind of weakness. I have never seen that
clever men have been ungrateful.--GOETHE.
You love a nothing when you love an ingrate.--PLAUTUS.
And shall I prove ungrateful? shocking thought! He that is ungrateful
has no guilt but one; all other crimes may pass for virtues in him.
--YOUNG.
Nothing more detestable does the earth produce than an ungrateful man.
--AUSONIUS.
Do you know what is more hard to bear than the reverses of fortune? It
is the baseness, the hideous ingratitude, of man.--NAPOLEON.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child.
--SHAKESPEARE.
One ungrateful man does an injury to all who stand in need of aid.
--PUBLIUS SYRUS.
INNOCENCE.--We have not the innocence of Eden; but by God's help and
Christ's example we may have the victory of Gethsemane.--CHAPIN.
True, conscious honor, is to feel no sin;
He's arm'd without that's innocent within.
--HORACE.
Innocence is a flower which withers when touched, but blooms not
again, though watered with tears.--HOOPER.
To be innocent is to be not guilty; but to be virtuous is to overcome
our evil inclinations.--WILLIAM PENN.
How many bitter thoughts does the innocent man avoid! Serenity and
cheerfulness are his portion. Hope is continually pouring its balm
into his soul. His heart is at rest, whilst others are goaded and
tortured by the stings of a wounded conscience, the remonstrances and
risings up of principles which they cannot forget; perpetually teased
by returning temptations, perpetually lamenting defeated resolutions.
--PALEY.
Oh, keep me innocent; make others great!--CAROLINE OF DENMARK.
There are some reasoners who frequently confound innocence with the
mere incapacity of guilt; but he that never saw, or heard, or thought
of strong liquors, cannot be proposed as a pattern of sobriety.
--DR. JOHNSON.
Let our lives be pure as snow-fields, where our footsteps leave a
mark, but not a stain.--MADAME SWETCHINE.
There is no courage but in innocence, no constancy but in an honest
cause.--SOUTHERN.
INSPIRATION.--Do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble
impulse by the name of inspiration?--GEORGE ELIOT.
The glow of inspiration warms us; this holy rapture springs from the
seeds of the Divine mind sown in man.--OVID.
No man was ever great without divine inspiration.--CICERO.
A lively and agreeable man has not only the merit of liveliness and
agreeableness himself, but that also of awakening them in others.
--GREVILLE.
INTELLECT.--If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take
it from him.--FRANKLIN.
Alexander the Great valued learning so highly, that he used to say he
was more indebted to Aristotle for giving him knowledge than to his
father Philip for life.--SAMUEL SMILES.
A man cannot leave a better legacy to the world than a well-educated
family.--REV. THOMAS SCOTT.
Times of general calamity and confusion have ever been productive of
the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest
furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest
storm.--COLTON.
Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to
live, as well as strong to think.--EMERSON.
God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given
us, on this side of the grave.--BACON.
Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge; and its nature is
sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance.--CHANNING.
To be able to discern that what is true is true, and that what is
false is false,--this is the mark and character of intelligence.
--EMERSON.
INTEMPERANCE.--A man may choose whether he will have abstemiousness
and knowledge, or claret and ignorance.--DR. JOHNSON.
Intemperance weaves the winding-sheet of souls.--JOHN B. GOUGH.
Drunkenness calls off the watchman from the towers; and then all the
evils that proceed from a loose heart, an untied tongue, and a
dissolute spirit, we put upon its account.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
It is little the sign of a wise or good man, to suffer temperance to
be transgressed in order to purchase the repute of a generous
entertainer.--ATTERBURY.
Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath
babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?
They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.
Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color
in the cup, when it moveth itself aright: at the last it biteth like a
serpent, and stingeth like an adder.--PROVERBS 23:29-32.
O, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their
brains!--SHAKESPEARE.
I never drink. I cannot do it, on equal terms with others. It costs
them only one day; but me three,--the first in sinning, the second in
suffering, and the third in repenting.--STERNE.
Wise men mingle mirth with their cares, as a help either to forget or
overcome them; but to resort to intoxication for the ease of one's
mind is to cure melancholy by madness.--CHARRON.
Greatness of any kind has no greater foe than a habit of drinking.
--WALTER SCOTT.
Intemperance is a great decayer of beauty.--JUNIUS.
Sinners, hear and consider; if you wilfully condemn your souls to
bestiality, God will condemn them to perpetual misery.--BAXTER.
The habit of using ardent spirits, by men in office, has occasioned
more injury to the public, and more trouble to me, than all other
causes. And were I to commence my administration again, the first
question I would ask, respecting a candidate for office would be,
"Does he use ardent spirits?"--JEFFERSON.
JEALOUSY.--People who are jealous, or particularly careful of their
own rights and dignity, always find enough of those who do not care
for either to keep them continually uncomfortable.--BARNES.
It is with jealousy as with the gout. When such distempers are in the
blood, there is never any security against their breaking out, and
that often on the slightest occasions, and when least suspected.
--FIELDING.
All the other passions condescend at times to accept the inexorable
logic of facts; but jealousy looks facts straight in the face, ignores
them utterly, and says that she knows a great deal better than they
can tell her.--HELPS.
The jealous man's disease is of so malignant a nature that it
converts all it takes into its own nourishment.--ADDISON.
Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ.
--SHAKESPEARE.
Jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire,
which hath a most vehement flame.--SONG OF SOLOMON 8:6.
Yet is there one more cursed than they all,
That canker-worm, that monster, jealousie,
Which eats the heart and feeds upon the gall,
Turning all love's delight to misery,
Through fear of losing his felicity.
--SPENSER.
JOY.--The very society of joy redoubles it; so that, whilst it lights
upon my friend it rebounds upon myself, and the brighter his candle
burns the more easily will it light mine.--SOUTH.
The joy resulting from the diffusion of blessings to all around us is
the purest and sublimest that can ever enter the human mind, and can
be conceived only by those who have experienced it. Next to the
consolations of divine grace, it is the most sovereign balm to the
miseries of life, both in him who is the object of it, and in him who
exercises it.--BISHOP PORTEUS.
Who partakes in another's joys is a more humane character than he who
partakes in his griefs.--LAVATER.
Joy is more divine than sorrow; for joy is bread, and sorrow is
medicine.--BEECHER.