More hopeful than all wisdom is one draught of human pity that will not
forsake us.
Laughing is one of the products of civilization. In the uncivilized
tribes laughter is entirely unknown.
Let him who neglects to raise the fallen fear lest, when he falls, no
one will stretch out his hand to lift him up.
Time is a species of wealth which it is impossible for us to hoard, but
which we may spend to good advantage.
Character is the eternal temple that each one begins to rear, yet death
can only complete it. The finer the architecture, the more fit for the
indwelling of angels.
It is only by labor that thought can be made healthy, and only by
thought that labor can be made happy; and the two can not be separated
with impunity.--_John Ruskin_.
Don't moralize to a man who is on his back. Help him up, set him
firmly on his feet, and then give him advice and means.
There is a pleasure in contemplating good; there is a greater pleasure
in receiving good; but the greatest pleasure of all is in doing good,
which comprehends the rest.
Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning--an endeavor
to navigate a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have to run, but
without observation of the heavenly bodies.
Most people keep too strong a hold of their personality to be able to
forget themselves in their subject; they carry an unacknowledged
self-consciousness along with them. If to be single-minded is to have
an undivided interest in things, they are not single-minded.
Real affection is independent. A woman may passionately love a man who
does not care for her, and men have gone mad for the sake of women who
were indifferent to them. That affection which survives coldness or
even contempt on the part of the subject is a stronger proof of its
strength than jealousy, however well founded.
To have a respect for ourselves guides our morals, and to have a
deference for others governs our manners.
If you want to be miserable, think about yourself, about what you want,
what you like, what respect people pay you, and what people think of
you.
One great impediment to the rapid dissemination of new truths is that a
knowledge of them would convict many sage professors of having long
promulgated error.
The leaves that give out the sweetest fragrance are those that are the
most cruelly crushed; so the hearts of those who have suffered most can
feel for others' woes.
Each of us can so believe in humanity in general as to contribute to
that pressure which constantly levers up the race; can surround
ourselves with an atmosphere optimistic rather than the
contrary.--_Selected_.
He who has more knowledge than good works is like a tree with many
branches and few roots, which the first wind throws on its face; while
he who does more than he says is like a tree with strong roots and few
branches, which all the winds can not uproot.--_Talmud_.
If we waited until it was perfectly convenient, half of the good
actions of life would never be accomplished, and very few of its
successes.
A helping word to one in trouble is often like a switch on a railroad
track, but one inch between wreck and smooth rolling prosperity.
Prayer is the key of day and lock of the night; and we should every day
begin and end, bid ourselves good morrow and good night, with prayer.
In order to love mankind, expect but little from them; in order to view
their faults without bitterness, pardon them. The wisest men have
always been the most indulgent.
There are souls which fall from heaven like flowers, but ere the pure
and fresh buds can open they are trodden in the dust of the earth, and
lie soiled and crushed under the foul tread of some brutal hoof.
Many of the men we calmly set down as failures may have been doing as
much as those who have made ten times as much noise in the world. A
great deal of the best work in the world is anonymous, if we do not
confine the term to writing.
To a man of brave sentiments midnight is as bright as noonday, for the
illumination is within.
That man who lives in vain lives worse than vain. He who lives to no
purpose lives to a bad purpose.--_Nevins_.
Labor is the law of the world, and he who lives by other men's means is
of less value to the world than the buzzing, busy insect.
Deep is the sea, and deep is hell, but pride runneth deeper; it is
coiled as a poisonous worm about the foundation of the soul.--_Tupper_.
The integrity of the heart, when it is strengthened by reason, is the
principal source of justice and wit; an honest man thinks nearly always
justly.
Be firm, but be not too hasty to decide; weigh well before you act,
but, having weighed, act promptly, and abide the result. This is the
test of judgment.
Wit loses its respect with the good when seen in company with malice;
and to smile at the jest which plants a thorn in another's breast is to
become a principal in the mischief.
Success never did, never will come to that young man who knows
everything--in his own opinion.
In love, as in everything else, truth is the strongest of all things,
and frankness is but another name for truth.
Frequent disappointment teaches us to mistrust our own inclination, and
shrink even from vows our hearts may prompt.
For children there is no leave-taking, for they acknowledge no past,
only the present, that to them is full of the future.
To love, in order to be loved in return, is man, but to love for the
pure sake of loving, is almost the characteristic of an angel.
Fond as a man is of sight-seeing, life is the great show for every
man--the show always wonderful and new to the thoughtful.
The sweetest book in all the world, if properly read, is the Bible.
Its leaves are as fragrant as a bed of violets in full bloom.
Pity gilds mortality with rays of immortal light, and through faith
enables its possessor to triumph over sin, sorrow, tribulation and
death.
If we can not live so as to be happy, let us at least live so as to
deserve happiness.--_Fichte_.
Little by little fortunes are accumulated; little by little knowledge
is gained; little by little character and reputation are achieved.
Don't rely for success upon empty praise. The swimmer upon the stream
of life must be able to keep afloat without the aid of bladders.
Industry--In seeking a situation, remember that the right kind of men
are always in demand, and that industry and capacity rarely go
empty-handed.
Frankness is the child of honesty and courage. Say just what you mean
to do on every occasion, and take it for granted that you mean to do
what is right.
To be always intending to lead a new life, but never to find time to
set about it, is as if a man should put off eating from one day to
another till he is starved.
A man loved by a beautiful and virtuous woman carries a talisman that
renders him invulnerable; every one feels that such a one's life has a
higher value than that of others.
The great beauty of charity is privacy; there is a sweet force, even in
an anonymous penny.
Every heart has its secret sorrows, and oftentimes we call a man cold
when he was only sad.
A promise should be given with caution, and kept with care; it should
be made with the heart and kept with the head.
"The mind of a young creature," says Berkely, "can not remain empty; if
you do not put into it that which is good, it will be sure to use even
that which is bad."
We all see at sunset the beautiful colors streaming all over the
western sky, but no eyes can behold the hand that overturns the urns
whence these streams are poured.
We often live under a cloud, and it is well for us that we should do
so. Uninterrupted sunshine would parch our hearts. We want shade and
rain to cool and refresh them.
Poverty is very terrible to you, and kills the soul in you sometimes;
but it is the north wind that lashed men into vikings; it is the soft,
luscious south wind that lulls to lotus dreams.
There is nothing so valuable, and yet so cheap, as civility; you can
almost buy land with it.
It has been justly said nothing in man is so Godlike as doing good to
our fellows.--_Selected_.
Contentment swells a mite into a talent, and makes even the poor richer
than the Indies.--_Addison_.
Never was a sincere word utterly lost, never a magnanimity fell to the
ground; there is some heart always to greet and accept it unexpectedly.
There are people who often talk of the humbleness of their origin, when
they are really ashamed of it, though vain of the talent which enabled
them to emerge from it.
A witty old deacon put it thus: "Now, brethren, let us get up a supper
and eat ourselves rich. Buy your food, then give it to the church;
then go and buy it back again; then eat it up, and your church debt is
paid."
Self-sacrifice is the essential mark of the Christian, and the absence
of it is sufficient at once to condemn the man who calls himself by
that name and yet has it not, and to declare that he has no right to
it.--_Bolton_.
There are many comfortable people in the world, but to call any man
perfectly happy is an insult.
Women often make light of ruin. Give them but the beloved objects, and
poverty is but a trifling sorrow to bear.--_Thackeray_,
Independence is a name for what no man possesses; nothing in the
animate or inanimate world is more dependent than man.
Wealth is to be used only as an instrument of action, not as the
representative of civil honors and moral excellence.--_Jane Porter_.
There is nothing purer, nothing warmer than our first friendship, our
first love, our first striving after truth, our first feeling for
nature.--_Jean Paul Richter_.
Shakespeare is as much out of the category of eminent authors as he is
out of the crowd. He is inconceivably wise; the others
conceivably.--_Representative Men_.
A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner. Neither do uninterrupted
prosperity and success qualify a man for usefulness and happiness. The
storms of adversity, like the storms of the ocean, arouse the faculties
and excite the invention, prudence, skill and fortitude of the voyager.
It is not work that hurts men. It is the corrosion of uncertainty; it
is the anticipation of trouble; it is living in a state of painful
apprehension. Therefore we should endeavor to rise out of the
atmosphere of gloomy forebodings. The man who is lifted above fear and
its whole brood of mischief can go through twice as much trouble as a
man who is subject to its influence.
He that looks out upon life from a sour or severe disposition, with
hard and stringent notions, is ill prepared to meet the experiences of
the world; but he who has the sweetness of hope, he who has an
imagination lit up with cheerfulness, he who has the sense of humor
which softens all things--he who has this atmosphere of the mind--has
made himself superior to accident. As the angel described by Milton,
who was smitten by the sword, and whose wounds healed as soon as the
sword was withdrawn, so ought man to be; and when he receives a spear
thrust in life, no sooner should the spear be withdrawn than his flesh
ought to "close and be itself again."
A married man falling into misfortune is more apt to retrieve his
situation in the world than a single one, chiefly because his spirits
are soothed and retrieved by domestic endearments, and his self-respect
kept alive by finding that, although all abroad is darkness and
humiliation, yet there is a little world of love at home over which he
is monarch.