Part 14
It is all very well to tell me that a young man has distinguished himself by a brilliant first speech. He may go on, or he may be satisfied with his first triumph; but show me a young man who has not succeeded at first, and nevertheless has gone on, and I will back that young man to do better than most of those who have succeeded at the first trial.--CHARLES JAMES FOX.
I hold a doctrine, to which I owe not much, indeed, but all the little I ever had, namely, that with ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.--SIR T.F. BUXTON.
Those who would attain to any marked degree of excellence in a chosen pursuit must work, and work hard for it, prince or peasant.--BAYARD TAYLOR.
All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance; it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united by canals. If a man was to compare the effect of a single stroke of a pickaxe, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains are levelled, and oceans bounded, by the slender force of human beings.--DR. JOHNSON.
Even in social life, it is persistency which attracts confidence, more than talents and accomplishments.--WHIPPLE.
A falling drop at last will carve a stone.--LUCRETIUS.
Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt; Nothing so hard but search will find it out. --LOVELACE.
It is interesting to notice how some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage, and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles. --WASHINGTON IRVING.
Press on! a better fate awaits thee.--VICTOR HUGO.
PHILOSOPHY.--True philosophy is that which renders us to ourselves, and all others who surround us, better, and at the same time more content, more patient, more calm and more ready for all decent and pure enjoyment.--LAVATER.
Philosophy abounds more than philosophers, and learning more than learned men.--W.B. CLULOW.
The road to true philosophy is precisely the same with that which leads to true religion; and from both the one and the other, unless we would enter in as little children, we must expect to be totally excluded.--BACON.
Philosophy is the art and law of life, and it teaches us what to do in all cases, and, like good marksmen, to hit the white at any distance. --SENECA.
A little philosophy inclineth men's minds to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds to religion.--BACON.
Whence? whither? why? how?--these questions cover all philosophy. --JOUBERT.
PHYSIOGNOMY.--Children are marvelously and intuitively correct physiognomists. The youngest of them exhibit this trait.--BARTOL.
As the language of the face is universal, so 'tis very comprehensive; no laconism can reach it; 'tis the short-hand of the mind, and crowds a great deal in a little room.--JEREMY COLLIER.
Spite of Lavater, faces are oftentimes great lies. They are the paper money of society, for which, on demand, there frequently proves to be no gold in the human coffer.--F.G. TRAFFORD.
The scope of an intellect is not to be measured with a tape-string, or a character deciphered from the shape or length of a nose.--BOVEE.
People's opinions of themselves are legible in their countenances. --JEREMY COLLIER.
PIETY.--True piety hath in it nothing weak, nothing sad, nothing constrained. It enlarges the heart; it is simple, free, and attractive. --FÉNELON.
We may learn by practice such things upon earth as shall be of use to us in heaven. Piety, unostentatious piety, is never out of place. --CHAPIN.
Piety does not mean that a man should make a sour face about things, and refuse to enjoy in moderation what his Maker has given.--CARLYLE.
Piety raises and fortifies the mind for trying occasions and painful events. When our country is threatened by dangers and pressed by difficulties who are the best bulwarks of its defence? Not the sons of dissipation and folly, not the smooth-tongued sycophants of a court, nor sceptics and blasphemers, from the school of infidelity; but the man whose moral conduct is animated and sustained by the doctrines and consolations of religion. Happy is that country where patriotism is sustained and sanctified by piety; where authority respects and guards freedom, and freedom reveres and loves legitimate authority; where truth and mercy meet together, righteousness and peace embrace each other.--TON.
It is impossible for the mind which is not totally destitute of piety, to behold the sublime, the awful, the amazing works of creation and providence; the heavens with their luminaries, the mountains, the ocean, the storm, the earthquake, and the volcano; the circuit of the seasons and the revolutions of empires; without marking in them all the mighty hand of God, and feeling strong emotions of reverence toward the Author of these stupendous works.--DWIGHT.
John Wesley quaintly observed that the road to heaven is a narrow path, not intended for wheels, and that to ride in a coach here and to go to heaven hereafter, was a happiness too much for man.--BEECHER.
We are surrounded by motives to piety and devotion, if we would but mind them. The poor are designed to excite our liberality; the miserable, our pity; the sick, our assistance; the ignorant, our instruction; those that are fallen, our helping hand. In those who are vain, we see the vanity of the world; in those who are wicked, our own frailty. When we see good men rewarded, it confirms our hope; and when evil men are punished, it excites our fear.--BISHOP WILSON.
PITY.--Pity, though it may often relieve, is but, at best, a short-lived passion, and seldom affords distress more than transitory assistance; with some it scarce lasts from the first impulse till the hand can be put into the pocket.--GOLDSMITH.
We pity in others only those evils which we have ourselves experienced. --ROUSSEAU.
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.--SHAKESPEARE.
Pity and forbearance, and long-sufferance and fair interpretation, and excusing our brother, and taking in the best sense, and passing the gentlest sentence, are as certainly our duty, and owing to every person that does offend and can repent, as calling to account can be owing to the law, and are first to be paid; and he that does not so is an unjust person.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
O, brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother, where pity dwells, the peace of God is there.--WHITTIER.
The world is full of love and pity. Had there been less suffering, there would have been less kindness.--THACKERAY.
Pity melts the mind to love.--DRYDEN.
PLEASURE.--Would you judge of the lawfulness or unlawfulness of pleasures, take this rule:--Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself.--SOUTHEY.
Let not the enjoyment of pleasures now within your grasp be carried to such excess as to incapacitate you from future repetition.--SENECA.
The inward pleasure of imparting pleasure--that is the choicest of all.--HAWTHORNE.
He who can at all times sacrifice pleasure to duty approaches sublimity.--LAVATER.
The end of pleasure is to support the offices of life, to relieve the fatigues of business, to reward a regular action, and to encourage the continuance.--JEREMY COLLIER.
Choose such pleasures as recreate much and cost little.--FULLER.
The pleasures of the world are deceitful; they promise more than they give. They trouble us in seeking them, they do not satisfy us when possessing them, and they make us despair in losing them.--MADAME DE LAMBERT.
When the idea of any pleasure strikes your imagination, make a just computation between the duration of the pleasure and that of the repentance that is likely to follow it.--EPICTETUS.
The seeds of repentance are sown in youth by pleasure, but the harvest is reaped in age by pain.--COLTON.
Pleasure's the only noble end To which all human powers should tend; And virtue gives her heavenly lore, But to make pleasure please us more! Wisdom and she were both design'd To make the senses more refined, That man might revel free from cloying, Then most a sage, when most enjoying! --MOORE.
Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood, Our greatest evil, or our greatest good. --POPE.
People should be guarded against temptation to unlawful pleasures by furnishing them the means of innocent ones. In every community there must be pleasures, relaxations, and means of agreeable excitement; and if innocent are not furnished, resort will be had to criminal. Man was made to enjoy as well as labor, and the state of society should be adapted to this principle of human nature.--CHANNING.
Mental pleasures never cloy; unlike those of the body, they are increased by repetition, approved of by reflection, and strengthened by enjoyment.--COLTON.
I should rejoice if my pleasures were as pleasing to God as they are to myself.--MARGUERITE DE VALOIS.
We tire of those pleasures we take, but never of those we give. --J. PETIT-SENN.
Mistake not. Those pleasures are not pleasures that trouble the quiet and tranquillity of thy life.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
POETRY.--True poetry, like the religious prompting itself, springs from the emotional side of a man's complex nature, and is ever in harmony with his highest intuitions and aspirations.--EPES SARGENT.
Then, rising with aurora's light, The muse invoked, sit down to write; Blot out, correct, insert, refine, Enlarge, diminish, interline; Be mindful, when invention fails, To scratch your head and bite your nails. --SWIFT.
It is uninspired inspiration.--HENRY REED.
Poetry is the blossom and the fragrance of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emotions, language.--COLERIDGE.
Blessings be with them, and eternal praise, Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares, The poets, who on earth have made us heirs Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays! --WORDSWORTH.
Poetry is the music of thought, conveyed to us in music of language. --CHATFIELD.
He who finds elevated and lofty pleasures in the feeling of poetry is a true poet, though he has never composed a line of verse in his entire lifetime.--MADAME DUDEVANT.
Poetry is enthusiasm with wings of fire; it is the angel of high thoughts, that inspires us with the power of sacrifice.--MAZZINI.
Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.--SHELLEY.
Poetry is unfallen speech. Paradise knew no other, for no other would suffice to answer the need of those ecstatic days of innocence. --ABRAHAM COLES.
Poesy is of so subtle a spirit, that in the pouring out of one language into another it will evaporate.--DENHAM.
Poetry is the child of enthusiasm.--SIGMA.
The art of poetry is to touch the passions, and its duty to lead them on the side of virtue.--COWPER.
Poetry has been to me its own exceeding great reward; it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the good and beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me.--S.T. COLERIDGE.
When the Divine Artist would produce a poem, He plants a germ of it in a human soul, and out of that soul the poem springs and grows as from the rose-tree the rose.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little child.--MACAULAY.
Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls.--VOLTAIRE.
There is as much difference between good poetry and fine verses, as between the smell of a flower-garden and of a perfumer's shop.--HARE.
The world is full of poetry. The air is living with its spirit; and the waves dance to the music of its melodies, and sparkle in its brightness.--PERCIVAL.
You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some with you.--JOUBERT.
Poetry is the robe, the royal apparel, in which truth asserts its divine origin.--BEECHER.
The poet may say or sing, not as things were, but as they ought to have been; but the historian must pen them, not as they ought to have been, but as they really were.--CERVANTES.
POLITENESS.--True politeness is perfect ease and freedom. It simply consists in treating others just as you love to be treated yourself. --CHESTERFIELD.
Politeness has been defined to be artificial good-nature; but we may affirm, with much greater propriety, that good-nature is natural politeness.--STANISLAUS.
Christianity is designed to refine and to soften; to take away the heart of stone, and to give us hearts of flesh; to polish off the rudeness and arrogances of our manners and tempers; and to make us blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke.--JAY.
Politeness is to goodness what words are to thoughts.--JOUBERT.
Avoid all haste; calmness is an essential ingredient of politeness. --ALPHONSE KARR.
There is no policy like politeness; and a good manner is the best thing in the world, either to get one a good name or to supply the want of it.--LYTTON.
There is no accomplishment so easy to acquire as politeness, and none more profitable.--H.W. SHAW.
Fine manners are like personal beauty,--a letter of credit everywhere. --BARTOL.
True politeness is the spirit of benevolence showing itself in a refined way. It is the expression of good-will and kindness. It promotes both beauty in the man who possesses it, and happiness in those who are about him. It is a religious duty, and should be a part of religious training.--BEECHER.
Politeness induces morality. Serenity of manners requires serenity of mind.--JULIA WARD HOWE.
To the acquisition of the rare quality of politeness, so much of the enlightened understanding is necessary that I cannot but consider every book in every science, which tends to make us wiser, and of course better men, as a treatise on a more enlarged system of politeness.--MONRO.
Bowing, ceremonious, formal compliments, stiff civilities, will never be politeness; that must be easy, natural, unstudied; and what will give this but a mind benevolent and attentive to exert that amiable disposition in trifles to all you converse and live with?--CHATHAM.
As charity covers a multitude of sins before God, so does politeness before men.--GREVILLE.
The polite of every country seem to have but one character. A gentleman of Sweden differs but little, except in trifles, from one of any other country. It is among the vulgar we are to find those distinctions which characterize a people.--GOLDSMITH.
When two goats met on a bridge which was too narrow to allow either to pass or return, the goat which lay down that the other might walk over it was a finer gentleman than Lord Chesterfield.--CECIL.
Good-breeding is not confined to externals, much less to any
## particular dress or attitude of the body; it is the art of pleasing,
or contributing as much as possible to the ease and happiness of those with whom you converse.--FIELDING.
POPULARITY.--Avoid popularity, if you would have peace.--ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
Avoid popularity, it has many snares, and no real benefit.--WILLIAM PENN.
Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you!--LUKE 6:26.
Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.--KANT.
Those men who are commended by everybody must be very extraordinary men; or, which is more probable, very inconsiderable men.--LORD GREVILLE.
POVERTY.--Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.--DR. JOHNSON.
In one important respect a man is fortunate in being poor. His responsibility to God is so much the less.--BOVEE.
Morality and religion are but words to him who fishes in gutters for the means of sustaining life, and crouches behind barrels in the street for shelter from the cutting blasts of a winter night.--HORACE GREELEY.
Poverty is the only burden which is not lightened by being shared with others.--RICHTER.
We should not so much esteem our poverty as a misfortune, were it not that the world treats it so much as a crime.--BOVEE.
Poverty is the test of civility and the touchstone of friendship. --HAZLITT.
There is not such a mighty difference as some men imagine between the poor and the rich; in pomp, show, and opinion there is a great deal, but little as to the pleasures and satisfactions of life: they enjoy the same earth and air and heavens; hunger and thirst make the poor man's meat and drink as pleasant and relishing as all the varieties which cover the rich man's table; and the labor of a poor man is more healthful, and many times more pleasant, too, than the ease and softness of the rich.--SHERLOCK.
Want is a bitter and a hateful good, Because its virtues are not understood; Yet many things, impossible to thought, Have been by need to full perfection brought. The daring of the soul proceeds from thence, Sharpness of wit, and active diligence; Prudence at once, and fortitude it gives; And, if in patience taken, mends our lives. --DRYDEN.
Few things in this world more trouble people than poverty, or the fear of poverty; and, indeed, it is a sore affliction; but, like all other ills that flesh is heir to, it has its antidote, its reliable remedy. The judicious application of industry, prudence and temperance is a certain cure.--HOSEA BALLOU.
That man is to be accounted poor, of whatever rank he be, and suffers the pains of poverty, whose expenses exceed his resources; and no man is, properly speaking, poor, but he.--PALEY.
That some of the indigent among us die of scanty food is undoubtedly true; but vastly more in this community die from eating too much than from eating too little.--CHANNING.
Poverty is the only load which is the heavier the more loved ones there are to assist in supporting it.--RICHTER.
POWER.--Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.--COLTON.
The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall.--BACON.
Even in war, moral power is to physical as three parts out of four. --NAPOLEON.
The less power a man has, the more he likes to use it.--J. PETIT-SENN.
The greater a man is in power above others, the more he ought to excel them in virtue. None ought to govern who is not better than the governed.--PUBLIUS SYRUS.
It is an observation no less just than common, that there is no stronger test of a man's real character than power and authority, exciting, as they do, every passion, and discovering every latent vice.--PLUTARCH.
PRAISE.--Words of praise, indeed, are almost as necessary to warm a child into a genial life as acts of kindness and affection. Judicious praise is to children what the sun is to flowers.--BOVEE.
Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.--PROVERBS 27:2.
For if good were not praised more than ill, None would chuse goodness of his own free will. --SPENSER.
Praise has different effects, according to the mind it meets with; it makes a wise man modest, but a fool more arrogant, turning his weak brain giddy.--FELTHAM.
Solid pudding against empty praise.--POPE.
It is always esteemed the greatest mischief a man can do to those whom he loves, to raise men's expectations of them too high by undue and impertinent commendations.--SPRAT.
Speak not in high commendation of any man to his face, nor censure any man behind his back; but if thou knowest anything good of him, tell it unto others; if anything ill, tell it privately and prudently to himself.--BURKITT.
As the Greek said, "Many men know how to flatter, few men know how to praise."--WENDELL PHILLIPS.
It is singular how impatient men are with overpraise of others, how patient of overpraise of themselves; and yet the one does them no injury, while the other may be their ruin.--LOWELL.
Good things should be praised.--SHAKESPEARE.
He hurts me most who lavishly commends.--CHURCHILL.
The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art, Reigns more or less and glows in every heart. --YOUNG.
Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no longer raise expectation or animate enterprise.--DR. JOHNSON.
It is the greatest possible praise to be praised by a man who is himself deserving of praise.--FROM THE LATIN.
He who praises you for what you have not, wishes to take from you what you have.--MANUEL.
Thou may'st be more prodigal of praise when thou writest a letter than when thou speakest in presence.--FULLER.
Those who are greedy of praise prove that they are poor in merit. --PLUTARCH.
What a person praises is perhaps a surer standard, even than what he condemns, of his own character, information and abilities.--HARE.
Allow no man to be so free with you as to praise you to your face. --STEELE.
Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.--PSALM 150:6.
Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so; it is this which distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of sycophants and admiration of fools.--STEELE.
PRAYER.--The first petition that we are to make to Almighty God is for a good conscience, the next for health of mind, and then of body. --SENECA.
Prayers are heard in heaven very much in proportion to our faith. Little faith gets very great mercies, but great faith still greater. --SPURGEON.
When we pray for any virtue, we should cultivate the virtue as well as pray for it; the form of your prayers should be the rule of your life; every petition to God is a precept to man. Look not, therefore, upon your prayers as a short method of duty and salvation only, but as a perpetual monition of duty; by what we require of God we see what He requires of us.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
How happy it is to believe, with a steadfast assurance, that our petitions are heard even while we are making them; and how delightful to meet with a proof of it in the effectual and actual grant of them.--COWPER.
We have assurance that we shall be heard in what we pray, because we pray to that God that heareth prayer, and is the rewarder of all that come unto Him; and in His name, to whom God denieth nothing; and, therefore, howsoever we are not always answered at the present, or in the same kind that we desire, yet, sooner or later, we are sure to receive even above that we are able to ask or think, if we continue to sue unto Him according to His will.--ARCHBISHOP USHER.
The best answer to all objections urged against prayer is the fact that man cannot help praying; for we may be sure that that which is so spontaneous and ineradicable in human nature has its fitting objects and methods in the arrangements of a boundless Providence.--CHAPIN.
So much of our lives is celestial and divine as we spend in the exercise of prayer.--HOOKER.
Leave not off praying to God: for either praying will make thee leave off sinning; or continuing in sin will make thee desist from praying. --FULLER.
Let our prayers, like the ancient sacrifices, ascend morning and evening; let our days begin and end with God.--CHANNING.
Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, Uttered or unexpressed, The motion of a hidden fire That trembles in the breast. --MONTGOMERY.
If He prayed who was without sin, how much more it becometh a sinner to pray!--ST. CYPRIAN.
No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.--EMERSON.
He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small. --COLERIDGE.
More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. --TENNYSON.