Part 17

The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade Pants for the refuge of some rural shade, Where all his long anxieties forgot Amid the charms of a sequester'd spot, Or recollected only to gild o'er And add a smile to what was sweet before, He may possess the joys he thinks he sees, Lay his old age upon the lap of ease, Improve the remnant of his wasted span. And having lived a trifler, die a man. --COWPER.

But what, it may be asked, are the requisites for a life of retirement? A man may be weary of the toils and torments of business, and yet quite unfit for the tranquil retreat. Without literature, friendship, and religion, retirement is in most cases found to be a dead, flat level, a barren waste, and a blank. Neither the body nor the soul can enjoy health and life in a vacuum.--RUSTICUS.

RICHES.--Riches exclude only one inconvenience,--that is, poverty. --DR. JOHNSON.

Great abundance of riches cannot of any man be both gathered and kept without sin.--ERASMUS.

Riches, honors, and pleasures are the sweets which destroy the mind's appetite for its heavenly food; poverty, disgrace, and pain are the bitters which restore it.--BISHOP HORNE.

A man's true wealth is the good he does in this world.--MOHAMMED.

Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer. --SHAKESPEARE.

He is rich whose income is more than his expenses; and he is poor whose expenses exceed his income.--LA BRUYÈRE.

No man can tell whether he is rich or poor by turning to his ledger. It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.--BEECHER.

Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.--FRANKLIN.

He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.--PROVERBS 28:20.

Riches without charity are nothing worth. They are a blessing only to him who makes them a blessing to others.--FIELDING.

SABBATH.--The Sunday is the core of our civilization, dedicated to thought and reverence. It invites to the noblest solitude and to the noblest society.--EMERSON.

Students of every age and kind, beware of secular study on the Lord's day.--PROFESSOR MILLER.

A world without a Sabbath would be like a man without a smile, like a summer without flowers, and like a homestead without a garden. It is the joyous day of the whole week.--BEECHER.

He who ordained the Sabbath loved the poor.--O.W. HOLMES.

SCANDAL.--If there is any person to whom you feel dislike, that is the person of whom you ought never to speak.--CECIL.

There is a lust in man no charm can tame, Of loudly publishing his neighbor's shame;-- On eagle's wings immortal scandals fly, While virtuous actions are but born and die. --ELLA LOUISA HERVEY.

No one loves to tell of scandal except to him who loves to hear it. Learn, then, to rebuke and check the detracting tongue by showing that you do not listen to it with pleasure.--ST. JEROME.

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.--EPHESIANS 4:31.

SCEPTICISM.--Scepticism has never founded empires, established principles, or changed the world's heart. The great doers in history have always been men of faith.--CHAPIN.

Scepticism is a barren coast, without a harbor or lighthouse.--BEECHER.

Freethinkers are generally those who never think at all.--STERNE.

I know not any crime so great that a man could contrive to commit as poisoning the sources of eternal truth.--DR. JOHNSON.

SECRECY.--The secret known to two is no longer a secret.--NINON DE LENCLOS.

Secrecy has been well termed the soul of all great designs. Perhaps more has been effected by concealing our own intentions, than by discovering those of our enemy. But great men succeed in both.

A woman can keep one secret,--the secret of her age.--VOLTAIRE.

To tell your own secrets is generally folly, but that folly is without guilt; to communicate those with which we are intrusted is always treachery, and treachery for the most part combined with folly. --DR. JOHNSON.

To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.--HOLMES.

To whom you betray your secret you sell your liberty.--FRANKLIN.

He who trusts a secret to his servant makes his own man his master. --DRYDEN.

SELF-CONTROL.--He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city.--PROVERBS 16:32.

What is the best government? That which teaches us to govern ourselves.--GOETHE.

He who reigns within himself, and rules passions, desires, and fears, is more than a king.--MILTON.

Real glory springs from the silent conquest of ourselves.--THOMSON.

He is a fool who cannot be angry: but he is a wise man who will not.--ENGLISH PROVERB.

SELF-DENIAL.--Self-denial is the quality of which Jesus Christ set us the example.--ARY SCHEFFER.

Only the soul that with an overwhelming impulse and a perfect trust gives itself up forever to the life of other men, finds the delight and peace which such complete self-surrender has to give.--PHILLIPS BROOKS.

Self-denial is a virtue of the highest quality, and he who has it not, and does not strive to acquire it, will never excel in anything. --CONYBEARE.

The more a man denies himself the more he shall obtain from God. --HORACE.

The worst education which teaches self-denial is better than the best which teaches everything else, and not that.--JOHN STERLING.

SELFISHNESS.--Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without in himself.--BEECHER.

It is to be doubted whether he will ever find the way to heaven who desires to go thither alone.--FELTHAM.

Take the selfishness out of this world and there would be more happiness than we should know what to do with.--H.W. SHAW.

We erect the idol self, and not only wish others to worship, but worship ourselves.--CECIL.

SILENCE.--Be silent, or say something better than silence.--PYTHAGORAS.

God's poet is silence! His song is unspoken, And yet so profound, so loud, and so far, It fills you, it thrills you with measures unbroken, And as soft, and as fair, and as far as a star. --JOAQUIN MILLER.

Silence is the safest course for any man to adopt who distrusts himself.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

If thou desire to be held wise, be so wise as to hold thy tongue. --QUARLES.

As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle silence.--FRANKLIN.

Learn to hold thy tongue. Five words cost Zacharias forty weeks' silence.--FULLER.

Silence is a virtue in those who are deficient in understanding. --BOUHOURS.

Silence, when nothing need be said, is the eloquence of discretion. --BOVEE.

Silence does not always mark wisdom.--S.T. COLERIDGE.

Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise.--PROVERBS 17:28.

SIN.--Suffer anything from man, rather than sin against God.--SIR HENRY VANE.

Let him that sows the serpent's teeth not hope to reap a joyous harvest. Every crime has, in the moment of its perpetration, its own avenging angel,--dark misgivings at the inmost heart.--SCHILLER.

I could not live in peace if I put the shadow of a willful sin between myself and God.--GEORGE ELIOT.

Never let any man imagine that he can pursue a good end by evil means, without sinning against his own soul! Any other issue is doubtful; the evil effect on himself is certain.--SOUTHEY.

Many afflictions will not cloud and obstruct peace of mind so much as one sin: therefore, if you would walk cheerfully, be most careful to walk holily. All the winds about the earth make not an earthquake, but only that within.--ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.

Think not for wrongs like these unscourged to live; Long may ye sin, and long may Heaven forgive; But when ye least expect, in sorrow's day, Vengeance shall fall more heavy for delay. --CHURCHILL.

Sin is never at a stay; if we do not retreat from it, we shall advance in it; and the farther on we go, the more we have to come back.--BARROW.

Other men's sins are before our eyes, our own are behind our back. --SENECA.

Take steadily some one sin, which seems to stand out before thee, to root it out, by God's grace, and every fibre of it. Purpose strongly, by the grace and strength of God, wholly to sacrifice this sin or sinful inclination to the love of God, to spare it not, until thou leave of it none remaining, neither root nor branch.--E.B. PUSEY.

Cast out thy Jonah--every sleeping and secure sin that brings a tempest upon thy ship, vexation to thy spirit.--REYNOLDS.

Use sin as it will use you; spare it not, for it will not spare you; it is your murderer, and the murderer of the whole world. Use it, therefore, as a murderer should be used; kill it before it kills you; and though it brings you to the grave, as it did your head, it shall not be able to keep you there. You love not death; love not the cause of death.--BAXTER.

SINCERITY.--I think you will find that people who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be "consistent."--HOLMES.

If the show of any thing be good for any thing, I am sure sincerity is better; for why does any man dissemble, or seem to be that which he is not, but because he thinks it good to have such a quality as he pretends to?--TILLOTSON.

The only conclusive evidence of a man's sincerity is that he gives himself for a principle. Words, money, all things else, are comparatively easy to give away; but when a man makes a gift of his daily life and practice, it is plain that the truth, whatever it may be, has taken possession of him.--LOWELL.

Private sincerity is a public welfare.--BARTOL.

I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain, what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an "honest man."--WASHINGTON.

Sincerity is to speak as we think, to do as we pretend and profess, to perform and make good what we promise, and really to be what we would seem and appear to be.--TILLOTSON.

Let us then be what we are, and speak what we think, and in all things keep ourselves loyal to truth, and the sacred professions of friendship.--LONGFELLOW.

SLANDER.--When will talkers refrain from evil-speaking? When listeners refrain from evil-hearing.--HARE.

Never throw mud. You may miss your mark, but you must have dirty hands.--JOSEPH PARKER.

Remember, when incited to slander, that it is only he among you who is without sin that may cast the first stone.--HOSEA BALLOU.

Slander, Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue Out-venoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie All corners of the world: kings, queens, and states, Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave This viperous slander enters. --SHAKESPEARE.

Nor do they trust their tongues alone, But speak a language of their own; Can read a nod, a shrug, a look, Far better than a printed book; Convey a libel in a frown, And wink a reputation down; Or, by the tossing of the fan, describe the lady and the man. --SWIFT.

Those men who carry about and who listen to accusations, should all be hanged, if so it could be at my decision--the carriers by their tongues, the listeners by their ears.--PLAUTUS.

Oh! many a shaft, at random sent, Finds mark the archer little meant; And many a word, at random spoken, May soothe or wound a heart that's broken. --WALTER SCOTT.

SLEEP.--One hour's sleep before midnight is worth two after.--FIELDING.

God gives sleep to the bad, in order that the good may be undisturbed. --SAADI.

Put off thy cares with thy clothes; so shall thy rest strengthen thy labor; and so shall thy labor sweeten thy rest.--QUARLES.

We sleep, but the loom of life never stops; and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up to-morrow. --BEECHER.

Heaven trims our lamps while we sleep.--ALCOTT.

There are many ways of inducing sleep,--the thinking of purling rills, or waving woods; reckoning of numbers; droppings from a wet sponge fixed over a brass pan, etc. But temperance and exercise answer much better than any of these succedaneums.--STERNE.

Sleep is a generous thief; he gives to vigor what he takes from time. --ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF ROUMANIA.

O sleep! it is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole. --COLERIDGE.

SOCIETY.--Society is ever ready to worship success, but rarely forgives failure.--MME. ROLAND.

Society is a troop of thinkers, and the best heads among them take the best places.--EMERSON.

Society is like a lawn, where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface.--WASHINGTON IRVING.

Heaven forming each on other to depend, A master, or a servant, or a friend, Bids each on other for assistance call, Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all. Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally The common interest, or endear the tie. To these we owe true friendship, love sincere, Each home-felt joy that life inherits here. --POPE.

Every man depends on the quantity of sense, wit, or good manners he brings into society for the reception he meets with in it.--HAZLITT.

A man's reception depends upon his coat; his dismissal upon the wit he shows.--BERANGER.

Man in society is like a flow'r, Blown in its native bed. 'Tis there alone His faculties expanded in full bloom Shine out, there only reach their proper use. --COWPER.

There is a sort of economy in Providence that one shall excel where another is defective, in order to make men more useful to each other, and mix them in society.--ADDISON.

Society is composed of two great classes,--those who have more dinners than appetite, and those who have more appetite than dinners.--CHAMFORT.

SUCCESS.--Nothing is impossible to the man that can will. Is that necessary? That shall be. This is the only law of success.--MIRABEAU.

Nothing succeeds so well as success.--TALLEYRAND.

To know how to wait is the great secret of success.--DE MAISTRE.

The path of success in business is invariably the path of common-sense. Nothwithstanding all that is said about "lucky hits," the best kind of success in every man's life is not that which comes by accident. The only "good time coming" we are justified in hoping for is that which we are capable of making for ourselves.--SAMUEL SMILES.

The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do without a thought of fame. If it comes at all it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after.--LONGFELLOW.

The surest way not to fail is to determine to succeed.--SHERIDAN.

The great highroad of human welfare lies along the old highway of steadfast well-doing; and they who are the most persistent, and work in the truest spirit, will invariably be the most successful; success treads on the heels of every right effort.--SAMUEL SMILES.

It is possible to indulge too great contempt for mere success, which is frequently attended with all the practical advantages of merit itself, and with several advantages that merit alone can never command.--W.B. CLULOW.

'Tis not in mortals to command success, But we'll do more, Sempronius; we'll deserve it. --ADDISON.

If fortune wishes to make a man estimable, she gives him virtues; if she wishes to make him esteemed, she gives him success.--JOUBERT.

Successful minds work like a gimlet,--to a single point.--BOVEE.

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.--ADDISON.

Success does not consist in never making blunders, but in never making the same one the second time.--H.W. SHAW.

SUICIDE.--Bid abhorrence hiss it round the world.--YOUNG.

God has appointed us captains of this our bodily fort, which, without treason to that majesty, are never to be delivered over till they are demanded.--SIR P. SIDNEY.

To die in order to avoid the pains of poverty, love, or anything that is disagreeable, is not the part of a brave man, but of a coward. --ARISTOTLE.

Our time is fix'd; and all our days are number'd; How long, how short, we know not: this we know, Duty requires we calmly wait the summons, Nor dare to stir till Heaven shall give permission. Like sentries that must keep their destined stand, And wait th' appointed hour, till they're relieved, Those only are the brave who keep their ground, And keep it to the last. --BLAIR.

Suicide is not a remedy.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.

Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day, Live till to-morrow, will have pass'd away. --COWPER.

The coward sneaks to death; the brave live on.--DR. GEORGE SEWELL.

SUPERSTITION.--I think we cannot too strongly attack superstition, which is the disturber of society; nor too highly respect genuine religion, which is the support of it.--ROUSSEAU.

There is but one thing that can free a man from superstition, and that is belief. All history proves it. The most sceptical have ever been the most credulous.--GEORGE MACDONALD.

Superstition! that horrid incubus which dwelt in darkness, shunning the light, with all its racks, and poison chalices, and foul sleeping draughts, is passing away without return. Religion cannot pass away. The burning of a little straw may hide the stars of the sky; but the stars are there and will reappear.--CARLYLE.

Religion worships God, while superstition profanes that worship.--SENECA.

Superstition is the only religion of which base souls are capable. --JOUBERT.

Superstition always inspires littleness, religion grandeur of mind; the superstitious raises beings inferior to himself to deities.--LAVATER.

The child taught to believe any occurrence a good or evil omen, or any day of the week lucky, hath a wide inroad made upon the soundness of his understanding.--DR. WATTS.

Superstition is a senseless fear of God; religion, the pious worship of God.--CICERO.

Superstition renders a man a fool, and scepticism makes him mad. --FIELDING.

I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.--VOLTAIRE.

SYMPATHY.--Sympathy is the first great lesson which man should learn. It will be ill for him if he proceeds no farther; if his emotions are but excited to roll back on his heart, and to be fostered in luxurious quiet. But unless he learns to feel for things in which he has no personal interest, he can achieve nothing generous or noble.--TALFOURD.

To commiserate is sometimes more than to give; for money is external to a man's self, but he who bestows compassion communicates his own soul.--MOUNTFORD.

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. --BEECHER.

The greatest pleasures of which the human mind is susceptible are the pleasures of consciousness and sympathy.--PARKE GODWIN.

What gem hath dropp'd and sparkles o'er his chain? The tear most sacred, shed for other's pain, That starts at once--bright--pure--from pity's mine, Already polish'd by the Hand Divine. --BYRON.

Sympathy is especially a Christian duty.--SPURGEON.

TACT.--Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely, and conciliate those you cannot conquer.--COLTON.

A little management may often evade resistance, which a vast force might vainly strive to overcome.

TALENT.--Talent of the highest order, and such as is calculated to command admiration, may exist apart from wisdom.--ROBERT HALL.

Whatever you are from nature, keep to it; never desert your own line of talent. Be what Nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing. --SYDNEY SMITH.

Talent without tact is only half talent.--HORACE GREELEY.

TALKING.--Though we have two eyes, we are supplied with but one tongue. Draw your own moral.--ALPHONSE KARR.

No great talker ever did any great thing yet, in this world.--OUIDA.

If you light upon an impertinent talker, that sticks to you like a bur, to the disappointment of your important occasions, deal freely with him, break off the discourse, and pursue your business.--PLUTARCH.

What you keep by you, you may change and mend; But words once spoken can never be recalled. --ROSCOMMON.

Such as thy words are, such will thy affections be esteemed; and such will thy deeds as thy affections, and such thy life as thy deeds. --SOCRATES.

But far more numerous was the herd of such, Who think too little, and who talk too much. --DRYDEN.

He who indulges in liberty of speech, will hear things in return which he will not like.--TERENCE.

The tongue is the instrument of the greatest good and the greatest evil that is done in the world.--SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

He who seldom speaks, and with one calm well-timed word can strike dumb the loquacious, is a genius or a hero.--LAVATER.

A wise man reflects before he speaks; a fool speaks, and then reflects on what he has uttered.--FROM THE FRENCH.

Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.--MONTESQUIEU.

Speaking much is a sign of vanity; for he that is lavish in words, is a niggard in deed.--SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

TEARS.--Tears of joy are the dew in which the sun of righteousness is mirrored.--RICHTER.

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.--WASHINGTON IRVING.

The tear down childhood's cheek that flows, Is like the dewdrop on the rose; When next the summer breeze comes by, And waves the bush, the flower is dry. --WALTER SCOTT.

Shame on those breasts of stone that cannot melt in soft adoption of another's sorrow.--AARON HILL.

Tears may soothe the wounds they cannot heal.--THOMAS PAINE.

Hide not thy tears; weep boldly, and be proud to give the flowing virtue manly way; it is nature's mark to know an honest heart by.--AARON HILL.

Tears are a good alterative, but a poor diet.--H.W. SHAW.

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.--PSALM 126:5.

Every tear is a verse, and every heart is a poem.--MARC ANDRÉ.

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. --PSALM 30:5.

TEMPER.--The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

In vain he seeketh others to suppress, Who hath not learn'd himself first to subdue. --SPENSER.

With "gentleness" in his own character, "comfort" in his house, and "good temper" in his wife, the earthly felicity of man is complete. --FROM THE GERMAN.

Nothing leads more directly to the breach of charity, and to the injury and molestation of our fellow-creatures, than the indulgence of an ill temper.--BLAIR.

Too many have no idea of the subjection of their temper to the influence of religion, and yet what is changed, if the temper is not? If a man is as passionate, malicious, resentful, sullen, moody, or morose after his conversion as before it, what is he converted from or to?--JOHN ANGELL JAMES.

If we desire to live securely, comfortably, and quietly, that by all honest means we should endeavor to purchase the good will of all men, and provoke no man's enmity needlessly; since any man's love may be useful, and every man's hatred is dangerous.--ISAAC BARROW.

A sunny temper gilds the edges of life's blackest cloud.--GUTHRIE.

TEMPERANCE.--Temperance puts wood on the fire, meal in the barrel, flour in the tub, money in the purse, credit in the country, contentment in the house, clothes on the back, and vigor in the body.--FRANKLIN.

Fools! not to know how far an humble lot Exceeds abundance by injustice got; How health and temperance bless the rustic swain, While luxury destroys her pamper'd train. --HESIOD.

Men live best on moderate means: Nature has dispensed to all men wherewithal to be happy, if mankind did but understand how to use her gifts.--CLAUDIAN.