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I Desire To Go Through Life Knowing As Little Of Evil In It As Possible. To This End, I Sometimes Avoid Looking Too Closely Into The Nature Of Things, Studying Them Only So Far As They Seem To Be Good, And Abandoning Interest In Them As Soon As Their Darker Feature Begin To Appear. The Good Only Deserves A Hearty Interest.

-Christian Nestell Bovee

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I Desire To Go

Christian Nestell Bovee

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I Desire To Go Through Life Knowing As Little Of Evil In It As Possible. To This End, I Sometimes Avoid Looking Too Closely Into The Nature Of Things, Studying Them Only So Far As They Seem To Be Good, And Abandoning Interest In Them As Soon As Their Darker Feature Begin To Appear. The Good Only Deserves A Hearty Interest.

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Courage Enlarges, Cowardice Diminishes Resources.

There Is, Indeed, No Wild Beast More To Be Dreaded Than A Communicative Man Having Nothing To Communicate.

Truth Comes To Us From The Past, As Gold Is Washed Down From The Mountains Of Sierra Nevada, In Minute But Precious Particles, And Intermixed With Infinite Alloy, The Debris Of The Centuries.

Great Warriors, Like Great Earthquakes, Are Principally Remembered For The Mischief They Have Done.

He That Shrinks From The Grave With Too Great A Dread, Has An Invisible Fear Behind Him Pushing Him Into It.

There Is No Tyrant Like Custom, And No Freedom Where Its Edicts Are Not Resisted.

We Make Way For The Man Who Boldly Pushes Past Us.

The Natural Wants Are Few, And Easily Gratified: It Is Only Those Which Are Artificial That Perplex Us By Their Multiplicity.

The Questions Most Furiously Discussed Are Those Which Have In Them A Basis Of Truth, And Yet A Large Admixture Of Errors. We Inconsiderately Take Hold Of, And Mistakingly Support Or Oppose Them, As Either Wholly True Or Wholly False.

Give Me The Character And I Will Forecast The Event.

Sorrow Is Never More Sorrowful Than When It Jests At Its Own Misery.

The Cure For Tender Sensibilities Is To Make More Of Our Objects And Less Of Our Selves.

Excessive Sensibility Is Only Another Name For Morbid Self-consciousness.

To Cultivate A Garden Is To Walk With God.

Courage Enlarges, Cowardice Diminishes Resources. In Desperate Straits The Fears Of The Timid Aggravate The Dangers That Imperil The Brave.

Dignity Of Position Adds To Dignity Of Character, As Well As To Dignity Of Carriage. Give Us A Proud Position, And We Are Impelled To Act Up To It.

What We Call Conscience In Many Instances, Is Only A Wholesome Fear Of The Law.

The First Step Toward Greatness Is To Be Honest, Says The Proverb; But The Proverb Fails To State The Case Strong Enough. Honesty Is Not Only "the First Step Toward Greatness," - It Is Greatness Itself.

Living With A Saint Is More Grueling Than Being One.

Christian Living

By His Provocations To Good-natured Merriment, A Humorist Of The First Water Contributes As Much To The Sum Of Happiness As The Gravest Philosopher.

Something Of A Person's Character May Be Observed By How They Smile. Some Never Smile They Only Grin.

The Small Courtesies Sweeten Life; The Greater Ennoble It.

In One Important Respect A Man Is Fortunate In Being Poor. His Responsibility To God Is So Much The Less

A Profusion Of Fancies And Quotations Is Out Of Place In A Love-letter. True Feeling Is Always Direct, And Never Deviates Into By-ways To Cull Flowers Of Rhetoric.

Character Is Very Much A Matter Of Health.

We Give Our Best Affections To The Beautiful, Only Our Second Best To The Useful.

There Are Seaons When Our Passions Have Slept So Long That We Know Not Whether They Still Exist In Us. So Does Flax Forget That It Is Combustible When The Fire Is Away From It.

Beauty Can Afford To Laugh At Distinctions: It Is Itself The Greatest Distinction.

Hope Is The Best Part Of Our Riches.

Affliction, Like The Iron-smith, Shapes As It Smites.

We Cannot Reason Ourselves Into Love, Nor Can We Reason Ourselves Out Of It, Which Suggests That Love And Reason Have Little To Do With Each Other.

Alas, The Transports Beauty Can Inspire!

A Better Principle Than This, That "the Majority Shall Rule," Is This Other, That Justice Shall Rule. "justice," Says The Code Of Justinian, "is The Constant And Perpetual Desire To Render Every Man His Due.

It Is Indeed A Misfortune For A Woman To Be Without Beauty, As With Men The Eye Is The Chief Arbiter Of Qualities In The Sex. Her Beauty Is Her Capital--her Worth In The Market Matrimonial Depends Upon It. With Her The Virtues Are Less Reverenced When Unaccompanied By The Graces. The Sex Understand This Very Well; And Hence They Seek Mainly To Make Captive The Eye, Knowing The Mind And Heart Will Follow As A Matter Of Course.

Wit Must Be Without Effort. Wit Is Play, Not Work; A Nimbleness Of The Fancy, Not A Laborious Effort Of The Will; A License, A Holiday, A Carnival Of Thought And Feeling, Not A Trifling With Speech, A Constraint Upon Language, A Duress Upon Words.

A Mother's Love Is Indeed The Golden Link That Binds Youth To Age; And He Is Still But A Child, However Time May Have Furrowed His Cheek, Or Silvered His Brow, Who Can Yet Recall, With A Softened Heart, The Fond Devotion, Or The Gentle Chidings, Of The Best Friend That God Gives Us.

Melancholy Sees The Worst Of Things...[rather Than The Best]

Elements Of The Heroic Exist In Almost Every Individual: It Is Only The Felicitous Development Of Them All In One That Is Rare.

We Take Life Too Seriously: The Office Of Wit Is To Correct This Tendency.

Very Handsome Women Have Usually Far Less Sensibility To Compliments Than Their Less Beautiful Sisters.

Out Of Politics Comes More Uproar Than Progress. It Is Indeed Surprising How Little, Comparatively, This Noisy Department Of Human Affairs Contributes To The World's Prosperity. Political Commotions Upon The Grandest Scale, Political Events Of Astounding Suddenness, Political Characters Of The Greatest Ability, Abound, But Still, Permanent Results Are Rare, And We Look In Vain For A Measure Of Public Good Corresponding In Extent To The Hideous Rout Which Ushers It In. Progress But Turns Upon Its Pillow, And Goes To Sleep Again.

Tears Are Nature's Lotion For The Eyes. The Eyes See Better For Being Washed By Them.

The Method Of The Critic Is To Balance Praises With Censure, And Thus To Do Justice To The Subject And--his Own Discrimination.

However Much Of Time, Labor, Or Other Means It Takes To Establish A Reputation, It Frequently Happens That It Requires Nearly As Much To Maintain It. One Who Has Written A Good Book, Is Expected On All Occasions To "talk Like A Book." Or, If One Has Achieved An Act Of Heroism, He Is Expected To Perform Acts Of Heroism For The Edification Of All Who Approach Him. There Are People Who Can Never Believe They See A Lion Unless They Hear Him Roar.

How Like A Railway Tunnel Is The Poor Man's Life, With The Light Of Childhood At One End, The Intermediate Gloom, And Only The Glimmer Of A Future Life At The Other Extremity!

It Is Ever The Invisible That Is The Object Of Our Profoundest Worship. With The Lover It Is Not The Seen But The Unseen That He Muses Upon.

The Loveliest Faces Are To Be Seen By Moonlight, When One Sees Half With The Eye And Half With The Fancy.

Common Sense, Alas In Spite Of Our Educational Institutions, Is A Rare Commodity.

Examples Are Few Of Men Ruined By Giving.

At The Best, Sarcasms, Bitter Irony, Scathing Wit, Are A Sort Of Swordplay Of The Mind. You Pink Your Adversary, And He Is Forthwith Dead; And Then You Deserve To Be Hung For It.

Our First And Last Love Is Self-love.

Funny Valentines Day

Fame - A Few Words Upon A Tombstone, And The Truth Of Those Not To Be Depended On.

Dishonest People Conceal Their Faults From Themselves As Well As Others, Honest People Know And Confess Them.

Love's Sweetest Meanings Are Unspoken; The Full Heart Knows No Rhetoric Of Words.

The Extent Of Poverty In The World Is Much Exaggerated. Our Sensitiveness Makes Half Our Poverty; Our Fears--anxieties For Ills That Never Happen--a Greater Part Of The Other Half.

We Trifle When We Assign Limits To Our Desires, Since Nature Hath Set None.

Justice, Not The Majority, Should Rule.

Good Men Have The Fewest Fears. He Has But One Great Fear Who Fears To Do Wrong; He Has A Thousand Who Has Overcome It.

The Beauty Seen Is Partly In Him Who Sees It.

There Is Something In The Character Of Every Man Which Cannot Be Broken In--the Skeleton Of His Character; And To Try To Alter This Is Like Training A Sheep For Draught Purposes. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, The Reflections Of Lichtenberg We Become Familiar With The Outsides Of Men, As With The Outsides Of Houses, And Think We Know Them, While We Are Ignorant Of So Much That Is Passing Within Them.

The Grandest Of All Laws Is The Law Of Progressive Development. Under It, In The Wide Sweep Of Things, Men Grow Wiser As They Grow Older, And Societies Better.

The Most Brilliant Flashes Of Wit Come From A Clouded Mind, As Lightning Leaps Only From An Obscure Firmament.

Wit Never Appears To Greater Advantage Than When It Is Successfully Exerted To Relieve From A Dilemma, Palliate A Deficiency, Or Cover A Retreat.

It Is One Of The Arts Of A Great Beauty To Heighten The Effect Of Her Charms By Affecting To Be Sweetly Unconscious Of Them.

Earth Took Her Shining Station As A Star, In Heaven's Dark Hall, High Up The Crowd Of Worlds.

The Lively And Mercurial Are As Open Books, With The Leaves Turned Down At The Notable Passages. Their Souls Sit At The Windows Of Their Eyes, Seeing And To Be Seen.

The Light In The World Comes Principally From Two Sources,-the Sun, And The Student's Lamp.

As Many Suffer From Too Much As Too Little.

Enthusiasm Is The Inspiration Of Everything Great. Without It No Man Is To Be Feared, And With It None Despised.

Passion Doesn't Look Beyond The Moment Of Its Existence.

If It Is A Distinction To Have Written A Good Book, It Is Also A Disgrace To Have Written A Bad One.

He Has But One Great Fear That Fears To Do Wrong.

A Great Destiny Needs A Generous Diet.... What Can Be Expected Of A People That Live On Macaroni!

Next To Faith In God, Is Faith In Labor.

What Is Taken From The Fortune, Also, May Haply Be So Much Lifted From The Soul. The Greatness Of A Loss, As The Proverb Suggests, Is Determinable, Not So Much By What We Have Lost, As By What We Have Left.

Without Death In The World, Existence In It Would Soon Become, Through Over-population, The Most Frightful Of Curses.

Poverty Is Only Contemptible When It Is Felt To Be So. Doubtless The Best Way To Make Our Poverty Respectable Is To Seem Never To Feel It As An Evil.

A Sound Discretion Is Not So Much Indicated By Never Making A Mistake As By Never Repeating It.

The Worth Of A Book Is A Matter Of Expressed Juices.

The Nearest Approximation To An Understanding Of Life Is To Feel It--to Realize It To The Full--to Be A Profound And Inscrutable Mystery.

Economy Is For The Poor; The Rich May Dispense With It.

Troubles Forereckoned Are Doubly Suffered.

Patience Is Only One Faculty; Earnestness The Devotion Of All The Faculties. Earnestness Is The Cause Of Patience; It Gives Endurance, Overcomes Pain, Strengthens Weakness, Braves Dangers, Sustains Hope, Makes Light Of Difficulties, And Lessens The Sense Of Weariness In Overcoming Them.

A Peculiar Work In Any Art Must Not Be Too Hastily Judged. New Styles Have To Create New Tastes.

There Is Great Beauty In Going Through Life Without Anxiety Or Fear. Half Our Fears Are Baseless, And The Other Half Discreditable.

Wit, Like Poetry, Is Insusceptible Of Being Constructed Upon Rules Founded Merely In Reason. Like Faith, It Exists Independent Of Reason, And Sometimes In Hostility To It.

Earnestness Is The Devotion Of All The Faculties.

Music Is The Fourth Great Material Want, First Food, Then Clothes, Then Shelter, Then Music.

Within The Sacred Walls Of Libraries We Find The Best Thoughts, The Purest Feelings, And The Most Exalted Imaginings Of Our Race.

Discretion Is The Salt, And Fancy The Sugar Of Life; The One Preserves, The Other Sweetens It.

Wit Is Better As A Seasoning Than As A Whole Dish By Itself.

The Busiest Of Living Agents Are Certain Dead Men's Thoughts.

Luminous Quotations, Also, Atone, By Their Interest, For The Dulness Of An Inferior Book, And Add To The Value Of A Superior Work By The Variety Which They Lend To Its Style And Treatment.

In General, Inquiry Ceases When We Adopt A Theory. After That, We Overlook Whatever Makes Against It, And See And Think, And Talk And Write, Only In Its Favor. Indeed, When We Have A Snug, Comfortable Theory, To Which We Are Much Attached, They Appear To Us As A Very Mean Set Of Facts That Will Not Square With It.

The Activity Of The Young Is Like That Of Railcars In Motion--they Tear Along With Noise And Turmoil, And Leave Peace Behind Them. The Quietest Nooks, Invaded By Them, Lose Their Quietude As They Pass, And Recover It Only On Their Departure.

We Absolve A Friend From Gratitude When We Remind Him Of A Favor.

There Will Always Be Romance In The World So Long As There Are Young Hearts In It.

The Highest Excellence Is Seldom Attained In More Than One Vocation. The Roads Leading To Distinction In Separate Pursuits Diverge, And The Nearer We Approach The One, The Farther We Recede From The Other.

God, We Are Told, Looked Upon The World After He Had Created It And Pronounced It Good; But Ascetic Pietists, In Their Wisdom, Cast Their Eyes Over It, And Substantially Pronounce It A Dead Failure, A Miserable Production, A Poor Concern.

All Good Writing Leaves Something Unexpressed.

Kindred Weaknesses Induce Friendships As Often As Kindred Virtues.

There Are None So Low But They Have Their Triumphs. Small Successes Suffice For Small Souls.

Next To Being Witty, The Best Thing Is Being Able To Quote Another's Wit.

It Is Our Relation To Circumstances That Determines Their Influence Upon Us.

Love Makes A Few Weeks So Rich That All The Rest Of Our Lives Seems Poor In Comparison.

It Is The Passion That Is In A Kiss That Gives To It Its Sweetness; It Is The Affection In A Kiss That Sanctifies It.

It Is Of Very Little Use In Trying To Be Dignified, If Dignity Is No Part Of Your Character.

Like The Withered Roses Of A Once Gay Garland, The Feelings Of Youth Command In Age A Melancholy Interest.

If One Is Not Virtuous He Becomes Vicious.

Enthusiasm Is The Inspiration Of Everything Great.

Enthusiasm For Life

Most Books Fail, Not So Much From A Want Of Ability In Their Authors, As From An Absence In Their Productions Of A Thorough Development Of Their Ability.

A Failure Establishes Only This, That Our Determination To Succeed Was Not Strong Enough.

Excellence In Art Is Largely The Result Of Attention To Minutiae, And--prayer.

Dishonesty Is A Forsaking Of Permanent For Temporary Advantages.

The Legitimate Aim Of Criticism Is To Direct Attention To The Excellent. The Bad Will Dig Its Own Grave, And The Imperfect May Safely Be Left To That Final Neglect From Which No Amount Of Present Undeserved Popularity Can Rescue It.

The Opinions Of The Misanthropical Rest Upon This Very Partial Basis, That They Adopt The Bad Faith Of A Few As Evidence Of The Worthlessness Of All.

Intellectually, As Politically, The Direction Of All True Progress Is Towards Greater Freedom, And Along An Endless Succession Of Ideas.

Too Much Society Makes A Man Frivolous; Too Little, A Savage.

It Is Seldom That We Find Out How Great Are Our Resources Until We Are Thrown Upon Them.

We Repose Too Much Upon The Actual, When We Should Be Seeking To Develop The Possibilities Of Our Being. It Is True Of Nearly All Of Us, That What We Have Done Is Little Compared With What We Might Have Accomplished, Or May Hereafter Effect.

Six Traits Of Effective Leaders: 1. Make Others Feel Important 2. Promote A Vision 3. Follow The Golden Rule 4. Admit Mistakes 5. Criticize Others Only In Private 6. Stay Close To The Action Example Has More Followers Than Reason. We Unconsciously Imitate What Pleases Us, And Approximate To The Characters We Most Admire.

It Is Difficult To Say Which Is The Greatest Evil--to Have Too Violent Passions, Or To Be Wholly Devoid Of Them. Controlled With Firmness, Guided By Discretion, And Hallowed By The Imagination, The Passions Are The Vivifiers And Quickeners Of Our Being. Without Passion There Can Be No Energy Of Character. Indeed, The Passions Are Like Fire, Useful In A Thousand Ways, And Dangerous Only In One--through Their Excess.

Successful Love Takes A Load Off Our Hearts, And Puts It Upon Our Shoulders.

New Situations Inspire New Thoughts. Here Is The Benefit Of Travelling, Much More Than In Mere Sight-seeing. We Lose Ourselves In The Streets Of Our Own City, And Go Abroad To Find Ourselves.

God Has Created Too Few Unmixed Evils To Warrant The Belief That Death Is One Of Them. In All Things Else In Nature, Goodness So Abounds That We Are Authorized To Infer That It Does Not Stop Even At The Grave. It Is Only That Her Footprints Have Become Invisible.

The Cheerful Live Longest In Years, And Afterwards In Our Regards. Cheerfulness Is The Off-shoot Of Goodness.

Youth Is The Season Of Receptivity, And Should Be Devoted To Acquirement; And Manhood Of Power--that Demands An Earnest Application. Old Age Is For Revision.

No Man Is Happy Without A Delusion Of Some Kind. Delusions Are As Necessary To Our Happiness As Realities.

He Presents Me With What Is Always An Acceptable Gift Who Brings Me News Of A Great Thought Before Unknown. He Enriches Me Without Impoverishing Himself. The Judicious Quoter, Too, Helps On What Is Much Needed In The World, A Freer Circulation Of Good Thoughts, Pure Feelings, And Pleasant Fancies.

The Heart Contracts As The Pocket Expands.

The Selection Of A Subject Is To The Author What Choice Of Position Is To The General,--once Skilfully Determined, The Battle Is Already Half Won. Of A Few Writers It May Be Said That They Are Popular In Despite Of Their Subjects--but Of A Great Many More It May Be Observed That They Are Popular Because Of Them.

Tis But A Short Journey Across The Isthmus Of Now.

Books Are Embalmed Minds.

Difficulties, By Bracing The Mind To Overcome Them, Assist Cheerfulness, As Exercise Assists Digestion.

The Very Cunning Conceal Their Cunning; The Indifferently Shrewd Boast Of It.

As Threshing Separates The Wheat From The Chaff, So Does Affliction Purify Virtue.

The Greatest Events Of An Age Are Its Best Thoughts. Thought Finds Its Way Into Action.

Passion Looks Not Beyond The Moment Of Its Existence. Better, It Says, The Kisses Of Love To Day, Than The Felicities Of Heaven Afar Off.

We Fear Things In Proportion To Our Ignorance Of Them.

It Is With A Company As It Is With A Punch, Everything Depends Upon The Ingredients Of Which It In Composed.

The Beauty Of A Woman Transcends All Other Forms Of Beauty, As Well In The Sweetness Of Its Suggestions, As In The Fervor Of The Admiration It Awakens. The Beauty Of A Lovely Woman Is An Inspiration, A Sweet Delirium, A Gentle Madness. Her Looks Are Love-potions. Heaven Itself Is Never So Clearly Revealed To Us As In The Face Of A Beautiful Woman.

To Be Without Sympathy Is To Be Alone In The World--without Friends Or Country, Home Or Kindred.

No Single Character Is Ever So Great That A Nation Can Afford To Form Itself Upon It. Imitation Belittles. This Appears In The Instance Of The Chinese. The Chinese Are So Many Confucii; In Miniature. And So With The Jews. Moses, The Lawgiver, Is Poorly Represented By Moses, The Old Clothesman ; Or Even By Dives, The Hanker.

There Is Probably No Hell For Authors In The Next World - They Suffer So Much From Critics And Publishers In This.

Wine Is A Treacherous Friend Who You Must Always Be On Guard For.

Four Sweet Lips, Two Pure Souls, And One Undying Affection, - These Are Love's Pretty Ingredients For A Kiss.

Vanity In An Old Man Is Charming. It Is A Proof Of An Open, Nature. Eighty Winters Have Not Frozen Him Up, Or Taught Him Concealments. In A Young Person It Is Simply Allowable; We Do Not Expect Him To Be Above It.

Our Courage Is Greater To Dare A Visible Than An Imagined Danger. A Visible Danger Rouses Our Energies To Meet Or Avert It; A Fancied Peril Appalls From Its Presenting Nothing To Be Resisted. Thus, A Panic Is, Usually, A Sudden Going Over To The Enemy Of Our Imagination. All Is Then Lost, For We Have Not Only To Fight Against That Enemy, But Our Imagination As Well.

The Life Even Of A Just Man Is A Round Of Petty Frauds; That Of A Knave A Series Of Greater. We Degrade Life By Our Follies And Vices, And Then Complain That The Unhappiness Which Is Only Their Accompaniment Is Inherent In The Constitution Of Things.

Our Opinions Partake, More Or Less, Of The Prejudices Of Our Class, Party, Or Sect. We Are All Largely Pledged, Through Interest, Affection, Or Passion, To Particular Classes Of Opinion, And The Strength Of Efforts To Get Released From These Pledges, Is The Measure Of Our Advancement.

There Would Not Be So Much Harm In The Giddy Following The Fashions, If Somehow The Wise Could Always Set Them.

The Legitimate Aim Of Criticism Is To Direct Attention To The Excellent. The Bad Will Dig Its Own Grave.

There Are Some Weaknesses That Are Peculiar And Distinctive To Generous Characters, As Freckles Are To A Fair Skin.

There Are Ceremonious Bows That Repel One Like A Cudgel.

Resentments, Carried Too Far, Expose Us To A Fate Analogous To That Of The Fish-hawk, When He Strikes His Talons Too Deep Into A Fish Beyond His Capacity To Lift, And Is Carried Under And Drowned By It.

Can That Which Is The Greatest Virtue In Philosophy, Doubt (called By Galileo The Father Of Invention), Be In Religion What The Priests Term It, The Greatest Of Sins?

The Best Evidence Of Merit Is A Cordial Recognition Of It Whenever And Wherever It May Be Found.

The Beauty Seen Is Partly In Him Who Sees It. [a Predisposition To Notice The Beautiful, In Everything.]

"there Is Nothing," Says A Correspondent Of The New York Times, "which The Business World Discards As Unpractical And Useless So Much As The Quiet, Thinking Scholar. But This Is The Man Who Makes Revolutions. Politicians Are Mere Puppets In The Hands Of Men Of Thought.

A Strong Will Deals With The Hard Facts Of Life As A Sculptor With His Marbles, Making Them Facile And Yielding To His Purposes, And Conquering Their Stubbornness By A Greater Stubbornness In Himself.

Fortune, Like A Coy Mistress, Loves To Yield Her Favors, Though She Makes Us Wrest Them From Her.

Dreamers Are Half-way Men Of Thought, And Men Of Thought Are Half-way Men Of Action.

A Genuine Passion Is Like A Mountain Stream; It Admits Of No Impediment; It Cannot Go Backward; It Must Go Forward.

It Is Easier To Die Bravely Than To Live So.

Constant Companionship Is Not Enjoyable, Any More Than Constant Eating. We Sit Too Long At The Table Of Friendship, When We Outsit Our Appetites For Each Other's Thoughts.

It Is Our Relation To Circumstances That Determine Their Influence Over Us. The Same Wind That Blows One Ship Into Port May Blow Another Off Shore.

A Good Thought Is Indeed A Great Boon, For Which God Is To Be First Thanked; Next He Who Is The First To Utter It, And Then, In A Lesser, But Still In A Considerable Degree, The Friend Who Is The First To Quote It To Us. Whoever Adopts And Circulates A Just Thought, Participates In The Merit That Originated It.

Better Freedom With A Crust, Than Slavery With Every Luxury.

Perhaps The Heroic Element In Our Natures Is Exhibited To The Best Advantage, Not In Going From Success To Success, And So On Through A Series Of Triumphs, But In Gathering, On The Very Field Of Defeat Itself, The Materials For Renewed Efforts, And In Proceeding, With No Abatement Of Heart Or Energy, To Form Fresh Designs Upon The Very Ruins And Ashes Of Blasted Hopes. Yes, It Is This Indomitable Persistence In A Purpose, Continued Alike Through Defeat And Success, That Makes, More Than Aught Else, The Hero.

It Is So Natural For Us To Consider Our Presence As Indispensable In The World, So Long As We Have Much To Do In It, That The Wisdom Of Retiring Wholly From Employments In Advanced Life May Be Questioned. Certainly, He Who Does So Is In Danger Of Finding, Before Long, That He Has Only Given Up The Occupation To Which He Has Been Accustomed, For The New Business Of Calculating The Period Of His Decease.

Weakness Ineffectually Seeks To Disguise Itself,--like A Drunken Man Trying To Show How Sober He Is.

We May Learn From Children How Large A Part Of Our Grievances Is Imaginary. But The Pain Is Just As Real.

When We Get Tired Of Enjoying All The Pleasures Within Our Reach, We Have Still A Resource In Thinking Of Others That Are Not.

An Ambition To Excel In Petty Things Obstructs The Progress To Nobler Aims.

Heaven Lent You A Soul, Earth Will Lend A Grave.

Qualities Not Regulated Run Into Their Opposites. Economy Before Competence Is Meanness After It. Therefore Economy Is For The Poor; The Rich May Dispense With It.

The Method Of The Enterprising Is To Plan With Audacity And Execute With Vigor.

The Language Denotes The Man. A Coarse Or Refined Character Finds Its Expression Naturally In A Coarse Or Refined Phraseology.

Silence, When Nothing Need Be Said, Is The Eloquence Of Discretion.

The Cause Of Laziness Is Physiological; It Is An Infirmity Of The Constitution, And Its Victim Is As Much To Be Pitied As A Sufferer From Any Other Constitutional Infirmity. It Is Even Worse Than Many Other Diseases; From Them The Patient May Recover, While This Is Incurable.

Judicious Praise Is To Children What The Sun Is To Flowers.

False Friends Are Like Our Shadow, Keeping Close To Us While We Walk In The Sunshine, But Leaving Us The Instant We Cross Into The Shade.

One Must Have Been, At Some Time Or Other, In A Situation Where A Small Sum Was As Necessary Almost As Life Itself, With No More Ability To Raise It Than To Raise The Dead, Before He Can Fully Appreciate The Value Of Money.

It Is Some Compensation For Great Evils, That They Enforce Great Lessons.

Every Trait Of Beauty May Be Referred To Some Virtue, As To Innocence, Candor, Generosity, Modesty, Or Heroism. St. Pierre To Cultivate The Sense Of The Beautiful, Is One Of The Most Effectual Ways Of Cultivating An Appreciation Of The Divine Goodness.

The Next Best Thing To Being Witty One's Self, Is To Be Able To Be Able To Quote Another's Wit.

A Particular Disappointment Is Seldom More Than An Excrescence Upon The Trunk Of A General Good--a Shower That Spoils The Pleasure Party, But Refreshes And Enriches The Earth.

The Reveries Of The Dreamer Advance His Hopes, But Not Their Realization. One Good Hour Of Earnest Work Is Worth Them All.

I Desire To Go Through Life Knowing As Little Of Evil In It As Possible. To This End, I Sometimes Avoid Looking Too Closely Into The Nature Of Things, Studying Them Only So Far As They Seem To Be Good, And Abandoning Interest In Them As Soon As Their Darker Feature Begin To Appear. The Good Only Deserves A Hearty Interest.

Doubt Whom You Will, But Never Yourself.

Partial Culture Runs To The Ornate, Extreme Culture To Simplicity.

To Quote Copiously And Well, Requires Taste, Judgment, And Erudition, A Feeling For The Beautiful, An Appreciation Of The Noble, And A Sense Of The Profound.

Pure Motives Do Not Insure Perfect Results.

Repose Without Stagnation Is The State Most Favorable To Happiness. "the Great Felicity Of Life," Says Seneca, "is To Be Without Perturbations.

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.

When We Have The Means To Pay For What We Desire, What We Get Is Not So Much What Is Best, As What Is Costliest.

Many Children, Many Cares; No Children, No Felicity.

Hunting Is A Relic Of The Barbarism That Once Thirsted For Human Blood, But Is Now Content With The Blood Of Animals.

To Cultivate A Garden Is. . . To Go Hand In Hand With Nature In Some Of Her Most Beautiful Processes.

Pride Is Like The Beautiful Acacia, That Lifts Its Head Proudly Above Its Neighbor Plants-forgetting That It Too, Like Them, Has Its Roots In The Dirt.

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