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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.

-Christian Nestell Bovee

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In General, Inquiry Ceases

Christian Nestell Bovee

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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.

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

Winter Is The Night Of Vegetation.

The Beauty Seen Is Partly In Him Who Sees It.

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

Enthusiasm Is The Inspiration Of Everything Great.

Enthusiasm For Life

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

It Is Invidious To Distinguish Particular Men As Adventurers: We Are All Such.

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

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.

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

Woman's Power Is Over The Affections. A Beautiful Dominion Is Hers; But She Risks Its Forfeiture When She Seeks To Extend It.

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.

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.

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

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

Example Has More Followers Than Reason. We Unconsciously Imitate What Pleases Us, And Approximate To The Characters We Most Admire.

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.

Motives Are Better Than Actions. Men Drift Into Crime. Of Evil They Do More Than They Contemplate, And Of Good They Contemplate More Than They Do.

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

The Small Courtesies Sweeten Life; The Greater Ennoble It.

Kindred Weaknesses Induce Friendships As Often As Kindred Virtues.

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.

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?

Logic Invents As Many Fallacies As It Detects; It Is A Good Weapon, But As Liable To Be Used In A Bad As In A Good Cause.

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

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

Tis But A Short Journey Across The Isthmus Of Now.

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.

Next To Faith In God, Is Faith In Labor.

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

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.

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.

There Is No Sense Of Weariness Like That Which Closes In A Day Of Eager And Unintermittent Pursuit Of Pleasure. The Apple Is Eaten, But "the Core Sticks In The Throat." Expectation Has Then Given Way To Ennui, Appetite To Satiety.

Our First And Last Love Is Self-love.

Funny Valentines Day

Alas, The Transports Beauty Can Inspire!

Doubt Whom You Will, But Never Yourself.

It Is In Vain That He Seeks Dominion Abroad, Who Is Not Kingly At Home.

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

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

Activity And Sadness Are Incompatible.

An Illusion Dissipated Is An Experience Gained.

Ideas Are Like Matter, Infinitely Divisible. It Is Not Given To Us To Get Down So To Speak To Their Final Atoms, But To Their Molecular Groupings-the Way Is Never Ending And The Progress Infinitely Delightful And Profitable.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

Complaint Is. More Contemptible Than Pitiful.

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.

Care, Admitted As Guest, Quickly Turns To Be Master.

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.

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

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

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

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

The Body Of A Sensualist Is The Coffin Of A Dead Soul.

In Politics, Merit Is Rewarded By The Possessor Being Raised, Like A Target, To A Position To Be Fired At.

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

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

It May Almost Be Held That The Hope Of Commercial Gain Has Done Nearly As Much For The Cause Of Truth As Even The Love Of Truth.

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

Love Delights In Paradoxes. Saddest When It Has Most Reason To Be Gay, Sighs Are The Signs Of Its Deepest Joy, And Silence Is The Expression Of Its Yearning Tenderness.

Tearless Grief Bleeds Inwardly.

Losing A Loved One

Pleasure And Pain Spring Not So Much From The Nature Of Things, As From Our Manner Of Considering Them. Pleasure, Especially, Is Never An Invariable Effect Of Particular Circumstances.

The Knowledge Beyond All Other Knowledge Is The Knowledge How To Excuse.

A Woman's Love, Like Lichens Upon A Rock, Will Still Grow Where Even Charity Can Find No Soil To Nurture Itself.

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.

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

Contentment Is Not Happiness. An Oyster May Be Contented. Happiness Is Compounded Of Richer Elements.

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.

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

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.

The Breath Becomes A Stone; The Stone, A Plant; The Plant, An Animal; The Animal, A Man; The Man, A Spirit; And The Spirit, A God.

Many An Honest Man Practices Upon Himself An Amount Of Deceit Sufficient, If Practised Upon Another, And In A Little Different Way, To Send Him To The State Prison.

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

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

Character Is Very Much A Matter Of Health.

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

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.

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.

It Is The Life Of Democracy To Favor Equality.

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

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

To Cultivate A Garden Is. . . To Go Hand In Hand With Nature In Some Of Her Most Beautiful Processes, To Learn Something Of Her Choicest Secrets, And To Have A More Intelligent Interest Awakened In The Beautiful Order Of Her Works Elsewhere.

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.

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

Ambitious Princes Value Inherited Kingdoms Not So Much As Conquered Provinces.

It Is Easier To Die Bravely Than To Live So.

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

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 Past Is The Sepulchre Of Our Dead Emotions.

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.

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.

Men Were Created For Something Better Than Merely To Make Money. A Close Application To Business, Until A Competence Is Gained, Is One Of The Chief Virtues; But To Continue In Trade Long After This Result Is Obtained, Is One Of The Signs, Not To Be Mistaken, Of A Sordid And Ignoble Nature.

Living With A Saint Is More Grueling Than Being One.

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To No Circumstance Is The Wide Diffusion Of Error In The World More Owing Than To Our Habit Of Adopting Conclusions From Insufficiently Established Data. An Indispensable Preliminary, Then, In Every Investigation, Is To Get At Facts. Until These Are Arrived At, Every Opinion, Theory, Or System, However Ingeniously Framed, Must Necessarily Rest Upon An Uncertain Basis.

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.

When All Else Is Lost, The Future Still Remains.

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.

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.

Justice, Not The Majority, Should Rule.

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.

It Is Not The Number Of Facts He Knows, But How Much Of A Fact He Is Himself, That Proves The Man.

Adhesion To One Idea Is Monomania; To Few, Slavery.

In The Assurance Of Strength There Is Strength; And They Are The Weakest, However Strong, Who Have No Faith In Themselves Or Their Powers.

It Is The Nature Of Thought To Find Its Way Into Action.

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

Melancholy Sees The Worst Of Things, Things As They May Be, And Not As They Are. It Looks Upon A Beautiful Face, And Sees But A Grinning Skull.

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

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

Hope Is The Best Part Of Our Riches. What Sufficeth It That We Have The Wealth Of The Indies In Our Pockets, If We Have Not The Hope Of Heaven In Our Souls?

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

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.

No Work Deserves To Be Criticized That Has Not Much In It That Deserves To Be Applauded.

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

Age, That Acquaints Us With Infirmities In Ourselves, Should Make Us Tender In Our Reprehension Of Weakness Elsewhere.

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.

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

Ambition, In One Respect, Is Like A Singer's Voice; Pitched At Too High A Key, It Breaks And Comes To Nothing.

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

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

Galileo Called Doubt The Father Of Invention; It Is Certainly The Pioneer.

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

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.

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

Troubles Forereckoned Are Doubly Suffered.

A Man Cannot Paint Portraits Till He Has Seen Faces.

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

Bad Taste Is A Species Of Bad Morals.

Panic Is A Sudden Desertion Of Us, And A Going Over To The Enemy Of Our Imagination.

An Eager Pursuit Of Fortune Is Inconsistent With A Severe Devotion To Truth. The Heart Must Grow Tranquil Before The Thought Can Become Searching.

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.

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

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

He Must Put His Whole Life Into His Work, Who Would Do It Well, And Make It Potential To Influence Other Lives.

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

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

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.

There Are Ceremonious Bows That Repel One Like A Cudgel.

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

Satire Is An Abuse Of Wit. It Corrects Few Evils.

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.

It Is Only An Error Of Judgment To Make A Mistake, But It Argues An Infirmity Of Character To Adhere To It When Discovered.

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

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.

Loss Of Sincerity Is Loss Of Vital Power.

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.

Earnestness Is The Devotion Of All The Faculties.

All Men Are Alike In Their Lower Natures; It Is In Their Higher Characters That They Differ.

The Use We Make Of Our Fortune Determines Its Sufficiency. A Little Is Enough If Used Wisely, And Too Much If Expended Foolishly.

Example Has Far More Followers Than Reason.

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

Sensitiveness Is Closely Allied To Egotism; And Excessive Sensibility Is Only Another Name For Morbid Self-consciousness. The Cure For Tender Sensibilities Is To Make More Of Our Objects And Less Of Our Selves.

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

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!

Besides The Five Senses, There Is A Sixth Sense, Of Equal Importance--the Sense Of Duty.

Talk Less About The Years To Come, Live, Love Labor More Today.

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

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 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.

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.

Hope Is The Best Part Of Our Riches.

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

In A Contest With A Weaker Party It Is More Honorable To Yield Than To Force Concession. Magnanimity Becomes The Strong.

Rejecting The Miracles Of Christ, We Still Have The Miracle Of Christ Himself.

Books Are Embalmed Minds.

What A Position Of Transcendent Horror Must That Be, Where The Perpetrator Of A Great Crime, Till Then A Stranger To Positive Guilt, Finds Himself Suddenly Cut Off, And Forever, From All Human Sympathy, Isolated From Hope, The Tenant Of A Solitary Cell, And With A Wide, Impassable Gulf Yawning Between Him And That Great Brotherhood Of Which He Has Ceased To Be A Part--no Longer Regarded As A Man, But As A Monster In The Shape Of One, From Whom Mercy Herself Turns Away, And For Whom Pity Even Has No Tears!

Merit Is Never So Conspicuous As When Coupled With An Obscure Origin, Just As The Moon Never Appears So Lustrous As When It Emerges From A Cloud.

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.

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.

Genius Makes Its Observations In Short-hand; Talent Writes Them Out At Length.

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.

Whether One Talks Well Depends Very Much Upon Whom He Has To Talk To.

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

Who Aspires To Remain Leader Must Keep In Advance Of His Column. His Fear Must Not Play Traitor To His Occasions. The Instant He Falls Into Line With His Followers, A Bolder Spirit May Throw Himself At The Head Of The Movement Initiated, And In That Moment His Leadership Is Gone.

Every War Involves A Greater Or Less Relapse Into Barbarism. War, Indeed, In Its Details, Is The Essence Of Inhumanity. It Dehumanizes. It May Save The State, But It Destroys The Citizen.

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.

Men, Like Musical Instruments, Seem Made To Be Played Upon.

I Once Asked A Distinguished Artist What Place He Gave To Labor In Art. "labor," He In Effect Said, "is The Beginning, The Middle, And The End Of Art." Turning Then To Another--"and You," I Inquired, "what Do You Consider As The Great Force In Art?" "love," He Replied. In Their Two Answers I Found But One Truth.

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.

Genuine Religion Is Matter Of Feeling Rather Than Matter Of Opinion.

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

Mortal Beauty Stings While It Delights.

The Less The Difference, The Greater The Quarrel Over It.

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

It Is Curious To What A Degree One May Become Attached To A Fine Tree, Especially When It Is Placed Where Trees Are Rare.

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

We Should Round Every Day Of Stirring Action With An Evening Of Thought. We Learn Nothing Of Our Experience Except We Muse Upon It.

Neither Love Nor Ambition, As It Has Often Been Shown, Can Brook A Division Of Its Empire In The Heart.

Hard Workers Are Usually Honest; Industry Lifts Them Above Temptation.

The Trouble With Men Of Sense Is That They Are So Dreadfully In Earnest All The While.

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.

The Heart Contracts As The Pocket Expands.

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

Women Seldom Forfeit Their Claims To Respect To Men Whom They Respect.

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

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.

Truth, Like The Sun, Submits To Be Obscured; But, Like The Sun, Only For A Time.

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