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Nature Has Provided For The Exigency Of Privation, By Putting The Measure Of Our Necessities Far Below The Measure Of Our Wants. Our Necessities Are To Our Wants As Falstaff's Pennyworth Of Bread To His Any Quantity Of Sack.

-Christian Nestell Bovee

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Nature Has Provided For

Christian Nestell Bovee

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Nature Has Provided For The Exigency Of Privation, By Putting The Measure Of Our Necessities Far Below The Measure Of Our Wants. Our Necessities Are To Our Wants As Falstaff's Pennyworth Of Bread To His Any Quantity Of Sack.

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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.

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

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

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

Pure Motives Do Not Insure Perfect Results.

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

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

To Vindicate The Sanctity Of Human Life By Taking It Is An Outrage Upon Reason. The Spectacle Of A Human Being Dangling At The End Of A Gallows-rope Is A Degradation Of Humanity.

Tranquil Pleasures Last The Longest; We Are Not Fitted To Bear The Burden Of Great Joys.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Complaint Is. More Contemptible Than Pitiful.

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

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

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.

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.

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

It Is Safer To Quote What Is Written Than What Is Spoken. What A Man Writes It Is Fair To Presume He Believes As A Matter Of General Conviction, But It Is Not So With What He Utters In The Freedom Of Conversation. In That He May Only Express The Feeling Of The Moment, And Not His Settled Judgment, Or Matured Opinion.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Even When We Fancy We Have Grown Wiser, It Is Only, It May Be, That New Prejudices Have Displaced Old Ones.

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

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.

Justice, Not The Majority, Should Rule.

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.

Hope Is The Best Part Of Our Riches.

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

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.

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.

The Greatest Happiness Comes From The Greatest Activity.

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

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

The Language Of The Heart--the Language Which "comes From The Heart" And "goes To The Heart"--is Always Simple, Always Graceful, And Always Full Of Power, But No Art Of Rhetoric Can Teach It. It Is At Once The Easiest And Most Difficult Language--difficult, Since It Needs A Heart To Speak It; Easy, Because Its Periods Though Rounded And Full Of Harmony, Are Still Unstudied.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

To Death We Owe Our Life; The Passing Of One Generation Opens A Way For Another.

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.

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

Marriage, By Making Us More Contented, Causes Us Often To Be Less Enterprising.

Alas, The Transports Beauty Can Inspire!

Next To Faith In God, Is Faith In Labor.

Give Me The Character And I Will Forecast The Event.

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.

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.

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

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.

There Are Some Kinds Of Men Who Cannot Pass Their Time Alone; They Are The Flails Of Occupied People.(bonald, M.} There Are Few Wild Beasts More To Be Dreaded Than A Communicative Man Having Nothing To Communicate.

Enthusiasm Is The Inspiration Of Everything Great.

Enthusiasm For Life

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Life Being Full Of Harsh Realities, We Seek Relief From Them In A Variety Of Pleasing Delusions.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Books Are Embalmed Minds.

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

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.

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

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

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.

The Heart Contracts As The Pocket Expands.

Nature Has Provided For The Exigency Of Privation, By Putting The Measure Of Our Necessities Far Below The Measure Of Our Wants. Our Necessities Are To Our Wants As Falstaff's Pennyworth Of Bread To His Any Quantity Of Sack.

Character Is Very Much A Matter Of Health.

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

Kindred Weaknesses Induce Friendships As Often As Kindred Virtues.

None But Those Who Have Loved Can Be Supposed To Understand The Oratory Of The Eye, The Mute Eloquence Of A Look, Or The Conversational Powers Of The Face. Love's Sweetest Meanings Are Unspoken; The Full Heart Knows No Rhetoric Of Words, And Resorts To The Pantomime Of Sighs And Glances.

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.

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

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.

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

Cheerfulness Is An Offshoot Of Goodness And Of Wisdom.

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

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?

Doubt Whom You Will, But Never Yourself.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Our First And Last Love Is Self-love.

Funny Valentines Day

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

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

In Ambition, As In Love, The Successful Can Afford To Be Indulgent Toward Their Rivals. The Prize Our Own, It Is Graceful To Recognize The Merit That Vainly Aspired To It.

We Fear Things In Proportion To Our Ignorance Of Them.

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

Examples Are Few Of Men Ruined By Giving.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

The Great Obstacle To Progress Is Prejudice

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

Nothing Is So Fragile As Thought In Its Infancy; An Interruption Breaks It: Nothing Is So Powerful, Even To Overturning Empires, When It Reaches Its Maturity.

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

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.

There Is A German Proverb Which Says That Take-it-easy And Live-long Are Brothers.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Activity And Sadness Are Incompatible.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

If One Is Not Virtuous He Becomes Vicious.

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.

It Is The Life Of Democracy To Favor Equality.

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

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!

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

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.

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.

Winter Is The Night Of Vegetation.

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 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.

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

Words, Like Cannon Balls, Should Go Direct To Their Mark.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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 Great Artist Is A Slave To His Ideals.

The Finest Compliment That Can Be Paid To A Woman Of Sense Is To Address Her As Such.

Formerly When Great Fortunes Were Only Made In War, War Was A Business; But Now, When Great Fortunes Are Only Made By Business, Business Is War.

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

All Power Is Indeed Weak Compared With That Of The Thinker. He Sits Upon The Throne Of His Empire Of Thought, Mightier Far Than They Who Wield Material Sceptres.

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

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

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

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