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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.

-Christian Nestell Bovee

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To No Circumstance Is

Christian Nestell Bovee

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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.

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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.

In Secluding Himself Too Much From Society, An Author Is In Danger Of Losing That Intimate Acquaintance With Life Which Is The Only Sure Foundation Of Power In A Writer.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Examples Are Few Of Men Ruined By Giving.

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

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

The Loss Of A Beloved Connection Awakens An Interest In Heaven Before Unfelt.

It Is The Life Of Democracy To Favor Equality.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

If One Is Not Virtuous He Becomes Vicious.

Winter Is The Night Of Vegetation.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The Great Obstacle To Progress Is Prejudice

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

The Beauty Seen Is Partly In Him Who Sees It.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

There Are Ceremonious Bows That Repel One Like A Cudgel.

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

As Many Suffer From Too Much As Too Little.

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

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

An Illusion Dissipated Is An Experience Gained.

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.

A Mother Is The Best Friend God Ever Gave.

Funny Inspirational

Activity And Sadness Are Incompatible.

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.

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

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

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

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.

The Worst Deluded Are The Self-deluded.

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.

Mortal Beauty Stings While It Delights.

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.

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

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

The Past Is The Sepulchre Of Our Dead Emotions.

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

Courage Enlarges, Cowardice Diminishes Resources.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

"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.

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

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.

We Fear Things In Proportion To Our Ignorance Of Them.

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

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

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

Successful Minds Work Like A Gimlet--to A Single Point.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Doubt Whom You Will, But Never Yourself.

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

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

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

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

Some One Called Sir Richard Steele The "vilest Of Mankind," And He Retorted With Proud Humility, "it Would Be A Glorious World If I Were.

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

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

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.

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.

Youth Is Too Tumultuous For Felicity; Old Age Too Insecure For Happiness. The Period Most Favorable To Enjoyment, In A Vigorous, Fortunate, And Generous Life, Is That Between Forty And Sixty.

In Art There Are Two Principal Schools Between Which Each Aspirant Has To Choose--one Distinguished By Its Close Adherence To Nature, And The Other By Its Strenuous Efforts To Get Above It.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Justice, Not The Majority, Should Rule.

Few Minds Wear Out; More Rust Out.

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

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

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.

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!

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Next To Faith In God, Is Faith In Labor.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

The Passions Are Like Fire, Useful In A Thousand Ways And Dangerous Only In One, Through Their Excess.

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.

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.

Complaint Is. More Contemptible Than Pitiful.

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.

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

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

Honesty Is Not Only "the First Step Toward Greatness," - It Is Greatness Itself.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Hope Is The Best Part Of Our Riches.

Pure Motives Do Not Insure Perfect Results.

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.

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.

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

The Small Courtesies Sweeten Life; The Greater Ennoble It.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Tearless Grief Bleeds Inwardly.

Losing A Loved One

He Half Retrieves A Defeat Who Yields To It Gracefully.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Tis But A Short Journey Across The Isthmus Of Now.

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

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

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