Chapter 19

Well may your heart believe the truths I tell; 'Tis virtue makes the bliss where'er we dwell. --COLLINS.

The only impregnable citadel of virtue is religion; for there is no bulwark of mere morality which some temptation may not overtop, or undermine and destroy.--SIR P. SIDNEY.

Virtue is not to be considered in the light of mere innocence, or abstaining from harm; but as the exertion of our faculties in doing good.--BISHOP BUTLER.

What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy, The soul's calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy, Is virtue's prize. --POPE.

Live virtuously, my lord, and you cannot die too soon, nor live too long.--LADY RACHEL RUSSELL.

If you can be well without health, you can be happy without virtue. --BURKE.

Recommend to your children virtue; that alone can make happy, not gold.--BEETHOVEN.

I would be virtuous for my own sake, though nobody were to know it; as I would be clean for my own sake, though nobody were to see me. --SHAFTESBURY.

Know then this truth, enough for man to know, Virtue alone is happiness below. --POPE.

An effort made with ourselves for the good of others, with the intention of pleasing God alone.--BERNARDIN DE ST. PIERRE.

Good sense, good health, good conscience, and good fame,--all these belong to virtue, and all prove that virtue has a title to your love.--COWPER.

Our virtues live upon our incomes; our vices consume our capital. --J. PETIT-SENN.

Do not be troubled because you have not great virtues. God made a million spears of grass where he made one tree. The earth is fringed and carpeted, not with forests, but with grasses. Only have enough of little virtues and common fidelities, and you need not mourn because you are neither a hero nor a saint.--BEECHER.

WANT.--How few our real wants, and how vast our imaginary ones!--LAVATER.

We are ruined, not by what we really want, but by what we think we do; therefore never go abroad in search of your wants; if they be real wants, they will come home in search of you; for he that buys what he does not want, will soon want what he cannot buy.--COLTON.

Where necessity ends, curiosity begins; and no sooner are we supplied with everything that nature can command, than we sit down to contrive artificial appetites.--DR. JOHNSON.

Hundreds would never have known want if they had not first known waste.--SPURGEON.

Constantly choose rather to want less, than to have more.--THOMAS À KEMPIS.

Every one is the poorer in proportion as he has more wants, and counts not what he has, but wishes only what he has not.--MANILIUS.

If any one say that he has seen a just man in want of bread, I answer that it was in some place where there was no other just man. --ST. CLEMENT.

It is not from nature, but from education and habits, that our wants are chiefly derived.--FIELDING.

WAR.--War will never yield but to the principles of universal justice and love; and these have no sure root but in the religion of Jesus Christ.--CHANNING.

Most of the debts of Europe represent condensed drops of blood.--BEECHER.

Battles are never the end of war; for the dead must be buried and the cost of the conflict must be paid.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.

A wise minister would rather preserve peace than gain a victory, because he knows that even the most successful war leaves nations generally more poor, always more profligate, than it found them.--COLTON.

War is a crime which involves all other crimes.--BROUGHAM.

To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.--WASHINGTON.

War is a terrible trade; but in the cause that is righteous sweet is the smell of powder.--LONGFELLOW.

Although a soldier by profession, I have never felt any fondness for war, and I have never advocated it except as a means of peace. --U.S. GRANT.

I prefer the hardest terms of peace to the most just war.--C.J. FOX.

Take my word for it, if you had seen but one day of war, you would pray to Almighty God that you might never see such a thing again. --WELLINGTON.

War, even in the best state of an army, with all the alleviations of courtesy and honor, with all the correctives of morality and religion, is nevertheless so great an evil, that to engage in it without a clear necessity is a crime of the blackest dye. When the necessity is clear, it then becomes a crime to shrink from it.--SOUTHEY.

WASTE.--Waste cannot be accurately told, though we are sensible how destructive it is. Economy, on the one hand, by which a certain income is made to maintain a man genteelly; and waste, on the other, by which on the same income another man lives shabbily, cannot be defined. It is a very nice thing; as one man wears his coat out much sooner than another, we cannot tell how.--DR. JOHNSON.

WEALTH.--Wealth, after all, is a relative thing, since he that has little, and wants less, is richer than he that has much, but wants more.--COLTON.

Riches are gotten with pain, kept with care, and lost with grief. The cares of riches lie heavier upon a good man than the inconveniences of an honest poverty.--L'ESTRANGE.

Seek not proud wealth; but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly.--BACON.

Conscience and wealth are not always neighbors.--MASSINGER.

He that will not permit his wealth to do any good to others while he is living, prevents it from doing any good to himself when he is dead; and by an egotism that is suicidal, and has a double edge, cuts himself off from the truest pleasure here, and the highest happiness hereafter.--COLTON.

It is far more easy to acquire a fortune like a knave than to expend it like a gentleman.--COLTON.

The pulpit and the press have many commonplaces denouncing the thirst for wealth, but if men should take these moralists at their word, and leave off aiming to be rich, the moralists would rush to rekindle at all hazards this love of power in the people, lest civilization should be undone.--EMERSON.

Wealth is not acquired, as many persons suppose, by fortunate speculations and splendid enterprises, but by the daily practice of industry, frugality, and economy. He who relies upon these means will rarely be found destitute, and he who relies upon any other will generally become bankrupt.--WAYLAND.

There is a burden of care in getting riches, fear in keeping them, temptation in using them, guilt in abusing them, sorrow in losing them, and a burden of account at last to be given up concerning them.--MATTHEW HENRY.

What does competency in the long run mean? It means, to all reasonable beings, cleanliness of person, decency of dress, courtesy of manners, opportunities for education, the delights of leisure, and the bliss of giving.--WHIPPLE.

The way to wealth is as plain as the road to market. It depends chiefly on two words,--industry and frugality.--FRANKLIN.

Wealth brings noble opportunities, and competence is a proper object of pursuit; but wealth, and even competence, may be bought at too high a price. Wealth itself has no moral attribute. It is not money, but the love of money, which is the root of all evil. It is the relation between wealth and the mind and the character of its possessor which is the essential thing.--HILLARD.

Let us not envy some men their accumulated riches; their burden would be too heavy for us; we could not sacrifice, as they do, health, quiet, honor, and conscience, to obtain them: it is to pay so dear for them, that the bargain is a loss.--LA BRUYÈRE.

It is only when the rich are sick, that they fully feel the impotence of wealth.--COLTON.

To purchase Heaven has gold the power? Can gold remove the mortal hour? In life can love be bought with gold? Are friendship's pleasures to be sold? No--all that's worth a wish--a thought, Fair virtue gives unbribed, unbought. Cease then on trash thy hopes to bind, Let nobler views engage thy mind. --DR. JOHNSON.

WIFE.--The good wife is none of our dainty dames, who love to appear in a variety of suits every day new; as if a good gown, like a stratagem in war, were to be used but once. But our good wife sets up a sail according to the keel of her husband's estate; and if of high parentage, she doth not so remember what she was by birth, that she forgets what she is by match.--FULLER.

All other goods by fortune's hand are given, A wife is the peculiar gift of heaven. --POPE.

A good wife is heaven's last, best gift to man,--his gem of many virtues, his casket of jewels; her voice is sweet music, her smiles his brightest day, her kiss the guardian of his innocence, her arms the pale of his safety, her industry his surest wealth, her economy his safest steward, her lips his faithful counselors, her bosom the softest pillow of his care.--JEREMY TAYLOR.

She is not made to be the admiration of everybody, but the happiness of one.--BURKE.

Nothing can be more touching than to behold a soft and tender female, who had been all weakness and dependence, and alive to every trivial roughness while treading the prosperous paths of life, suddenly rising in mental force to be the comforter and supporter of her husband under misfortune, and abiding with unshrinking firmness the bitterest blast of adversity.--WASHINGTON IRVING.

Thy wife is a constellation of virtues, she's the moon, and thou art the man in the moon.--CONGREVE.

For nothing lovelier can be found In woman, than to study household good, And good works in her husband to promote. --MILTON.

What is there in the vale of life Half so delightful as a wife; When friendship, love and peace combine To stamp the marriage-bond divine? --COWPER.

O woman! thou knowest the hour when the goodman of the house will return, when the heat and burden of the day are past; do not let him at such time, when he is weary with toil and jaded with discouragement, find upon his coming to his habitation that the foot which should hasten to meet him is wandering at a distance, that the soft hand which should wipe the sweat from his brow is knocking at the door of other houses.--WASHINGTON IRVING.

WISDOM.--It is more easy to be wise for others than for ourselves. --LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

The clouds may drop down titles and estates, both may seek us; but wisdom must be sought.--YOUNG.

True wisdom is to know what is best worth knowing, and to do what is best worth doing.--HUMPHREYS.

Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding: for the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her; and happy is every one that retaineth her.--PROV. 3:13-18.

The fool is willing to pay for anything but wisdom. No man buys that of which he supposes himself to have an abundance already.--SIMMS.

Where the eye of pity weep, And the sway of passion sleeps, Where the lamp of faith is burning, And the ray of hope returning, Where the "still small voice" within Whispers not of wrath or sin, Resting with the righteous dead-- Beaming o'er the drooping head-- Comforting the lowly mind, Wisdom dwelleth--seek and find.

The first point of wisdom is to discern that which is false; the second, to know that which is true.--LACTANTIUS.

Seek wisdom where it may be found. Seek it in the knowledge of God, the holy, the just and the merciful God, as revealed to us in the gospel; of Him who is just, and yet the justifier of them that believe in Jesus.--ARCHDEACON RAIKES.

Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop Than when we soar. --WORDSWORTH.

He who learns the rules of wisdom, without conforming to them in his life, is like a man who labored in his fields, but did not sow.--SAADI.

Wisdom is to the mind what health is to the body.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

As whole caravans may light their lamps from one candle without exhausting it, so myriads of tribes may gain wisdom from the great Book without impoverishing it.--RABBI BEN-AZAI.

Wisdom is the only thing which can relieve us from the sway of the passions and the fear of danger, and which can teach us to bear the injuries of fortune itself with moderation, and which shows us all the ways which lead to tranquillity and peace.--CICERO.

Wisdom consists not in seeing what is directly before us, but in discerning those things which may come to pass.--TERENCE.

That man strangely mistakes the manner of spirit he is of who knows not that peaceableness, and gentleness, and mercy, as well as purity, are inseparable characteristics of the wisdom that is from above; and that Christian charity ought never to be sacrificed even for the promotion of evangelical truth.--BISHOP MANT.

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.--PSALM 90:12.

WIT.--I fear nothing so much as a man who is witty all day long. --MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ.

Witticisms never are agreeable, which are injurious to others.--FROM THE LATIN.

Man could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his life by tasteless food; but God has given us wit and flavor and brightness and laughter and perfumes, to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage, and to "charm his pained steps over the burning marle."--SYDNEY SMITH.

Wit, without wisdom, is salt without meat; and that is but a comfortless dish to set a hungry man down to.--BISHOP HORNE.

Wit consists in assembling, and putting together with quickness, ideas in which can be found resemblance and congruity, by which to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy.--LOCKE.

There is many a man hath more hair than wit.--SHAKESPEARE.

You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come; Knock as you please, there's nobody at home. --POPE.

Wit does not take the place of knowledge.--VAUVENARGUES.

To place wit before good sense is to place the superfluous before the necessary.--M. DE MONTLOSIER.

WOMAN.--Honor to women! they twine and weave the roses of heaven into the life of man; it is they that unite us in the fascinating bonds of love; and, concealed in the modest veil of the graces, they cherish carefully the external fire of delicate feeling with holy hands. --SCHILLER.

The world was sad!--the garden was a wild! And man, the hermit, sigh'd--till woman smiled. --CAMPBELL.

A young man rarely gets a better vision of himself than that which is reflected from a true woman's eyes; for God himself sits behind them. --J.G. HOLLAND.

O, if the loving, closed heart of a good woman should open before a man, how much controlled tenderness, how many veiled sacrifices and dumb virtues, would he see reposing therein?--RICHTER.

Seek to be good, but aim not to be great; A woman's noblest station is retreat; Her fairest virtues fly from public sight; Domestic worth,--that shuns too strong a light. --LORD LYTTLETON.

Nature sent women into the world with this bridal dower of love, for this reason, that they might be, what their destination is, mothers, and love children, to whom sacrifices must ever be offered and from whom none are to be obtained.--RICHTER.

A woman's whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world; it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure, she embarks her whole soul in the traffic of affection; and, if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless, for it is a bankruptcy of the heart.--WASHINGTON IRVING.

A woman impudent and mannish grown Is not more loath'd than an effeminate man. --SHAKESPEARE.

What's a table richly spread, Without a woman at its head? --T. WHARTON.

O woman! in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou! --WALTER SCOTT.

The modest virgin, the prudent wife, or the careful matron, are much more serviceable in life, than petticoated philosophers, blustering heroines, or virago queens. She who makes her husband and her children happy, who reclaims the one from vice, and trains up the other to virtue, is a much greater character than ladies described in romance, whose whole occupation is to murder mankind with shafts from their quiver or their eyes.--GOLDSMITH.

If the heart of a man is depress'd with cares, The mist is dispell'd when a woman appears. --GAY.

Women are a new race, recreated since the world received Christianity. --BEECHER.

Not she with trait'rous kiss her Saviour stung, Not she denied him with unholy tongue; She, while apostles shrank, could danger brave, Last at his cross, and earliest at his grave. --E.S. BARRETT.

O loving woman, man's fulfillment, sweet, Completing him not otherwise complete! How void and useless the sad remnant left Were he of her, his nobler part, bereft. --ABRAHAM COLES.

As the vine which has long twined its graceful foliage about the oak, and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the hardy plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing tendrils, and bind up its shattered boughs; so it is beautifully ordered by Providence, that woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of man in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with sudden calamity; winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature, tenderly supporting the drooping head, and binding up the broken heart.--WASHINGTON IRVING.

Women in health are the hope of the nation. Men who exercise a controlling influence--the master spirits--with a few exceptions, have had country-born mothers. They transmit to their sons those traits of character--moral, intellectual, and physical--which give stability to institutions, and promote order, security, and justice.--DR. J.V.C. SMITH.

Man has subdued the world, but woman has subdued man. Mind and muscle have won his victories; love and loveliness have gained hers. No monarch has been so great, no peasant so lowly, that he has not been glad to lay his best at the feet of a woman.--GAIL HAMILTON.

American ladies are known abroad for two distinguishing traits (besides, possibly, their beauty and self-reliance), and these are their ill-health and their extravagant devotion to dress.--ABBA GOOLD WOOLSON.

Where is the man who has the power and skill To stem the torrent of a woman's will? For if she will, she will, you may depend on't, And if she won't, she won't, and there's an end on't.

I have often had occasion to remark the fortitude with which women sustain the most overwhelming reverses of fortune. Those disasters which break down the spirit of a man and prostrate him in the dust seem to call forth all the energies of the softer sex, and give such intrepidity and elevation to their character, that at times it approaches to sublimity.--WASHINGTON IRVING.

To feel, to love, to suffer, to devote herself will always be the text of the life of women.--BALZAC.

All a woman has to do in this world is contained within the duties of a daughter, a sister, a wife and a mother.--STEELE.

I have always said it--nature meant to make woman its master-piece. --LESSING.

The Christian religion alone contemplates the conjugal union in the order of nature; it is the only religion which presents woman to man as a companion; every other abandons her to him as a slave. To religion alone do European women owe their liberty.--ST. PIERRE.

Nature has given women two painful but heavenly gifts, which distinguish them, and often raise them above human nature,--compassion and enthusiasm. By compassion, they devote themselves; by enthusiasm they exalt themselves.--LAMARTINE.

The brain women never interest us like the heart women; white roses please less than red.--HOLMES.

There is nothing by which I have, through life, more profited than by the just observations, the good opinion, and the sincere and gentle encouragement of amiable and sensible women.--ROMILLY.

WORDS.--A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.--PROVERBS 15:1.

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below, Words, without thoughts, never to Heaven go. --SHAKESPEARE.

We should be as careful of our words as of our actions, and as far from speaking ill as from doing ill.--CICERO.

Immodest words admit of no defence, For want of decency is want of sense. --EARL OF ROSCOMMON.

Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?--JOB 38:2.

It is with a word as with an arrow: the arrow once loosed does not return to the bow; nor a word to the lips.--ABDEL-KADER.

Words are often seen hunting for an idea, but ideas are never seen hunting for words.--H.W. SHAW.

I hate anything that occupies more space than it is worth. I hate to see a load of bandboxes go along the street, and I hate to see a parcel of big words without anything in them.--HAZLITT.

Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.--PROVERBS 16:24.

Men who have much to say use the fewest words.--H.W. SHAW.

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

If you do not wish a man to do a thing, you had better get him to talk about it; for the more men talk, the more likely they are to do nothing else.--CARLYLE.

It would be well for us all, old and young, to remember that our words and actions, ay, and our thoughts also, are set upon never-stopping wheels, rolling on and on unto the pathway of eternity.--M.M. BREWSTER.

"Words, words, words!" says Hamlet, disparagingly. But God preserve us from the destructive power of words! There are words which can separate hearts sooner than sharp swords. There are words whose sting can remain through a whole life!--MARY HOWITT.

A word spoken in due season, how good is it!--PROVERBS 15:22, 23.

WORK.--Get work. Be sure it is better than what you work to get.--MRS. BROWNING.

No man is happier than he who loves and fulfills that particular work for the world which falls to his share. Even though the full understanding of his work, and of its ultimate value, may not be present with him; if he but love it--always assuming that his conscience approves--it brings an abounding satisfaction.--LEO W. GRINDON.

Nothing is impossible to industry.--PERIANDER.

In work consists the true pride of life; grounded in active employment, though early ardor may abate, it never degenerates into indifference, and age lives in perennial youth. Life is a weariness only to the idle, or where the soul is empty.--LEO W. GRINDON.

This we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.--II THESS. 3:10.

If you do not wish for His kingdom do not pray for it. But if you do you must do more than pray for it, you must work for it.--RUSKIN.

No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him. There is always work, and tools to work withal, for those who will; and blessed are the horny hands of toil.--LOWELL.

I doubt if hard work, steadily and regularly carried on, ever yet hurt anybody.--LORD STANLEY.

Women are certainly more happy in this than we men: their employments occupy a smaller portion of their thoughts, and the earnest longing of the heart, the beautiful inner life of the fancy, always commands the greater part.--SCHLEIERMACHER.