Part 18

There is but one thing that can free a man from superstition, and that is belief. All history proves it. The most sceptical have ever been the most credulous.--GEORGE MACDONALD.

Superstition! that horrid incubus which dwelt in darkness, shunning the light, with all its racks, and poison chalices, and foul sleeping draughts, is passing away without return. Religion cannot pass away. The burning of a little straw may hide the stars of the sky; but the stars are there and will reappear.--CARLYLE.

Religion worships God, while superstition profanes that worship.--SENECA.

Superstition is the only religion of which base souls are capable. --JOUBERT.

Superstition always inspires littleness, religion grandeur of mind; the superstitious raises beings inferior to himself to deities.--LAVATER.

The child taught to believe any occurrence a good or evil omen, or any day of the week lucky, hath a wide inroad made upon the soundness of his understanding.--DR. WATTS.

Superstition is a senseless fear of God; religion, the pious worship of God.--CICERO.

Superstition renders a man a fool, and scepticism makes him mad. --FIELDING.

I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.--VOLTAIRE.

SYMPATHY.--Sympathy is the first great lesson which man should learn. It will be ill for him if he proceeds no farther; if his emotions are but excited to roll back on his heart, and to be fostered in luxurious quiet. But unless he learns to feel for things in which he has no personal interest, he can achieve nothing generous or noble.--TALFOURD.

To commiserate is sometimes more than to give; for money is external to a man's self, but he who bestows compassion communicates his own soul.--MOUNTFORD.

A helping word to one in trouble is often like a switch on a railroad track,--but one inch between wreck and smooth-rolling prosperity. --BEECHER.

The greatest pleasures of which the human mind is susceptible are the pleasures of consciousness and sympathy.--PARKE GODWIN.

What gem hath dropp'd and sparkles o'er his chain? The tear most sacred, shed for other's pain, That starts at once--bright--pure--from pity's mine, Already polish'd by the Hand Divine. --BYRON.

Sympathy is especially a Christian duty.--SPURGEON.

TACT.--Grant graciously what you cannot refuse safely, and conciliate those you cannot conquer.--COLTON.

A little management may often evade resistance, which a vast force might vainly strive to overcome.

TALENT.--Talent of the highest order, and such as is calculated to command admiration, may exist apart from wisdom.--ROBERT HALL.

Whatever you are from nature, keep to it; never desert your own line of talent. Be what Nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing. --SYDNEY SMITH.

Talent without tact is only half talent.--HORACE GREELEY.

TALKING.--Though we have two eyes, we are supplied with but one tongue. Draw your own moral.--ALPHONSE KARR.

No great talker ever did any great thing yet, in this world.--OUIDA.

If you light upon an impertinent talker, that sticks to you like a bur, to the disappointment of your important occasions, deal freely with him, break off the discourse, and pursue your business.--PLUTARCH.

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

Such as thy words are, such will thy affections be esteemed; and such will thy deeds as thy affections, and such thy life as thy deeds. --SOCRATES.

But far more numerous was the herd of such, Who think too little, and who talk too much. --DRYDEN.

He who indulges in liberty of speech, will hear things in return which he will not like.--TERENCE.

The tongue is the instrument of the greatest good and the greatest evil that is done in the world.--SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

He who seldom speaks, and with one calm well-timed word can strike dumb the loquacious, is a genius or a hero.--LAVATER.

A wise man reflects before he speaks; a fool speaks, and then reflects on what he has uttered.--FROM THE FRENCH.

Those who have few affairs to attend to are great speakers. The less men think, the more they talk.--MONTESQUIEU.

Speaking much is a sign of vanity; for he that is lavish in words, is a niggard in deed.--SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

TEARS.--Tears of joy are the dew in which the sun of righteousness is mirrored.--RICHTER.

There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.--WASHINGTON IRVING.

The tear down childhood's cheek that flows, Is like the dewdrop on the rose; When next the summer breeze comes by, And waves the bush, the flower is dry. --WALTER SCOTT.

Shame on those breasts of stone that cannot melt in soft adoption of another's sorrow.--AARON HILL.

Tears may soothe the wounds they cannot heal.--THOMAS PAINE.

Hide not thy tears; weep boldly, and be proud to give the flowing virtue manly way; it is nature's mark to know an honest heart by.--AARON HILL.

Tears are a good alterative, but a poor diet.--H.W. SHAW.

They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.--PSALM 126:5.

Every tear is a verse, and every heart is a poem.--MARC ANDRÉ.

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. --PSALM 30:5.

TEMPER.--The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

In vain he seeketh others to suppress, Who hath not learn'd himself first to subdue. --SPENSER.

With "gentleness" in his own character, "comfort" in his house, and "good temper" in his wife, the earthly felicity of man is complete. --FROM THE GERMAN.

Nothing leads more directly to the breach of charity, and to the injury and molestation of our fellow-creatures, than the indulgence of an ill temper.--BLAIR.

Too many have no idea of the subjection of their temper to the influence of religion, and yet what is changed, if the temper is not? If a man is as passionate, malicious, resentful, sullen, moody, or morose after his conversion as before it, what is he converted from or to?--JOHN ANGELL JAMES.

If we desire to live securely, comfortably, and quietly, that by all honest means we should endeavor to purchase the good will of all men, and provoke no man's enmity needlessly; since any man's love may be useful, and every man's hatred is dangerous.--ISAAC BARROW.

A sunny temper gilds the edges of life's blackest cloud.--GUTHRIE.

TEMPERANCE.--Temperance puts wood on the fire, meal in the barrel, flour in the tub, money in the purse, credit in the country, contentment in the house, clothes on the back, and vigor in the body.--FRANKLIN.

Fools! not to know how far an humble lot Exceeds abundance by injustice got; How health and temperance bless the rustic swain, While luxury destroys her pamper'd train. --HESIOD.

Men live best on moderate means: Nature has dispensed to all men wherewithal to be happy, if mankind did but understand how to use her gifts.--CLAUDIAN.

Temperance is a virtue which casts the truest lustre upon the person it is lodged in, and has the most general influence upon all other particular virtues of any that the soul of man is capable of; indeed so general, that there is hardly any noble quality or endowment of the mind, but must own temperance either for its parent or its nurse; it is the greatest strengthener and clearer of reason, and the best preparer of it for religion, the sister of prudence, and the handmaid to devotion.--DEAN SOUTH.

It is all nonsense about not being able to work without ale and cider and fermented liquors. Do lions and cart-horses drink ale?--SYDNEY SMITH.

Temperance is a bridle of gold; he who uses it rightly, is more like a god than a man.--BURTON.

Except thou desire to hasten thine end, take this for a general rule, that thou never add any artificial heat to thy body by wine or spice. --SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

Drinking water neither makes a man sick, nor in debt, nor his wife a widow.--JOHN NEAL.

Moderation is the silken string running through the pearl chain of all virtues.--FULLER.

If you wish to keep the mind clear and the body healthy, abstain from all fermented liquors.--SYDNEY SMITH.

Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty, for in my youth I never did apply hot and rebellious liquors in my blood.--SHAKESPEARE.

TEMPTATION.--'Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall. --SHAKESPEARE.

Some temptations come to the industrious, but all temptations attack the idle.--SPURGEON.

If men had only temptations to great sins, they would always be good; but the daily fight with little ones accustoms them to defeat.--RICHTER.

Better shun the bait than struggle in the snare.--DRYDEN.

Every temptation is an opportunity of our getting nearer to God. --J.Q. ADAMS.

When a man resists sin on human motives only, he will not hold out long.--BISHOP WILSON.

We must not willfully thrust ourselves into the mouth of danger, or draw temptations upon us. Such forwardness is not resolution, but rashness; nor is it the fruit of a well-ordered faith, but an overdaring presumption.--KING.

But Satan now is wiser than of yore, And tempts by making rich, not making poor. --POPE.

God is better served in resisting a temptation to evil than in many formal prayers.--WILLIAM PENN.

Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.--MATTHEW 26:41.

THOUGHT.--Thought is the first faculty of man; to express it is one of his first desires; to spread it, his dearest privilege.--ABBÉ RAYNAL.

Those who have finished by making all others think with them, have usually been those who began by daring to think with themselves.--COLTON.

Our brains are seventy year clocks. The Angel of Life winds them up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the hands of the Angel of the Resurrection.--HOLMES.

Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears; To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. --WORDSWORTH.

In matters of conscience first thoughts are best, in matters of prudence last thoughts are best.--ROBERT HALL.

Man thinks, and at once becomes the master of the beings that do not think.--BUFFON.

Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.--DISRAELI.

Thinking leads man to knowledge. He may see and hear, and read and learn, as much as he please; he will never know any of it, except that which he has thought over, that which by thinking he has made the property of his mind. Is it then saying too much if I say, that man by thinking only becomes truly man? Take away thought from man's life, and what remains?--PESTALOZZI.

One thought cannot awake without awakening others.--MARIE EBNER-ESCHENBACH.

Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.--HARE.

A man would do well to carry a pencil in his pocket, and write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable, and should be secured, because they seldom return.--BACON.

Every pure thought is a glimpse of God.--C.A. BARTOL.

Speech is external thought, and thought internal speech.--RIVAROL.

Learning without thought is labor lost.--CONFUCIUS.

The three foundations of thought: Perspicuity, amplitude and justness. The three ornaments of thought: Clearness, correctness and novelty. --CATHERALL.

As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.--PROVERBS 23:7.

TIME.--Time is like money; the less we have of it to spare, the further we make it go.--H.W. SHAW.

Youth is not rich in time, it may be poor; Part with it as with money, sparing; pay No moment but in purchase of its worth; And what it's worth, ask death-beds; they can tell. --YOUNG.

Redeem the misspent time that's past, And live this day as 'twere thy last. --KEN.

Time, the cradle of hope, but the grave of ambition, is the stern corrector of fools, but the salutary counselor of the wise, bringing all they dread to the one, and all they desire to the other.--COLTON.

The time which passes over our heads so imperceptibly makes the same gradual change in habits, manners and character, as in personal appearance. At the revolution of every five years we find ourselves another and yet the same;--there is a change of views, and no less of the light in which we regard them; a change of motives as well as of action.--WALTER SCOTT.

Let me therefore live as if every moment were to be my last.--SENECA.

The great rule of moral conduct is, next to God, to respect time. --LAVATER.

Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever!--HORACE MANN.

As every thread of gold is valuable, so is every minute of time.--MASON.

No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time, who never loses any.--THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Make use of time, if thou valuest eternity. Yesterday cannot be recalled; to-morrow cannot be assured; to-day only is thine, which, if thou procrastinatest, thou losest; which loss is lost forever.--JEREMY TAYLOR.

He is a good time-server that improves the present for God's glory and his own salvation.--THOMAS FULLER.

Our lives are either spent in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end to them.--SENECA.

Time is given us that we may take care for eternity; and eternity will not be too long to regret the loss of our time if we have misspent it.--FÉNELON.

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.--HAWTHORNE.

Dost thou love life, then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.--FRANKLIN.

TOLERATION.--Let us be very gentle with our neighbors' failings, and forgive our friends their debts as we hope ourselves to be forgiven. --THACKERAY.

There is nothing to do with men but to love them; to contemplate their virtues with admiration, their faults with pity and forbearance, and their injuries with forgiveness.--DEWEY.

Tolerance is the only real test of civilization.--ARTHUR HELPS.

It requires far more of constraining love of Christ to love our cousins and neighbors as members of the heavenly family than to feel the heart warm to our suffering brethren in Tuscany and Madeira. --ELIZABETH CHARLES.

If thou canst not make thyself such an one as thou wouldst, how canst thou expect to have another in all things to thy liking?--THOMAS À KEMPIS.

The religion that fosters intolerance needs another Christ to die for it.--BEECHER.

Let us often think of our own infirmities, and we shall become indulgent toward those of others.--FÉNELON.

Has not God borne with you these many years? Be ye tolerant to others.--HOSEA BALLOU.

TRAVEL.--A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.--SAADI.

He who never leaves his country is full of prejudices.--CARLO GOLDONI.

Railway traveling is not traveling at all; it is merely being sent to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel.--RUSKIN.

To roam giddily, and be everywhere but at home, such freedom doth a banishment become.--DONNE.

The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.--DR. JOHNSON.

He travels safest in the dark who travels lightest.--CORTES.

Usually speaking, the worst-bred person in company is a young traveler just returned from abroad.--SWIFT.

TRUST.--I think we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. --THOREAU.

Trust with a child-like dependence upon God, and you shall fear no evil, for be assured that even "if the enemy comes in like a flood" the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him. While at that dread hour, when the world cannot help you, when all the powers of nature are in vain, yea, when your heart and your flesh shall fail you, you will be enabled still to rely with peace upon Him who has said "I will be the strength of thy heart and thy portion for ever." --H. BLUNT.

To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.--GEORGE MACDONALD.

Whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he.--PROVERBS 16:20.

TRUTH.--There is no right faith in believing what is true, unless we believe it because it is true.--WHATELY.

Truth crushed to earth shall rise again; The eternal years of God are hers; But error, wounded, writhes with pain, And dies among his worshipers. --BRYANT.

Truth is simple, requiring neither study nor art.--AMMIAN.

And all the people then shouted, and said, Great is truth, and mighty above all things.--ESDRAS.

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smooth pebble, or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.--NEWTON.

For truth has such a face and such a mien, As to be lov'd needs only to be seen. --DRYDEN.

Without courage there cannot be truth, and without truth there can be no other virtue.--WALTER SCOTT.

Truth is violated by falsehood, and it may be equally outraged by silence.--AMMIAN.

Truth is always consistent with itself, and needs nothing to help it out. It is always near at hand, and sits upon our lips, and is ready to drop out before we are aware; whereas a lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention upon the rack; and one trick needs a great many more to make it good.--TILLOTSON.

You need not tell all the truth, unless to those who have a right to know it; but let all you tell be truth.--HORACE MANN.

No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.--BACON.

Nothing from man's hands, nor law, nor constitution, can be final. Truth alone is final.--CHARLES SUMNER.

The greatest friend of truth is time; her greatest enemy is prejudice; and her constant companion is humility.--COLTON.

I have seldom known any one who deserted truth in trifles that could be trusted in matters of importance.--PALEY.

Bodies are cleansed by water; the mind is purified by truth.--HORACE MANN.

Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication, a duty.--MME. DE STAEL.

Truth is one; And, in all lands beneath the sun, Whoso hath eyes to see may see The tokens of its unity. --WHITTIER.

Truth is the shortest and nearest way to our end, carrying us thither in a straight line.--TILLOTSON.

The expression of truth is simplicity.--SENECA.

What we have in us of the image of God is the love of truth and justice.--DEMOSTHENES.

Truth should be the first lesson of the child and the last aspiration of manhood; for it has been well said that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.--WHITTIER.

The firmest and noblest ground on which people can live is truth; the real with the real; a ground on which nothing is assumed, but where they speak and think and do what they must, because they are so and not otherwise.--EMERSON.

UNHAPPINESS.--The most unhappy of all men is he who believes himself to be so.--HENRY HOME.

A perverse temper and fretful disposition will, wherever they prevail render any state of life whatsoever unhappy.--CICERO.

What do people mean when they talk about unhappiness? It is not so much unhappiness as impatience that from time to time possesses men, and then they choose to call themselves miserable.--GOETHE.

VANITY.--All men are selfish, but the vain man is in love with himself. He admires, like the lover his adored one, everything which to others is indifferent.--AUERBACH.

There is no limit to the vanity of this world. Each spoke in the wheel thinks the whole strength of the wheel depends upon it.--H.W. SHAW.

Every man has just as much vanity as he wants understanding.--POPE.

Vanity is the natural weakness of an ambitious man, which exposes him to the secret scorn and derision of those he converses with, and ruins the character he is so industrious to advance by it.--ADDISON.

An egotist will always speak of himself, either in praise or in censure; but a modest man ever shuns making himself the subject of his conversation.--LA BRUYÈRE.

Vanity is the foundation of the most ridiculous and contemptible vices--the vices of affectation and common lying.--ADAM SMITH.

Vanity keeps persons in favor with themselves who are out of favor with all others.--SHAKESPEARE.

There is no restraining men's tongues or pens when charged with a little vanity.--WASHINGTON.

Vanity makes men ridiculous, pride odious and ambition terrible.--STEELE.

It is our own vanity that makes the vanity of others intolerable to us.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

Vanity is a strange passion; rather than be out of a job it will brag of its vices.--H.W. SHAW.

Extreme vanity sometimes hides under the garb of ultra modesty. --MRS. JAMESON.

She neglects her heart who too closely studies her glass.--LAVATER.

Verily, every man at his best state is altogether vanity.--PSALM 39:5.

VICE.--Vice has more martyrs than virtue; and it often happens that men suffer more to be lost than to be saved.--COLTON.

The vicious obey their passions, as slaves do their masters.--DIOGENES.

A few vices are sufficient to darken many virtues.--PLUTARCH.

Vice stings us, even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us, even in our pains.--COLTON.

One sin another doth provoke.--SHAKESPEARE.

What maintains one vice would bring up two children.--FRANKLIN.

Vice and virtue chiefly imply the relation of our actions to men in this world; sin and holiness rather imply their relation to God and the other world.--DR. WATTS.

He that has energy enough in his constitution to root out a vice should go a little farther, and try to plant in a virtue in its place, otherwise he will have his labor to renew.--COLTON.

Vices that are familiar we pardon, and only new ones reprehend. --PUBLIUS SYRUS.

This is the essential evil of vice: it debases a man.--CHAPIN.

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace. --POPE.

Vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful.--FRANKLIN.

VIRTUE.--Virtue has many preachers, but few martyrs.--HELVETIUS.

Virtue alone is sweet society, It keeps the key to all heroic hearts, And opens you a welcome in them all. --EMERSON.

The virtue of a man ought to be measured not by his extraordinary exertions, but by his every-day conduct.--PASCAL.

Virtue consisteth of three parts,--temperance, fortitude, and justice.--EPICURUS.

Virtue maketh men on the earth famous, in their graves illustrious, in the heavens immortal.--CHILD.

When we pray for any virtue, we should cultivate the virtue as well as pray for it; the form of your prayers should be the rule of your life.--JEREMY TAYLOR.

To be ambitious of true honor, of the true glory and perfection of our natures, is the very principle and incentive of virtue.--SIR P. SIDNEY.

Virtue is everywhere the same, because it comes from God, while everything else is of men.--VOLTAIRE.

O let us still the secret joy partake, To follow virtue even for virtue's sake. --POPE.