Pearls of Thought, Maturin Murray Ballou [historical books to read txt] 📗

golden quiver!--_Longfellow._

The weary sun hath made a golden set, and, by the bright track of his fiery car, gives token of a goodly day to-morrow.--_Shakespeare._


U.

~Ugliness.~--I do not know that she was virtuous; but she was always ugly, and with a woman, that is half the battle.--_Heinrich Heine._

Ugliness, after virtue, is the best guardian of a young woman.--_Mme. de Genlis._

~Understanding.~--The eye of the understanding is like the eye of the sense; for as you may see great objects through small crannies or holes, so you may see great axioms of nature through small and contemptible instances.--_Bacon._

In its wider acceptation, understanding is the entire power of perceiving and conceiving, exclusive of the sensibility; the power of dealing with the impressions of sense, and composing them into wholes, according to a law of unity: and in its most comprehensive meaning it includes even simple apprehension.--_Coleridge._

~Unselfishness.~--The essence of true nobility is neglect of self. Let the thought of self pass in, and the beauty of great action is gone, like the bloom from a soiled flower.--_Froude._

~Uprightness.~--To redeem a world sunk in dishonesty has not been given thee. Solely over one man therein thou hast quite absolute control. Him redeem, him make honest.--_Thomas Carlyle._

~Urbanity.~--Poor wine at the table of a rich host is an insult without an apology. Urbanity ushers in water that needs no apology, and gives a zest to the worst vintage.--_Zimmermann._

~Usefulness.~--Nothing in this world is so good as usefulness. It binds your fellow-creatures to you, and you to them; it tends to the improvement of your own character; and it gives you a real importance in society, much beyond what any artificial station can bestow.--_Sir B. C. Brodie._

On the day of his death, in his eightieth year, Elliott, "the Apostle of the Indians," was found teaching an Indian child at his bed-side. "Why not rest from your labors now?" asked a friend. "Because," replied the venerable man, "I have prayed God to render me useful in my sphere, and He has heard my prayers; for now that I can no longer preach, He leaves me strength enough to teach this poor child the alphabet."--_Rev. J. Chaplin._

There is but one virtue--the eternal sacrifice of self.--_George Sand._


V.

~Valentine.~--Hail to thy returning festival, old Bishop Valentine! Great is thy name in the rubric. Like unto thee, assuredly, there is no other mitred father in the calendar.--_Charles Lamb._

The fourteenth of February is a day sacred to St. Valentine! It was a very odd notion, alluded to by Shakespeare, that on this day birds begin to couple; hence, perhaps, arose the custom of sending on this day letters containing professions of love and affection.--_Noah Webster._

~Valor.~--Valor gives awe, and promises protection to those who want heart or strength to defend themselves. This makes the authority of men among women, and that of a master buck in a numerous herd.--_Sir W. Temple._

How strangely high endeavors may be blessed, where piety and valor jointly go.--_Dryden._

Those who believe that the praises which arise from valor are superior to those which proceed from any other virtues have not considered.--_Dryden._

~Vanity.~--Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity.--_Bible._

Our vanities differ as our noses do: all conceit is not the same conceit, but varies in correspondence with the minutiae of mental make in which one of us differs from another.--_George Eliot._

One of the few things I have always most wondered at is, that there should be any such thing as human vanity. If I had any, I had enough to mortify it a few days ago; for I lost my mind for a whole day.--_Pope._

Greater mischiefs happen often from folly, meanness, and vanity than from the greater sins of avarice and ambition.--_Burke._

It is vanity which makes the rake at twenty, the worldly man at forty, and the retired man at sixty. We are apt to think that best in general for which we find ourselves best fitted in particular.--_Pope._

O frail estate of human things.--_Dryden._

The vainest woman is never thoroughly conscious of her beauty till she is loved by the man who sets her own passion vibrating in return.--_George Eliot._

Vanity is the quicksand of reason.--_George Sand._

To be vain is rather a mark of humility than pride. Vain men delight in telling what honors have been done them, what great company they have kept, and the like; by which they plainly confess that these honors were more than their due and such as their friends would not believe if they had not been told. Whereas a man truly proud thinks the greatest honors below his merits, and consequently scorns to boast. I, therefore, deliver it as a maxim, that whoever desires the character of a proud man ought to conceal his vanity.--_Swift._

~Vexations.~--Petty vexations may at times be petty, but still they are vexations. The smallest and most inconsiderable annoyances are the most piercing. As small letters weary the eye most, so also the smallest affairs disturb us most.--_Montaigne._

~Vice.~--As to the general design of providence, the two extremes of vice may serve (like two opposite biases) to keep up the balance of things. When we speak against one capital vice, we ought to speak against its opposite; the middle betwixt both is the point for virtue.--_Pope._

This is the essential evil of vice; it debases a man.--_Chapin._

It is only in some corner of the brain which we leave empty that Vice can obtain a lodging. When she knocks at your door be able to say: "No room for your ladyship: pass on."--_Bulwer-Lytton._

I ne'er heard yet that any of these bolder vices wanted less impudence to gainsay what they did, than to perform it first.--_Shakespeare._

Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to names; to the causes of evil which are permanent, not the occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes in which they appear.--_Burke._

One vice worn out makes us wiser than fifty tutors.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

~Vicissitudes.~--We do not marvel at the sunrise of a joy, only at its sunset! Then, on the other hand, we are amazed at the commencement of a sorrow-storm; but that it should go off in gentle showers we think quite natural.--_Richter._

Who ordered toil as the condition of life, ordered weariness, ordered sickness, ordered poverty, failure, success,--to this man a foremost place, to the other a nameless struggle with the crowd; to that a shameful fall, or paralyzed limb, or sudden accident; to each some work upon the ground he stands on, until he is laid beneath it.--_Thackeray._

~Victory.~--Victory or Westminster Abbey.--_Nelson._

Victory may be honorable to the arms, but shameful to the counsels, of a nation.--_Bolingbroke._

Victory belongs to the most persevering.--_Napoleon._

It is more difficult to look upon victory than upon battle.--_Walter Scott._

~Villainy.~--Villainy, when detected, never gives up, but boldly adds impudence to imposture.--_Goldsmith._

Villainy that is vigilant will be an overmatch for virtue, if she slumber at her post.--_Colton._

~Violence.~--Nothing good comes of violence.--_Luther._

Violence does even justice unjustly.--_Carlyle._

Vehemence without feeling is rant.--_H. Lewes._

~Virtue.~--I willingly confess that it likes me better when I find virtue in a fair lodging than when I am bound to seek it in an ill-favored creature.--_Sir P. Sidney._

This is the tax a man must pay to his virtues--they hold up a torch to his vices, and render those frailties notorious in him which would have passed without observation in another.--_Colton._

True greatness is sovereign wisdom. We are never deceived by our virtues.--_Lamartine._

It would not be easy, even for an unbeliever, to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete, than to endeavor so to live that Christ would approve our life.--_John Stuart Mill._

Most men admire virtue, who follow not her lore.--_Milton._

To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue: these five are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.--_Confucius._

Of the two, I prefer those who render vice lovable to those who degrade virtue.--_Joubert._

No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us. Our integrity is never worth so much as when we have parted with our all to keep it.--_Colton._

Virtue can see to do what virtue would by her own radiant light, though sun and moon were in the flat sea sunk.--_Milton._

Virtue is voluntary, vice involuntary.--_Plato._

Virtue is a rough way but proves at night a bed of down.--_Wotton._

Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! virtue is at hand.--_Confucius._

Virtues that shun the day and lie concealed in the smooth seasons and the calm of life.--_Addison._

That virtue which requires to be ever guarded is scarce worth the sentinel.--_Goldsmith._

Why expect that extraordinary virtues should be in one person united, when one virtue makes a man extraordinary? Alexander is eminent for his courage; Ptolemy for his wisdom; Scipio for his continence; Trajan for his love of truth; Constantius for his temperance.--_Zimmermann._

Virtue dwells at the head of a river, to which we cannot get but by rowing against the stream.--_Feltham._

Our virtues live upon our income, our vices consume our capital.--_J. Petit Senn._

Wealth is a weak anchor, and glory cannot support a man; this is the law of God, that virtue only is firm, and cannot be shaken by a tempest.--_Pythagoras._

All bow to virtue and then walk away.--_De Finod._

Virtue is an angel; but she is a blind one, and must ask of Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal. Mere knowledge, on the other hand, like a Swiss mercenary, is ready to combat either in the ranks of sin or under the banners of righteousness,--ready to forge cannon-balls or to print New Testaments, to navigate a corsair's vessel or a missionary ship.--_Horace Mann._

~Vulgarity.~--The vulgarity of inanimate things requires time to get accustomed to; but living, breathing, bustling, plotting, planning, human vulgarity is a species of moral ipecacuanha, enough to destroy any comfort.--_Carlyle._

Dirty work wants little talent and no conscience.--_George Eliot._


W.

~Waiting.~--It is the slowest pulsation which is the most vital. The hero will then know how to wait, as well as to make haste. All good abides with him who waiteth wisely.--_Thoreau._

~Want.~--Nothing makes men sharper than want.--_Addison._

Hundreds would never have known _want_ if they had not first known _waste_.--_Spurgeon._

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

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._

~War.~--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._

Wherever there is war, there must be injustice on one side or the other, or on both. There have been wars which were little more than trials of strength between friendly nations, and in which the injustice was not to each other, but to the God who gave them life. But in a malignant war there is injustice of ignobler kind at once to God and man, which must be stemmed for both their sakes.--_Ruskin._

Civil wars leave nothing but tombs.--_Lamartine._

The fate of war is to be exalted in the morning, and low enough at night!