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

said to be the two worst evils of our life.--_Spurgeon._

The first step in debt is like the first step in falsehood, almost involving the necessity of proceeding in the same course, debt following debt as lie follows lie. Haydon, the painter, dated his decline from the day on which he first borrowed money.--_Samuel Smiles._

Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity.--_Johnson._

That swamp [of debt] which tempts men towards it with such a pretty covering of flowers and verdure. It is wonderful how soon a man gets up to his chin there,--in a condition in which, spite of himself, he is forced to think chiefly of release, though he had a scheme of the universe in his soul.--_George Eliot._

Youth is in danger until it learns to look upon debts as furies.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

~Deceit.~--No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.--_Hawthorne._

Idiots only may be cozened twice.--_Dryden._

It is a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.--_Fontaine._

There is less misery in being cheated than in that kind of wisdom which perceives, or thinks it perceives, that all mankind are cheats.--_Chapin._

Like unto golden hooks that from the foolish fish their baits do hide.--_Spenser._

Libertines are hideous spiders that often catch pretty butterflies.--_Diderot._

~Decency.~--As beauty of body, with an agreeable carriage, pleases the eye, and that pleasure consists in that we observe all the parts with a certain elegance are proportioned to each other; so does decency of behavior which appears in our lives obtain the approbation of all with whom we converse, from the order, consistency, and moderation of our words and actions.--_Steele._

Virtue and decency are so nearly related that it is difficult to separate them from each other but in our imagination.--_Tully._

~Declamation.~--Fine declamation does not consist in flowery periods, delicate allusions, or musical cadences, but in a plain, open, loose style, where the periods are long and obvious; where the same thought is often exhibited in several points of view.--_Goldsmith._

The art of declamation has been sinking in value from the moment that speakers were foolish enough to publish, and hearers wise enough to read.--_Colton._

~Deeds.~--A word that has been said may be unsaid: it is but air. But when a deed is done, it cannot be undone, nor can our thoughts reach out to all the mischiefs that may follow.--_Longfellow._

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes deeds ill done!--_Shakespeare._

Legal deeds were invented to remind men of their promises, or to convict them of having broken them,--a stigma on the human race.--_Bruyere._

Good actions ennoble us, and we are the sons of our own deeds.--_Cervantes._

We should believe only in works; words are sold for nothing everywhere.--_Rojas._

~Delay.~--We do not directly go about the execution of the purpose that thrills us, but shut our doors behind us, and ramble with prepared minds, as if the half were already done. Our resolution is taking root or hold on the earth then, as seeds first send a shoot downward, which is fed by their own albumen, ere they send one upwards to the light.--_Thoreau._

Time drinketh up the essence of every great and noble action, which ought to be performed! and is delayed in the execution.--_Veeshnoo Sarma._

~Democracy.~--Democracy will itself accomplish the salutary universal change from delusive to real, and make a new blessed world of us by and by.--_Carlyle._

The love of democracy is that of equality.--_Montesquieu._

~Dependence.~--The beautiful must ever rest in the arms of the sublime. The gentle needs the strong to sustain it, as much as the rock-flowers need rocks to grow on, or the ivy the rugged wall which it embraces.--_Mrs. Stowe._

Thou shalt know by experience how salt the savor is of other's bread, and how sad a path it is to climb and descend another's stairs.--_Dante._

How beautifully is it ordered, that as many thousands work for one, so must every individual bring his labor to make the whole! The highest is not to despise the lowest, nor the lowest to envy the highest; each must live in all and by all. Who will not work, neither shall he eat. So God has ordered that men, being in need of each other, should learn to love each other and bear each other's burdens.--_G. A. Sala._

We are never without a pilot. When we know not how to steer, and dare not hoist a sail, we can drift. The current knows the way, though we do not. The ship of heaven guides itself, and will not accept a wooden rudder.--_Emerson._

~Desire.~--It is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it.--_Franklin._

Lack of desire is the greatest riches.--_Seneca._

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

The thirst of desire is never filled, nor fully satisfied.--_Cicero._

The man's desire is for the woman; but the woman's desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man.--_Coleridge._

Desires are the pulse of the soul.--_Manton._

~Despair.~--Considering the unforeseen events of this world, we should be taught that no human condition should inspire men with absolute despair.--_Fielding._

Leaden-eyed despair.--_Keats._

In the lottery of life there are more prizes drawn than blanks, and to one misfortune there are fifty advantages. Despondency is the most unprofitable feeling a man can indulge in.--_De Witt Talmage._

He that despairs limits infinite power to finite apprehensions.--_South._

It is impossible for that man to despair who remembers that his helper is omnipotent.--_Jeremy Taylor._

He that despairs measures Providence by his own little contracted model.--_South._

Juliet was a fool to kill herself, for in three months she'd have married again, and been glad to be quit of Romeo.--_Charles Buxton._

What we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.--_George Eliot._

~Despotism.~--It is difficult for power to avoid despotism. The possessors of rude health; the individualities cut out by a few strokes, solid for the very reason that they are all of a piece; the complete characters whose fibres have never been strained by a doubt; the minds that no questions disturb and no aspirations put out of breath,--these, the strong, are also the tyrants.--_Countess de Gasparin._

There is something among men more capable of shaking despotic power than lightning, whirlwind, or earthquake; that is, the threatened indignation of the whole civilized world.--_Daniel Webster._

~Destiny.~--The scape-goat which we make responsible for all our crimes and follies; a necessity which we set down for invincible, when we have no wish to strive against it.--_Mrs. Balfour._

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.--_George Eliot._

~Detention.~--Never hold any one by the button or the hand, in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them.--_Chesterfield._

~Detraction.~--Happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to mending.--_Shakespeare._

In some unlucky dispositions there is such an envious kind of pride that they cannot endure that any but themselves should be set forth for excellent; so that when they hear one justly praised they will either seek to dismount his virtues, or, if they be like a clear light, they will stab him with a _but_ of detraction; as if there were something yet so foul as did obnubilate even his brightest glory. When their tongue cannot justly condemn him, they will leave him suspected by their silence.--_Feltham._

~Dew.~--That same dew, which sometimes withers buds, was wont to swell, like round and orient pearls, stood now within the pretty flow'rets' eyes, like tears, that did their own disgrace bewail.--_Shakespeare._

Earth's liquid jewelry, wrought of air.--_P. J. Bailey._

~Diet.~--Regimen is better than physic. Every one should be his own physician. We ought to assist, and not to force nature: but more especially we should learn to suffer, grow old, and die. Some things are salutary, and others hurtful. Eat with moderation what you know by experience agrees with your constitution. Nothing is good for the body but what we can digest. What medicine can procure digestion? Exercise. What will recruit strength? Sleep. What will alleviate incurable evils? Patience.--_Voltaire._

Free-livers on a small scale, who are prodigal within the compass of a guinea.--_Washington Irving._

~Difficulties.~--The greatest difficulties lie where we are not looking for them.--_Goethe._

The weak sinews become strong by their conflict with difficulties. Hope is born in the long night of watching and tears. Faith visits us in defeat and disappointment, amid the consciousness of earthly frailty and the crumbling tombstones of mortality.--_Chapin._

How strangely easy difficult things are!--_Charles Buxton._

~Diffidence.~--Nothing sinks a young man into low company, both of women and men, so surely as timidity and diffidence of himself. If he thinks that he shall not, he may depend upon it he will not, please. But with proper endeavors to please, and a degree of persuasion that he shall, it is almost certain that he will.--_Chesterfield._

No congress, nor mob, nor guillotine, nor fire, nor all together, can avail, to cut out, burn, or destroy the offense of superiority in persons. The superiority in him is inferiority in me.--_Emerson._

~Dignity.~--It is at once the thinnest and most effective of all the coverings under which duncedom sneaks and skulks. Most of the men of dignity, who awe or bore their more genial brethren, are simply men who possess the art of passing off their insensibility for wisdom, their dullness for depth, and of concealing imbecility of intellect under haughtiness of manner.--_Whipple._

~Dirt.~--"Ignorance," says Ajax, "is a painless evil;" so, I should think, is dirt, considering the merry faces that go along with it.--_George Eliot._

Martin, if dirt was trumps, what hands you would hold.--_Lamb._

~Disappointment.~--Life often seems like a long shipwreck, of which the debris are friendship, glory, and love: the shores of existence are strewn with them.--_Mme. de Stael._

O world! how many hopes thou dost engulf!--_Alfred de Musset._

Thirsting for the golden fountain of the fable, from how many streams have we turned away, weary and in disgust!--_Bulwer-Lytton._

We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "Oh, nothing!" Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts--not to hurt others.--_George Eliot._

Ah! what seeds for a paradise I bore in my heart, of which birds of prey have robbed me.--_Richter._

~Discourtesy.~--Discourtesy does not spring merely from one bad quality, but from several,--from foolish vanity, from ignorance of what is due to others, from indolence, from stupidity, from distraction of thought, from contempt of others, from jealousy.--_La Bruyere._

~Discovery.~--Through every rift of discovery some seeming anomaly drops out of the darkness, and falls as a golden link in the great chain of order.--_Chapin._

~Discretion.~--Be discreet in all things, and go render it unnecessary to be mysterious about any.--_Wellington._

Though a man has all other perfections and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his particular station of life.--_Addison._

~Dishonesty.~--So grasping is dishonesty that it is no respecter of persons: it will cheat friends as well as foes; and, were it possible, even God himself!--_Bancroft._

~Dispatch.~--Use dispatch.