Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth.
To a resolute mind, wishing to do is the first step toward doing. But if we do not wish to do a thing it becomes impossible.
If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.
And when my own Mark Antony Against young Caesar strove, And Rome's whole world was set in arms, The cause was,--all for love.
There are three things in speech that ought to be considered before some things are spoken--the manner, the place and the time.
The solitary Bee Whose buzzing was the only sound of life, Flew there on restless wing, Seeking in vain one blossom where to fix.
I do not cast my eyes away from my troubles. I pack them in as little compass as I can for myself, and never let them annoy others.
Whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that is sin to you, however, innocent it may be in itself.
The true one of youth's love, proving a faithful helpmate in those years when the dream of life is over, and we live in its realities.
I cannot believe in an eternity of hell. I hope God will forgive me if I err; but in this matter I cannot say, "Lord help my unbelief."
All deception in the course of life is indeed nothing else but a lie reduced to practice, and falsehood passing from words into things.
A house is never perfectly furnished for enjoyment unless there is a child in it rising three years old, and a kitten rising three weeks.
There is a magic in that little world, home; it is a mystic circle that surrounds comforts and virtues never know beyond its hallowed limits.
How beautiful is night! A dewy freshness fills the silent air; No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain, Breaks the serene of heaven.
Never let a man imagine that he can pursue a good end by evil means, without sinning against his own soul. The evil effect on himself is certain.
From his brimstone bed, at break of day, A-walking the Devil is gone, To look at his little snug farm of the World, And see how his stock went on.
The grave is but the threshold of eternity. What a world were this, how unendurable its weight, If they whom death hath sundered, did not meet again!
A fastidious taste is like a squeamish appetite; the one has its origin in some disease of the mind, as the other has in some ailment of the stomach.
My notions of life are much the same as they are about traveling; there is a good deal of amusement on the road; but, after all, one wants to be at rest.
Kitten is in the animal world what the rosebud is in the garden; the one the most beautiful of all young creatures, the other the loveliest of all opening flowers.
They sin who tell us Love can die: With life all other passions fly, All others are but vanity, In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell, Nor Avarice in the vaults of Hell.
Be thankful that your lot has fallen on times when, though there may be many evil tongues and exasperated spirits, there are none who have fire and fagot at command.
A good man and a wise man may at times be angry with the world, at times grieved for it; but be sure no man was ever discontented with the world who did his duty in it.
Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of the state. Like beams in a house or bones to a body, so is order to all things.
"You are old, Father William," the young man cried, "The few locks which are left you are gray; You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man,- Now tell me the reason I pray."
A man may be cheerful and contented in celibacy, but I do not think he can ever be happy; it is an unnatural state, and the best feelings of his nature are never called into action.
My days among the dead are passed; Around me I behold, Where'er these casual eyes are cast, The mighty minds of old; My never-failing friends are they, With whom I converse day by day.
And everybody praised the Duke Who this great fight did win. "But what good came of it at last?" Quoth little Peterkin. "Why, that I cannot tell," said he, "But 'twas a famous victory."
O Reader! hast thou eer stood to see The Holly-tree? The eye that contemplates it well perceies Its glossy leaes Ordered by an Intelligence so wise As might confound the Atheist's sophistries.
Let us depart! the universal sun Confines not to one land his blessed beams; Nor is man rooted, like a tree, whose seed, the winds on some ungenial soil have cast there, where it cannot prosper.
Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of the state. As the beams to a house, as the bones to the microcosm of man, so is order to all things.
Oh, when a mother meets on high The babe she lost in infancy, Hath she not then for pains and fears, The day of woe, the watchful night, For all her sorrow, all her tears, An over-payment of delight?
Faith in the hereafter is as necessary for the intellectual as the moral character; and to the man of letters, as well as to the Christian, the present forms but the slightest portion of his existence.
The history of any private family, however humble, could it be fully related for five or six generations, would illustrate the state and progress of society better than the most elaborate dissertation.
The three indispensable of genius are: understanding, feeling, and perseverance; the three things that enrich genius are: contentment of mind, the cherishing of good thoughts, and the exercise of memory
And as, when all the summer trees are seen So bright and green, The Holly leaes a sober hue display Less bright than they, But when the bare and wintry woods we see, What then so cheerful as the Holly-tree?
It is not for man to rest in absolute contentment. He is born to hopes and aspirations as the sparks fly upward, unless he has brutalized his nature and quenched the spirit of immortality which is his portion.
Our restlessness in this world seems to indicate that we are intended for a better. We have all of us a longing after happiness; and surely the Creator will gratify all the natural desires he has implanted in us.
Beasts, birds, and insects, even to the minutest and meanest of their kind, act with the unerring providence of instinct; man, the while, who possesses a higher faculty, abuses it, and therefore goes blundering on.
For a young and presumptuous poet a disposition to write satires is one of the most dangerous he can encourage. It tempts him to personalities, which are not always forgiven after he has repented and become ashamed of them.
Whoever has tasted the breath of morning knows that the most invigorating and most delightful hours of then day are commonly spent in bed; though it is the evident intention of nature that we should enjoy and profit by them.
She comes majestic with her swelling sails, The gallant Ship: along her watery way, Homeward she drives before the favouring gales; Now flirting at their length the streamers play, And now they ripple with the ruffling breeze.
Little, indeed, does it concern us in this our mortal stage, to inquire whence the spirit hath come; but of what infinite concern is the consideration whither it is going. Surely such consideration demands the study of a life.
The march of intellect is proceeding at quick time; and if its progress be not accompanied by a corresponding improvement in morals and religion, the faster it proceeds, with the more violence will you be hurried down the road to ruin.
There are some readers who have never read an essay on taste; and if they take my advice they never will, for they can no more improve their taste by so doing than they could improve their appetite or digestion by studying a cookery-book.
Some voluntary castaways there will always be, whom no fostering kindness and no parental care can preserve from self-destruction; but if any are lost for want of care and culture, there is a sin of omission in the society to which they belong.
Go, little Book! From this my solitude I cast thee on the Waters,--go thy ways: And if, as I believe, thy vein be good, The World will find thee after many days. Be it with thee according to thy worth: Go, little Book; in faith I send thee forth.
I have heard a good story of Charles Fox. When his house was on fire, he found all efforts to save it useless, and, being a good draughtsman, he went up to the next hill to make a drawing of the fire,--the best instance of philosophy I ever heard of.
Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life. They appear so while they are passing; they seem to have been so when we look back on them; and they take up more room in our memory than all the years that succeed them.
There was a time when I believed in the persuadability of man, and had the mania of man-mending. Experience has taught me better. The ablest physician can do little in the great lazar-house of society. He acts the wisest part who retires from the contagion.