Many Thoughts of Many Minds Part 2

We must not take the faults of our youth into our old age; for old age brings with it its own defects.--GOETHE.

Learn to live well, or fairly make your will; You've play'd, and lov'd, and ate, and drank your fill; Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age Comes t.i.tt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage.

--POPE.

If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should not grow old.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.

Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.--VICTOR HUGO.

Remember that some of the brightest drops in the chalice of life may still remain for us in old age. The last draught which a kind Providence gives us to drink, though near the bottom of the cup, may, as is said of the draught of the Roman of old, have at the very bottom, instead of dregs, most costly pearls.--W.A. NEWMAN.

Begin to patch up thine old body for heaven.--SHAKESPEARE.

Few people know how to be old.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

When men grow virtuous in their old age, they are merely making a sacrifice to G.o.d of the devil's leavings.--SWIFT.

The defects of the mind, like those of the countenance, increase with age.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

He who would pa.s.s the declining years of his life with honor and comfort, should when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young.--ADDISON.

Winter, which strips the leaves from around us, makes us see the distant regions they formerly concealed; so does old age rob us of our enjoyments, only to enlarge the prospect of eternity before us.--RICHTER.

The easiest thing for our friends to discover in us, and the hardest thing for us to discover in ourselves, is that we are growing old.

--H.W. SHAW.

AMBITION.--Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.--LONGFELLOW.

He who ascends to mountain tops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; He who surpa.s.ses or subdues mankind, Must look down on the hate of those below.

--SOUTHEY.

They that stand high, have many blasts to shake them; And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.

--SHAKESPEARE.

The path of glory leads but to the grave.--GRAY.

We should be careful to deserve a good reputation by doing well; and when that care is once taken, not to be over anxious about the success.--ROCHESTER.

Say what we will, you may be sure that ambition is an error; its wear and tear of heart are never recompensed,--it steals away the freshness of life,--it deadens its vivid and social enjoyments,--it shuts our souls to our own youth,--and we are old ere we remember that we have made a fever and a labor of our raciest years.--LYTTON.

I charge thee, fling away ambition: By that sin fell the angels.

--SHAKESPEARE.

A n.o.ble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself, and a mean man by one which is lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other, ambition. Ambition is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.--BEECHER.

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 brutified his nature, and quenched the spirit of immortality, which is his portion.

--SOUTHEY.

Ambition has but one reward for all: A little power, a little transient fame, A grave to rest in, and a fading name!

--WILLIAM WINTER.

All my ambition is, I own, To profit and to please unknown; Like streams supplied from springs below, Which scatter blessings as they go.

--DR. COTTON.

ANGELS.--If you woo the company of the angels in your waking hours, they will be sure to come to you in your sleep.--G.D. PRENTICE.

The accusing spirit, which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in; and the recording angel, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out forever.--STERNE.

There are two angels that attend unseen Each one of us, and in great books record Our good and evil deeds. He who writes down The good ones, after every action closes His volume, and ascends with it to G.o.d.

The other keeps his dreadful day-book open Till sunset, that we may repent; which doing, The record of the action fades away, And leaves a line of white across the page.

Now if my act be good, as I believe it, It cannot be recalled. It is already Sealed up in heaven, as a good deed accomplished.

The rest is yours.

--LONGFELLOW.

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.

--MILTON.

ANGER.--And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain.

--COLERIDGE.

Anger is implanted in us as a sort of sting, to make us gnash with our teeth against the devil, to make us vehement against him, not to set us in array against each other.

When anger rushes unrestrain'd to action, Like a hot steed, it stumbles in its way.

--SAVAGE.

Lamentation is the only musician that always, like a screech-owl, alights and sits on the roof of an angry man.--PLUTARCH.

He is a fool who cannot be angry; but he is a wise man who will not.--SENECA.

Men in rage strike those that wish them best.--SHAKESPEARE.

Men often make up in wrath what they want in reason.--W.R. ALGER.

Anger is the most impotent pa.s.sion that accompanies the mind of man; it effects nothing it goes about; and hurts the man who is possessed by it more than any other against whom it is directed.--CLARENDON.

When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.

--JEFFERSON.

An angry man opens his mouth and shuts up his eyes.--CATO.

When a man is wrong and won't admit it, he always gets angry.

--HALIBURTON.

Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.--EPHESIANS 4:26.

Anger begins with folly and ends with repentance.--PYTHAGORAS.