Many Thoughts of Many Minds Part 35

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.--CHARLOTTE BRONTE.

That man lives twice that lives the first life well.--HERRICK.

He most lives who thinks most, feels the n.o.blest, acts the best; and he whose heart beats the quickest lives the longest.--JAMES MARTINEAU.

Life is probation: mortal man was made To solve the solemn problem--right or wrong.

--JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

Live virtuously, my lord, and you cannot die too soon, nor live too long.--LADY RACHEL RUSSELL.

Our life contains a thousand springs, And dies if one be gone; Strange that a harp of thousand strings Should keep in tune so long.

--DR. WATTS.

And he that lives to live forever never fears dying.--WILLIAM PENN.

We live in deeds, not years; in thought, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial.

We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives, Who thinks most, feels the n.o.blest, acts the best.

--BAILEY.

This is the state of man; to-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blus.h.i.+ng honors thick upon him: The third day, comes a frost, a killing frost; And,--when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a ripening,--nips his root, And then he falls.

--SHAKESPEARE.

The end of life is to be like unto G.o.d; and the soul following G.o.d, will be like unto Him; He being the beginning, middle, and end of all things.--SOCRATES.

For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow.--JOB 8:9.

You and I are now nearly in middle age, and have not yet become soured and shrivelled with the wear and tear of life. Let us pray to be delivered from that condition where life and nature have no fresh, sweet sensations for us.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.--DR. JOHNSON.

I slept and dreamed that life was beauty; I woke and found that life was duty.

--ELLEN STURGIS HOOPER.

The truest end of life is to know the life that never ends.--WILLIAM PENN.

Let those who thoughtfully consider the brevity of life remember the length of eternity.--BISHOP KEN.

LIGHT.--We should render thanks to G.o.d for having produced this temporal light, which is the smile of heaven and joy of the world, spreading it like a cloth of gold over the face of the air and earth, and lighting it as a torch by which we might behold His works.--CAUSSIN.

Hail, holy light! offspring of heaven first-born.--MILTON.

Light itself is a great corrective. A thousand wrongs and abuses that are grown in darkness disappear, like owls and bats, before the light of day.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.

I am the light of the world.--JOHN 9:5.

No wonder that light is so frequently used by the sacred oracles as the symbol of our best blessings. Of the Gospel revelation one apostle says, "The night is far spent, and the day is at hand." Another, under the impression of the same auspicious event, thus applied the language of ancient prophecy: "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up."--BASELEY.

The light in the world comes princ.i.p.ally from two sources,--the sun, and the student's lamp.--BOVEE.

LOVE.--Love is the purification of the heart from self; it strengthens and enn.o.bles the character, gives higher motives and a n.o.bler aim to every action of life, and makes both man and woman strong, n.o.ble, and courageous.--MISS JEWSBURY.

We never can willingly offend where we sincerely love.--ROWLAND HILL.

It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know it has begun. A thousand heralds proclaim it to the listening air, a thousand messengers betray it to the eye. Tone, act, att.i.tude and look, the signals upon the countenance, the electric telegraph of touch,--all these betray the yielding citadel before the word itself is uttered, which, like the key surrendered, opens every avenue and gate of entrance, and renders retreat impossible.--LONGFELLOW.

Love and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation.--EMERSON.

If there is anything that keeps the mind open to angel visits, and repels the ministry of ill, it is human love.--N.P. WILLIS.

The first symptom of true love in a young man is timidity, in a girl it is boldness. The two s.e.xes have a tendency to approach, and each a.s.sumes the qualities of the other.--VICTOR HUGO.

The lover's pleasure, like that of the hunter, is in the chase, and the brightest beauty loses half its merit, as the flower its perfume, when the willing hand can reach it too easily. There must be doubt; there must be difficulty and danger.--WALTER SCOTT.

Love is of all stimulants the most powerful. It sharpens the wits like danger, and the memory like hatred; it spurs the will like ambition; it intoxicates like wine.--A.B. EDWARDS.

Let those love now who never loved before, Let those that always loved now love the more.

--PARNELL.

Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above; For love is heaven, and heaven is love.

--SCOTT.

If thou neglectest thy love to thy neighbor, in vain thou professest thy love to G.o.d; for by thy love to G.o.d the love to thy neighbor is begotten, and by the love to thy neighbor, thy love to G.o.d is nourished.--QUARLES.

Love's like the measles--all the worse when it comes late in life.

--JERROLD.

Love is strong as death. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.--SONG OF SOLOMON 8:6-7.

Love is the fulfilling of the law.--ROMANS 13:10.

Love's sweetest meanings are unspoken; the full heart knows no rhetoric of words.--BOVEE.

A woman is more considerate in affairs of love than a man; because love is more the study and business of her life.--WAs.h.i.+NGTON IRVING.

Love, it has been said, flows downward. The love of parents for their children has always been far more powerful than that of children for their parents; and who among the sons of men ever loved G.o.d with a thousandth part of the love which G.o.d has manifested to us?--HARE.

It is better to desire than to enjoy, to love than to be loved.

--HAZLITT.

Who never loved ne'er suffered; he feels nothing, Who nothing feels but for himself alone.

--YOUNG.

Love why do we one pa.s.sion call, When 'tis a compound of them all?

Where hot and cold, where sharp and sweet, In all their equipages meet; Where pleasures mix'd with pains appear, Sorrow with joy, and hope with fear.

--SWIFT.

Nothing more excites to everything n.o.ble and generous, than virtuous love.--HENRY HOME.