Many Thoughts of Many Minds Part 5

Every year of my life I grow more convinced that it is wisest and best to fix our attention on the beautiful and good and dwell as little as possible on the dark and the base.--CECIL.

A woman possessing nothing but outward advantages is like a flower without fragrance, a tree without fruit.--REGNIER.

All orators are dumb, when beauty pleadeth.--SHAKESPEARE.

Who has not experienced how, on near acquaintance, plainness becomes beautified, and beauty loses its charm, exactly according to the quality of the heart and mind? And from this cause am I of opinion that the want of outward beauty never disquiets a n.o.ble nature or will be regarded as a misfortune. It never can prevent people from being amiable and beloved in the highest degree.--FREDERIKA BREMER.

Good nature will always supply the absence of beauty; but beauty cannot supply the absence of good nature.--ADDISON.

There should be, methinks, as little merit in loving a woman for her beauty as in loving a man for his prosperity; both being equally subject to change.--POPE.

Socrates called beauty a short-lived tyranny; Plato, a privilege of nature; Theophrastus, a silent cheat; Theocritus, a delightful prejudice; Carneades, a solitary kingdom; Domitian said, that nothing was more grateful; Aristotle affirmed that beauty was better than all the letters of recommendation in the world; Homer, that 'twas a glorious gift of nature, and Ovid, alluding to him, calls it a favor bestowed by the G.o.ds.--FROM THE ITALIAN.

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good, A s.h.i.+ning gloss, that fadeth suddenly; A flower that dies, when first it 'gins to bud; A brittle gla.s.s, that's broken presently; A doubtful good, a gloss, a gla.s.s, a flower, Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour.

And as good lost is seld or never found, As fading gloss no rubbing will refresh, As flowers dead lie wither'd on the ground, As broken gla.s.s no cement can redress, So beauty blemish'd once, for ever's lost, In spite of physic, painting, pain and cost.

--SHAKESPEARE.

Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free!

Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Than all the adulteries of art; That strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

--BEN JONSON.

BENEVOLENCE.--Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.--BEECHER.

The disposition to give a cup of cold water to a disciple is a far n.o.bler property than the finest intellect. Satan has a fine intellect but not the image of G.o.d.--HOWELLS.

Animated by Christian motives and directed to Christian ends, it shall in no wise go unrewarded; here, by the testimony of an approving conscience; hereafter, by the benediction of our blessed Redeemer, and a brighter inheritance in His Father's house.--BISHOP MANT.

G.o.d will excuse our prayers for ourselves whenever we are prevented from them by being occupied in such good works as to ent.i.tle us to the prayers of others.--COLTON.

The lower a man descends in his love, the higher he lifts his life.

--W.R. ALGER.

There is nothing that requires so strict an economy as our benevolence. We should husband our means as the agriculturalist his fertilizer, which if he spread over too large a superficies produces no crop, if over too small a surface, exuberates in rankness and in weeds.--COLTON.

The conqueror is regarded with awe, the wise man commands our esteem; but it is the benevolent man who wins our affections.--FROM THE FRENCH.

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. As Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but he took an acorn out of his pocket and popped it in, so deal with your compliments through life. An acorn costs nothing; but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of timber.

--THACKERAY.

You will find people ready enough to do the Samaritan without the oil and twopence.--SYDNEY SMITH.

Genuine benevolence is not stationary, but peripatetic. It _goeth_ about doing good.--NEVINS.

Benevolence is not in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth. It is a business with men as they are, and with human life as drawn by the rough hand of experience. It is a duty which you must perform at the call of principle; though there be no voice of eloquence to give splendor to your exertions, and no music of poetry to lead your willing footsteps through the bowers of enchantment. It is not the impulse of high and ecstatic emotion. It is an exertion of principle.

You must go to the poor man's cottage, though no verdure flourish around it, and no rivulet be nigh to delight you by the gentleness of its murmurs. If you look for the romantic simplicity of fiction you will be disappointed; but it is your duty to persevere, in spite of every discouragement. Benevolence is not merely a feeling but a principle; not a dream of rapture for the fancy to indulge in, but a business for the hand to execute.--CHALMERS.

The only way to be loved, is to be and to appear lovely; to possess and display kindness, benevolence, tenderness; to be free from selfishness and to be alive to the welfare of others.--JAY.

Beneficence is a duty. He who frequently practices it, and sees his benevolent intentions realized, at length comes really to love him to whom he has done good. When, therefore, it is said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," it is not meant, thou shalt love him first and do him good in consequence of that love, but, thou shalt do good to thy neighbor; and this thy beneficence will engender in thee that love to mankind which is the fulness and consummation of the inclination to do good.--KANT.

The lessons of prudence have charms, And slighted, may lead to distress; But the man whom benevolence warms Is an angel who lives but to bless.

--BLOOMFIELD.

Every virtue carries with it its own reward, but none in so distinguished and pre-eminent a degree as benevolence.

BIBLE.--The Bible begins gloriously with Paradise, the symbol of youth, and ends with the everlasting kingdom, with the holy city. The history of every man should be a Bible.--NOVALIS.

The Scriptures teach us the best way of living, the n.o.blest way of suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying.--FLAVEL.

Within that awful volume lies The mystery of mysteries!

Happiest they of human race, To whom G.o.d has granted grace To read, to fear, to hope, to pray, To lift the latch and force the way; And better had they ne'er been born, Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.

--SCOTT.

Like the needle to the North Pole, the Bible points to heaven.

--R.B. NICHOL.

There are two books laid before us to study, to prevent our falling into error: first, the volume of the Scriptures, which reveal the will of G.o.d; then the volume of the Creatures, which express His power.

--BACON.

Men cannot be well educated without the Bible. It ought, therefore, to hold the chief place in every situation of learning throughout Christendom; and I do not know of a higher service that could be rendered to this republic than the bringing about this desirable result.--DR. NUTT.

What is the Bible in your house? It is not the Old Testament, it is not the New Testament, it is not the gospel according to Matthew, or Mark, or Luke, or John; it is the Gospel according to William, it is the Gospel according to Mary, it is the Gospel according to Henry and James, it is the Gospel according to your name. You write your own Bible.--BEECHER.

A single book has saved me; but that book is not of human origin. Long had I despised it; long had I deemed it a cla.s.s-book for the credulous and ignorant; until, having investigated the Gospel of Christ, with an ardent desire to ascertain its truth or falsity, its pages proffered to my inquiries the simplest knowledge of man and nature, and the simplest, and at the same time the most exalted system of moral ethics. Faith, hope and charity were enkindled in my bosom; and every advancing step strengthened me in the conviction that the morals of this book are as infinitely superior to human morals as its oracles are superior to human opinions.--M.L. BAUTIN.

Whence but from Heaven, could men unskill'd in arts, In several ages born, in several parts, Weave such agreeing truths? or how, or why Should all conspire to cheat us with a lie?

--DRYDEN.

Good, the more communicated, more abundant grows.--MILTON.

I will answer for it, the longer you read the Bible, the more you will like it; it will grow sweeter and sweeter; and the more you get into the spirit of it, the more you will get into the spirit of Christ.

--ROMAINE.

It has G.o.d for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter: it is all pure, all sincere, nothing too much, nothing wanting.--LOCKE.

A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district--all studied and appreciated as they merit--are the princ.i.p.al support of virtue, morality and civil liberty.--FRANKLIN.

Here there is milk for babes, whilst there is manna for angels; truth level with the mind of a peasant; truth soaring beyond the reach of a seraph.--REV. HUGH STOWELL.

It is belief in the Bible, the fruits of deep meditation, which has served me as the guide of my moral and literary life. I have found capital safely invested and richly productive of interest, although I have sometimes made but a bad use of it.--GOETHE.

BIGOTRY.--All looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.--POPE.

Bigotry dwarfs the soul by shutting out the truth.--CHAPIN.

A man must be excessively stupid, as well as uncharitable, who believes there is no virtue but on his own side.--ADDISON.