Many Thoughts of Many Minds Part 55

There is no man that is knowingly wicked but is guilty to himself; and there is no man that carries guilt about him but he receives a sting in his soul.--TILLOTSON.

REPENTANCE.--Repentance, without amendment, is like continually pumping without mending the leak.--DILWYN.

Repentance is but another name for aspiration.--BEECHER.

If you would be good, first believe that you are bad.--EPICTETUS.

Repentance is a G.o.ddess and the preserver of those who have erred.

--JULIAN.

Some well-meaning Christians tremble for their salvation, because they have never gone through that valley of tears and of sorrow, which they have been taught to consider as an ordeal that must be pa.s.sed through before they can arrive at regeneration. To satisfy such minds, it may be observed, that the slightest sorrow for sin is sufficient, if it produce amendment, and that the greatest is insufficient, if it do not.--COLTON.

Let us be quick to repent of injuries while repentance may not be a barren anguish.--DR. JOHNSON.

Our hearts must not only be broken with sorrow, but be broken from sin, to const.i.tute repentance.--DEWEY.

Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.--GOLDSMITH.

I will to-morrow, that I will, I will be sure to do it; To-morrow comes, to-morrow goes, And still thou art to do it.

Thus still repentance is deferred.

From one day to another: Until the day of death is come, And judgment is the other.

--DREXELIUS.

As it is never too soon to be good, so it is never too late to amend: I will, therefore, neither neglect the time present, nor despair of the time past. If I had been sooner good, I might perhaps have been better; if I am longer bad, I shall, I am sure, be worse.--ARTHUR WARWICK.

Repentance is heart's sorrow, and a clear life ensuing.--SHAKESPEARE.

REPOSE.--Power rests in tranquillity.--CECIL.

Have you known how to compose your manners? You have done a great deal more than he who has composed books. Have you known how to take repose?

You have done more than he who has taken cities and empires.--MONTAIGNE.

Repose without stagnation is the state most favorable to happiness.

"The great felicity of life," says Seneca, "is to be without perturbations."--BOVEE.

There is no mortal truly wise and restless at once; wisdom is the repose of minds.--LAVATER.

REPROOF.--If you have a thrust to make at your friend's expense, do it gracefully, it is all the more effective. Some one says the reproach that is delivered with hat in hand is the most telling.--HALIBURTON.

The severest punishment suffered by a sensitive mind, for injury inflicted upon another, is the consciousness of having done it.--HOSEA BALLOU.

No reproach is like that we clothe in a smile, and present with a bow.--LYTTON.

Reproof is a medicine like mercury or opium; if it be improperly administered, it will do harm instead of good.--HORACE MANN.

He had such a gentle method of reproving their faults that they were not so much afraid as ashamed to repeat them.--ATTERBURY.

Reprove thy friend privately; commend him publicly.--SOLON.

REPUTATION.--The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.--SOCRATES.

How many people live on the reputation of the reputation they might have made!--HOLMES.

O, reputation! dearer far than life, Thou precious balsam, lovely, sweet of smell, Whose cordial drops once spilt by some rash hand, Not all the owner's care, nor the repenting toil Of the rude spiller, ever can collect To its first purity and native sweetness.

--SEWELL.

One may be better than his reputation or his conduct, but never better than his principles.--LATeNA.

Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what G.o.d and angels know of us.--THOMAS PAINE.

If a man were only to deal in the world for a day, and should never have occasion to converse more with mankind, never more need their good opinion or good word, it were then no great matter (speaking as to the concernments of this world), if a man spent his reputation all at once, and ventured it at one throw; but if he be to continue in the world, and would have the advantage of conversation while he is in it, let him make use of truth and sincerity in all his words and actions; for nothing but this will last and hold out to the end.--TILLOTSON.

RESIGNATION.--Resignation is the courage of Christian sorrow.

--PROFESSOR VINET.

If G.o.d send thee a cross, take it up willingly and follow him. Use it wisely, lest it be unprofitable. Bear it patiently, lest it be intolerable. If it be light, slight it not. If it be heavy, murmur not. After the cross is the crown.--QUARLES.

"My will, not thine, be done," turned Paradise into a desert. "Thy will, not mine, be done," turned the desert into a paradise, and made Gethsemane the gate of heaven.--PRESSENSe.

With a sigh for what we have not, we must be thankful for what we have, and leave to One wiser than ourselves the deeper problems of the human soul and of its discipline.--GLADSTONE.

The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.--JOB 1:21.

Dare to look up to G.o.d and say: "Deal with me in the future as thou wilt. I am of the same mind as thou art; I am thine. I refuse nothing that pleases Thee. Lead me where Thou wilt; cloth me in any dress Thou choosest."--EPICTETUS.

No cloud can overshadow a true Christian but his faith will discern a rainbow in it.--BISHOP HORNE.

Let G.o.d do with me what He will, anything He will; and, whatever it be, it will be either heaven itself, or some beginning of it.--MOUNTFORD.

Is it reasonable to take it ill, that anybody desires of us that which is their own? All we have is the Almighty's; and shall not G.o.d have his own when he calls for it?--WILLIAM PENN.

RESOLUTION.--He only is a well-made man who has a good termination.

--EMERSON.

Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose That you resolved to effect.

--SHAKESPEARE.

REST.--Rest is a fine medicine. Let your stomachs rest, ye dyspeptics; let your brain rest, you wearied and worried men of business; let your limbs rest, ye children of toil!--CARLYLE.

Absence of occupation is not rest.

A mind quite vacant is a mind distress'd.