our life to a quotidian ague of frigid impertinences which would make a wise man tremble to think of. —Cowley.
The symptoms of compassion and benevolence, in some people, are like those minute guns which warn you that you are in deadly peril! —Madame Swetchine.
Borrowing.– You should only attempt to borrow from those who have but few of this world's goods, as their chests are not of iron, and they are, besides, anxious to appear wealthier than they really are. —Heinrich Heine.
According to the security you offer to her, Fortune makes her loans easy or ruinous. —Bulwer-Lytton.
Bravery.– True bravery is shown by performing without witnesses what one might be capable of doing before all the world. —Rochefoucauld.
'Tis late before the brave despair. —Thompson.
The bravest men are subject most to chance. —Dryden.
The truly brave are soft of heart and eyes. —Byron.
People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbors. —George Eliot.
Brevity.– To make pleasures pleasant shorten them. —Charles Buxton.
Was there ever anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress? —Johnson.
A sentence well couched takes both the sense and understanding. I love not those cart-rope speeches that are longer than the memory of man can fathom. —Feltham.
I saw one excellency was within my reach – it was brevity, and I determined to obtain it. —Jay.
Be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams – the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn. —Southey.
Concentration alone conquers. —Charles Buxton.
The more an idea is developed, the more concise becomes its expression: the more a tree is pruned, the better is the fruit. —Alfred Bougeart.
Oratory, like the Drama, abhors lengthiness; like the Drama, it must be kept doing. It avoids, as frigid, prolonged metaphysical soliloquy. Beauties themselves, if they delay or distract the effect which should be produced on the audience, become blemishes. —Bulwer-Lytton.
The fewer words the better prayer. —Luther.
Business.– Not because of any extraordinary talents did he succeed, but because he had a capacity on a level for business and not above it. —Tacitus.
C
Calumny.– Neglected calumny soon expires; show that you are hurt, and you give it the appearance of truth. —Tacitus.
Calumny crosses oceans, scales mountains, and traverses deserts with greater ease than the Scythian Abaris, and, like him, rides upon a poisoned arrow. —Colton.
Cant.– The affectation of some late authors to introduce and multiply cant words is the most ruinous corruption in any language. —Swift.
There is such a thing as a peculiar word or phrase cleaving, as it were, to the memory of the writer or speaker, and presenting itself to his utterance at every turn. When we observe this, we call it a cant word or a cant phrase. —Paley.
Caution.– Whenever our neighbor's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own. Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. —Burke.
Censure.– Censure pardons the ravens, but rebukes the doves. —Juvenal.
We do not like our friends the worse because they sometimes give us an opportunity to rail at them heartily. Their faults reconcile us to their virtues. —Hazlitt.
Censure is like the lightning which strikes the highest mountains. —Balthasar Gracian.
Chance.– There must be chance in the midst of design; by which we mean that events which are not designed necessarily arise from the pursuit of events which are designed. —Paley.
Chance generally favors the prudent. —Joubert.
It is strictly and philosophically true in nature and reason that there is no such thing as chance or accident; it being evident that these words do not signify anything really existing, anything that is truly an agent or the cause of any event; but they signify merely men's ignorance of the real and immediate cause. —Adam Clarke.
What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster! —Jeremy Taylor.
He who distrusts the security of chance takes more pains to effect the safety which results from labor. To find what you seek in the road of life, the best proverb of all is that which says: "Leave no stone unturned." —Bulwer-Lytton.
Change.– The great world spins forever down the ringing grooves of change. —Tennyson.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. —Byron.
In this world of change, naught which comes stays, and naught which goes is lost. —Madame Swetchine.
Character.– As there is much beast and some devil in man, so is there some angel and some God in him. The beast and the devil may be conquered, but in this life never destroyed. —Coleridge.
Character is not cut in marble – it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do. —George Eliot.
Grit is the grain of character. It may generally be described as heroism materialized, – spirit and will thrust into heart, brain, and backbone, so as to form part of the physical substance of the man. —Whipple.
Depend upon it, you would gain unspeakably if you would learn with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks out through dull gray eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones. —George Eliot.
Character is the diamond that scratches every other stone —Bartol.
Character is human nature in its best form. It is moral order embodied in the individual. Men of character are not only the conscience of society, but in every well-governed state they are its best motive power; for it is moral qualities in the main which rule the world. —Samuel Smiles.
He whose life seems fair, if all his errors and follies were articled against him would seem vicious and miserable. —Jeremy Taylor.
In common discourse we denominate persons and things according to the major part of their character: he is to be called a wise man who has but few follies. —Watts.
Never does a man portray his own character more vividly than in his manner of portraying another. —Richter.
