For art may err, but nature cannot miss.
—J. Dryden.
1424
Our nature exists by motion; perfect rest is death.
1425
Good-nature, like a bee, collects honey from every herb. Ill-nature, like a spider, sucks poison from the sweetest flower.
1426
Good-nature is the beauty of the mind, and, like personal beauty, wins almost without anything else.
—Hanway.
1427
If you want to keep your good looks, keep your good nature.
1428
NATURE.
No ordinance of man shall override
The settled laws of nature and of God;
Not written these in pages of a book,
Nor were they framed to-day, nor yesterday;
We know not whence they are; but this we know,
That they from all eternity have been,
And shall to all eternity endure.
—Sophocles, born 495 B. C.
1429
Every one follows the inclinations of his own nature.
—Propertius.
1430
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I am can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
—Lord Byron.
1431
Who can paint
Like nature? Can imagination boast,
Amid its gay creation, hues like hers?
—J. Thomson.
1432
Tender handed stroke a nettle
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains;
Thus it is with vulgar natures,
Use them kindly, they rebel:
But be rough as nutmeg graters,
And the rogues obey you well.
—Aaron Hill.
1433
Where is there a sharper arrow than the sting of unmerited neglect?
1434
'Tis wisely said
To know thyself: equally profitable it is
To know thy neighbors!
1435
Say not unto thy neighbor, Go, and come again, and to-morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee.
—Proverbs 3, 28v.
1436
Very Few Live by Choice.—Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight, and with which he did not always willingly co-operate; and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbor better than his own.
—Dr. Johnson in Rasselas.
1437
We ought to do at once and without delay whatever we owe to our neighbors; to make them wait for what is due to them, is the essence of injustice.
1438
A BIRD'S NEST.
It wins my admiration
To view the structure of this little work—
A bird's nest. Mark it well, within, without;
No tool had he that wrought; no knife to cut,
No nail to fix, no bodkin to insert,
No glue to join; his little beak was all;
And yet how neatly finished!—What nice hand,
And every implement and means of art,
And twenty years' apprenticeship to boot,
Could make me such another? Fondly then
We boast of excellence, whose noblest skill
Instinctive genius foils.
—Hurdis.
1439
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
—Ecclesiastes 1, 9v.
1440
He knocks boldly at the door who brings good news.
1441
The most ridiculous nicknames are often the most adhesive.
—Haliburton.
1442
Coolness and counsel come in the night, and both are of God.
—Arab Proverb.
1443
—P. Massinger.
1444
Night is the time for rest;
How sweet, when labors close,
To gather 'round an aching breast
The curtain of repose.
Stretch the tir'd limbs and lay the head
Down on our own delightful bed!
—Jas. Montgomery.
1445
Learn to say No! and it will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin.
—Spurgeon.
1446
Duty.—A wise man who does not assist with his counsels, a rich man with his charity, and a poor man with his labor, are perfect nobodies in a commonwealth.
—Swift.
1447
IMPORTANT.
Nobody likes to be nobody;
But everybody is pleased to think himself somebody.
And everybody is somebody:
But when anybody thinks himself to be somebody,
He generally thinks everybody else to be nobody.
1448
By doing nothing we learn to do ill.
—Watts.
1449
The young are fond of novelty.
1450
So easily are we impressed by numbers, that even a dozen wheelbarrows in succession seem quite imposing.
—Richter.
