For him who does everything in its proper time, one day is worth three.
1875
There is nothing like addressing men at the proper time.
1876
The world is always ready to receive talent with open arms.
—O. W. Holmes.
1877
Talent is something, but tact is everything.
—Scargill.
1878
All talk at once, to none respect is shown.
1879
Talking.—What a spendthrift is he of his tongue!
—Shakespeare.
1880
They always talk who never think.
—Prior.
1881
He who talks much is sometimes right.
—Spanish.
1882
The talker sows, the listener reaps.
—Italian.
1883
You can doubtless name a number of people who talk too much—including yourself!
1884
A man of sense talks little, and listens much.
—Chinese.
1885
A Quiet Rebuke.—When Washington's secretary excused himself for the lateness of his attendance, and laid the blame on his watch, his master quietly said—"Then you must get another watch, or I another secretary."
1886
The cost takes away the taste: I should really like the thing, but I dislike the expense.
1887
To teach is to learn twice over.
1888
Nothing dies sooner than a tear.
1889
Do not make woman weep, for God counts her tears.
—From The Talmud.
1890
He has strangled
His language in his tears.
—Shakespeare.
1891
There are few things more beautiful than tears, whether they are shed for ourselves or others; they are the meek and silent effusions of sincere feeling.
1892
Tears sometimes have the weight of words.
—Ovid.
1893
Tears are the diamonds of the eye.
1894
TEARS—SILENCE OF
See the tide working upward to his eye,
And stealing from him in large silent drops,
Without his leave.
—Young.
1895
Control your temper, for if it does not obey you, it will govern you.
—Horace.
1896
Good temper is like a sunny day.
—French.
1897
If you have a good temper, keep it; if you have a bad one, don't lose it.
1898
When you're in the right you can afford to keep your temper, and when you're in the wrong you can't afford to lose it.
1899
Some temptations come to the industrious, but all temptations attack the idle.
—Spurgeon.
1900
Toil is a foil against temptation.
1901
ONE VIEW OF THEATRES.
The chief reason why no Christian should attend the theatre is the character of a large majority of plays put on the stage.
Listen to what the play-writers and actors themselves say:
M. Dumas, a French writer of plays, wrote: "Never take your daughter to the theatre; it is not merely the work that is immoral, it is the place."
W. C. Macready, the great actor, said: "None of my children shall ever, with my consent, enter a theatre, or have any visiting connection with actors or actresses."
Edwin Booth, the great tragedian, wrote: "My knowledge of the modern theatre is so very meagre that I never permit my wife or daughter to witness a play without previously ascertaining its character. The theatre is permitted to be a mere shop for gain, open to every huckster of immoral adventures,—jimcracks."
Fanny Kemble, the actress, confessed that life on the stage was unhealthy to morals, and said: "I never presented myself before an audience without a shirking feeling of reluctance, or without thinking the excitement I had undergone unhealthy, and the personal exhibition odious."
—Southern Churchman.
1902
An ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory.
1903
Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.
1904
Do little things now; so shall big things come to thee by and by asking to be done.
—Persian Proverb.
1905
Don't despise a slight wound, or a poor relative.
1906
Never despise small things, for we were all infants before we became men, and pupils, ere we became teachers.
1907
Thought.—How often must we repeat it?—rules the world.
—Carlyle.
1908
At a dinner when Daniel Webster was Secretary of State, after a period of silence which fell upon the company of some twenty gentlemen who were present, one of the guests said, "Mr. Webster, will you tell us what was the most important thought that ever occupied your mind?" Webster slowly passed his hand over his forehead, and in a low tone enquired of one near him, "Is there any one here who does not know me?" "No; all are your friends." "The most important thought that ever occupied my mind," said Webster, "was that of my individual responsibility to God." And after speaking on this subject in the most solemn strain for fully ten minutes, he silently rose from the table and retired to his room. This incident serves to illustrate the attitude of great minds towards eternal things. Great men are not scoffers. The men of flippant jeers and godless jests are invariably men of small calibre and shallow intellect.
1909
First thoughts are not always the best.
—Alfieri.
1910
In matters of conscience, first thoughts are best; in matters of prudence last thoughts are the best.
—Rev. Robert Hall.
1911
To be without evil thoughts is God's best gift.
—Aeschylus.
1912
It is said, the thumb is stronger than all the other fingers together.
1913
THUNDER.—A LOVER OF
Such was the spirit of a venerable [1913-A]patriarch—who shed on a very humble station the lustre of brilliant graces—that, when the storm sent others in haste to their homes, he was wont to leave his own, and to stand with upturned face, raised eye, and with his grey head uncovered, to watch the flash and listen to the music of the roaring thunder. How fine his reply to those who expressed their wonder at his aspect and attitude—"It's my Father's voice, and I like well to hear it!" What a sublime example of the perfect love that casteth out fear?
—From Memoir of Guthrie.
[1913-A] Jamie Stewart, Dr. Guthrie's first preceptor.
1914
There is scarcely any one who may not, like a trout, be taken by tickling.
—Southey.
1915
Time is a great master, he sets many things right.
1916
With thee conversing I forget all time.
—Milton.
1917
The happier the time, the quicker it passes.
—Pliny, the Younger.
1918
Since time is not a person we can overtake when he is past, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing.
—Goethe.
1919
How noiseless falls the foot of time.
—W. R. Spencer.
1920
An hour lost in the morning is never found all day.
1921
Time passes like the wind.
—Portuguese.
1922
Spare moments are the gold dust of time.
1923
Time unveils truth.
—Portuguese.
1924
ONE WAY OF ACQUIRING A TITLE.
"From time immemorial," said Judge Asher Carruth, of London, "Southern people have been lavish in bestowing titles. I think there is something in the Southern temperament which explains this. I didn't start out on this, however, for a philosophical disquisition, but rather to tell how a certain Kentucky gentleman established valid title to the rank of Colonel. He went to Cincinnati once with a friend, who enjoyed many acquaintances there; and who introduced him to every one as Colonel Brown. Everything went along smoothly until finally one Cincinnatian asked of the introducer:
"I suppose your friend Colonel Brown was in the Confederate army?"
"No, sir; he was not."
"Well, then, he fought on the Union side?"
"You are wrong there, too."
"Oh, I see now; he got his title by serving in the State militia?"
"No, he never entered the militia."
"Then, how did he get to be a colonel?"
"He drew a sword, sir, at a church fair!"
1925
Tobacco-takers.—Dr. Caldwell says that there are but three animals that can abide tobacco, namely:—The African rock goat—the most loathsome creature on earth,
The foul tobacco worm,
And the rational creature, man!
1926
Talk less about the years to come—
Live, love and labor more to-day.
—Alice Carey.
1927
Better be preparing for tomorrow, than regretting yesterday.
1928
To-morrow is, ah, whose?
—D. M. Mullock.
1929
What cannot be told, had better not be done.
1930
Never hold any one by the button or the hand, in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them.
—Chesterfield.
1931
Though we have two eyes, we are supplied with but one tongue. Draw your own moral.
—Alphonse Karr.
1932
If you will control the tongue, you will soon be able also to control the mind.
1933
Tongue.—When we advance a little into life, we find that the tongue creates nearly all the mischief of the world.
1934
The tongue is the instrument of the greatest good and the greatest evil that is done in the world.
1935
Let mildness ever attend thy tongue.
1936
It is more necessary to guard the mouth than the chest.
—From the German.
1937
It is related that a peasant once came to a monk to be taught the Scriptures. The holy man began with the Psalm, 39 chapter, 1st verse: "I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue."
The peasant went his way to practice this and never returned. Lifelong was the lesson, and lifelong the endeavor to master it.
1938
The tongue's not steel, yet it often cuts.
1939
A sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.
—Irving.
1940
There are tourists who so busy themselves in traveling that they see nothing.
1941
He'll seldom need aid
Who has a good trade.
1942
A useful trade may be said to be like a mine of gold.
1943
I see that conscience, truth, and honesty are made
To rise and fall, like other wares of trade.
—Moore.
1944
He who has a trade may travel through the world.
—From the Spanish.
1945
INFLUENCES OF FOREIGN TRAVEL.
One of the remarks which an American is expected to make on returning from a foreign tour, especially his first return, is: "Well I'm a better American for having gone abroad," meaning that foreign travel has increased his love for his own country—in other words, has toned up his patriotism.********
Foreign travel will make any intelligent American a better citizen, because an increase of knowledge is a betterment. One honored resident of Washington, a gentleman past middle life, recently returned from his first European tour, and on being asked if he could make the stereotyped report of having been "made a better American," replied: "Yes; I think I am a better American for having had a deal of conceit knocked out of me." That was a profitable experience.
From Baltimore Sun, November, 1906.
1946
He that would make his travels delightful, must first make himself delightful.
1947
It will be observed, that when giving me (Boswell) advice as to my travels, Dr. Johnson did not dwell upon cities, and palaces, and pictures, and shows. He was of Lord Essex's opinion, who advises his kinsman, Roger, Earl of Rutland, "rather to go a hundred miles to speak with one wise man, than five miles to see a fair town."
—Boswell's Johnson.
1948
Deuteronomy xxxiii, 19—"They shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of the treasures hid in the sand."
Among the hardships experienced by the first settlers in North America, they were sometimes greatly distressed for food, which led the women and the children to the sea side to look for a ship which they expected with provisions, but no ship appeared for many weeks; they saw in the sand, however, vast quantities of shellfish, since called clams, a species of muscle. Hunger impelled them to taste, and at length they fed wholly upon them, and were as cheerful and well as they had been before in England, enjoying the best provision. It is added, that a good man, after they had all dined one day on clams, without bread, returned thanks to God for causing them to "suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand." This text, which they had never before observed particularly, was ever after endeared to them.
1949
THE BEECH TREE'S PETITION.
O leave this barren spot to me:
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree!
Though bush or floweret never grow
My dark unwarming shade below;
Nor summer bud perfume the dew,
Of rosy blush, or yellow hue!
Nor fruits of autumn, blossom-born,
My green and glossy leaves adorn;
Nor murmuring tribes from me derive
Th' ambrosial amber of the hive;
Yet leave this barren spot to me:
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree!
Thrice twenty summers I have seen
The sky grow bright, the forest green;
And many a wintry wind have stood
In bloomless, fruitless solitude,
Since childhood in my pleasant bower
First spent its sweet and sportive hour,
Since youthful lovers in my shade
Their vows of truth and rapture made;
And on my trunk's surviving frame
Carved many a long-forgotten name.
Oh! by the sighs of gentle sound,
First breathed upon this sacred ground;
By all that Love has whisper'd here,
Or Beauty heard with ravished ear;
As Love's own altar honor me:
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree!
—Thomas Campbell.
(This piece was written for Miss Mary Campbell, the poet's sister; it appeared first in the Morning Chronicle.
The tree, the subject of the lines still ornaments the grounds at Ardwell, in Scotland, the seat of James Murray McCulloch, Esq.)
1950
Like a tree, am I sheltering others by my life?
1951
The greater the difficulty the more glory in surmounting it. Skilful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.
1952
TROUBLE.
When I waken in the morn
I'm sad, I must confess,
To think that ere I can go out
I must get up and dress.
1953
Deuteronomy xxii, 4.—"Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or ass fall down by the way, and hide thyself from them; thou shalt surely help him lift them up again."
Mr. George Herbert, the poet, when walking to Salisbury, saw a poor man, with a poorer horse, fallen under his load. Mr. Herbert perceiving this, put off his canonical coat, and helped the poor man to unload, and after to load his horse. The poor man blessed him for it, and he blessed the poor man, and gave him money to refresh both himself and his horse; and told him, "If he loved himself, he should be merciful to his beast." At his coming to his musical friends at Salisbury, they began to wonder that Mr. George Herbert, who used to be so clean, came in such a condition; but he told them the occasion; and when one of the company told him, "he had disparaged himself by so dirty an employment," his answer was, "That the thought of what he had done would prove music to him at midnight; and the omission of it would have upbraided and made discord in his conscience, whensoever he should pass by the place."
1954
I wrote down my troubles every day;
And after a few short years,
When I turned to the heart-aches passed away,
I read them with smiles,—not tears.
1955
To tell our troubles, is often the way to lighten them.
1956
PERFECT TRUST AND RESIGNATION.
During the Rabbi's absence from home, two of his sons died. Their mother hiding her grief, awaited the father's return, and then said to him. "My husband, some time since two jewels of inestimable value were placed with me for safe keeping. He who left them with me called for them to-day, and I delivered them into His hands." "That is right," said the Rabbi approvingly. "We must always return cheerfully and faithfully all that is placed in our care." Shortly after this, the Rabbi asked for his sons, and the mother, taking him by the hand, led him gently to the chamber of death. Meir gazed upon his sons, and realizing the truth, wept bitterly. "Weep not, beloved husband," said his noble wife; "didst thou not say to me we must return cheerfully, when called for, all that has been placed under our care? God gave us these jewels; He left them with us for a time, and we gloried in their possession; but now that He calls for His own, we should not repine."
1957
In Boswell's Life of Johnson, he says:—Next morning, while we were at breakfast, Johnson gave a very earnest recommendation of what he himself practised with the utmost conscientiousness: I mean a strict attention to truth, even in the most minute particulars. "Accustom your children," said he, "constantly to this: If a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end."
1958
Dare to be true: Nothing can need a lie.
1959
TRUTH, CONTRASTED WITH FALSEHOOD.
I once asked a deaf and dumb boy, "What is truth?" He replied by thrusting his finger forward in a straight line. I then asked him "What is falsehood?" when he made a zigzag with his finger. Try to remember this; let whoever will, take a zigzag path,—go you on in your course as straight as an arrow to its mark, and shrink from falsehood, as you would from a viper.
—Barnaby.
1960
Truth has such a face and such a mien,
As to be loved needs only to be seen.
Vice is a monster of such hideous mien,
As to be hated needs but to be seen.
—Pope.
1961
The dignity of truth is lost
With much protesting.
—Ben Jonson.
1962
Not to believe the truth, is of all ills the worst.
1963
ILL-JUDGING.
A woman stopped a divine in the streets of the metropolis with this salutation: "There is no truth in the land, sir! There is no truth in the land." "Then you do not speak the truth, good woman," replied the clergyman. "Oh, yes, I do," returned she, hastily. "Then there is truth in the land," rejoined he, as quickly.
1964
I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as 'twas said to me.
—Sir Walter Scott.
1965
Truth, like the sun, submits to be obscured; but, like the sun, only for a time.
1966
To love truth for truth's sake, is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.
—Locke.
1967
Truth, when not sought after, sometimes comes to light.
—Menander.
1968
A thousand probabilities don't make one truth.
1969
TRUE TO TRUTH.
In an Eastern land a boy once set out from his mother's home for a distant city, where he was to begin life and earn his livelihood. Before parting with him, his mother gave him forty gold dinars, which, for safety, she sewed inside his waistcoat. Her last counsel to him was, to seek and to follow always the truth. On his way he had to cross part of a desert, infested by robbers. One of these saw him and came galloping up "Boy, what money have you got?" he sternly demanded. The boy looked up at him, and said, "I have forty gold dinars sewed up in my waistcoat." The robber burst into a fit of laughter; he thought the boy was joking. And, turning his horse, he galloped back to his troop. By-and-by, another horseman rode up to the boy as he trudged on, and made the same demand: "Boy, what have you got?" "Forty gold dinars, sewed up in my waistcoat," said the boy again. This robber, too, burst out laughing, and turned away, thinking the boy was making fun of him. They had some talk in their band about the boy's strange reply. Their leader turning it over in his mind, said he would like to see him, and, leaving the troop, soon overtook the young traveler. He put the same question as the others, and again the boy gave the same answer. The captain leapt off his horse, and began to feel the boy's clothes, till he counted—one, two, three—the forty gold dinars just as he had been told. "What made you tell the truth, my boy?" he asked. "My God and my mother, sir," was the reply. "Wait for me here a little," said the captain, and galloped back to his troop. In a few minutes he returned, but so changed that the boy hardly knew him. By removing a false beard and other disguises, his appearance was quite altered. "Come with me, my lad," he said; and he pointed to the spires of a distant city. "I cannot go with you," said the boy; "you are a robber!" "I was," the man said, "but all that is over now! I have given it up forever. I have a large business in yonder city, and I wish you to come with me and share it." And so they went on together; and when they arrived at the city the boy entered his employment, and ultimately became very wealthy and influential.
1970
My aim is not so much to say things that are new, as things that are true.
1971
TRUTH.
Seize upon the truth, where'er 'tis found,
Among your friends, among your foes,
On Christian or on heathen ground,
The flower's divine, where'er it grows.
1972
Better suffer for truth, than profit by falsehood.
—From the Danish.
1973
A TOUCHING SCENE AT SEA.
Two weeks ago on board an English steamer, a little ragged boy, aged nine years, was discovered on the fourth day of the voyage out from Liverpool to New York, and carried before the first mate, whose duty it was to deal with such cases. When questioned as to his object of being stowed away, and who brought him on board, the boy, who had a beautiful sunny face, and eyes that looked like the very mirrors of truth, replied that his step-father did it, because he could not afford to keep him, nor pay his passage out to Halifax, where he had an aunt who was well off, and to whose house he was going. The mate did not believe the story, in spite of the winning face and truthful accents of the boy. He had seen too much of stow-aways to be easily deceived by them, he said; and it was his firm conviction that the boy had been brought on board and provided with food by the sailors. The little fellow was very roughly handled in consequence. Day by day he was questioned and re-questioned, but always with the same result. He did not know a sailor on board, and his father alone had secreted him and given him the food which he ate. At last the mate, wearied by the boy's persistence in the same story, and perhaps a little anxious to inculpate the sailors, seized him one day by the collar, and, dragging him to the fore, told him that unless he would tell the truth in ten minutes from that time, he would hang him from the yard-arm. He then made him sit down under it on the deck. All around him were the passengers and sailors of the midway watch, and in front of him stood the inexorable mate, with his chronometer in his hand, and the other officers of the ship by his side. It was the finest sight, said our informant, that he ever beheld—to see the pale, proud, sorrowful face of that noble boy, his head erect, his beautiful blue eyes bright through the tears that suffused them. When eight minutes had fled, the mate told him he had but two minutes to live, and advised him to speak the truth and save his life; but he replied with the utmost simplicity and sincerity by asking the mate if he might pray. The mate said nothing, but nodded his head and turned deadly pale, and shook with trembling like a reed with the wind, and there, all eyes turned on him, the brave and noble little fellow, this poor waif, whom society owned not, and whose own step-father could not care for him—there he knelt, with clasped hands, and eyes turned to heaven, while he repeated audibly the Lord's prayer, and prayed the Lord Jesus to take him to heaven. Sobs broke from strong, hard hearts, as the mate sprang forward to the boy, and clasped him to his bosom, and kissed him and blessed him, and told him how sincerely he believed his story, and how glad he was that he had been brave enough to face death and be willing to sacrifice his life for the truth of his word.
—E. Davies.
1974
He who does not fully speak the truth is a traitor to it.
—From the Latin.
1975
REWARD OF TRUTHFULNESS.
When Aristotle, the Grecian philosopher, who was tutor to Alexander the Great, was asked what a man could gain by uttering falsehoods, he replied, "Not to be credited when he shall tell the truth." On the other hand, it is related that when Petrarch, the Italian poet, a man of strict integrity, was summoned as a witness, and offered in the usual manner to take an oath before a court of justice, the judge closed the book, saying, "As to you, Petrarch, your word is sufficient."
1976
Nature hath appointed the twilight as a bridge to pass us out of night into day.
—Fuller.
