Monday, May 18, 2009

Avarice

Avarice.

If avarice be thy vice, yet make it not thy punishment. . . . Let the fruition of things bless the possession of them, and think it more satisfaction to live richly than die rich. For, since thy good works, not thy goods, will follow thee, since wealth is an appurtenance of life, and no dead man is rich, to famish in plenty, and live poorly to die rich, were a multiplying improvement in madness, and use upon use in folly.

Sir Thomas Browne.

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Avarice, in old age, is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road, the nearer we approach to our journey's end ?

Cicero.

"We are at best but stewards of what we falsely call our own; yet avarice is so insatiable that it is not in the power of liberality to content it. Seneca.

Avarice is the most opposite of all characters to that of God Almighty, whose alone it is to give and not receive. W. Shenstone.

All the good things of this world are no further good to us than as they are of use; and, whatever we may heap up to give to others, we enjoy only so much as we can use, and no more. D. Defoe.

Study rather to fill your minds than your coffers; knowing that gold and silver were originally mingled with dirt, until avarice or ambition parted them.

Seneca.

O cursed lust of gold! when for thy sake
The fool throws up his interest in both worlds;
First starved in this, then damned in that to come.


Blair.

For of his wicked pelf his god he made,

And unto hell himself for money sold; Accursed usury was all his trade, And right and wrong alike in equal balance weighed.

Spenser.

.... Avarice o'ershoots Its destined mark; and, with abundance cursed, In wealth the ills of poverty endures.

George Sally.

Gold glitters most where virtue shines no more,
As stars from absent suns have leave to shine.


Young.

Of all that sold eternity for time,

None bargained on so easy terms with death:

Illustrious fool! nay, most inhuman wretch!

He sat among his bags, and, with a look
"Which hell might be ashamed of, drove the poor
Away unalmsed; and 'midst abundance died—
Sorest of evils—died of utter want. PolloTc.

Atheism

Atheism.

Atheism is an inhuman, bloody, ferocious system, equally hostile to every useful restraint, and to every virtuous affection; that leaving nothing above us to excite awe, nor around us to awaken tenderness, it wages war with heaven and earth: its first object is to dethrone God, its next to destroy man. Sobert Hall.

A little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. Bacon.

Atheism is the result of ignorance and pride, of strong sense and feeble reasons, of good-eating and ill- living. It is the plague of society, the corrupter of manners, and the underminer of property.

Jeremy Collier.

The footprint of the savage, traced in the sand, is sufficient to attest the presence of man to the atheist who will not recognize God whose hand is impressed upon the entire universe. Hugh Miller.

There are few men Bo obstinate in their atheism whom a pressing danger will not reduce to an acknowledgment of the divine power. Plato.

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable things.

EibU.

Thank Heaven, the female heart is untenantable by atheism ! Horace Mann.

No atheist, as such, can be a true friend, an affectionate relation, or a loyal subject. £, BenOey.

When once infidelity can persuade men that they shall die like beasts, they will soon be brought to live like beasts also. R. South.

" No God! no God ! " The simplest flower

That on the wild is found,
Shrinks as it drinks its cup of dew,


And trembles at the sound.
" No God," astonished Echo cries


From out her cavern hoar;
And every wandering bird that flies


Reproves the atheist lore. Mrs. Sigourney.

. . . Who can look on the earth, And view the varied beauty, and the bloom That lingers still, with Eden loveliness,

Upon the mountain-top and on the plain,

And say, " There i& no God " ? David Bates.

Art

Art.

Aet, as far as it has ability, follows nature, as a pupil imitates his master; thus your art must be, as it were, God's grandchild. Dante.

A work of art is said to be perfect in proportion as it does not remind the spectator of the process by which it was created. H. T. Tuclcerman.

The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection. Michael Angela.

Moral beauty is the basis of all true beauty. This foundation is somewhat veiled and covered in nature. Art brings it out, and gives it more transparent forms. It is here that art, when it knows well its power and resources, engages in a struggle with Nature in which it may have the advantage. Victor Courin.

Art must anchor in nature, or it is the sport of every breath of folly. Hazlitt.

In old times men used their power of painting to snow the objects of faith ; in later times they used the objects of faith that they might show their powers of painting. J. RusUn.

Art is based on a strong sentiment of religion—on a profound and mighty earnestness; hence it is so prone to cooperate with religion. Goethe.

The highest art is always the most religious; and the greatest artist is always a devout man. A scoffing Raphael or Michael Angelo is not conceivable.

F. Blailcie.

To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm than all the gloss of art.


Goldsmith.

The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art,
Keigns, more or less, and glows in every heart.


Young.

' All nature is but art, unknown to thee;

All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;

All discord, harmony not understood;

All partial evil, universal good;

And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,

One truth is clear—whatever is, is right. Pope.

Anger

Anger.

Angeb is the most impotent passion that accompanies the mind of man. It effects nothing it goes about; and hurts the man who is possessed by it more than any other against whom it is directed. Lord Clarendon.

He that would be angry and sin not must not be angry with anything but sin. T. Seeker.

An angry man who suppresses his passions thinks worse than he speaks; and an angry man that will chide speaks worse than he thinks. Bacon.

The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves, and we injure our own cause, in the opinion of the world, when we too passionately and eagerly defend it.

C. C. Cotton.

When a man is wrong and won't admit it, he always gets angry. T. C. Haliburton.

Those passionate persons who carry their heart in their mouth are rather to be pitied than feared; their threatenings serving no other purpose than to forearm him that is threatened. T. Fuller.

He best keeps from anger who remembers that God is always looking upon him. Plato.

He submits himself to be seen through a microscope, who suffers himself to be caught in a fit of passion. J. C. Lavater.

If anger is not restrained, it is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it. Seneca.

Of all bad things by which mankind are cursed,
Their own bad tempers surely are the worst.


B. Cumberland.

.... Senseless and deformed, Convulsive anger storms at large ; or, pale And silent, settles into full revenge.

J. Thomson.

Full many mischiefs follow cruel wrath,
Abhorred bloodshed, and tumultuous strife,


Unmanly murder, and unthrifty scathe,
Bitter despite, with rancor's rusty knife,
And fretting grief—the enemy of life.


E. Spenser.

Angels

Angels.

The guardian angel of life sometimes flies so high that man can not see him; but he always is looking down upon us, and will soon hover nearer to us.

RicUer.

The angels may have wider spheres of action, may have nobler forms of duty; but right with them and with us is one and the same thing. Chapin.

Angels of life and death alike are his;

Without his leave they pass no threshold o'er;
Who, then, would wish or dare, believing this,


Against his messengers to shut the door ?

Longfellow.

I see no light, I hear no sound,
When midnight shades are spread;


Yet angels pitch their tents around

And guard my quiet bed. Jane Taylor.

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we sleep and when we wake.


Milton.

Ambition

Ambition.

Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping. Dean Swift.

A slave has but one master; the ambitious man has as many masters as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortune.

J. De la Bruyere.

To be ambitious of true honor, of the true glory and perfection of our natures, is the very principle and incentive of virtue; but to be ambitious of titles, of place, of ceremonial respects, and civil pageantry, is as vain and little as the things are which we court.

Sir Philip Sidney.

It is by attempting to reach the top at a single leap that so much misery is produced in the world.

William CoHbett.

Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb, and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top.

Robert Burton.

.... I charge thee fling away ambition; By that sin fell the angels; how can man then, The image of his Maker, hope to win by't.

Shakespeare.

But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to ? Who aspires must down as low
As high he soared ; obnoxious, first or last,
To basest things. Milton.


Ambition, when the pinnacle is gained
With many a toilsome step, the power it sought
Wants to support itself, and sighs to find
The envied height but aggravates the fall.


George Bally.

.... The vain wish
To float upon the memory of men
After his term of being, oft becomes
A master-passion, and for that one aim
He barters all his Creator gave
Of joy or solace in the vale of life,
And that inheritance of perfect bliss
Which might be his for ever.


William Herbert.


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Age

Age.

If length of days be thy portion, make it not thy expectation. Beckon not upon long life; think every day the last, and live always beyond thy account. He that so often surviveth his expectation lives many lives, and will scarce complain of the shortness of his days. Time past is gone like a shadow; make time to come present. Sir Thomas Browne.

A comfortable old age is the reward of a well-spent youth; therefore, instead of its introducing dismal and melancholy prospects of decay, it should give us hopes of eternal youth in a better world. B. Palmer.

As sailing into port is a happier thing than the voyage, so is age happier than youth ; that is, when the voyage from youth is made with Christ at the helm.

J. PulsforA.

Gray hairs seem to my fancy like the light of a soft moon, silvering over the evening of life. Richter.

An aged Christian, with the snow of time on his head, may remind us that those points of earth are whitest which are nearest heaven. E. H. Chapin.

Some one has said of a fine and honorable old age, that it was the childhood of immortality. Pindar.

There is nothing more disgraceful than that an old man should have nothing to produce, as a proof that he has lived long, except his years. Seneca.

Old men's lives are lengthened shadows; their evening sun falls coldly on the earth, but the shadows all point to the morning. Sichter.

"Why weep ye then for him, who, having won
The bounds of man's appointed years, at last,


Life's blessings all enjoyed, life's labors done,
Serenely to his final rest has passed,


While the soft memory of his virtues yet

Lingers like twilight hues when the bright sun is set ?

Bryant.

The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.
Stronger by weakness, wiser, men become
As they draw near to their eternal home;
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view
That stand upon the threshold of the new.


E. Waller.

The aged Christian stands upon the shore
Of time, a storehouse of experience,


Filled with the treasures of rich heavenly lore;
I love to sit and hear him draw from thence


Sweet recollections of his journey past,

A journey crowned with blessings to the last.

Mrs. St. Leon Loud.