Pearls of Thought

The craving for a delicate fruit is pleasanter than the fruit itself. —Herder.

The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowned with fruition. In the first instance, we cook the dish to our own appetite; in the latter, nature cooks it for us. —Goldsmith.

We are apt to rely upon future prospects, and become really expensive while we are only rich in possibility. We live up to our expectations, not to our possessions, and make a figure proportionable to what we may be, not what we are. We outrun our present income, as not doubting to disburse ourselves out of the profits of some future place, project, or reversion that we have in view. —Addison.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand. —George Eliot.

Antiquarian.– A thorough-paced antiquarian not only remembers what all other people have thought proper to forget, but he also forgets what all other people think it proper to remember. —Colton.

The earliest and the longest has still the mastery over us. —George Eliot.

Antithesis.– Young people are dazzled by the brilliancy of antithesis, and employ it. —Bruyère.

Antithesis may be the blossom of wit, but it will never arrive at maturity unless sound sense be the trunk, and truth the root. —Colton.

Apology.– An apology in the original sense was a pleading off from some charge or imputation, by explaining or defending principles or conduct. It therefore amounted to a vindication. —Crabbe.

Brother, brother, we are both in the wrong. —Gay.

Apothegms.– Nor do apothegms only serve for ornament and delight, but also for action and civil use, as being the edge tools of speech, which cut and penetrate the knots of business and affairs. —Bacon.

Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms, and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism. —Coleridge.

Proverbs are potted wisdom. —Charles Buxton.

Appeal.– Seeing all men are not Œdipuses to read the riddle of another man's inside, and most men judge by appearances, it behooves a man to barter for a good esteem, even from his clothes and outside. We guess the goodness of the pasture by the mantle we see it wears. —Feltham.

Appearances.– It is the appearances that fill the scene; and we pause not to ask of what realities they are the proxies. When the actor of Athens moved all hearts as he clasped the burial urn, and burst into broken sobs, how few then knew that it held the ashes of his son! —Bulwer-Lytton.

What waste, what misery, what bankruptcy, come from all this ambition to dazzle others with the glare of apparent worldly success, we need not describe. The mischievous results show themselves in a thousand ways – in the rank frauds committed by men who dare to be dishonest, but do not dare to seem poor; and in the desperate dashes at fortune, in which the pity is not so much for those who fail, as for the hundreds of innocent families who are so often involved in their ruin. —Samuel Smiles.

Foolish men mistake transitory semblances for eternal fact, and go astray more and more. —Carlyle.

What is a good appearance? It is not being pompous and starchy; for proud looks lose hearts, and gentle words win them. It is not wearing fine clothes; for such dressing tells the world that the outside is the better part of the man. You cannot judge a horse by his harness; but a modest, gentlemanly appearance, in which the dress is such as no one could comment upon, is the right and most desirable thing. —Spurgeon.

He was a man who stole the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in. —Pollok.

I more and more see this, that we judge men's abilities less from what they say or do, than from what they look. 'T is the man's face that gives him weight. His doings help, but not more than his brow. —Charles Buxton.

Appetite.– Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind very studiously; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind this, will hardly mind anything else. —Johnson.

Here's neither want of appetite nor mouths; pray Heaven we be not scant of meat or mirth. —Shakespeare.

This dish of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very honest men. —Izaak Walton.

And do as adversaries do in law, – strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends. —Shakespeare.

The table is the only place where we do not get weary during the first hour. —Brillat Savarin.

Appreciation.– Contemporaries appreciate the man rather than the merit; but posterity will regard the merit rather than the man. —Colton.

It so falls out that what we have we prize not to the worth while we enjoy it; but being lacked and lost, why, then we rack the value. —Shakespeare.

A man is known to his dog by the smell – to the tailor by the coat – to his friend by the smile; each of these know him, but how little or how much depends on the dignity of the intelligence. That which is truly and indeed characteristic of man is known only to God. —Ruskin.

He who seems not to himself more than he is, is more than he seems. —Goethe.

Light is above us, and color surrounds us; but if we have not light and color in our eyes, we shall not perceive them outside us. —Goethe.

When a nation gives birth to a man who is able to produce a great thought, another is born who is able to understand and admire it. —Joubert.

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters. —George Eliot.

Next to invention is the power of interpreting invention; next to beauty the power of appreciating beauty. —Margaret Fuller.

You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some with you. —Joubert.

Architecture.– Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man, for whatsoever uses, that the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, power, and pleasure. —Ruskin.

Argument.– There is no arguing with Johnson; for if his pistol misses fire he knocks you down with the butt end of it. —Goldsmith.

Weak arguments are often thrust before my path; but although they are most unsubstantial, it is not easy to destroy them. There is not a more difficult feat known than to cut through a cushion with a sword. —Bishop Whately.

Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled. The greatest part of men cannot judge of reasoning, and are impressed by character; so that if you allow your adversary a respectable character, they will think that, though you differ from him, you may be in the wrong. Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in a battle. —Johnson.

The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum. —Colton.

An ill argument introduced with deference will procure more credit than the profoundest science with a rough, insolent, and noisy management. —Locke.

One may say, generally, that no deeply rooted tendency was ever extirpated by adverse argument. Not having originally been founded on argument, it cannot be destroyed by logic. —G. H. Lewes.

A reason is often good, not because it is conclusive, but because it is dramatic, – because it has the stamp of him who urges it, and is drawn from his own resources. For there are arguments ex homine as well as ad hominem. —Joubert.

If I were to deliver up my whole self to the arbitrament of special pleaders, to-day I might be argued into an atheist, and to-morrow into a pickpocket. —Bulwer-Lytton.

Aristocracy.– And lords, whose parents were the Lord knows who. —De Foe.

What can they see in the longest kingly line in Europe, save that it runs back to a successful soldier? —Walter Scott.

If in an aristocracy the people be virtuous, they will enjoy very nearly the same happiness as in a popular government, and the state will become powerful. —Montesquieu.

An aristocracy is the true, the only support of a monarchy. Without it the State is a vessel without a rudder – a balloon in the air. A true aristocracy, however, must be ancient. Therein consists its real force, – its talismanic charm. —Napoleon.

I never could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden. —Richard Rumbold.

Armor.– The best armor is to keep out of gunshot. —Lord Bacon.

Our armor all is strong, our cause the best; then reason wills our hearts should be as good. —Shakespeare.

Art.– Rules may teach us not to raise the arms above the head; but if passion carries them, it will be well done: passion knows more than art. —Baron.

It is a great mortification to the vanity of man that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value. Art is only the underworkman, and is employed to give a few strokes of embellishment to those pieces which come from the hand of the master. —Hume.

The mission of art is to represent nature; not to imitate her. —W. M. Hunt.

True art is not the caprice of this or that individual, it is a solemn page either of history or prophecy; and when, as always in Dante and occasionally in Byron, it combines and harmonizes this double mission, it reaches the highest summit of power. —Mazzini.

Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men. —Schiller.

Art does not imitate nature, but it founds itself on the study of nature – takes from nature the selections which best accord with its own intention, and then bestows on them that which nature does not possess, namely, the mind and the soul of man. —Bulwer-Lytton.

The mother of useful arts is necessity; that of the fine arts is luxury. —Schopenhaufer.

He who seeks popularity in art closes the door on his own genius, as he must needs paint for other minds and not for his own. —Washington Allston.

In art, form is everything; matter, nothing. —Heinrich Heine.

Strange thing art, especially music. Out of an art a man may be so trivial you would mistake him for an imbecile, at best a grown infant. Put him into his art, and how high he soars above you! How quietly he enters into a heaven of which he has become a denizen, and, unlocking the gates with his golden key, admits you to follow, an humble, reverent visitor. —Bulwer-Lytton.

Art does not imitate, but interpret. —Mazzini.

The artist is the child in the popular fable, every one of whose tears was a pearl. Ah! the world, that cruel step-mother, beats the poor child the harder to make him shed more pearls. —Heinrich Heine.

In art there is a point of perfection, as of goodness or maturity in nature; he who is able to perceive it, and who loves it, has perfect taste; he who does not feel it, or loves on this side or that, has an imperfect taste. —Bruyère.

Never judge a work of art by its defects. —Washington Allston.

Asceticism.– I recommend no sour ascetic life. I believe not only in the thorns on the rosebush, but in the roses which the thorns defend. Asceticism is the child of sensuality and superstition. She is the secret mother of many a secret sin. God, when he made man's body, did not give us a fibre too much, nor a passion too many. I would steal no violet from the young maiden's bosom; rather would I fill her arms with more fragrant roses. But a life merely of pleasure, or chiefly of pleasure, is always a poor and worthless life, not worth the living; always unsatisfactory in its course, always miserable in its end. —Theodore Parker.

In hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell. —Byron.

Three forms of asceticism have existed in this weak world. Religious asceticism, being the refusal of pleasure and knowledge for the sake – as supposed – of religion; seen chiefly in the Middle Ages. Military asceticism, being the refusal of pleasure and knowledge for the sake of power; seen chiefly in the early days of Sparta and Rome. And monetary asceticism, consisting in the refusal of pleasure and knowledge for the sake of money; seen in the present days of London and Manchester. —Ruskin.

Aspiration.– The negro king desired to be portrayed as white. But do not laugh at the poor African; for every man is but another negro king, and would like to appear in a color different from that with which Fate has bedaubed him. —Heinrich Heine.

There is no sorrow I have thought more about than that – to love what is great, and try to reach it, and yet to fail. —George Eliot.

The heart is a small thing, but desireth great matters. It is not sufficient for a kite's dinner, yet the whole world is not sufficient for it. —Quarles.

There must be something beyond man in this world. Even on attaining to his highest possibilities, he is like a bird beating against his cage. There is something beyond, O deathless soul, like a sea-shell, moaning for the bosom of the ocean to which you belong! —Chapin.

Oh for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention! A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, and monarchs to behold the swelling scene. —Shakespeare.

The heavens are as deep as our aspirations are high. —Thoreau.

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them. —George Eliot.

Associates.– Costly followers are not to be liked; lest while a man maketh his train longer, he makes his wings shorter. —Bacon.

Be very circumspect in the choice of thy company. In the society of thine equals thou shall enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thy superiors thou shalt find more profit. To be the best in the company is the way to grow worse; the best means to grow better is to be the worst there. —Quarles.

A man should live with his superiors as he does with his fire: not too near, lest he burn; nor too far off, lest he freeze. —Diogenes.

As there are some flowers which you should smell but slightly to extract all that is pleasant in them, and which, if you do otherwise, emit what is unpleasant and noxious, so there are some men with whom a slight acquaintance is quite sufficient to draw out all that is agreeable; a more intimate one would be unsatisfactory and unsafe. —Landor.

Those who are unacquainted with the world take pleasure in the intimacy of great men; those who are wiser dread the consequences. —Horace.

Atheism.– By burning an atheist, you have lent importance to that which was absurd, interest to that which was forbidding, light to that which was the essence of darkness. For atheism is a system which can communicate neither warmth nor illumination except from those fagots which your mistaken zeal has lighted up for its destruction. —Colton.

One of the most daring beings in creation, a contemner of God, who explodes his laws by denying his existence. —John Foster.

Authority.– Reasons of things are rather to be taken by weight than tale. —Jeremy Collier.

The world is ruled by the subordinates, not by their chiefs. —Charles Buxton.

Authors.– Authors may be divided into falling stars, planets, and fixed stars: the first have a momentary effect. The second have a much longer duration. But the third are unchangeable, possess their own light, and work for all time. —Schopenhaufer.

Satire lies about men of letters during their lives, and eulogy after their death. —Voltaire.

It is commonly the personal character of a writer which gives him his public significance. It is not imparted by his genius. Napoleon said of Corneille, "Were he living I would make him a king;" but he did not read him. He read Racine, yet he said nothing of the kind of Racine. It is for the same reason that La Fontaine is held in such high esteem among the French. It is not for his worth as a poet, but for the greatness of his character which obtrudes in his writings. —Goethe.

Choose an author as you choose a friend. —Roscommon.

Herder and Schiller both in their youth intended to study as surgeons, but Destiny said: "No, there are deeper wounds than those of the body, – heal the deeper!" and they wrote. —Richter.

A woman who writes commits two sins: she increases the number of books, and decreases the number of women. —Alphonse Karr.

Thanks and honor to the glorious masters of the pen. —Hood.

The society of dead authors has this advantage over that of the living: they never flatter us to our faces, nor slander us behind our backs, nor intrude upon our privacy, nor quit their shelves until we take them down. —Colton.

Clear writers, like clear fountains, do not seem so deep as they are, the turbid looks most profound. —Landor.

When we look back upon human records, how the eye settles upon writers as the main landmarks of the past. —Bulwer-Lytton.

Autumn.– Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness. —Keats.

The Sabbath of the year. —Logan.

Avarice.– Though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be wealthy. —Thomas Paine.

Avarice is more unlovely than mischievous. —Landor.

The German poet observes that the Cow of Isis is to some the divine symbol of knowledge, to others but the milch cow, only regarded for the pounds of butter she will yield. O tendency of our age, to look on Isis as the milch cow! —Bulwer-Lytton.

Worse poison to men's souls, doing more murders in this loathsome world than any mortal drug. —Shakespeare.

Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition. He that sinks under the fatigue of getting wealth, lulls his age with the milder business of saving it. —Johnson.

B

Babblers.– Who think too little, and who talk too much. —Dryden.

They always talk who never think. —Prior.

Talkers are no good doers. —Shakespeare.

Babe.– It is curious to see how a self-willed, haughty girl, who sets her father and mother and all at defiance, and can't be managed by anybody, at once finds her master in a baby. Her sister's child will strike the rock and set all her affections flowing. —Charles Buxton.

Bargain.– What is the disposition which makes men rejoice in good bargains? There are few people who will not be benefited by pondering over the morals of shopping. —Beecher.

A dear bargain is always disagreeable, particularly as it is a reflection upon the buyer's judgment. —Pliny.

Bashfulness.– Bashfulness may sometimes exclude pleasure, but seldom opens any avenue to sorrow or remorse. —Johnson.

Bashfulness is a great hindrance to a man, both in uttering his sentiments and in understanding what is proposed to him; 'tis therefore good to press forward with discretion, both in discourse and company of the better sort. —Bacon.

Beauty.– The beautiful is always severe. —Ségur.

For converse among men, beautiful persons have less need of the mind's commending qualities. Beauty in itself is such a silent orator, that it is ever pleading for respect and liking, and, by the eyes of others is ever sending to their hearts for love. Yet even this hath this inconvenience in it – that it makes its possessor neglect the furnishing of the mind with nobleness. Nay, it oftentimes is a cause that the mind is ill. —Feltham.

Man has still more desire for beauty than knowledge of it; hence the caprices of the world. —X. Doudan.

No better cosmetics than a severe temperance and purity, modesty and humility, a gracious temper and calmness of spirit; no true beauty without the signature of these graces in the very countenance. —John Ray.

An appearance of delicacy, and even of fragility, is almost essential to beauty. —Burke.

I am of opinion that there is nothing so beautiful but that there is something still more beautiful, of which this is the mere image and expression, – a something which can neither be perceived by the eyes, the ears, nor any of the senses; we comprehend it merely in the imagination. —Cicero.

A lovely girl is above all rank. —Charles Buxton.

There is more or less of pathos in all true beauty. The delight it awakens has an indefinable, and, as it were, luxurious sadness, which is perhaps one element of its might. —Tuckerman.

Beauty is the first present nature gives to women and the first it takes away. —Méré.

In ourselves, rather than in material nature, lie the true source and life of the beautiful. The human soul is the sun which diffuses light on every side, investing creation with its lovely hues, and calling forth the poetic element that lies hidden in every existing thing. —Mazzini.

Beauty is God's handwriting, a wayside sacrament. —Milton.

Beauty deceives women in making them establish on an ephemeral power the pretensions of a whole life. —Bignicout.

If there is a fruit that can be eaten raw, it is beauty. —Alphonse Karr.

Those critics who, in modern times, have the most thoughtfully analyzed the laws of æsthetic beauty, concur in maintaining that the real truthfulness of all works of imagination – sculpture, painting, written fiction – is so purely in the imagination, that the artist never seeks to represent the positive truth, but the idealized image of a truth. —Bulwer-Lytton.

An outward gift which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused. —Gibbon.

It is impossible that beauty should ever distinctly apprehend itself. —Goethe.

Bed.– The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late. —Colton.

What a delightful thing rest is! The bed has become a place of luxury to me! I would not exchange it for all the thrones in the world. —Napoleon.

Beggars.– He is never out of the fashion, or limpeth awkwardly behind it. He is not required to put on court mourning. He weareth all colors, fearing none. His costume hath undergone less change than the Quaker's. He is the only man in the universe who is not obliged to study appearances. —Lamb.

Aspiring beggary is wretchedness itself. —Goldsmith.

Benevolence.– There cannot be a more glorious object in creation than a human being, replete with benevolence, meditating in what manner he might render himself most acceptable to his Creator by doing most good to his creatures. —Fielding.

Genuine benevolence is not stationary but peripatetic. It goeth about doing good. —Nevins.

It is an argument of a candid, ingenuous mind to delight in the good name and commendations of others; to pass by their defects and take notice of their virtues; and to speak or hear willingly of the latter; for in this indeed you may be little less guilty than the evil speaker, in taking pleasure in evil, though you speak it not. —Leighton.