Pearls of Thought

There was never found in any age of the world, either philosophy, or sect or religion, or law or discipline, which did so highly exalt the good of communion, and depress good private and particular, as the holy Christian faith: hence it clearly appears that it was one and the same God that gave the Christian law to men who gave those laws of nature to the creatures. —Bacon.

Christianity is intensely practical. She has no trait more striking than her common sense. —Charles Buxton.

Christianity ruined emperors, but saved peoples. It opened the palaces of Constantinople to the barbarians, but it opened the doors of cottages to the consoling angels of the Saviour. —Alfred de Musset.

Always put the best interpretation on a tenet. Why not on Christianity, wholesome, sweet, and poetic? It is the record of a pure and holy soul, humble, absolutely disinterested, a truth-speaker, and bent on serving, teaching, and uplifting men. Christianity taught the capacity, the element, to love the All-perfect without a stingy bargain for personal happiness. It taught that to love him was happiness, – to love him in others' virtues. —Emerson.

Christian faith is a grand cathedral with divinely pictured windows. Standing without, you see no glory nor can possibly imagine any; standing within, every ray of light reveals a harmony of unspeakable splendors. —Hawthorne.

Christians are like the several flowers in a garden, that have each of them the dew of heaven, which, being shaken with the wind, they let fall at each other's roots, whereby they are jointly nourished, and become nourishers of each other. —Bunyan.

Church.– The Church is a union of men arising from the fellowship of religious life; a union essentially independent of, and differing from, all other forms of human association. —Rev. Dr. Neander.

A place where misdevotion frames a thousand prayers to saints. —Donne.

She may still exist in undiminished vigor, when some traveler from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London bridge, to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's. —Macaulay.

Surely the church is a place where one day's truce ought to be allowed to the dissensions and animosities of mankind. —Burke.

God never had a house of prayer but Satan had a chapel there. —De Foe.

The church is a sort of hospital for men's souls, and as full of quackery as the hospital for their bodies. Those who are taken into it live like pensioners in their Retreat or Sailors' Snug Harbor, where you may see a row of religious cripples sitting outside in sunny weather. —Thoreau.

Circumstances.– Circumstances are the rulers of the weak; they are but the instruments of the wise. —Samuel Lover.

What saves the virtue of many a woman is that protecting god, the impossible. —Balzac.

Civilization.– Mankind's struggle upwards, in which millions are trampled to death, that thousands may mount on their bodies. —Mrs. Balfour.

The old Hindoo saw, in his dream, the human race led out to its various fortunes. First men were in chains which went back to an iron hand. Then he saw them led by threads from the brain, which went upward to an unseen hand. The first was despotism, iron and ruling by force. The last was civilization, ruling by ideas. —Wendell Phillips.

Nations, like individuals, live and die; but civilization cannot die. —Mazzini.

Clergymen.– The life of a conscientious clergyman is not easy. I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. I would rather have Chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls. I do not envy a clergyman's life as an easy life, nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life. —Johnson.

Clergymen consider this world only as a diligence in which they can travel to another. —Napoleon.

The clergy are as like as peas. —Emerson.

Commander.– The right of commanding is no longer an advantage transmitted by nature like an inheritance; it is the fruit of labors, the price of courage. —Voltaire.

The trident of Neptune is the sceptre of the world. —Antoine Lemierre.

He who rules must humor full as much as he commands. —George Eliot.

Commerce.– She may well be termed the younger sister, for, in all emergencies, she looks to agriculture both for defense and for supply. —Colton.

Commerce defies every wind, outrides every tempest, and invades every zone. —Bancroft.

Common Sense.– If common sense has not the brilliancy of the sun it has the fixity of the stars. —Fernan Caballero.

Communists.– One who has yearnings for equal division of unequal earnings. Idler or bungler, he is willing to fork out his penny and pocket your shilling. —Ebenezer Elliott.

Your leaders wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear leveling up to themselves. They would all have some people under them; why not then have some people above them. —Johnson.

Communism possesses a language which every people can understand. Its elements are hunger, envy, death. —Heinrich Heine.

Comparison.– All comparisons are odious. —Cervantes.

If we rightly estimate what we call good and evil, we shall find it lies much in comparison. —Locke.

Compassion.– The dew of compassion is a tear. —Byron.

Compensation.– Cloud and rainbow appear together. There is wisdom in the saying of Feltham, that the whole creation is kept in order by discord, and that vicissitude maintains the world. Many evils bring many blessings. Manna drops in the wilderness – corn grows in Canaan. —Willmott.

It is some compensation for great evils that they enforce great lessons. —Bovée.

Complaining.– We do not wisely when we vent complaint and censure. Human nature is more sensible of smart in suffering than of pleasure in rejoicing, and the present endurances easily take up our thoughts. We cry out for a little pain, when we do but smile for a great deal of contentment. —Feltham.

Our condition never satisfies us; the present is always the worst. Though Jupiter should grant his request to each, we should continue to importune him. —Fontaine.

Conceit.– Wind puffs up empty bladders; opinion, fools. —Socrates.

Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him. —Bible.

Nature has sometimes made a fool, but a coxcomb is always of a man's own making. —Addison.

Everything without tells the individual that he is nothing; everything within persuades him that he is everything. —X. Doudan.

Apes look down on men as degenerate specimens of their own race, just as Hollanders regard the German language as a corruption of the Dutch. —Heinrich Heine.

If its colors were but fast colors, self-conceit would be a most comfortable quality. But life is so humbling, mortifying, disappointing to vanity, that a man's great idea of himself gets washed out of him by the time he is forty. —Charles Buxton.

One's self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property which it is very unpleasant to find depreciated. —George Eliot.

The pious vanity of man makes him adore his own qualities under the pretense of worshiping those of God. —Bulwer-Lytton.

Confidence.– Confidence imparts a wondrous inspiration to its possessor. It bears him on in security, either to meet no danger, or to find matter of glorious trial. —Milton.

Society is built upon trust, and trust upon confidence of one another's integrity. —South.

Conscience.– Conscience is not law; no, God and reason made the law, and have placed conscience within you to determine. —Sterne.

There are moments when the pale and modest star, kindled by God in simple hearts, which men call conscience, illumines our path with truer light than the flaming comet of genius on its magnificent course. —Mazzini.

No thralls like them that inward bondage have. —Sir P. Sidney.

Some people have no perspective in their conscience. Their moral convictions are the same on all subjects. They are like a reader who speaks every word with equal emphasis. —Beecher.

Conscience enables us not merely to learn the right by experiment and induction, but intuitively and in advance of experiment; so, in addition to the experimental way whereby we learn justice from the facts of human history, we have a transcendental way, and learn it from the facts of human nature, and from immediate consciousness. —Theodore Parker.

A man's own conscience is his sole tribunal; and he should care no more for that phantom "opinion" than he should fear meeting a ghost if he cross the churchyard at dark. —Lytton.

Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent it seldom has justice enough to accuse. —Goldsmith.

To say that we have a clear conscience is to utter a solecism: had we never sinned we should have had no conscience. —Carlyle.

The most miserable pettifogging in the world is that of a man in the court of his own conscience. —Beecher.

Conscience serves us especially to judge of the actions of others. —J. Petit Senn.

It is astonishing how soon the whole conscience begins to unravel if a single stitch drops; one single sin indulged in makes a hole you could put your head through. —Charles Buxton.

A still small voice. —Bible.

Constancy.– A good man it is not mine to see; could I see a man possessed of constancy, that would satisfy me. —Confucius.

Constancy is the chimera of love. —Vauvenargues.

Constancy is the complement of all the other human virtues. —Mazzini.

Contempt.– No sacred fane requires us to submit to contempt. —Goethe.

There is not in human nature a more odious disposition than a proneness to contempt, which is a mixture of pride and ill-nature. Nor is there any which more certainly denotes a bad mind; for in a good and benign temper there can be no room for this sensation. —Fielding.

Contentment.– That happy state of mind, so rarely possessed, in which we can say, "I have enough," is the highest attainment of philosophy. Happiness consists, not in possessing much, but in being content with what we possess. He who wants little always has enough. —Zimmermann.

It is both the curse and blessing of our American life that we are never quite content. We all expect to go somewhere before we die, and have a better time when we get there than we can have at home. The bane of our life is discontent. We say we will work so long, and then we will enjoy ourselves. But we find it just as Thackeray has expressed it. "When I was a boy," he said, "I wanted some taffy – it was a shilling – I hadn't one. When I was a man, I had a shilling, but I didn't want any taffy." —Robert Collyer.

Submission is the only reasoning between a creature and its Maker; and contentment in his will is the best remedy we can apply to misfortunes. —Sir W. Temple.

Where God hath put exquisite tinge upon the shell washed in the surf, and planted a paradise of bloom in a child's cheek, let us leave it to the owl to hoot, and the frog to croak, and the fault-finder to complain. —De Witt Talmage.

Contrast.– The lustre of diamonds is invigorated by the interposition of darker bodies; the lights of a picture are created by the shades. The highest pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception is that of rest after fatigue. —Johnson.

Controversy.– He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. —Burke.

What Tully says of war may be applied to disputing, – it should be always so managed as to remember that the only true end of it is peace: but generally true disputants are like true sportsmen, – their whole delight is in the pursuit; and a disputant no more cares for the truth than the sportsman for the hare. —Pope.

I am yet apt to think that men find their simple ideas agree, though in discourse they confound one another with different names. —Locke.

A man takes contradiction much more easily than people think, only he will not bear it when violently given, even though it be well-founded. Hearts are flowers; they remain open to the softly-falling dew, but shut up in the violent down-pour of rain. —Richter.

Conversation.– They who have the true taste of conversation enjoy themselves in a communication of each other's excellences, and not in a triumph over their imperfections. —Addison.

It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others. —Montaigne.

Your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy. —Shakespeare.

No one will ever shine in conversation who thinks of saying fine things; to please one must say many things indifferent, and many very bad. —Francis Lockier.

Conversation warms the mind, enlivens the imagination, and is continually starting fresh game that is immediately pursued and taken, and which would never have occurred in the duller intercourse of epistolary correspondence. —Franklin.

Coquetry.– The most effective coquetry is innocence. —Lamartine.

God created the coquette as soon as he had made the fool. —Victor Hugo.

Affecting to seem unaffected. —Congreve.

Though 'tis pleasant weaving nets, 'tis wiser to make cages. —Moore.

Beautiful tyrant! Fiend angelical! —Shakespeare.

New vows to plight, and plighted vows to break. —Dryden.

Courage.– God holds with the strong. —Mazzini.

Courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of the most precious things. —Colton.

Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes the man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts in a uniform manner. —Addison.

Courage from hearts, and not from numbers, grows. —Dryden.

As to moral courage, I have very rarely met with the two o'clock in the morning courage. I mean unprepared courage, that which is necessary on an unexpected occasion, and which, in spite of the most unforeseen events, leaves full freedom of judgment and decision. —Napoleon.

Courage our greatest failings does supply. —Waller.

To bear is to conquer our fate. —Campbell.

Moral courage is more worth having than physical; not only because it is a higher virtue, but because the demand for it is more constant. Physical courage is a virtue which is almost always put away in the lumber room. Moral courage is wanted day by day. —Charles Buxton.

It is only in little matters that men are cowards. —William Henry Herbert.

Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing. —George Eliot.

He who would arrive at fairy land must face the phantoms. —Bulwer-Lytton.

Courtier.– The court is like a palace built of marble; I mean that it is made up of very hard and very polished people. —La Bruyère.

With the people of court the tongue is the artery of their withered life, the spiral-spring and flag-feather of their souls. —Richter.

Covetousness.– Desire of having is the sin of covetousness. —Shakespeare.

The character of covetousness is what a man generally acquires more through some niggardness or ill grace, in little and inconsiderable things, than in expenses of any consequence. —Pope.

The world itself is too small for the covetous. —Seneca.

Cowardice.– At the bottom of a good deal of the bravery that appears in the world there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion. —Chapin.

Credulity.– Quick believers need broad shoulders. —George Herbert.

Let us believe what we can and hope for the rest. —De Finod.

When credulity comes from the heart it does no harm to the intellect. —Joubert.

What believer sees a disturbing omission or infelicity? The text, whether of prophet or of poet, expands for whatever we can put into it, and even his bad grammar is sublime. —George Eliot.

Observe your enemies for they first find out your faults. —Antishenes.

Action is generally defective, and proves an abortion without previous contemplation. Contemplation generates, action propagates. —Feltham.

Crime.– If poverty is the mother of crimes, want of sense is the father of them. —Bruyère.

Crimes lead into one another. They who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries. —Burke.

Criticism.– Solomon says rightly: "The wounds made by a friend are worth more than the caresses of a flatterer." Nevertheless, it is better that the friend wound not at all. —Joseph de Maistre.

The rule in carving holds good as to criticism, – never cut with a knife what you can cut with a spoon. —Charles Buxton.

The critic eye, that microscope of wit. —Pope.

Men have commonly more pleasure in the criticism which hurts, than in that which is innocuous; and are more tolerant of the severity which breaks hearts and ruins fortunes, than of that which falls impotently on the grave. —Ruskin.

Certain critics resemble closely those people who when they would laugh show ugly teeth. —Joubert.

Every one is eagle-eyed to see another's faults and his deformity. —Dryden.

For I am nothing if not critical. —Shakespeare.

He who stabs you in the dark with a pen would do the same with a penknife, were he equally safe from detection and the law. —Quintilian.

Silence is the severest criticism. —Charles Buxton.

All the other powers of literature are coy and haughty, they must be long courted, and at last are not always gained; but criticism is a goddess easy of access and forward of advance, she will meet the slow and encourage the timorous. The want of meaning she supplies with words, and the want of spirit she recompenses with malignity. —Johnson.

It is a barren kind of criticism which tells you what a thing is not. —Rufus Griswold.

The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention to the excellent. The bad will dig its own grave, and the imperfect may be safely left to that final neglect from which no amount of present undeserved popularity can rescue it. —Bovée.

There are some critics who change everything that comes under their hands to gold, but to this privilege of Midas they join sometimes his ears! —J. Petit Senn.

Cruelty.– Cruelty, the sign of currish kind. —Spenser.

One of the ill effects of cruelty is that it makes the by-standers cruel. How hard the English people grew in the time of Henry VIII. and Bloody Mary. —Charles Buxton.

Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn. —Burns.

Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity. —George Eliot.

Cultivation.– Cultivation is the economy of force. —Liebig.

The highest purpose of intellectual cultivation is to give a man a perfect knowledge and mastery of his own inner self; to render our consciousness its own light and its own mirror. Hence there is the less reason to be surprised at our inability to enter fully into the feelings and characters of others. No one who has not a complete knowledge of himself will ever have a true understanding of another. —Novalis.

Neither the naked hand, nor the understanding, left to itself, can do much; the work is accomplished by instruments and helps of which the need is not less for the understanding than the hand. —Bacon.

… Without art, a nation is a soulless body; without science, a straying wanderer. Without warmth and light, nature cannot thrive, nor humanity increase: the light and warmth of humanity is "art and science." —Kozlay.

Cunning.– Cunning has effect from the credulity of others, rather than from the abilities of those who are cunning. It requires no extraordinary talents to lie and deceive. —Johnson.

Cleverness and cunning are incompatible. I never saw them united. The latter is the resource of the weak, and is only natural to them; children and fools are always cunning, but clever people never. —Byron.

Discourage cunning in a child; cunning is the ape of wisdom. —Locke.

Cunning signifies especially a habit or gift of overreaching, accompanied with enjoyment and a sense of superiority. It is associated with small and dull conceit, and with an absolute want of sympathy or affection. It is the intensest rendering of vulgarity, absolute and utter. —Ruskin.

Curiosity.– A person who is too nice an observer of the business of the crowd, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of the bees, will often be stung for his curiosity. —Pope.

The gratification of curiosity rather frees us from uneasiness than confers pleasure; we are more pained by ignorance than delighted by instruction. Curiosity is the thirst of the soul. —Johnson.

Custom.– The despotism of custom is on the wane; we are not content to know that things are; we ask whether they ought to be. —John Stuart Mill.

Immemorial custom is transcendent law. —Menu.

In this great society wide lying around us, a critical analysis would find very few spontaneous actions. It is almost all custom and gross sense. —Emerson.

Custom doth make dotards of us all. —Carlyle.

Cynics.– It will be very generally found that those who sneer habitually at human nature, and affect to despise it, are among its worst and least pleasant samples. —Dickens.

Cynicism is old at twenty. —Bulwer-Lytton.

D

Dandy.– A dandy is a clothes-wearing man, – a man whose trade, office, and existence consist in the wearing of clothes. Every faculty of his soul, spirit, person, and purse is heroically consecrated to this one object, – the wearing of clothes wisely and well; so that as others dress to live, he lives to dress. —Carlyle.

A fool may have his coat embroidered with gold, but it is a fool's coat still. —Rivarol.

Danger.– It is better to meet danger than to wait for it. He that is on a lee shore, and foresees a hurricane, stands out to sea, and encounters a storm to avoid a shipwreck. —Colton.

Death.– It is not death, it is dying, that alarms me. —Montaigne.

What is death? To go out like a light, and in a sweet trance to forget ourselves and all the passing phenomena of the day, as we forget the phantoms of a fleeting dream; to form, as in a dream, new connections with God's world; to enter into a more exalted sphere, and to make a new step up man's graduated ascent of creation. —Zschokke.

Heaven gives its favorites early death. —Byron.

Our respect for the dead, when they are just dead, is something wonderful, and the way we show it more wonderful still. We show it with black feathers and black horses; we show it with black dresses and black heraldries; we show it with costly obelisks and sculptures of sorrow, which spoil half of our beautiful cathedrals. We show it with frightful gratings and vaults, and lids of dismal stone, in the midst of the quiet grass; and last, and not least, we show it by permitting ourselves to tell any number of falsehoods we think amiable or credible in the epitaph. —Ruskin.