Many Thoughts of Many Minds | Page 7

plainness becomes beautified, and beauty loses its charm, exactly according to the quality of the heart and mind? And from this cause am I of opinion that the want of outward beauty never disquiets a noble nature or will be regarded as a misfortune. It never can prevent people from being amiable and beloved in the highest degree.--FREDERIKA BREMER.
Good nature will always supply the absence of beauty; but beauty cannot supply the absence of good nature.--ADDISON.
There should be, methinks, as little merit in loving a woman for her beauty as in loving a man for his prosperity; both being equally subject to change.--POPE.
Socrates called beauty a short-lived tyranny; Plato, a privilege of nature; Theophrastus, a silent cheat; Theocritus, a delightful prejudice; Carneades, a solitary kingdom; Domitian said, that nothing was more grateful; Aristotle affirmed that beauty was better than all the letters of recommendation in the world; Homer, that 'twas a glorious gift of nature, and Ovid, alluding to him, calls it a favor bestowed by the gods.--FROM THE ITALIAN.
Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good, A shining gloss, that fadeth suddenly; A flower that dies, when first it 'gins to bud; A brittle glass, that's broken presently; A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower, Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour. And as good lost is seld or never found, As fading gloss no rubbing will refresh, As flowers dead lie wither'd on the ground, As broken glass no cement can redress, So beauty blemish'd once, for ever's lost, In spite of physic, painting, pain and cost. --SHAKESPEARE.
Give me a look, give me a face, That makes simplicity a grace; Robes loosely flowing, hair as free! Such sweet neglect more taketh me, Than all the adulteries of art; That strike mine eyes, but not my heart. --BEN JONSON.
BENEVOLENCE.--Every charitable act is a stepping stone toward heaven.--BEECHER.
The disposition to give a cup of cold water to a disciple is a far nobler property than the finest intellect. Satan has a fine intellect but not the image of God.--HOWELLS.
Animated by Christian motives and directed to Christian ends, it shall in no wise go unrewarded; here, by the testimony of an approving conscience; hereafter, by the benediction of our blessed Redeemer, and a brighter inheritance in His Father's house.--BISHOP MANT.
God will excuse our prayers for ourselves whenever we are prevented from them by being occupied in such good works as to entitle us to the prayers of others.--COLTON.
The lower a man descends in his love, the higher he lifts his life. --W.R. ALGER.
There is nothing that requires so strict an economy as our benevolence. We should husband our means as the agriculturalist his fertilizer, which if he spread over too large a superficies produces no crop, if over too small a surface, exuberates in rankness and in weeds.--COLTON.
The conqueror is regarded with awe, the wise man commands our esteem; but it is the benevolent man who wins our affections.--FROM THE FRENCH.
Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. As Collingwood never saw a vacant place in his estate but he took an acorn out of his pocket and popped it in, so deal with your compliments through life. An acorn costs nothing; but it may sprout into a prodigious bit of timber. --THACKERAY.
You will find people ready enough to do the Samaritan without the oil and twopence.--SYDNEY SMITH.
Genuine benevolence is not stationary, but peripatetic. It goeth about doing good.--NEVINS.
Benevolence is not in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth. It is a business with men as they are, and with human life as drawn by the rough hand of experience. It is a duty which you must perform at the call of principle; though there be no voice of eloquence to give splendor to your exertions, and no music of poetry to lead your willing footsteps through the bowers of enchantment. It is not the impulse of high and ecstatic emotion. It is an exertion of principle. You must go to the poor man's cottage, though no verdure flourish around it, and no rivulet be nigh to delight you by the gentleness of its murmurs. If you look for the romantic simplicity of fiction you will be disappointed; but it is your duty to persevere, in spite of every discouragement. Benevolence is not merely a feeling but a principle; not a dream of rapture for the fancy to indulge in, but a business for the hand to execute.--CHALMERS.
The only way to be loved, is to be and to appear lovely; to possess and display kindness, benevolence, tenderness; to be free from selfishness and to be alive to the welfare of others.--JAY.
Beneficence is a duty. He who frequently practices it, and sees his benevolent intentions realized, at length comes really to love him to whom he