Many Thoughts of Many Minds | Page 3

But crushed and trodden to the ground, Diffuse their balmy sweets around. --GOLDSMITH.
Affliction appears to be the guide to reflection; the teacher of humility; the parent of repentance; the nurse of faith; the strengthener of patience, and the promoter of charity.
Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.--MATTHEW HENRY.
If you would not have affliction visit you twice, listen at once to what it teaches.--BURGH.
Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.--JOB 5:7.
Affliction is the wholesome soul of virtue; Where patience, honor, sweet humanity, Calm fortitude, take root, and strongly flourish. --MALLET AND THOMSON.
Affliction's sons are brothers in distress; A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss! --BURNS.
With the wind of tribulation God separates in the floor of the soul, the chaff from the corn.--MOLINOS.
No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.--HEBREWS 12:11.
AGE.--No wise man ever wished to be younger.--SWIFT.
I venerate old age; and I love not the man who can look without emotion upon the sunset of life, when the dusk of evening begins to gather over the watery eye, and the shadows of twilight grow broader and deeper upon the understanding.--LONGFELLOW.
It is only necessary to grow old to become more indulgent. I see no fault committed that I have not committed myself.--GOETHE.
That which is usually called dotage is not the weak point of all old men, but only of such as are distinguished by their levity.--CICERO.
We must not take the faults of our youth into our old age; for old age brings with it its own defects.--GOETHE.
Learn to live well, or fairly make your will; You've play'd, and lov'd, and ate, and drank your fill; Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age Comes titt'ring on, and shoves you from the stage. --POPE.
If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should not grow old.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age.--VICTOR HUGO.
Remember that some of the brightest drops in the chalice of life may still remain for us in old age. The last draught which a kind Providence gives us to drink, though near the bottom of the cup, may, as is said of the draught of the Roman of old, have at the very bottom, instead of dregs, most costly pearls.--W.A. NEWMAN.
Begin to patch up thine old body for heaven.--SHAKESPEARE.
Few people know how to be old.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
When men grow virtuous in their old age, they are merely making a sacrifice to God of the devil's leavings.--SWIFT.
The defects of the mind, like those of the countenance, increase with age.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
He who would pass the declining years of his life with honor and comfort, should when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young.--ADDISON.
Winter, which strips the leaves from around us, makes us see the distant regions they formerly concealed; so does old age rob us of our enjoyments, only to enlarge the prospect of eternity before us.--RICHTER.
The easiest thing for our friends to discover in us, and the hardest thing for us to discover in ourselves, is that we are growing old. --H.W. SHAW.
AMBITION.--Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.--LONGFELLOW.
He who ascends to mountain tops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind, Must look down on the hate of those below. --SOUTHEY.
They that stand high, have many blasts to shake them; And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces. --SHAKESPEARE.
The path of glory leads but to the grave.--GRAY.
We should be careful to deserve a good reputation by doing well; and when that care is once taken, not to be over anxious about the success.--ROCHESTER.
Say what we will, you may be sure that ambition is an error; its wear and tear of heart are never recompensed,--it steals away the freshness of life,--it deadens its vivid and social enjoyments,--it shuts our souls to our own youth,--and we are old ere we remember that we have made a fever and a labor of our raciest years.--LYTTON.
I charge thee, fling away ambition: By that sin fell the angels. --SHAKESPEARE.
A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself, and a mean man by one which is lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other, ambition. Ambition is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.--BEECHER.
It is not for man to rest in absolute contentment. He is born to hopes and aspirations, as the sparks fly upward, unless he has brutified his nature, and quenched the spirit of immortality, which