Life and Literature Part 88

What a piece of work is man!

How n.o.ble in reason! How infinite in faculties!

In form and moving how express and admirable!

In action how like an angel!

In appearance how like a G.o.d!

The beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!

--_Shakespeare._

1212

Direct not him, whose way himself will choose.

1213

He that can please n.o.body, is not so much to be pitied as he that n.o.body can please.

--_Colton._

1214

To quarrel with a drunken man is harming the absent.

1215

Goethe said that there is no man so commonplace that a wise man may not learn something from him. Sir Walter Scott could not travel in a coach without gleaning some information or discovering some new trait of character in his companions.

1216

LIFE AND DEATH.

I have seen the wicked in great power, And spreading himself, like a green bay-tree; Yet he pa.s.sed away, and, lo! he was not; Yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.

Mark the perfect man, And behold the upright, For the end of that man is peace.

--_Psalms x.x.xvii, 35-37v._

1217

He who stands high is seen from afar.

--_From the Danish._

1218

I confess that increasing years bring with them an increasing respect for men who do not succeed in life, as those words are commonly used.

--_G. S. Hillard._

1219

Beauty is good for women, firmness for men.

--_Bion._

1220

A man who is always forgetting his best intentions may be said to be a thoroughfare of good resolutions.

1221

It is a matter of the simplest demonstration, that no man can be really appreciated, but by his equal or superior.

--_Ruskin._

1222

It takes a great man to make a good listener.

--_Sir Arthur Helps._

1223

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but rising every time we fall. A gem is not polished without rubbing, nor is a man perfected without trials.

--_Goldsmith._

1224

Be content with the day as it is; look for the good in everything.

1225

An honest man is believed without an oath, for his reputation swears for him.

1226