Many Thoughts of Many Minds Part 20

People are never so near playing the fool as when they think themselves wise.--LADY MONTAGU.

To pardon those absurdities in ourselves which we cannot suffer in others is neither better nor worse than to be more willing to be fools ourselves than to have others so.--POPE.

Surely he is not a fool that hath unwise thoughts, but he that utters them.--BISHOP HALL.

It would be easier to endow a fool with intellect than to persuade him that he had none.--BABINET.

At thirty man suspects himself a fool; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty, chides his infamous delay, Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve, Resolves--and re-resolves; then dies the same.

--YOUNG.

It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of others, and to forget his own.--CICERO.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.--POPE.

A fool is often as dangerous to deal with as a knave, and always more incorrigible.--COLTON.

Always win fools first. They talk much, and what they have once uttered they will stick to; whereas there is always time, up to the last moment, to bring before a wise man arguments that may entirely change his opinion.--HELPS.

Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools.--CHAPMAN.

None but a fool is always right.--HARE.

People have no right to make fools of themselves, unless they have no relations to blush for them.--HALIBURTON.

FORBEARANCE.--Learn from Jesus to love and to forgive. Let the blood of Jesus, which implores pardon for you in heaven, obtain it from you for your brethren here upon earth.--VALPY.

The kindest and the happiest pair Will find occasion to forbear; And something every day they live To pity, and perhaps forgive.

--COWPER.

It is a n.o.ble and a great thing to cover the blemishes and to excuse the failings of a friend; to draw a curtain before his stains, and to display his perfections; to bury his weaknesses in silence, but to proclaim his virtues upon the house-top.--SOUTH.

FORGIVENESS.--If ye forgive men their trespa.s.ses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.--MATTHEW 6:14.

He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pa.s.s himself; for every man has need to be forgiven.--LORD HERBERT.

They who forgive most shall be most forgiven.--BAILEY.

The brave only know how to forgive.--STERNE.

The gospel comes to the sinner at once with nothing short of complete forgiveness as the starting-point of all his efforts to be holy. It does not say, "Go and sin no more, and I will not condemn thee." It says at once, "Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no more."--HORATIUS BONAR.

Life, that ever needs forgiveness, has, for its first duty, to forgive.--LYTTON.

Alas! if my best Friend, who laid down His life for me, were to remember all the instances in which I have neglected Him, and to plead them against me in judgment, where should I hide my guilty head in the day of recompense? I will pray, therefore, for blessings on my friends, even though they cease to be so, and upon my enemies, though they continue such.--COWPER.

Forgive us our trespa.s.ses, as we forgive them that trespa.s.s against us.--THE LORD'S PRAYER.

G.o.d's way of forgiving is thorough and hearty,--both to forgive and to forget; and if thine be not so, thou hast no portion of His.--LEIGHTON.

FORt.i.tUDE.--The greatest man is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution; who resists the sorest temptations from within and without; who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully; who is the calmest in storms, and whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on G.o.d, is the most unfaltering.--CHANNING.

Fort.i.tude implies a firmness and strength of mind, that enables us to do and suffer as we ought. It rises upon an opposition, and, like a river, swells the higher for having its course stopped.--JEREMY COLLIER.

True fort.i.tude I take to be the quiet possession of a man's self, and an undisturbed doing his duty, whatever evil besets or danger lies in his way.--LOCKE.

FORTUNE.--It is a madness to make fortune the mistress of events, because in herself she is nothing, but is ruled by prudence.--DRYDEN.

The prudent man really frames his own fortunes for himself.--PLAUTUS.

Let fortune do her worst, whatever she makes us lose, so long as she never makes us lose our honesty and our independence.--POPE.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.--SHAKESPEARE.

Every man is the architect of his own fortune.--SALl.u.s.t.

The bad fortune of the good turns their faces up to heaven; and the good fortune of the bad bows their heads down to the earth.--SAADI.

Fortune favors the bold.--CICERO.

The less we deserve good fortune, the more we hope for it.--MOLIeRE.

FREEDOM.--I would rather be a freeman among slaves than a slave among freemen.--SWIFT.

There are two freedoms,--the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where a man is free to do what he ought.--CHARLES KINGSLEY.

The cause of freedom is the cause of G.o.d.--BOWLES.

Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage; If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free, Angels alone that soar above, Enjoy such liberty.

--RICHARD LOVELACE.

And ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

--ROBERT TREAT PAINE.

Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.--MACAULAY.

To have freedom is only to have that which is absolutely necessary to enable us to be what we ought to be, and to possess what we ought to possess.--RAHEL.

When Freedom from her mountain height Unfurled her standard to the air, She tore the azure robe of night, And set the stars of glory there.

She mingled with its gorgeous dyes The milky baldric of the skies, And striped its pure, celestial white With streakings of the morning light.

--JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.

Freedom is not caprice but room to enlarge.--C.A. BARTOL.

Blandishments will not fascinate us, nor will threats of a "halter"