Pearls of Thought Part 10

No one will ever s.h.i.+ne 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._

G.o.d 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.~--G.o.d 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 const.i.tution 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 Bruyere._

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 n.i.g.g.ardness 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.--_Bruyere._

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 G.o.ddess 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.--_Bovee._

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. Pet.i.t 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 b.l.o.o.d.y Mary.--_Charles Buxton._

Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.--_Burns._