Pearls of Thought Part 19

They never pardon who commit the wrong.--_Dryden._

May I tell you why it seems to me a good thing for us to remember wrong that has been done us? That we may forgive it.--_d.i.c.kens._

'Tis easier for the generous to forgive than for offense to ask it.--_Thomson._

Life, that ever needs forgiveness, has, for its first duty, to forgive.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

It is easy enough to forgive your enemies, if you have not the means to harm them.--_Heinrich Heine._

More bounteous run rivers when the ice that locked their flow melts into their waters. And when fine natures relent, their kindness is swelled by the thaw.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

~Fort.i.tude.~--White men should exhibit the same insensibility to moral tortures that red men do to physical torments.--_Theophile Gautier._

There is a strength of quiet endurance as significant of courage as the most daring feats of prowess.--_Tuckerman._

Fort.i.tude is the guard and support of the other virtues.--_Locke._

~Fortune.~--Fortune loves only the young.--_Charles V._

Ill fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune deceived not.--_Ben Jonson._

It is often the easiest move that completes the game. Fortune is like the lady whom a lover carried off from all his rivals by putting an additional lace upon his liveries.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

The use we make of our fortune determines its sufficiency. A little is enough if used wisely, and too much if expended foolishly.--_Bovee._

The fortunate circ.u.mstances of our lives are generally found at last to be of our own producing.--_Goldsmith._

Fortune has been considered the guardian divinity of fools; and, on this score, she has been accused of blindness; but it should rather be adduced as a proof of her sagacity, when she helps those who certainly cannot help themselves.--_Colton._

Fortunes made in no time are like s.h.i.+rts made in no time; it's ten to one if they hang long together.--_Douglas Jerrold._

There is some help for all the defects of fortune; for if a man cannot attain to the length of his wishes, he may have his remedy by cutting of them shorter.--_Cowley._

Fortune, to show us her power in all things, and to abate our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, she has made them fortunate.--_Montaigne._

See'st thou not what various fortunes the Divinity makes man to pa.s.s through, changing and turning them from day to day?--_Euripides._

Fortune is but a synonymous word for nature and necessity.--_Bentley._

Foolish I deem him who, thinking that his state is blest, rejoices in security; for Fortune, like a man distempered in his senses, leaps now this way, now that, and no man is always fortunate.--_Euripides._

They say Fortune is a woman and capricious. But sometimes she is a good woman, and gives to those who merit.--_George Eliot._

If Fortune has fairly sat on a man, he takes it for granted that life consists in being sat upon. But to be coddled on Fortune's knee, and then have his ears boxed, that is aggravating.--_Charles Buxton._

~Fraud.~--The more gross the fraud the more glibly will it go down, and the more greedily will it be swallowed; since folly will always find faith wherever impostors will find impudence.--_Colton._

~Friends.h.i.+p.~--Friends.h.i.+p has steps which lead up to the throne of G.o.d, though all spirits come to the Infinite; only Love is satiable, and like Truth, admits of no three degrees of comparison; and a simple being fills the heart.--_Richter._

Very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, pa.s.sing the love of women.--_Bible._

Fix yourself upon the wealthy. In a word, take this for a golden rule through life: Never, never have a friend that is poorer than yourself.--_Douglas Jerrold._

Experience has taught me that the only friends we can call our own, who can have no change, are those over whom the grave has closed; the seal of death is the only seal of friends.h.i.+p.--_Byron._

What is commonly called friends.h.i.+p even is only a little more honor among rogues.--_Th.o.r.eau._

So great a happiness do I esteem it to be loved, that I fancy every blessing both from G.o.ds and men ready to descend spontaneously upon him who is loved.--_Xenophon._

Nothing makes the earth seem so s.p.a.cious as to have friends at a distance; they make the lat.i.tudes and longitudes.--_Th.o.r.eau._

The friends.h.i.+p between great men is rarely intimate or permanent. It is a Boswell that most appreciates a Johnson. Genius has no brother, no co-mate; the love it inspires is that of a pupil or a son.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

The firmest friends.h.i.+ps have been formed in mutual adversity; as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame.--_Colton._

Never contract a friends.h.i.+p with a man that is not better than thyself.--_Confucius._

There are three friends.h.i.+ps which are advantageous, and three which are injurious. Friends.h.i.+p with the upright, friends.h.i.+p with the sincere, and friends.h.i.+p with the man of much information,--these are advantageous.

Friends.h.i.+p with the man of specious airs, friends.h.i.+p with the insinuatingly soft, friends.h.i.+p with the glib-tongued,--these are injurious.--_Confucius._

Friends.h.i.+p survives death better than absence.--_J. Pet.i.t Senn._

This communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects, for it redoubleth joys and cutteth griefs in half: for there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less.--_Bacon._

Sweet is the memory of distant friends! Like the mellow rays of the declining sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart.--_Was.h.i.+ngton Irving._

It may be worth noticing as a curious circ.u.mstance, when persons past forty before they were at all acquainted form together a very close intimacy of friends.h.i.+p. For grafts of _old_ wood to _take_, there must be a wonderful congeniality between the trees.--_Whately._

An old friend is not always the person whom it is easiest to make a confidant of.--_George Eliot._

~Fun.~--There is nothing like fun, is there? I haven't any myself, and I do like it in others. Oh, we need it,--we need all the counter-weights we can muster to balance the sad relations of life. G.o.d has made sunny spots in the heart; why should we exclude the light from them?--_Haliburton._

~Futurity.~--The best preparation for the future is the present well seen to, the last duty done.--_George MacDonald._

We always live prospectively, never retrospectively, and there is no abiding moment.--_Jacobi._

Another life, if it were not better than this, would be less a promise than a threat.--_J. Pet.i.t Senn._

The spirit of man, which G.o.d inspired, cannot together perish with this corporeal clod.--_Milton._

G.

~Gambling.~--Gaming is a kind of tacit confession that the company engaged therein do, in general, exceed the bounds of their respective fortunes, and therefore they cast lots to determine upon whom the ruin shall at present fall, that the rest may be saved a little longer.--_Blackstone._

A mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.--_Johnson._

~Gems.~--How very beautiful these gems are! It is strange how deeply colors seem to penetrate one, like scent. I suppose that is the reason why gems are used as spiritual emblems in the Revelation of St. John.