Pearls of Thought Part 26

Let but the hours of idleness cease, and the bow of Cupid will become broken and his torch extinguished.--_Ovid._

~Ignorance.~--Have the _courage_ to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.--_Sydney Smith._

There is no calamity like ignorance.--_Richter._

'Tis sad work to be at that pa.s.s, that the best trial of truth must be the mult.i.tude of believers, in a crowd where the number of fools so much exceeds that of the wise. As if anything were so common as ignorance!--_Montaigne._

Ignorance, which in behavior mitigates a fault, is, in literature, a capital offense.--_Joubert._

There is no slight danger from general ignorance; and the only choice which Providence has graciously left to a vicious government is either to fall _by_ the people, if they are suffered to become enlightened, or _with_ them, if they are kept enslaved and ignorant.--_Coleridge._

To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of ignorance.--_Alcott._

The true instrument of man's degradation is his ignorance.--_Lady Morgan._

Ignorance is not so d.a.m.nable as humbug, but when it prescribes pills it may happen to do more harm.--_George Eliot._

The ignorant hath an eagle's wings and an owl's eyes.--_George Herbert._

Ignorance is mere privation, by which nothing can be produced; it is a vacuity in which the soul sits motionless and torpid for want of attraction.--_Johnson._

~Illusion.~--In youth we feel richer for every new illusion; in maturer years, for every one we lose.--_Madame Swetchine._

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.--_Voltaire._

~Imagination.~--We are all of us imaginative in some form or other, for images are the brood of desire.--_George Eliot._

A vile imagination, once indulged, gets the key of our minds, and can get in again very easily, whether we will or no, and can so return as to bring seven other spirits with it more wicked than itself; and what may follow no one knows.--_Spurgeon._

He who has imagination without learning has wings and no feet.--_Joubert._

No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.--_Johnson._

~Imitation.~--Imitators are a servile race.--_Fontaine._

Imitation causes us to leave natural ways to enter into artificial ones; it therefore makes slaves.--_Dr. Vinet._

"Name to me an animal, though never so skillful, that I cannot imitate!"

So bragged the ape to the fox. But the fox replied, "And do thou name to me an animal so humble as to think of imitating thee."--_Lessing._

~Immortality.~--When I consider the wonderful activity of the mind, so great a memory of what is past, and such a capacity of penetrating into the future; when I behold such a number of arts and sciences, and such a mult.i.tude of discoveries thence arising; I believe and am firmly persuaded that a nature which contains so many things within itself cannot be mortal.--_Cicero._

Whatsoever that be within us that feels, thinks, desires, and animates, is something celestial, divine, and consequently imperishable.--_Aristotle._

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

All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.--_Socrates._

What springs from earth dissolves to earth again, and heaven-born things fly to their native seat.--_Marcus Antoninus._

The seed dies into a new life, and so does man.--_George MacDonald._

~Impatience.~--Impatience turns an ague into a fever, a fever to the plague, fear into despair, anger into rage, loss into madness, and sorrow to amazement.--_Jeremy Taylor._

~Impossibility.~--One great difference between a wise man and a fool is, the former only wishes for what he may possibly obtain; the latter desires impossibilities.--_Democritus._

~Improvement.~--Slumber not in the tents of your fathers. The world is advancing. Advance with it.--_Mazzini._

People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.--_Goldsmith._

~Improvidence.~--How full or how empty our lives, depends, we say, on Providence. Suppose we say, more or less on improvidence.--_Bovee._

~Income.~--Our incomes are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and to trip.--_Colton._

~Inconsistency.~--Men talk as if they believed in G.o.d, but they live as if they thought there was none: their vows and promises are no more than words of course.--_L'Estrange._

People are so ridiculous with their illusions, carrying their fool's caps unawares, thinking their own lies opaque while everybody else's are transparent, making themselves exceptions to everything, as if when all the world looked yellow under a lamp they alone were rosy.--_George Eliot._

~Inconstancy.~--The catching court disease.--_Otway._

Nothing that is not a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconstancy.--_Addison._

~Indifference.~--Nothing for preserving the body like having no heart.--_J. Pet.i.t Senn._

Indifference is the invincible giant of the world.--_Ouida._

~Indigestion.~--Old friends.h.i.+ps are destroyed by toasted cheese, and hard salted meat has led to suicide. Unpleasant feelings of the body produce correspondent sensations in the mind, and a great scene of wretchedness is sketched out by a morsel of indigestible and misguided food.--_Sydney Smith._

~Individuality.~--There are men of convictions whose very faces will light up an era, and there are believing women in whose eyes you may almost read the whole plan of salvation.--_T. Fields._

Individuality is everywhere to be spared and respected as the root of everything good.--_Richter._

The epoch of individuality is concluded, and it is the duty of reformers to initiate the epoch of a.s.sociation. Collective man is omnipotent upon the earth he treads.--_Mazzini._

~Indolence.~--I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide; for the man is effectually destroyed, though the appet.i.te of the brute may survive.--_Chesterfield._

Lives spent in indolence, and therefore sad.--_Cowper._

Days of respite are golden days.--_South._

So long as he must fight his way, the man of genius pushes forward, conquering and to conquer. But how often is he at last overcome by a Capua! Ease and fame bring sloth and slumber.--_Charles Buxton._

Nothing ages like laziness.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

~Indulgence.~--One wishes to be happy before becoming wise.--_Mme.

Necker._

~Industry.~--Mankind are more indebted to industry than ingenuity; the G.o.ds set up their favors at a price, and industry is the purchaser.--_Addison._