Pearls of Thought Part 35

Wedlock's like wine, not properly judged of till the second gla.s.s.--_Douglas Jerrold._

A good wife is like the ivy which beautifies the building to which it clings, twining its tendrils more lovingly as time converts the ancient edifice into a ruin.--_Johnson._

He that marries is like the Doge who was wedded to the Adriatic. He knows not what there is in that which he marries: mayhap treasures and pearls, mayhap monsters and tempests, await him.--_Heinrich Heine._

A husband is a plaster that cures all the ills of girlhood.--_Moliere._

There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.--_Th.o.r.eau._

The love of some men for their wives is like that of Alfieri for his horse. "My attachment for him," said he, "went so far as to destroy my peace every time that he had the least ailment; but my love for him did not prevent me from fretting and chafing him whenever he did not wish to go my way."--_Bovee._

No navigator has yet traced lines of lat.i.tude and longitude on the conjugal sea.--_Balzac._

Has any one ever pinched into its pilulous smallness the cobweb of pre-matrimonial acquaintances.h.i.+p?--_George Eliot._

~Mediocrity.~--Mediocrity is excellent to the eyes of mediocre people.--_Joubert._

Mediocrity is now, as formerly, dangerous, commonly fatal, to the poet; but among even the successful writers of prose, those who rise sensibly above it are the very rarest exceptions.--_Gladstone._

~Meditation.~--Chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy.--_Shakespeare._

'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours, and ask them what report they bore to heaven, and how they might have borne more welcome news.--_Young._

Meditation is that exercise of the mind by which it recalls a known truth, as some kind of creatures do their food, to be ruminated upon till all vicious parts be extracted.--_Bishop Horne._

~Meekness.~--The flower of meekness grows on a stem of grace.--_J.

Montgomery._

A boy was once asked what meekness was. He thought for a moment and said, "Meekness gives smooth answers to rough questions."--_Mrs.

Balfour._

~Melancholy.~--Melancholy is a fearful gift; what is it but the telescope of truth?--_Byron._

A lazy frost, a numbness of the mind.--_Dryden._

Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy.--_Milton._

The noontide sun is dark, and music discord, when the heart is low.--_Young._

~Memory.~--Memory is what makes us young or old.--_Alfred de Musset._

No canvas absorbs color like memory.--_Willmott._

Of all the faculties of the mind, memory is the first that flourishes, and the first that dies.--_Colton._

Joy's recollection is no longer joy; but sorrow's memory is sorrow still.--_Byron._

A sealed book, at whose contents we tremble.--_L. E. Landon._

And fondly mourn the dear delusions gone.--_Prior._

How can such deep-imprinted images sleep in us at times, till a word, a sound, awake them?--_Lessing._

In literature and art memory is a synonym for invention; it is the life-blood of imagination, which faints and dies when the veins are empty.--_Willmott._

Memory is the scribe of the soul.--_Aristotle._

The memory has as many moods as the temper, and s.h.i.+fts its scenery like a diorama.--_George Eliot._

We must always have old memories and young hopes.--_a.r.s.ene Houssaye._

They teach us to remember; why do not they teach us to forget? There is not a man living who has not, some time in his life, admitted that memory was as much of a curse as a blessing.--_F. A. Durivage._

~Mercy.~--Mercy more becomes a magistrate than the vindictive wrath which men call justice!--_Longfellow._

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.--_Shakespeare._

'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes the throned monarch better than his crown.--_Shakespeare._

Give money, but never lend it. Giving it only makes a man ungrateful; lending it makes him an enemy.--_Dumas._

Mercy among the virtues is like the moon among the stars,--not so sparkling and vivid as many, but dispensing a calm radiance that hallows the whole. It is the bow that rests upon the bosom of the cloud when the storm is past. It is the light that hovers above the judgment-seat.--_Chapin._

We hand folks over to G.o.d's mercy, and show none ourselves.--_George Eliot._

Among the attributes of G.o.d, although they are all equal, mercy s.h.i.+nes with even more brilliancy than justice.--_Cervantes._

~Milton.~--His poetry reminds us of the miracles of Alpine scenery. Nooks and dells, beautiful as fairy land, are embosomed in its most rugged and gigantic elevations. The roses and myrtles bloom unchilled on the verge of the avalanche.--_Macaulay._

~Mind.~--It is with diseases of the mind as with diseases of the body, we are half dead before we understand our disorder, and half cured when we do.--_Colton._

The end which at present calls forth our efforts will be found when it is once gained to be only one of the means to some remoter end. The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.--_Johnson._

Minds filled with vivid, imaginative thoughts, are the most indolent in reproducing. Clear, cold, hard minds are productive. They have to retrace a very simple design.--_X. Doudan._

The mind is the atmosphere of the soul.--_Joubert._

What is this little, agile, precious fire, this fluttering motion which we call the mind?--_Prior._

Just as a particular soil wants some one element to fertilize it, just as the body in some conditions has a kind of famine for one special food, so the mind has its wants, which do not always call for what is best, but which know themselves and are as peremptory as the salt sick sailor's call for a lemon or raw potato.--_Holmes._

The best way to prove the clearness of our mind is by showing its faults; as when a stream discovers the dirt at the bottom, it convinces us of the transparency of the water.--_Pope._

A mind once cultivated will not lie fallow for half an hour.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

~Mischief.~--The opportunity to do mischief is found a hundred times a day, and that of doing good once a year.--_Voltaire._

~Miser.~--The miser swimming in gold seems to me like a thirsty fish.--_J.