Pearls of Thought Part 39

~Opinion.~--The men of the past had convictions, while we moderns have only opinions.--_Heinrich Heine._

Wind puffs up empty bladders; opinion, fools.--_Socrates._

Our pet opinions are usually those which place us in a minority of a minority amongst our own party: very happily, else those poor opinions, born with no silver spoon in their mouths, how would they get nourished and fed?--_George Eliot._

Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love truth.--_Joubert._

It has been shrewdly said that when men abuse us, we should suspect ourselves, and when they praise us, them. It is a rare instance of virtue to despise censure which we do not deserve, and still more rare to despise praise, which we do. But that integrity that lives only on opinion would starve without it.--_Colton._

There never was in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains. The most universal quality is diversity.--_Montaigne._

The history of human opinion is scarcely anything more than the history of human errors.--_Voltaire._

If a man should register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, etc., beginning from his youth, and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last.--_Swift._

One of the mistakes in the conduct of human life is, to suppose that other men's opinions are to make us happy.--_Burton._

It is with true opinions which one has the courage to utter as with p.a.w.ns first advanced on the chess-board; they may be beaten, but they have inaugurated a game which must be won.--_Goethe._

The feeble tremble before opinion, the foolish defy it, the wise judge it, the skillful direct it.--_Mme. Roland._

~Opportunity.~--The cleverest of all devils is opportunity.--_Vieland._

Chance opportunities make us known to others, and still more to ourselves.--_Rochefoucauld._

What is opportunity to the man who can't use it? An unfecundated egg, which the waves of time wash away into nonent.i.ty.--_George Eliot._

There is no man whom Fortune does not visit once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door and flies out at the window.--_Cardinal Imperiali._

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.--_George Eliot._

Every one has a fair turn to be as great as he pleases.--_Jeremy Collier._

A philosopher being asked what was the first thing necessary to win the love of a woman, answered: "Opportunity."--_Moore._

Opportunity, sooner or later, comes to all who work and wish.--_Lord Stanley._

You will never "find" time for anything. If you want time you must make it.--_Charles Buxton._

~Opposition.~--The effects of opposition are wonderful. There are men who rise refreshed on hearing of a threat,--men to whom a crisis which intimidates and paralyzes the majority--demanding, not the faculties of prudence and thrift, but comprehension, immovableness, the readiness of sacrifice--comes graceful and beloved as a bride!--_Emerson._

n.o.body loves heartily unless people take pains to prevent it.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

~Oratory.~--Orators are most vehement when they have the weakest cause, as men get on horseback when they cannot walk.--_Cicero._

Metaphor is the figure most suitable for the orator, as men find a positive pleasure in catching resemblances for themselves.--_Aristotle._

Those orators who give us much noise and many words, but little argument and less wit, and who are most loud when they are least lucid, should take a lesson from the great volume of Nature; she often gives us the lightning even without the thunder, but never the thunder without the lightning.--_Colton._

An orator without judgment is a horse without a bridle.--_Theophrastus._

When the Roman people had listened to the diffuse and polished discourses of Cicero, they departed, saying one to another, "What a splendid speech our orator has made!" But when the Athenians heard Demosthenes, he so filled them with the subject-matter of his oration, that they quite forgot the orator, and left him at the finish of his harangue, breathing revenge, and exclaiming, "Let us go and fight against Philip!"--_Colton._

Let not a day pa.s.s without exercising your powers of speech. There is no power like that of oratory. Caesar controlled men by exciting their fears; Cicero, by captivating their affections and swaying their pa.s.sions. The influence of the one perished with its author; that of the other continues to this day.--_Henry Clay._

It was reckoned the fault of the orators at the decline of the Roman empire, when they had been long instructed by rhetoricians, that their periods were so harmonious as that they could be sung as well as spoken.

What a ridiculous figure must one of these gentlemen cut, thus measuring syllables and weighing words when he should plead the cause of his client!--_Goldsmith._

~Originality.~--Originality is nothing but judicious imitation.--_Voltaire._

One couldn't carry on life comfortably without a little blindness to the fact that everything has been said better than we can put it ourselves.--_George Eliot._

The most original writers borrowed one from another. Boiardo has imitated Pulci, and Arios...o...b..iardo. The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbor's, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.--_Voltaire._

All originality is estrangement.--_G. H. Lawes._

P.

~Pain.~--Psychical pain is more easily borne than physical, and if I had my choice between a bad conscience and a bad tooth, I should choose the former.--_Heinrich Heine._

The same refinement which brings us new pleasures exposes us to new pains.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

~Pardon.~--Pardon is the virtue of victory.--_Mazzini._

The heart has always the pardoning power.--_Madame Swetchine._

The offender never pardons.--_George Herbert._

Love is on the verge of hate each time it stoops for pardon.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

These evils I deserve, yet despair not of his final pardon whose ear is ever open, and his eye gracious to readmit the supplicant.--_Milton._

Having mourned your sin, for outward Eden lost, find paradise within.--_Dryden._

~Parent.~--The sacred books of the ancient Persians say: If you would be holy instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you.--_Montesquieu._

~Partiality.~--Partiality in a parent is commonly unlucky; for fondlings are in danger to be made fools, and the children that are least c.o.c.kered make the best and wisest men.--_L'Estrange._

As there is a partiality to opinions, which is apt to mislead the understanding, so there is also a partiality to studies, which is prejudicial to knowledge.--_Locke._

Partiality is properly the understanding's judging according to the inclination of the will and affections, and not according to the exact truth of things, or the merits of the cause.--_South._

~Parting.~--In every parting there is an image of death.--_George Eliot._

~Party.~--He knows very little of mankind who expects, by any facts or reasoning, to convince a determined party-man.--_Lavater._

He that aspires to be the head of a party will find it more difficult to please his friends than to perplex his foes.--_Colton._