Pearls of Thought Part 6

~Blush.~--The ambiguous livery worn alike by modesty and shame.--_Mrs.

Balfour._

I have mark'd a thousand blus.h.i.+ng apparitions to start into her face; a thousand innocent shames, in angel whiteness, bear away those blushes.--_Shakespeare._

The glow of the angel in woman.--_Mrs. Balfour._

Such blushes as adorn the ruddy welkin or the purple morn.--_Ovid._

Luminous escapes of thought.--_Moore._

~Bl.u.s.tering.~--Because half a dozen gra.s.shoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate c.h.i.n.k, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposing beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field--that, of course, they are many in number,--or, that, after all, they are other than the little, shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour.--_Burke._

There are braying men in the world as well as braying a.s.ses; for what is loud and senseless talking any other than a way of braying.--_L'Estrange._

Wine and the sun will make vinegar without any shouting to help them.--_George Eliot._

~Boasting.~--Usually the greatest boasters are the smallest workers. The deep rivers pay a larger tribute to the sea than shallow brooks, and yet empty themselves with less noise.--_W. Secker._

With all his tumid boasts, he's like the sword-fish, who only wears his weapon in his mouth.--_Madden._

Every braggart shall be found an a.s.s.--_Shakespeare._

Self-laudation abounds among the unpolished, but nothing can stamp a man more sharply as ill-bred.--_Charles Buxton._

~Boldness.~--Who bravely dares must sometimes risk a fall.--_Smollett._

Women like brave men exceedingly, but audacious men still more.--_Lemesles._

~Bondage.~--The iron chain and the silken cord, both equally are bonds.--_Schiller._

~Books.~--If a secret history of books could be written, and the author's private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!--_Thackeray._

When a new book comes out I read an old one.--_Rogers._

Be as careful of the books you read as of the company you keep; for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as the latter.--_Paxton Hood._

Homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high art.--_Th.o.r.eau._

A book _is_ good company. It is full of conversation without loquacity.

It comes to your longing with full instruction, but pursues you never.

It is not offended at your absent-mindedness, nor jealous if you turn to other pleasures. It silently serves the soul without recompense, not even for the hire of love. And yet more n.o.ble,--it seems to pa.s.s from itself, and to enter the memory, and to hover in a silvery transfiguration there, until the outward book is but a body, and its soul and spirit are flown to you, and possess your memory like a spirit.--_Beecher._

If the crowns of all the kingdoms of Europe were laid down at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of reading, I would spurn them all.--_Fenelon._

We ought to regard books as we do sweetmeats, not wholly to aim at the pleasantest, but chiefly to respect the wholesomest; not forbidding either, but approving the latter most.--_Plutarch._

To buy books only because they were published by an eminent printer, is much as if a man should buy clothes that did not fit him, only because made by some famous tailor.--_Pope._

The medicine of the mind.--_Diodorus._

Let every man, if possible, gather some good books under his roof.--_Channing._

Wise books for half the truths they hold are honored tombs.--_George Eliot._

~Bores.~--I am const.i.tutionally susceptible of noises. A carpenter's hammer, in a warm summer's noon, will fret me into more than midsummer madness. But those unconnected, unset sounds are nothing to the measured malice of music.--_Lamb._

These, wanting wit, affect gravity, and go by the name of solid men.--_Dryden._

If we engage into a large acquaintance and various familiarities, we set open our gates to the invaders of most of our time; we expose our life to a quotidian ague of frigid impertinences which would make a wise man tremble to think of.--_Cowley._

The symptoms of compa.s.sion and benevolence, in some people, are like those minute guns which warn you that you are in deadly peril!--_Madame Swetchine._

~Borrowing.~--You should only attempt to borrow from those who have but few of this world's goods, as their chests are not of iron, and they are, besides, anxious to appear wealthier than they really are.--_Heinrich Heine._

According to the security you offer to her, Fortune makes her loans easy or ruinous.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

~Bravery.~--True bravery is shown by performing without witnesses what one might be capable of doing before all the world.--_Rochefoucauld._

'Tis late before the brave despair.--_Thompson._

The bravest men are subject most to chance.--_Dryden._

The truly brave are soft of heart and eyes.--_Byron._

People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbors.--_George Eliot._

~Brevity.~--To make pleasures pleasant shorten them.--_Charles Buxton._

Was there ever anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?--_Johnson._

A sentence well couched takes both the sense and understanding. I love not those cart-rope speeches that are longer than the memory of man can fathom.--_Feltham._

I saw one excellency was within my reach--it was brevity, and I determined to obtain it.--_Jay._

Be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams--the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.--_Southey._

Concentration alone conquers.--_Charles Buxton._

The more an idea is developed, the more concise becomes its expression: the more a tree is pruned, the better is the fruit.--_Alfred Bougeart._

Oratory, like the Drama, abhors lengthiness; like the Drama, it must be kept doing. It avoids, as frigid, prolonged metaphysical soliloquy.

Beauties themselves, if they delay or distract the effect which should be produced on the audience, become blemishes.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

The fewer words the better prayer.--_Luther._

~Business.~--Not because of any extraordinary talents did he succeed, but because he had a capacity on a level for business and not above it.--_Tacitus._

C.