The whole duty of man is embraced in the two principles of abstinence and patience: temperance in prosperity, and patient courage in adversity.-Seneca. Always rise from the table with an appetite, and you will never sit down without one.-Penn. Against diseases the strongest fence is the defensive virtue, abstinence.-Herrick. Refrain to-night, and that shall lend a hand of easiness to the next abstinence; the next more easy; for use can almost change the stamp of nature, and either curb the devil, or throw him out with wondrous potency. --Shakespeare. The stomach begs and clamors, and listens to no precepts. And yet it is not an obdurate creditor; for it is dismissed with small payment if you only give it what you owe, and not as much as you can.-Seneca. If thou wouldst make the best advantage of the muses, either by reading to benefit thyself, or by writing to benefit others, keep a peaceful soul in a temperate body. A full belly makes a dull brain, and a turbulent spirit a distracted judgment. The muses starve in a cook's shop and a lawyer's study. Quarles. To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which if not a virtue, is the groundwork of a virtue.Johnson. It is continued temperance which sus tains the body for the longest period of time, and which most surely preserves it free from sickness.-W. Humboldt. ABSURDITIES. - There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher. Fontenelle says he would under- / take to persuade the whole republic of readers to believe that the sun was neither the cause of light or heat, if he could only get six philosophers on his side. Goldsmith. To pardon those absurdities in ourselves which we condemn in others, is neither better nor worse than to be more willing to be fools ourselves than to have others so.-Pope. ABUSE.-Abuse is often of service. There is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence. His name, like the shuttlecock, must be beat backward and forward, or it falls to the ground.Johnson. It is the wit and policy of sin to hate those we have abused.-Davenant. I never yet heard man or woman much abused that I was not inclined to think the better of them, and to transfer the suspicion or dislike to the one who found pleasure in pointing out the defects of another. -Jane Porter. Abuse of any one generally shows that he has marked traits of character. The stupid and indifferent are passed by in silence. Tryon Edwards. It is not he who gives abuse that affronts, but the view that we take of it as insulting; so that when one provokes you it is your own opinion which is provoking. Epictetus. When certain persons abuse us let us ask what kind of characters it is they admire. We shall often find this a most consolatory question. Colton. Abuse me as much as you will; it is often a benefit rather than an injury. But for heaven's sake don't make me ridiculous.-E. Nott. The difference between coarse and refined abuse is the difference between being bruised by a club and wounded by a poisoned arrow-Johnson. Cato, being scurrilously treated by a low and vicious fellow, quietly said to him, "A contest between us is very unequal, for thou canst bear ill language with ease, and return it with pleasure; but to me it is unusual to hear, and disagreeable to speak it." There are none more abusive to others than they that lie most open to it themselves; but the humor goes round, and he that laughs at me to-day will have somebody to laugh at him tomorrow. Seneca. ACCENT.- Accent is the soul of language; it gives to it both feeling and truth. Rousseau. ACCIDENT.- Nothing is or can be accidental with God.-Longfellow. No accidents are so unlucky but that the wise may draw some advantage from them; nor are there any so lucky but that the foolish may turn them to their own prejudice. Rochefoucauld.. What reason, like the careful ant, draws laboriously together, the wind of accident sometimes collects in a moment. Schiller. What men call accident is the doing of God's providence. Bailey. ACCURACY. - Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.-C. Simmons. Accuracy of statement is one of the first elements of truth; inaccuracy is a near kin to falsehood. Tryon Edwards. ACQUAINTANCE. If a man does not make new acquaintances as he adthrough life, he will soon find himself left alone; one should keep his friendships in constant repair. Johnson. vances It is good discretion not to make too much of any man at the first; because one cannot hold out that proportion.Bacon. It is expedient to have acquaintance with those who have looked into the world, who know men, understand business, and can give you good intelligence and good advice when they are wanted. -Bp. Horne. I love the acquaintance of young people; because, in the first place, I don't like to think myself growing old. In the next place, young acquaintances must last longest, if they do last; and then young men have more virtue than old men; they have more generous sentiments in every respect.-Johnson. Three days of uninterrupted company in a vehicle will make you better acquainted with another, than one hour's conversation with him every day for three years. Lavater. Never say you know a man till you have divided an inheritance with him.Lavater. we If a man is worth knowing at all, he is worth knowing well.-Alexander Smith. ACQUIREMENT. - That which acquire with most difficulty we retain the longest; as those who have earned a fortune are commonly more careful of it than those by whom it may have been inherited. Colton. Every noble acquisition is attended with its risks; he who fears to encounter the one must not expect to obtain the other.-Metastasio. An unjust acquisition is like a barbed arrow, which must be drawn backward with horrible anguish, or else will be your destruction. Jeremy Taylor. ACTION. - Heaven never helps the man who will not act.-Sophocles. Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action. Disraeli. Remember you have not a sinew whose law of strength is not action; not a faculty of body, mind, or soul, whose law of improvement is not energy.E. B. Hall. Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. Carlyle. Only actions give to life its strength, as only moderation gives it its charm.Richter. Every noble activity makes room for itself. Emerson. Mark this well, ye proud men of action! ye are, after all, nothing but unconscious instruments of the men of thought. Heine. The actions of men are like the index of a book; they point out what is most remarkable in them. Happiness is in action, and every power is intended for action; human happiness, therefore, can only be complete as all the powers have their full and legitimate play. Thomas. Great actions, the lustre of which dazzles us, are represented by politicians as the effects of deep design; whereas they are commonly the effects of caprice and passion. Thus the war between Augustus and Antony, supposed to be owing to their ambition to give a master to the world, arose probably from jealousy. Rochefoucauld. A right act strikes a chord that extends through the whole universe, touches all moral intelligence, visits every world, vibrates along its whole extent, and conveys its vibrations to the very bosom of God!-T. Binney. Good thoughts, though God accept them, yet toward men are little better than good dreams except they be put in action.-Bacon. Doing is the great thing. For if, resolutely, people do what is right, in time they come to like doing it.-Ruskin. Activity is God's medicine; the highest genius is willingness and ability to do hard work. Any other conception of genius makes it a doubtful, if not a dangerous possession.-R. S. MacArthur. That action is not warrantable which either fears to ask the divine blessing on ssing its performance, or having succeeded, does not come with thanksgiving to God for its success. Quarles. A holy act strengthens the inward holiness. It is a seed of life growing into more life. - F. W. Robertson. If you have no friends to share or rejoice in your success in life-if you cannot look back to those to whom you owe gratitude, or forward to those to whom you ought to afford protection, still it is no less incumbent on you to move steadily in the path of duty: for your active exertions are due not only to society; but in humble gratitude to the Being who made you a member of it, with powers to serve yourself and others. -Walter Scott. The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.-Locke. Act well at the moment, and you have performed a good action for all eternity.-Lavater. In activity we must find our joy as well as glory; and labor, like everything else that is good, is its own reward.E. P. Whipple. To do an evil act is base. To do a good one without incurring danger, is common enough. But it is the part of a good man to do great and noble deeds though he risks everything in doing them. Plutarch. All our actions take their hue from the complexion of the heart, as landscapes do their variety from light.W. T. Bacon. Life was not given for indolent contemplation and study of self, nor for brooding over emotions of piety: actions and actions only determine the worth.Fichte. A good action is never lost; it is a treasure laid up and guarded for the doer's need. -Calderon. Deliberate with caution, but act with decision; and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness. Colton. Existence was given us for action. Our worth is determined by the good deeds we do, rather than by the fine emotions we feel.-E. L. Magoon. I have never heard anything about the resolutions of the apostles, but a great deal about their acts.-H. Mann. Think that day lost whose slow descending sun views from thy hand no noble action done.-J. Bobart. The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are the more leisure we have.-Hazlitt. To will and not to do when there is opportunity, is in reality not to will; and to love what is good and not to do it, when it is possible, is in reality not to love it. Swedenborg. Life though a short, is a working day. -Activity may lead to evil; but inactivity cannot be led to good.-Hannah More. Unselfish and noble actions are the most radiant pages in the biography of souls. Thomas. It is vain to expect any advantage from our profession of the truth if we be not sincerely just and honest in our actions. Sharpe. We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue. Cicero. Be great in act, as you have been in thought. - Suit the action to the word, and the word to the action. --Shakespeare. We must be doing something to be happy. Action is no less necessary to us than thought.-Hazlitt. Active natures are rarely melancholy. -Activity and sadness are incompatible. -Bovee. In all exigencies or miseries, lamentation becomes fools, and action wise folk. -Sir P. Sidney. Nothing, says Goethe, is so terrible as activity without insight.-Look before you leap is a maxim for the world.E. P. Whipple. Actions are ours; their consequences belong to heaven.-Sir P. Francis. The flighty purpose never is o'ertook unless the deed go with it. Shakespeare. The end of man is action, and not thought, though it be of the noblest.Carlyle. The firefly only shines when on the wing; so it is with the mind; when we rest we darken.-Bailey. Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.Wordsworth. What man knows should find expression in what he does. - The chief value of superior knowledge is that it leads to a performing manhood.-Bovee. Life, in all ranks and situations, is an outward occupation, an actual and active work.-W. Humboldt. Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity. -E. H. Chapin. Nothing ever happens but once in this world. What I do now I do once for all. It is over and gone, with all its eternity of solemn meaning. Carlyle. Only the actions of the just smell sweet and blossom in the dust. Shirley. Action is eloquence; the eyes of the ignorant are more learned than their ears. Shakespeare. The acts of this life are the destiny of the next.-Eastern Proverb. ACTORS.-The profession of the player, like that of the painter, is one of the imitative arts, whose means are pleasure, and whose end should be virtue. -Shenstone. Actors are the only honest hypocrites. Their life is a voluntary dream; and the height of their ambition is to be beside themselves. They wear the livery of other men's fortunes: their very thoughts are not their own.-Hazlitt. All the world's a stage, and all the men and women in it merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts. Shakespeare. An actor should take lessons from the painter and the sculptor. Not only should he make attitude his study, but he should highly develop his mind by an assiduous study of the best writers, ancient and modern, which will enable him not only to understand his parts, but to communicate a nobler coloring to his manners and mien. -Goethe. It is with some violence to the imagination that we conceive of an actor belonging to the relations of private life, so closely do we identify these persons in our mind with the characters they assume upon the stage.-Lamb. A young girl must not be taken to the theatre, let us say it once for all. It is not only the drama which is immoral, but the place. Alex. Dumas. The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays that part. Cervantes. ADDRESS. - Brahma once asked of Force, "Who is stronger than thou?" She replied, "Address." -Victor Hugo. Address makes opportunities; the want of it gives them. Bovee. Give a boy address and accomplishments and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes where he goes. He has not the trouble of earning to own them: they solicit him to enter and possess. Emerson. The tear that is wiped with a little address may be followed, perhaps, by a smile. Cowper. A man who knows the world will not only make the most of everything he does know, but of many things he does not know; and will gain more credit by his adroit mode of hiding his ignorance, than the pedant by his awkward attempt to exhibit his erudition. Colton. There is a certain artificial polish and V address acquired by mingling in the beau monde, which, in the commerce of the world, supplies the place of natural suavity and good humor; but it is too often purchased at the expense of all original and sterling traits of character. -Washington Irving. ADMIRATION. - Admiration is the daughter of ignorance. Franklin. Admiration is a very short-lived passion that decays on growing familiar with its object unless it be still fed with fresh discoveries and kept alive by perpetual miracles rising up to its view.-Addison. Those who are formed to win general admiration are seldom calculated to bestow individual happiness.-Lady Blessington. Few men are admired by their servants. Montaigne. We always like those who admire us, but we do not always like those whom we admire.-Rochefoucauld. To cultivate sympathy you must be among living beings and thinking about them; to cultivate admiration, among beautiful things and looking at them.Ruskin. Admiration must be kept up by the novelty that at first produced it; and how much soever is given, there must always be the impression that more remains. Johnson. to be excellent; and yet we see more beyond that, which our understandings cannot fully reach and comprehend.Tillotson. There is a wide difference between admiration and love. The sublime, which is the cause of the former, always dwells on great objects and terrible; the latter on small ones and pleasing; we submit to what we admire, but we love what submits to us: in one case we are forced, in the other we are flattered, into compliance.-Burke. ADVERSITY. - (See "AFFLICTION.") Adversity is the trial of principle.Without it a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not. Fielding. Adversity is the first path to truth.Byron. No man is more unhappy than the one who is never in adversity; the greatest affliction of life is never to be afflicted. Anon. Adversity is like the period of the former and of the latter rain, cold, comfortless, unfriendly to man and to animal; yet from that season have their birth the flower and the fruit, the date, the rose, and the pomegranate.-Walter Scott. Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, then, especially, being free from flatterers.Johnson. No nobler feeling than this, of admiration for one higher than himself, dwells in the breast of man. It is to Prosperity is no just scale; adversity this hour, and at all hours, the vivifying is the only balance to weigh friends.influence in man's life. Carlyle. It is a good thing to believe; it is a good thing to admire. By continually looking upwards, our minds will themselves grow upwards; as a man, by indulging in habits of scorn and contempt for others, is sure to descend to the level of those he despises. It is better in some respects to be admired by those with whom you live, than to be loved by them. And this is not on account of any gratification of vanity, but because admiration is so much more tolerant than love.-A. Helps. There is a pleasure in admiration; and this it is which properly causeth admiration, when we discover a great deal in an object which we understand Plutarch. Who hath not known ill fortune, never knew himself, or his own virtue. --Mallet. Stars may be seen from the bottom of a deep well, when they cannot be discerned from the top of a mountain. So are many things learned in adversity which the prosperous man dreams not of. Spurgeon. Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with. Leighton. I never met with a single instance of adversity which I have not in the end. seen was for my good. I have never heard of a Christian on his deathbed complaining of his afflictions.-A. Proudfit. We ought as much to pray for a |