Fear Quotes

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars.

A.H. Clough (1819-1861) English pot.

Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) American president.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Irish philosopher, statesman.

There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it.

Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) Angli-American film director.

I am not afraid of anything. If you fear God you do not fear anything else.

Colonel Muhammar Qaddafi (b.1938) Libyan leader.

Those who love to be feared, fear to be loved. Some fear them, but they fear everyone.

Jean Pierre Camus (1584-1652) French churchman, author.

Fear is the tax the conscience pays to guilt.

Sewell.

Present fears are less than horrible imaginings.

Shakespeare.

We often pretend to fear what we really despise, and more often to despise what we really fear.

Colton.

Fear guides more to duty than gratitude. For one man who is virtuous from the love of virtue, of from the obligation he thinks he lies under to the giver of all, there are thousands who are good only from their apprehension of punishment.

Goldsmith.

In time we hate that which we often fear.

Shakespeare.

God planted fear in the soul as truly as he planted hope or courage. It is a kind of bell or gong which rings the mind into quick life and avoidance on the approach of danger. It is the soul’s signal for rallying.

H.W. Beecher.

Fear on guilt attends, and deeds of darkness; the virtuous breast never knows it.

Havard.

Fear nothing but what thine industry may prevent, and be confident of nothing but what fortune cannot defeat. It is no less folly to fear what cannot be avoided than to be secure when there is a possibility of preventing.

Quarles.

Fear is the mother of foresight.

H. Taylor.

Nothing is so rash as fear; its counsels very rarely put off, whilst they are always sure to aggravate the evils from which it would fly.

Burke.

Fear is more painful to cowardice than death to true courage.

Sir P.Sidney.

All fear is painful, and when it conduces not to safety, is painful without use. Every consideration, therefore, by which groundless terrors may be removed, adds something to human happiness.

Johnson.

Good men have the fewest fears. He who fears to do wrong has but one great fear; he has a thousand who has overcome it.

Bovee.

Ho who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.

Napoleon.

Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.

Burke.

Fear manifested invites danger; concealed cowards insult known ones.

Chesterfield.

It is only the fear of God that can deliver us from the dear of man.

Witherspoon.

There is great beauty in going through life without anxiety or fear. Half our fears are baseless, and the other half discreditable.

Bovee.

There is a virtuous fear which is the effect of faith, and a vicious fear which is the product of doubt and distrust. The former leads to hope as relying on God, in whom we believe; the latter inclines to despair, as not relying upon God, in whom we do not believe. Persons of the one character fear to find him.

Pascal.

Fault Quotes

If we had no faults we should not take so much pleasure in noticing them in others.

To find out a girls’ faults, praise her to her girl friends.

Always mistrust a subordinate who never finds fault with his superior.

Clean your finger before you point at my spots.

He will be immoral who liveth till he be stoned by one without fault.

Fuller.

If the best man’s faults were written on his forehead, he would draw his hat over his eyes.

Gray.

We should correct our own faults by seeing how uncomely they appear in others.

Beaumont.

This I always religiously observed, as a rule, never to chide my husband before company nor to prattle abroad of miscarriages at home. What passes between two people is much easier made up than when once it has taken air.

We confess small faults, in order to insinuate that we have no great ones.

Rochefoucauld.

You will find it less easy to uproot faults, than to choke them by gaining virtues.

Ruskin.

No one sees the wallet on his own back, though every one carries two packs, one before, stuffed with the fault of his neighbors; the other behind, filled with his own.

Old Proverb.

To reprove small faults with undue vehemence, is as absurd as if a man should take a great hammer to kill a fly on his friend’s forehead.

Anon.

People are commonly so employed in pointing out faults in those before them, as to forget that some behind may at the same time be descanting on their own.

Dilwyn.

It is not so much the being exempt from faults, as having overcome them, that is an advantage to us; it being with the follies of the mind as with the weeds of a field, which if destroyed and consumed upon the place of their birth, enrich and improve it more than if non had ever sprung there.

Pope.

If thou wouldst bear thy neighbor’s faults, cast thine eyes upon thine own.

Molinos.

He who exhibits no faults is a fool or a hypocrite whom we should distrust.

Joubert.

We easily forget our faults when they are known only to ourselves.

Rochefoucauld.

Observe your enemies for they first find out your faults.

Antisthenes.

If we were faultless we should not be so much annoyed by the defects of those with whom we associate.

Fenelon.

Every one is eagle eyed to see another’s faults and deformity.

Dryden.

To acknowledge our faults when we are blamed, is modesty; to discover them to one;s friends, in ingenuousness, is confidence; but to proclaim them to the world, if one does not take care, is pride.

Confucius.

Endeavor to be always patient of the faults and imperfections of others; for thou hast many faults and imperfections of thine own that require forbearance. If thou are not able to make thyself that which thou wishest, how canst thou expect to mold another in conformity to thy will?

Thomas a Kempis.

The wise man has his foibles as well as the fool. Those of the one are known to himself, and concealed from the world; while those of the other are known to the world, and concealed from himself.

J. Mason.

Think of your own faults the first part of the night when you are awake, and of the faults of others the latter part of the night when you are asleep.

Chinese Proverb.

Men are almost always cruel on their neighbors faults, and make the overthrow of others the badge of their own ill masked virtue.

Sir P.Sidney.

Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.

Colton.

Fame Quotes

Not to know me argues yourself unknown.

John Milton (1608-1674) English poet.

What you are thunders so loud that I cannot hear what you say.

The fame of a great man ought always to be estimated by the means used to acquire it.

I had not achieved a success; but I had provoked an uproar; and the sensation was so agreeable that I resolved to try again.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Anglo-Irish playwright, critic.

It is a mark of many famous people that they cannot part with their brightest hour.

Lillian Hellman (1907-1984) American playwright, author.

A friend recently said, “ Just imagine nor being famous what would happen? And all of a sudden I saw the face of a passer by on the street and the oddest feeling came over me.

Gloria Swanson (1897-1983) American actress.

Being a celebrity is like rape.

John McEnroe (b.1959) American tennis player.

It’s either vilification or sanctification, and both piss me off.

Bob Geldof (b.1954) Irish rock musician.

Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) Anglo-Irish satirist.

I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue than why I have one.

Cato the Elder (234-149 BC) Roman Statesman.

If fame will fall to me only after death, I am in no hurry for it.

America has a genius for the encouragement of fame.

G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) British author.

Happy is the man who hath never known what it is to taste of fame to have it is a purgatory, to want it is a Hell!

Edward Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873) English novelist, playwright.

Fame is proof that the people are gullible.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

A celebrity is one who is know to many persons he is glad he doesn’t know.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American journalist.

After a fellow gets famous it doesn’t take a long for someone to bob up that used to sit by him at school.

What is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself known nothing, and for whom you care as little.

Stanislaus.

The way to fame is like the way to heaven, through much tribulation.

Sterne.

Fame, to the ambitious, is like salt water to the thirsty the more one gets, the more he wants.

Ebers.

Human life is too short to recompense the cares which attend the most private condition; therefore it is, that our souls are made, as it were, too big for it; and extend themselves in the prospect of a longer existence, in good fame, and memory of worthy actions ,after our decease.

Steele.

Fame is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such, it is an accident, not a property of man.

Carlyle.

That fame is the universal passion is by nothing more discovered than by epitaphs, the generality of mankind are not content to sink ingloriously into the grave, but wish to be paid that tribute after their deaths, which in many cases may not be due to the virtues of their lives.

Kett.

Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.

Socrates.

I courted fame but as a spur to brave and honest deeds; who despises fame will soon renounce the virtues that deserve it.

Mallet.

Of present fame think little, and of future less; the praises that we receive after we are buried, like the flowers that are strewed over our grave, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead; the dead are gone, either to a place where they hear them not, or where, if they do, they will despise them.

Colton.

Falsehood Quotes

Dishonor waits on perfidy. A man should blush to think a falsehood; it is the crime of cowards.

C. Johnson.

Dare to be true; nothing can need a lie.

Herbert.

The lie of fear is the refuge of cowardice, and the lie of fraud the device of the cheat. The inequalities of men and the lust of acquisition are a constant premium on lying.

Edward Bellamy.

A lie has always a certain amount of weight with those who wish to believe it.

E.W. Rice.

If falsehood had, like truth, but one face only, we should be upon better terms; for we should then tale the contrary to what the liar says for certain truth; but the reverse of truth hath a hundred figures, and is a field indefinite without bound or limit.

Montaigne.

Falsehoods not only disagree with truths, but usually quarrel among themselves.

Daniel Webster.

The gain of lying is nothing else but not to be trusted of any, nor to be believed when we say the truth.

Sir W. Raleigh.

Some men relate what they think, as what they know; some men of confused memories, and habitual inaccuracy, ascribe to one man what belongs to another; and some talk on without though or care. A few men are sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards innocently diffused by successive relaters.

Johnson.

A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.

Shenstone.

None but cowards lie.

Murphy.

He who tells a lie is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must invent twenty more to maintain that one.

Pope.

No species of  falsehood is more frequent than flattery to which the coward is betrayed by fear, the dependent by interest, and the friend by tenderness.

Falsehood is never so successful as when she baits her hook with truth, and no opinions so fatally mislead us, as those that are not wholly wrong; as no watches so effectually deceive the wearer as those that are sometimes right.

Colton.

It is more from carelessness about that truth, than from intention of lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.

Johnson.

Falsehood, like the dry rot, flourishes the more in proportion as air and light are excluded.

Waately.

When Aristotle was asked what a man could gain by telling a falsehood, he replied “Never to be credited when he speaks the truth.”

Although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation by the continual improvements that have been made upon him.

Swift.

The telling of a falsehood is like the cut of a saber; for through the wound may heal, the scar of it will remain.

Saadi.

Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult! Examine your words well and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false it is very hard to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelings much harder than to say something fine about them which is not the exact truth.

George Eliot.

Not the least misfortune is a prominent falsehood is the fact that tradition is apt to repeat if for truth.

H.Ballou.

Falsehood, like poison, will generally be rejected when administered alone; but when blended with wholesome ingredients, may be swallowed unperceived.

Whately.

O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath; a goodly apple rotten at the heart!

Shakespeare.

Falsehood has na infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.

Rousseau.

Faith Quotes

It was the schoolboy who said, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”

Mark Twain  (1835-1910) American author.

“Faith” means not wanting to know what is true.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher.

What is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, “I bet that my Redeemer liveth.”

Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English author.

Faith. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) American author.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Bible, Hebrews.

Faith declares what the senses do not see, but not the contrary of what they see.

Faith beings as an experiment and ends as an experience.

W.R. Inge (1860-1954) Dean of St. Paul’s London.

To believe only possibilities is not Faith, but mere Philosophy.

Sir Thomas Browne (1603-1682) English physician, author.

The faith that stands on authority is not faith.

It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason. This, then, is faith: God felt by the heart, not by the reason.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French scientist, philosopher.

Reason is our soul’s left hand, Faith her right, by these we reach divinity.

John Donne (1572-1631) English divine, metaphysical poet.

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American journalist.

It is as absurd to argue men, as to torture them, into believing.

I admire the serene assurance of those who have religious faith. It is wonderful to observe the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American author.

Faith which does not doubt is dead faith.

How many things we held yesterday as articles of faith which today we tell as fables.

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist.

Faith affirms many things respecting which the sense are silent, but nothing which they deny. It is superior to their testimony, but never opposed to it.

Pascal.

Faith is a certain image of eternity. All things are present to it things past, and things to come; it converses with angels, and antedates the hymns of glory. Every man that hath this grace is as certain there are glories for him, if he perseveres in duty, as if he had heard and sung the thanksgiving song for the blessed sentence of doomsday.

Jeremy Taylor.

Never yet did there exist a full faith in the divine word which did not expand the intellect while it purified the heart; which did not multiply the aims and objects of the understanding, while it fixed and simplified those of the desires and passions.

Coleridge.

All the scholastic scaffolding falls, as a ruined edifice, before one single word faith.

Napoleon.

There is a limit where the intellect fails and breaks down, and this limit is where the questions concerning God, and freewill, and immortality arise.

Kant.

Faith marches at the heard of the army of progress. It is found beside the most refined life, the freest government, the profoundest philosophy, the noblest poetry, the purest humanity.

T.T. Munger.

Faith must have adequate evidence, else it is mere superstition.

A.A. Hodge.

Under the influence of the blessed Spirit, faith produces holiness, and holiness strengthens faith. Faith, like a fruitful parent, is plenteous in all good works; and good works, like dutiful children, confirm and add to the support of faith.

Faith in an all seeing and personal God, elevates the soul, purifies the emotions, sustains human dignity, and lends poetry, nobility, and holiness to the commonest state, condition, and manner of life.

Juan Valera.

We cannot live on probabilities. The faith in which we can live bravely and die in peace must be a certainty, so far as it professes to be a faith at all, or it is nothing.

Froude.

Eye Quotes

That fine part of our constitution, the eye, seems as much the receptacle and seat of our passions, appetites, and inclinations, as the mind itself; at least it is the outward portal to introduce them to the house within, or rather the common thoroughfare to let our affections pass in and out. Love, anger, pride, and avarice, all visibly move in those little orbs.

Addison.

One of the most wonderful things in nature is a glance of the eye; it transcends speech; it is the bodily symbol of identity.

Emerson.

It is the eyes of other people that ruin us. If all but myself were blind I should neither want a fine house nor fine furniture.

Franklin.

The balls of sight are so formed, that one man’s eyes are spectacles to another., to read his heart with.

Johnson.

The curious questioning eye, that plucks the heart of every mystery.

Mellen.

Men are born with two eyes, but only one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.

Colton.

The eyes are the pioneers that first announce the soft tale of love.

Propertius.

The eye speaks with an eloquence and truthfulness surpassing speech. It is the window out of which the winged thoughts often fly unwittingly. It is the tiny magic mirror on whose crystal surface the moods of feeling fitfully play, like the sunlight and shadow on a quiet stream.

Tuckerman.

The eye is the pulse of the soul; as physicians judge the heart by the pulse, so we by the eye.

T. Adams.

Who has a daring eye, tells downright truths and downright lies.

Lavaer.

Where is any author in the world teaches such beauty as a woman’s eye?

Shakespeare.

The eye is the window of the soul; the intellect and will are seen in it. The animals look for man’s intentions right into his eyes. Even a rat, when you hunt and bring him to bay, looks you in the eye.

Hiram Powers.

A beautiful eye makes silence eloquent; a kind eye makes contradiction an assent; an enraged eye makes beauty deformed. This little member gives life to every other part about us.

Addison.

The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands.

Franklin.

Lovers are angry reconciled, entreat, thank, appoint, and finally speak all things by their eyes.

Montaigne.

The dearest things in the world are our neighbor’s eyes; they cost everybody more than anything else in house keeping.

Smith.

Our eyes, when gazing on sinful objects, are out of their calling, and out of God’s keeping.

Fuller.

A wanton eye is the messenger of an unchaste heart.

Augustine.

The eye observes only what the mind, the heart, the imagination are gifted to see; and sight must be reinforced by insight before souls can be discerned as well as manners; ideas as well as objects; realities and relations as well as appearances and accidental connections.

E.P. Whipple.

Eyes are bold as lions, roving, running, leaping, here and there, far and near. They speak all languages; wait for no introduction; ask no leave of age or rank; respect neither poverty nor riches, neither learning nor power, nor virtue, nor sex, but intrude, and come again, and go through and through you in a moment of time. What inundation of life and thought is discharged from one soul into another through them!.

Emerson.

Men of cold passions have quick eyes.

Hawthoene.

Extremes Quotes

So over violent or over evil that every man with him was God or Devil.

John Dryden (1631-1700) English Poet, dramatist.

I would remind you that extremism In the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Barry Goldwater (b.1909) American Republican Politician.

What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.

Robert Kennedy (1925-1968) American Democratic Politician.

Extremes are dangerous. A middle estate is safest, as a middle temper pf the sea, between a still calm and a violent tempest, is most hopeful to bear the mariner to his heaven.

Swinnock.

all extremes are error. The reverse of error is not truth, but error still. Truth lies between these extremes.

Cecil.

The man who can be nothing but serious, or nothing but merry, is but half a man.

Leigh Hunt.

There is a mean in everything. Even virtue itself hath its stated limits, which, not being strictly observed, it ceases to be virtue.

Horace.

Extremes meet in almost everything: it is hard to tell whether the statesman at the top of the world, or the ploughman at the bottom, labors hardest.

Extreme views are never just; something always turns up which disturbs the calculations founded on their data.

Tancred.

That extremes beget extremes, is an apothegm built on the most profound observation of the human mind.

Colton.

The blast that blows loudest is soonest overblown.

Smollett.

Extremes, though contrary, have the like effects. Extreme heat kills, and so extreme cold; extreme love breeds satiety, and so extreme hatred; and too violent rigor tempts chastity, as does too much license.

Chapman.

Mistrust the man who finds everything good; the man who finds everything evil; and still more the man who is indifferent to everything.

Lavater.

We must remember how apt man is to extremes. Rushing from credulity and weakness, to suspicion and distrust.

Bulwer.

The greatest flood has soonest ebb; the sorest tempest, the most sudden calm; the hottest love, the coldest end; and from the deepest desire often ensues the deadliest hate.

Socrates.

It is a hard but good law of fate, that as every evil, so every excessive power wears itself out.

Herder.

Neither great poverty, nor great riches will hear reason.

Fielding.

Both in individuals, and in masses violent excitement is always followed by remission, and often by reaction. We are all inclined to depreciate what we have over praised, and, on the other hand, to show undue indulgence where we have shown undue rigor.

Macaulay.

Too austere a philosophy makes few wise men; too rigorous politics, few good subjects; too hard a religion, few persons whose devotion is of long continuance.

St. Evremond.

No violent extremes endure; a sober moderation stands secure.

Aleyn.

Extremes are vicious and proceed from men; compensation is just, and proceeds from God.

Bruyere.

Excess Quotes

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Anglo-Irish author.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

William Blake (1757-1827) English Poet, artist

Man’s chief difference from the brutes lies in the exuberant excess of his subjective propensities. Prune his extravagance, sober him, and you undo him.

William James (1842-1910) American psychologist, philosopher.

Macaulay is well for a while, but one wouldn’t live under Niagara.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)

Let us teach ourselves that honorable step, not to outdo discretion.

Shakespeare.

All things that are pernicious in their progress must be evil in their birth, for no sooner is the government of reason thrown off, than they rush forward takes a pleasure to indulge itself; and having imperceptibly launched out into the main ocean, can find no place where to stop.

Cicero.

He who indulges his sense in any excesses, renders himself obnoxious to his own reason; and to gratify the brute in him, displeases them man, and sets his two natures at variance.

W. Scott.

The body oppressed by excesses, bears down the mind, and depresses to the earth any portion of the divine Spirit we had been endowed with.

Horace.

The  excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age, payable with interest, about thirty years after date.

Colton.

Pleasures bring effeminacy, and effeminacy foreruns ruin; such conquests, without blood or sweat, do sufficiently revenge themselves upon their intemperate conquerors.

Quarles.

Violent delights have violent ends, and in their triumph die; like fore and power, which, as they kiss, consume. They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing.

Shakespeare.

Pliability and liberality, when not restrained within due bounds, must ever turn to the ruin of their possessor.

Tacitus.

The best principles, if pushed to excess, degenerate into fatal vices. Generosity is nearly allied to extravagance; charity itself may lead to ruin; and the sternness of justice is but one step removed from the severity of oppression.

Alison.

The desire of power in excess caused angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity is no excess, neither can man or angels come into danger by it.

Bacon.

Let pleasure be ever so innocent the excess is always criminal.

Evremond.

There can be no excess to love, to knowledge, to beauty, when these attributed are considered in the purest sense.

Emerson.

All excess brings on its own punishment, even here. By certain fixed, settled, and established laws of him who is the God of nature, excess of every kind destroys that constitution which temperance would preserve. The debauchee offers up his body a living sacrifice to sin.

Colton.

Too much noise deafens us; too much light blinds us; too great a distance, or too much of promixity equally prevents us from being able to see; too long or too short a discourse obscures out knowledge of a subject; too much of truth stuns us.

Pascal.

Excess generally causes reaction and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in government.

Plato.

Example Quotes

There is a transcendent power in example. We reform others unconsciously, when we walk uprightly.

Mad. Swetchine.

Men trust rather to their eyes than to their ears. The effect of precepts is, therefore, slow and tedious, while that of examples is summary and effectual.

Seneca.

Example is more forcible than precept. People look at my six days in the week to see what I mean on the seventh.

Cecil.

People seldom improve when they have no model but themselves to copy after.

Goldsmith.

Nothing is so infectious as example.

Charles Kingsley.

We can do more good by being good, than in any other way.

Rowland Hill.

Though “the words of the wise be as nails fastened by the masters of assembles,” yet their examples are the hammer to drive them in to take the deeper hold. A father that whipped his son for swearing, and swore himself whilst he whipped him, did more harm by his example than good by his correction.

Fuller.

Example is the school of mankind; they will learn at no other.

Burke.

Noble examples stir us up to noble actions, and the very history of large and public souls inspires a man with generous thoughts.

Seneca.

I am satisfied that we are less convinced by what we hear than by what we see.

Herodotus.

The first great gift we can bestow on others is a good example.

Morell.

So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

Kant.

It is certain, that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught, as men take diseases one of another; therefore, let them take heed of their company.

Shakespeare.

No man is so insignificant as to be sure his example can do no hurt.

Lord Clarendon.

The innocence of the intention abates nothing of the mischief of the example.

Robert Hall.

One watch set right will do to set many by; one that goes wrong may be the means of misleading a whole neighborhood; and the same may be said of example.

Dilwin.

Be a pattern to others, and then all will go well; for as a whole city is infected by the licentious passions and vices of great men, so it is likewise reformed by their moderation.

Cicero.

Alexander received more bravery of mind by the pattern of Achilles, than by hearing the definition of fortitude.

Sir P.Sidney.

A wise and good man will turn examples of all sorts to his own advantage. The good he will make his patterns, and strive to equal or excel them. The bad he will by all means avoid.

Thomas a kempis.

In early life I had nearly been betrayed into the principles of infidelity; but there was one argument in favor of Christianity that I could not refute, and that was the consistent character and example of my own father.

Thou canst not rebuke in children what they see practiced in thee. Till reason be ripe, examples direct more than precepts. Such as is thy behavior before thy children’s faces, such is theirs behind thy back.

Quarles.

Live with wolves, and you will learn to howl.

Spanish Proverb.

My advice is to consult the lives of other men, as one would a looking glass, and from thence fetch examples for imitation.

Terence.

Evil Quotes

All men are evil and will declare themselves to be so when occasion is offered.

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) English man of letters, explorer.

It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American journalist.

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) English novelist.

When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I’ ve never tried before.

Mae West (1892-1980) American film actress.

But evil is wrought by want to thought as well as want of Heart!.

Thomas Hood (1799-1845) English Poet.

Evil is in antagonism with the entire creation.

Zschokke.

If we rightly estimate what we call good and evil, we shall find it lies much in comparison.

Locke.

Physical evils destroy themselves, or they destroy us.

Rousseau.

By the very constitution of our nature, moral evil is its own curse.

Chalmers.

This is the course of every evil deed, that, propagating still it brings forth evil.

Coleridge.

There is this good in real evils, they deliver us, while they last, from the petty despotism of all that were imaginary.

Colton.

Even in evil, that dark cloud that hangs over creation, we discern rays of light and hope, and gradually come to see, in suffering and temptation, proofs and instruments of the sublimest purposes of wisdom and love.

Channing.

To be free from evil thoughts is God’s best gift.

It is some compensation for great evils, that they enforce great lessons.

Bovee.

All physical evils are so many beacon lights to warn us from vice.

Bowen.

The existence of evil, as Whitely well says, is the great theological difficulty; and the apparent want of success of good men in overcoming it, is but one branch of this difficulty.

Bristed.

The first lesson of history, is, that evil is good.

Emerosn.

Many have puzzled themselves about the origin of evil. I am content to observe that there is evil, and that there is a way to escape from, it, and with this I begin and end.

John Newton.

Good has but one enemy, the evil; but the evil has two enemies, the good and itself.

J.Von Muller.

Evil is but the shadow, that, in this world, always accompanies good. You may have a world without shadow, but it will be a world without light a mere dim, twilight world. If you would deepen the intensity of the light, you must be content to bring into deeper blackness and more distinct and definite outline, the shade that accompanies it.

F.W. Robertson.

He who does evil that good may come, pays a toll to the devil to let him into heaven.

Harge.

There is nothing truly evil, but what is within us; the rest is either natural or accidental.

Sir P. Sidney.

We sometimes learn more from the sight of evil than from an example pf good; and it is well to accustom ourselves to profit by the evil which is so common, while that which is good is so rare.

Pascal.

If we could annihilate evil we should annihilate hope, and hope is the avenues of faith.

Bulwer.

Imaginary evils soon become real by indulging our reflections on them; as he who in a melancholy fancy sees something like a face on the wall or the wainscot, can, by two or three touches with a lead pencil, make it look visible, and agreeing with what he fancied.

Swit.

Eternity Quotes

Our theories of the eternal are as valuable as are those which a chick which has not broken its way through its shell might form of the outside world.

Eternity is a terrible thought. I mean, where’s it going to end?
Tom Stoppard (b.1937) British playwright.

What is eternity? Was asked of a deaf and dumb pupil, and the beautiful and striking answer was, “ it is the lifetime of the Almighty”.

Eternity is a negative idea clothed with a positive name. It supposes, in that to which it is applied, a present existence, and is the negation of a beginning or an end of that existence.
Paley.

No man can pass into eternity, for he is already in it.
Farrar.

This is the world of seeds, of causes, and of tendencies; the other is the world of harvests and results and of perfected and eternal consequences.

Eternity, thou pleasing dreadful thought! Through what variety of untried being! Through what new scenes and changes must we pass! The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me; but shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.
Addison.

He that will open put eternity and the world before him, and will dare to look steadfastly at both f them, will find that the more he contemplates them, the former will grow greater and the latter less.
Colton.

The wish falls upon, warm upon my heart, that I may learn nothing here that I cannot continue un the other world; that I may do nothing here but deeds that will bear fruit in heaven.
Richter.

The most momentous concern of man is the state he shall enter upon after this sort and transitory life is ended; and in proportion as eternity is of greater importance than time, so ought men to be solicitous upon what grounds their expectations wit regard to that durable state are built, and on what assurances their hopes or their fears stand.
Clarke.

How vast is eternity! It will swallow up all the human race; it will collect all the intelligent universe; it will open scenes and prospects wide enough, great enough, and various enough to fix the attention, and absorb the minds of all intelligent beings forever.
Emmons.

Every natural longing has its natural satisfaction. If we thirst, God has created liquids to gratify thirst. If we are susceptible of attachment, there are beings to gratify that love. If we thirst for life and love eternal, it is likely that there are an eternal life and an eternal love to satisfy that craving.
F.W. Robertson.

Eternity invests every state, whether of bliss or suffering, with a mysterious and awful importance entirely its own. It gives weight and moment to whatever it attaches, compared to which all interests that know a period fade into absolute insignificance.
Robert Hall.

The sum and substance of the preparation needed for a coming eternity is, that we believe what the Bible tells us, and do what the Bible bide us.
Chalmers.

There is, I know not how, in the minds of men, a certain presage, as it were, of a future existence, and this takes the deepest root, and is most discoverable in the greatest geniuses and most exalted souls.
cicero

Eternity looks grander and kinder if time grows meaner and more hostile.
Carlyle.

All great natures delight in stability; all great men find eternity affirmed in the very promise of their faculties.
Emerson.

The grand difficulty is so to feel the reality of both worlds as to give each its due place in our thoughts and feelings to keep our mind’s eye, and our heart’s eye, ever fixed on the land of Promise, without looking away from the road along which we are to travel toward it.
Hare.

The eternal world is not merely a world beyond time and grave. It embraces time; it is ready to realize itself under all the forms of temporal things. Its light and power are latent everywhere, waiting for human souls to welcome it, ready to break through the transparent veil of earthly things and to suffuse with its ineffable radiance the common life of man.
John Caird.

The thought of eternity consoles for the shortness of life.
Malesherbes.

Error Quotes

Find earth where grows no weed, and you may find a heart wherein no error grows.

Knwles.

Men err from selfishness; women because they are weak.

Mad. De Stael.

There are errors which no wise man will treat with rudeness, while there is a probability that they may be the refraction of some great truth still below the horizon.

Coleridge.

Our understandings are always liable to error. Nature and certainly are very hard to come at, and infallibility is mere vanity and pretence.

Marcus Antoninus

Men are apt to prefer a prosperous error to an afflicted truth.

Jeremy Taylor.

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wise to-day than he was yesterday.

Pope.

The copy-books tell us that “to err is human”. That is wrong. To err is inhuman, to be holy is to live in the straight line of duty and of truth to God’s life in every intrinsic existence.

Phillips Brooks.

My principal method for defeating error and heresy, is, by establishing the truth. One purposes to fill a bushel with tares; but if I can fill it first with wheat, I may defy his attempts.

John Newton.

Wrong conduct is far more powerful to produce erroneous thinking, than erroneous thinking to produce wrong conduct.

J.S. Kieffer.

Error commonly has some truth in what it affirms, is wrong generally in what it denies.

F.L. Patton.

Half the truth will very often amount to absolute falsehood.

Whately.

No tempting form of error is without some latent chamr derived from truth.

Keith.

It is only an error of judgment to make a mistake, but it argues an infirmity of character to adhere to it when discovered. The Chinese say, “The glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time you fall.”

Bovee.

It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors as his knowledge. Malinformation is more hopeless than non-information; for error is always more busy than ignorance. Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one, from which we must first erase. Ignorance is contented to stand still with her back to the truth; but error is more presumptuous, and proceeds in the wrong direction. Ignorance has no light, but error follows a false one. The consequence is, that error, when she retraces her steps, has farther to go before she can arrive at truth, than ignorance.

Colton.

Few practical errors in the world are embraced on conviction, but on inclination; for through his judgment may err on account of weakness, yet, where one error enters at this door, ten are let into it through the will; that, for the most part, being set upon those things which truth is a direct obstacle to the enjoyment of; and where both cannot be had, a man will be sure to buy his enjoyment, though he pays down truth for the purchase.

South.

In all science error precedes the truth, and it is better it should go first than last.
Walpole.

Errors to be dangerous must have a great deal of truth mingled with them. It is only from this alliance that they can ever obtain an extensive circulation. From pure extravagance, and genuine, unmingled falsehood, the world never has, and never can sustain any mischief.

Sydney Smith

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Confucius.

If any one sincerely, candidly, unselfishly tries to understand and to obey the voice of divine wisdom, he will not go fatally astray.

H.L. Wayland.

There is no error so crooked but it hath in it some lines of truth, not is any poison so deadly that it serveth not some wholesome use. Spurn not a seeming error, but dig below its surface for the truth.

Tupper.

Error is sometimes so nearly allied to truth that it blends with it as imperceptibly as the colors of the rainbow fade into each other.

Clulow.

Envy Quotes

Envy has no other quality but that of detracting from virtue.
Livy.

Envy is a passion so full of cowardice and shame, that nobody ever had the confidence to own it.
Rochester.

A man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth virtue in others; for man’s minds will either feed upon their own good, or upon others evil; and who wanteth the one will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope to attain to another’s virtue, will seek to come at even hand by depressing another’s fortune.
Bacon.

Whoever feels pain in hearing a good character of his neighbor, will feel a pleasure in the reverse. And those who despair to rise in distinction by their virtues, are happy if others can be depressed to a level with themselves.
Franklin.

Envy sets the stronger seal on desert; if he have no enemies, I should esteem his fortune most wretched.

Ben Jonson.

Fools may our scorn, not envy raise, for envy is a kind of praise.

Gay.

If our credit be so well built, so firm that it is not easy to be shaken by calumny or insinuation, envy then commends us, and extols us beyond reason to those upon whom we depends, till they grow jealous, and so blow us up when they cannot throw us down.

Clarendon.

All envy is proportionate to desire; we are uneasy at the attainments of another, according as we think our own happiness would be advanced by the addition of that which he withholds from us; and therefore whatever depresses immoderate wishes, will, at the same time, set the heart free from the corrosion of envy, and exempt us from that vice which is, above most others, tormenting to ourselves, hateful to the world, and productive of mean artifices and sordid projects.

Johnson.

If we did but know how little some enjoy of the great things that they possess, there would not be much envy in the world.

Young.

The truest mark of bring born with great qualities, is being born without envy.

Rochefoucauld.

Every other sin hath some pleasure annexed to it, or will admit of some excuse, but envy wants both. We should strive against it, for id indulged in it will be to us a foretaste of hell upon earth.

Burton.

Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue but, like a shadow, proves the substance true.

Pope.

Many men profess to hate another, but no man owns envy, as being an enmity or displeasure for no cause but another’s goodness or felicity.

Jeremy Taylor.

Emulation looks out for merits, that she may exalt herself by a victory; envy spies out blemishes, that she may lower another by a defeat.

Colton.

Envy is like a fly that passes all a body’s sounder parts, and dwells upon the sores.

Chapman.

Envy feels not its own happiness but when it may be compared with the misery of others.

Johnson.

Other passions have objects to flatter them, and which seem to content and satisfy them for a while. There is power in ambition, pleasure in luxury, and pelf in convetousness; but envy can gain nothing but vexation.

Montaigne.

There is no surer mark of the absence of the highest moral and intellectual qualities than a cold reception of excellence.

Bailey.

Base rivals, who true wit and merit hate, maliciously aspire to gain renown, by standing up, and pulling others down.

Dryden.

Base envy withers at another’s joy, and hates the excellence it cannot reach.

Thomson.

Envy, like the worm, never runs but to the fairest fruit; like a cunning bloodhound, it singles out the fattest deer in the flock. Abraham’s riches were the Philistines envy, and Jacob’s blessings had Esau’s hatred.

Beaumont.

Envy is but the smoke of low estate, ascending still against the fortunate.

Brooke.

Enjoyment Quotes

Those who would enjoyment gain must find it in the purpose they pursue.

Mrs. Hale

No enjoyment, however inconsiderable, is confined to the present moment. A man is the happier for life from having made once an agreeable tour, or lived for any length of time with pleasant people, or enjoyed any considerable interval of innocent pleasure.

Sydney Smith

Gratitude is the memory of the heart; therefore forget not to say often, I have all I have ever enjoyed.

Mrs. L.M. Child

Restraint is the golden rule of enjoyment.

L.E. Landon.

He scatters enjoyment, says Lavater, who enjoys much; and it is equally true that he will enjoy much who scatters enjoyments to others

Temper your enjoyments with prudence, lest three be written on your hear that fearful word “satiety”

Quarles.

True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are ever united.

Humboldt.

Imperfect enjoyment is attended with regret; a surfeit of pleasure with disgust. There is a certain nick of time, a certain medium to be observed, with which few people are acquainted.

Evremond.

Only mediocrity of enjoyment is allowed to man.

Blair.

I have told you of the Spaniard who always put on his spectacles when about to eat cherries, that they might look bigger and more tempting. In like manner I make the most of my enjoyments; and thought I do not cast my cares away, I pack them in as little compass as I can, and carry them as conveniently as I can for myself, and never let them annoy others.

Southey.

Whatever can lead an intelligent being to the exercise or habit of mental enjoyment, contributes more to his happiness than the highest sensual or mere bodily pleasures. The one feeds the soul, while the other, for the most part, only exhausts the frame, and too often injures the immortal part.

Let all seen enjoyments lead to the unseen fountain from whence they flow.

Haliburton.

The less you can enjoy, the poorer and scantier yourself; the more you can enjoy, the richer and more vigorous.

Lavater.

All solitary enjoyments quickly pall, or become painful.

Sharp.

Whatever advantage or enjoyment we snatch beyond the certain portion allotted us by nature, is like money spent before it is due, which at the time of regular payment will be missed and regretted.

Johnson.

The enjoyments of this present short life, which are indeed but puerile amusements, must disappear when placed in competition which the greatness and durability of the glory which is to come.

Haller.

Sleep, riches, health, and so every blessing, are not truly and fully enjoyed till after they have been interrupted.

Richter.

What we have, we prize, not to the worth while we enjoy it; but being lacked and lost, why then we rack the value; then we find the virtue that possession would not show us while it was ours.

Shakespeare.