Pearls of Thought

The allegory of a sophist is always screwed; it crouches and bows like a snake, which is never straight, whether she go, creep, or lie still; only when she is dead, she is straight enough. —Luther.

Ambition.– It was not till after the terrible passage of the bridge of Lodi that the idea entered my mind that I might become a decisive actor in the political arena. Then arose for the first time the spark of great ambition. —Napoleon.

Well is it known that ambition can creep as well as soar. The pride of no person in a flourishing condition is more justly to be dreaded than that of him who is mean and cringing under a doubtful and unprosperous fortune. —Burke.

If there is ever a time to be ambitious, it is not when ambition is easy, but when it is hard. Fight in darkness; fight when you are down; die hard, and you won't die at all. —Beecher.

By that sin angels fell. —Shakespeare.

Where ambition can be so happy as to cover its enterprises, even to the person himself, under the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of all human passions. —Hume.

An ardent thirst of honor; a soul unsatisfied with all it has done, and an unextinguished desire of doing more. —Dryden.

Ambition is but the evil shadow of aspiration. —George MacDonald.

Think not ambition wise, because 'tis brave. —Sir W. Davenant.

Soar not too high to fall, but stoop to rise. —Massinger.

America.– Child of the earth's old age. —L. E. Langdon.

The name – American, must always exalt the pride of patriotism. —Washington.

In America we see a country of which it has been truly said that in no other are there so few men of great learning and so few men of great ignorance. —Buckle.

America is as yet in the youth and gristle of her strength. —Burke.

If all Europe were to become a prison, America would still present a loop-hole of escape; and, God be praised! that loop-hole is larger than the dungeon itself. —Heinrich Heine.

Ere long, thine every stream shall find a tongue, land of the many waters. —Hoffman.

America is rising with a giant's strength. Its bones are yet but cartilages. —Fisher Ames.

Amusement.– Amusement is the waking sleep of labor. When it absorbs thought, patience, and strength that might have been seriously employed, it loses its distinctive character, and becomes the task-master of idleness. —Willmott.

Analogy.– Analogy, although it is not infallible, is yet that telescope of the mind by which it is marvelously assisted in the discovery of both physical and moral truth. —Colton.

Anarchy.– The choking, sweltering, deadly, and killing rule of no rule; the consecration of cupidity and braying of folly, and dim stupidity and baseness, in most of the affairs of men. Slop-shirts attainable three-half-pence cheaper by the ruin of living bodies and immortal souls. —Carlyle.

Ancestry.– We take rank by descent. Such of us as have the longest pedigree, and are therefore the furthest removed from the first who made the fortune and founded the family, we are the noblest. The nearer to the fountain the fouler the stream: and that first ancestor who has soiled his fingers by labor is no better than a parvenu. —Froude.

Breed is stronger than pasture. —George Eliot.

The glory of ancestors sheds a light around posterity; it allows neither their good nor bad qualities to remain in obscurity. —Sallust.

Nobility of birth does not always insure a corresponding nobility of mind; if it did, it would always act as a stimulus to noble actions; but it sometimes acts as a clog rather than a spur. —Colton.

Honorable descent is in all nations greatly esteemed; besides, it is to be expected that the children of men of worth will be like their fathers, for nobility is the virtue of a family. —Aristotle.

A long series of ancestors shows the native lustre with advantage; but if he any way degenerate from his line, the least spot is visible on ermine. —Dryden.

The happiest lot for a man, as far as birth is concerned, is that it should be such as to give him but little occasion to think much about it. —Whately.

Ancients.– In tragedy and satire I maintain, against some critics, that this age and the last have excelled the ancients; and I would instance in Shakespeare of the former, in Dorset of the latter. —Dryden.

Though the knowledge they have left us be worth our study, yet they exhausted not all its treasures; they left a great deal for the industry and sagacity of after-ages. —Locke.

Angels.– In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is put in theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's. —George Eliot.

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep. —Milton.

Anger.– If a man meets with injustice, it is not required that he shall not be roused to meet it; but if he is angry after he has had time to think upon it, that is sinful. The flame is not wrong, but the coals are. —Beecher.

Temperate anger well becomes the wise. —Philemon.

When anger rushes, unrestrained, to action, like a hot steed, it stumbles in its way. —Savage.

Bad temper is its own scourge. Few things are bitterer than to feel bitter. A man's venom poisons himself more than his victim. —Charles Buxton.

Above all, gentlemen, no heat. —Talleyrand.

Anger ventilated often hurries towards forgiveness; anger concealed often hardens into revenge. —Bulwer-Lytton.

Keep cool and you command everybody. —St. Just.

I never work better than when I am inspired by anger; when I am angry I can write, pray, and preach well; for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart. —Luther.

When one is in a good sound rage, it is astonishing how calm one can be. —Bulwer-Lytton.

Angling.– I give up fly-fishing; it is a light, volatile, dissipated pursuit. But ground-bait with a good steady float that never bobs without a bite is an occupation for a bishop, and in no way interferes with sermon-making. —Sydney Smith.

He that reads Plutarch shall find that angling was not contemptible in the days of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. —Izaak Walton.

Idle time not idly spent. —Sir Henry Wotton.

To see the fish cut with her golden oars the silver stream and greedily devour the treacherous bait. —Shakespeare.

Anticipation.– It has been well said that no man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is when to-morrow's burden is added to the burden of to-day that the weight is more than a man can bear. —George MacDonald.

The craving for a delicate fruit is pleasanter than the fruit itself. —Herder.

The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowned with fruition. In the first instance, we cook the dish to our own appetite; in the latter, nature cooks it for us. —Goldsmith.

We are apt to rely upon future prospects, and become really expensive while we are only rich in possibility. We live up to our expectations, not to our possessions, and make a figure proportionable to what we may be, not what we are. We outrun our present income, as not doubting to disburse ourselves out of the profits of some future place, project, or reversion that we have in view. —Addison.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand. —George Eliot.

Antiquarian.– A thorough-paced antiquarian not only remembers what all other people have thought proper to forget, but he also forgets what all other people think it proper to remember. —Colton.