It is the work of fancy to enlarge, but of judgment to shorten and contract; and therefore this must be as far above the other as judgment is a greater and nobler faculty than fancy or imagination.Collection: Imagination
The seven wise men of Greece, so famous for their wisdom all the world over, acquired all that fame, each of them, by a single sentence consisting of two or three words.Collection: Famous
Anger is a transient hatred; or at least very like it.Collection: Anger
God expects from men something more than at such times, and that it were much to be wished for the credit of their religion as well as the satisfaction of their conscience that their Easter devotions would in some measure come up to their Easter dress.Collection: Easter
Defeat should never be a source of discouragement but rather a fresh stimulus.Collection: Motivation
Much reading is like much eating -wholly useless without digestion.Collection: Reading
An obstacle is often an unrecognized opportunityCollection: Opportunity
The covetous person lives as if the world were made altogether for him, and not he for the world.Collection: World
A true friend is the gift of God, and He only who made hearts can unite them.Collection: True Friend
Passion is the drunkenness of the mind.Collection: Passion
Innocence is like polished armor; it adorns and defends.Collection: Armor
A man's life is an appendix to his heart.Collection: Heart
Aristotle was but a wreck of an Adam, and Athens but the rubbish of an Eden. How completely sin has defaced the divine image in man! That man has lost his righteousness and happiness is clearly evident as we look at the state of the world today!Collection: Men
So he that despairs, limits an Infinite Power to a Finite Apprehension, and measures Providence by his own little, contracted Model.Collection: Despair
He who does a kindness to an ungrateful person, sets his seal to a flint and sows his seed upon the sand; on the former he makes no impression, and from the latter finds no product.Collection: Kindness
Action is the highest perfection and drawing forth of the utmost power, vigor, and activity of man's nature.Collection: Power
Pain is an outcry of sin.Collection: Pain
He who has no mind to trade with the Devil should be so wise as to keep from his shop.Collection: Wise
Society is built upon trust.Collection: Confidence
Abstinence is the great strengthener and clearer of reason.Collection: Abstinence
Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, gnawing and creeping into it, as that does which at last eats out the very heart and substance of the metal.Collection: Heart
The grateful person fears no court or judge, no sentence or executioner, but what he carries about him in his own breast: and being still the most severe exactor of himself, not only confesses but proclaims his debts.Collection: Thankful
Similes prove nothing, but yet greatly lighten and relieve the tedium of argument.Collection: Argument
Flints may be melted - we see it daily - but an ungrateful heart cannot be; not by the strongest and noblest flame.Collection: Heart
No man's religion ever survives his morals.Collection: Men
Let a man be but in earnest in praying against a temptation as the tempter is in pressing it, and he needs not proceed by a surer measure.Collection: Men
Speech was given to the ordinary sort of men, whereby to communicate their mind; but to wise men, whereby to conceal it.Collection: Wise
The mind begins to boggle at unnatural substances as things paradoxical and incomprehensible.Collection: Mind
An Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise.Collection: Athens
That in all these worldly Things, that a Man pursues with the greatest Eagerness and Intention of Mind imaginable, he finds not half the Pleasure in the actual Possession of them, that he proposed to himself in the Expectation.Collection: Men
Folly enlarges men's desires while it lessens their capacities.Collection: Men
Most of the appearance of mirth in the world is not mirth, it is art. The wounded spirit is not seen, but walks under a disguise.Collection: Art
It is a noble and great thing to cover the blemishes and excuse the failings of a friend; to draw a curtain before his weaknesses and to display his perfections; to bury his shortcomings in silence but to proclaim his virtues on the housetop.Collection: Perfection
There is not the least flower but seems to hold up its head, and to look pleasantly, in the secret sense of the goodness of its Heavenly Maker.Collection: Flower
For he that is a good man, is three quarters of his way towards the being a good Christian, wheresoever he lives, or whatsoever he is called.Collection: Christian
He that tears away a man's good name tears his flesh from his bones, and, by letting him live, gives him only a cruel opportunity of feeling his misery, of burying his better part, and surviving himself.Collection: Opportunity
God afflicts with the mind of a father, and kills for no other purpose but that he may raise again.Collection: Father