Life and Literature / Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, / and classified in alphabetical order

No object is more pleasing to the eye than the sight of a man whom you have obliged; nor any music so agreeable to the ear, as the voice of one that owns you for his benefactor.

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

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

Some persons have a prudent consideration for Number—one.

Some persons can neither stir hand nor foot without making it clear they are thinking of themselves, and laying little traps for approbation.

—S. Smith.

We hardly find any persons of good sense, save those who agree with us!

We find few sensible people, except those who are of our way of thinking.

Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.

The question was asked, "Why can we see other people's failings sooner than our own? and why can we give advice to others easier than follow it ourselves?" A sensible man asked in reply, "Why can our eyes see everything else but themselves?"

Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender.

—Amiel.

Did it ever strike you that continual mourning was multiplied selfishness?

—Ursula.

Take the selfishness out of the world and there would be more happiness than we should know what to do with.

—H. W. Shaw.

"There is no harm in being respected in this world, as I have found out," said Thackeray, "and if you don't brag a little for yourself, depend on it there is no person of your acquaintance who will tell the world of your merits, and take the trouble off your hands."

Common sense among men born to fortune is rare.

—Juvenal.

He lacks sense who broods over the past.

2 Kings x, 16.—"Jehu said, Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord."

John Fox, the author of the "Book of Martyrs," was once met by a woman who showed him a book she was carrying, and said, "See you not that I am going to a sermon?" The good man replied, "If you will be ruled by me, go home, for you will do little good to-day at church." "When, then," asked she, "would you counsel me to go?" His reply was, "When you tell no one beforehand."

A CRUSHING ARGUMENT AGAINST MANUSCRIPT SERMONS.

A clergyman thought his people were making rather an unconscionable objection to his using a manuscript in delivering a sermon.

They urged, "What gars ye tak' up your bit papers to the pu'pit?"

He replied "that it was best, for really he could not remember his sermons, and he must have the paper."

"Weel, weel, minister, then dinna expect that we can remember them."

PREACHING.

A leading Welsh minister—and Welsh ministers are, I think, among the best preachers—was invited to preach an anniversary sermon before one of the great societies in London. Naturally anxious to disregard no propriety, he consulted the proper authority, the secretary. "Should I read my sermon?" "Oh, it is no matter, only bring some of your Welsh fire with you." "But you cannot, my dear sir, carry fire on paper." "No, that is true; but you may use the paper to kindle the fire."

—Rev. John Hall.

A SCOTCH PREACHER.

THE BEST SERMONS.

If we would give ourselves only half an hour's reflection at the close of every day, we would preach to ourselves the best sermons that could be uttered every week.

Oh ponder well! be not severe!

—Unknown.

What shadows we are! what shadows we pursue!

THE LOST SHEEP.

Sickness is every man's master.

—From the Danish.

—Chinese.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Silence is the safest response for all the contradiction that arises from impertinence, vulgarity, or envy.

—Zimmerman.

Silence is the best resolve for him who distrusts himself.

—Rochefoucauld.

Silence is the consummate eloquence of sorrow.

Silence is often an answer.

—Shakespeare.

There is a sure reward for faithful silence.

—Horace.

He knows much who knows how, and when, to be silent.

—Scotch.

Most rare is now our old simplicity.

Commit a sin twice, it will seem a sin no longer.

—From The Talmud.

Men's sins are before our eyes: our own, behind our backs.

—Seneca.

Many a man will give another man a letter of recommendation, though he would hardly lend the applicant a dollar.

A HAPPY USE OF SINGING.

He who stands still in mud,—sinks.

SLANDER AND EVIL SPEAKING.

A lady who had been in the habit of spreading slanderous reports once confessed her fault to St. Philip Neri, who lived several hundred years ago. She asked him how she could cure it. "Go," he said in reply, "to the nearest market-place, buy a chicken just killed, pluck its feathers all the way, and come back to me." She was greatly surprised, wondering in what way a dead chicken could help her overcome her evil habit; but she did as he bade her, and came back to him with the plucked chicken in her hand. "Now go back," he said, "and bring me all the feathers you have scattered." "But this is impossible," she replied: "I cast the feathers carelessly, and the wind carried them away; how can I recover them?" "That," he said, "is exactly like your words of slander. They have been carried about in every direction. You cannot recall them. Go and slander no more." It was a striking way of teaching a very important lesson.

He who slanders his neighbors makes a rod for himself.

—Dutch.

He will always be a slave, who does not know how to live upon a little.

—Horace.

—Cowper.

SLAVERY.

—Milton.

Sleep.—I never take a nap after dinner, but when I have had a bad night, and then the nap takes me.

—Sam'l Johnson.

We are all equals when we are asleep.

—Spanish.

If you want the night to seem a moment to you, sleep all night.

—Coleridge.

Sleep.—Even sleep is characteristic. How charming are children in their lovely innocence! How angel-like their blooming hue! How painful and anxious is the sleep and expression in the countenance of the guilty.

—W. Von Humboldt.

When I go to sleep, I let fall the windows of mine eyes.

—Shakespeare.

The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.

—Eccles. v, 12v.

Heaven trims our lamps while we sleep.

—Alcott.

—Ebenezer Elliott.

A RESTFUL PREACHER.

Dean Ramsey relates that the Earl of Lauderdale was alarmingly ill, one distressing symptom being a total absence of sleep, without which the medical men declared he could not recover. His son, who was somewhat simple, was seated under the table, and cried out, "Sen' for that preaching man frae Livingstone, for fayther aye sleeps in the kirk." One of the doctors thought the hint worth attending to, and the experiment of "getting a minister till him" succeeded, for sleep came on and the earl recovered.

—Sir P. Sidney.

—Shakespeare.

—Sophocles, born 496 B. C.

Sleep has often been mentioned as the image of death, so like it, that we should not trust it without prayer.

MYSTERY OF SLEEP.

—T. B. Aldrich.

SMILES ALWAYS ATTRACTIVE.

A smile is ever more bright and beautiful with a tear upon it.

Put a smile on your face when you go out for a walk, and it will be surprising how many pleasant people you will meet.

Who can tell the value of a smile? It costs the giver nothing, but is beyond price to the erring and relenting, the sad and cheerless.

WHEN ADAM SMITH PROPOSED.

A new story of Adam Smith was told recently at a convention in Kirkaldy, Scotland, the birthplace of the economist. The professor fell in love and proposed. The offer was refused. Next day the lady met Smith in Princess street, Edinburgh, and reopened the question of the proposal, about which she had been thinking. "You remember what I said?" the lady inquired, and the philosopher replied that he did. "Well," added the lady, "I was only joking." "You remember what I asked?" said Smith. "Yes" replied the lady. "Well," said Smith, "I was only joking too."

It is said that Sir Walter Raleigh once made a wager with Queen Elizabeth that he could weigh the smoke from his tobacco pipe. He weighed the tobacco before smoking, and the ashes afterwards. When Elizabeth paid the wager, she said, "I have seen many a man turn his gold into smoke, but you are first who has turned his smoke into gold."

—Milton.

Society is built upon trust, and trust upon confidence of one another's integrity.

—Dr. South.

—Shakespeare.

If you wish to appear agreeable in society, you must consent to be taught many things which you know already.

—Lavater.

Society is ever ready to worship success, but rarely forgives failure.

—Mme. Rowland.

Johnson:—"Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves. They would all have some people under them; why not then have some people above them?"

—Boswell's Johnson.

The true art of being agreeable is to appear well pleased with all the company, and rather to seem well entertained with them, than to bring entertainment to them.

LONGING FOR SOLITUDE.

—Cowper.

Something.—To do something, however small, to make others happier and better, is the highest ambition, the most elevating hope, which can inspire a human being.

—Lord Avebury.

TO MY DEAR SON.

On his 21st Birthday, with a Silver Lamp, "Fiat Lux."

—Lady Dufferin, 1807-1867.

A clever man once said to his son: "John, when you chase the dollars, all right; but look out, my boy, when the dollars chase you."

Send your son into the world with good principles, a good education, and industrious habits, and he will find his way in the dark.

TO MY SON.

Some of the rarest gems and most beautiful flowers are often found in out-of-the-way places. Here is one.

—Author Unknown.

HIS FATHER'S ABILITY.

At ten years of age a boy thinks his father knows a great deal;

At fifteen he knows as much as his father;

At twenty he knows twice as much;

At thirty he is willing to take his advice;

At forty he begins to think his father knows something, after all;

At fifty he begins to seek his advice;

And at sixty, after his father is dead, he thinks he was the smartest man that ever lived.

A son who loves his home is a joy to his parents.

A man who has got a good son-in-law, has gained a son; but he who has found a bad one, has lost a daughter.

Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopped, doth burn the heart to cinders.

—Shakespeare.

Sorrow's best antidote is employment.

There are people who are always anticipating trouble, and in this way they manage to enjoy many sorrows that never really happen to them.

—H. W. Shaw.

The love of the poor, to the poor, is often remarked: Privation and sorrow knit hearts as no bands of gold can.

—Thos. D. Brown.

—Shakespeare.

When sorrow is asleep wake it not.

All sorrows are bearable if there is bread.

—Don Quixote.

Let your thoughts dwell on your blessings, and you will forget your miseries.

—Gestfeld.

BRIEF PULSATIONS OF JOY.

The little that I have seen in the world, and known of the history of mankind, teaches me to look upon their errors in sorrow, not in anger. When I take the history of one poor heart that has sinned and suffered, and represent to myself the struggles and temptations it passed through, the brief pulsations of joy, the tears of regret, the feebleness of purpose, the scorn of the world that has little charity, the desolation of the soul's sanctuary, and threatening voices within, health gone, happiness gone,—I would fain leave the erring soul of my fellow-man with Him from whose hands it came.

—Longfellow.

—George Herbert.

SOMEWHERE.

When you can say nothing good of a man, change the subject.

Loose thinking leads to inaccurate speech.

—Shakespeare.

Everything that one says too much, is insipid and tedious.

—Boilau.

It is unbecoming in inferiors to assume boldness of speech.

—Aeschylus.

—Greek.

Obedience.—The man who has lost his purse will go wherever you wish.

—Horace.

STORY OF A STANZA.

Many years ago Dr. Valpy, a well known English scholar, wrote a little verse of four lines as the longing of his heart and the confession of his faith. This was the simple stanza:—

Some time afterwards he gave this verse to his friend Dr. Marsh, and it became a great blessing to him. Dr. Marsh read the lines to his friend Lord Roden, who was so impressed with them that he got the doctor to write them out, and then fastened the paper over the mantlepiece in his study, and there, yellow with age, they hung for many years.

—By Canon Dyson Hague, in London Record.

Stars.—Those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air.

—Shakespeare.

MAN'S LITTLENESS IN PRESENCE OF THE STARS.

—Henry Kirke White.

The stars govern men, but God governs the stars.

No man can be expected to be wise on an empty stomach.

The more violent the storm, the sooner it is over.

—Seneca.

If a man be gracious unto strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins them.

Be willing to pity the misery of the stranger! Thou givest to-day thy bread to the poor; to-morrow the poor may give it to thee.

—Michaelis.

THE PASSING STRANGER.