C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Gladstone
A long experience impresses me with the belief that selfishness does not grow in intensity as we move downward in society from class to class.
A rational reaction against irrational excesses and vagaries of skepticism may***readily degenerate into the rival folly of credulity.
An enduring fame is one stamped by the judgment of the future,—that future which dispels illusions, and smashes idols into dust.
Anger is not only the prevailing sin of argument, but its greatest stumbling-block.
Apt quotations carry conviction.
Avarice, where it has full dominion, excludes every other passion.
Censure and criticism never hurt anybody. If false, they can’t hurt you unless you are wanting in manly character; and if true, they show a man his weak points, and forewarn him against failure and trouble.
Commerce is the equalizer of the wealth of nations.
Duty is a power which rises with us in the morning, and goes to rest with us at night. It is coextensive with the action of our intelligence. It is the shadow which cleaves to us, go where we will, and which only leaves us when we leave the light of life.
For works of the mind really great there is no old age, no decrepitude. It is inconceivable that a time should come when Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, should not ring in the ears of civilized man.
Give time to the Evil One, and you give him all he requires.
Individuals, not stations, ornament society.
Justice delayed is justice denied.
Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence; conservatism, distrust of the people tempered by fear.
Man himself is the crowning wonder of creation; the study of his nature the noblest study the world affords.
Mediocrity is now, as formerly, dangerous, commonly fatal, to the poet; but among even the successful writers of prose, those who rise sensibly above it are the very rarest exceptions.
Men are apt to mistake the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument. The heated mind resents the chill touch and relentless scrutiny of logic.
No ritual is too much, provided it is subsidiary to the inner work of worship; and all ritual is too much unless it ministers to that purpose.
Nothing can be hostile to religion which is agreeable to justice.
Nothing more surely cultivates and embellishes a man than association with refined and virtuous women.
The duties of government are paternal.
The free expression of opinion, as our experience has taught us, is the safety-valve of passion. That noise of the rushing steam, when it escapes, alarms the timid; but it is the sign that we are safe.
The most distinguished professional men bear witness, with an overwhelming authority, in favor of a course of education in which to train the mind shall be the first object, and to stock it, the second.
The proper function of a government is to make it easy for people to do good, and difficult for them to do evil.
The sense of beauty enters into the highest philosophy, as in Plato. The highest poet must be a philosopher, accomplished like Dante, or intuitive like Shakespeare.
The ship retains her anchorage, yet drifts with a certain range, subject to wind and tide; so we have for an anchorage the cardinal truths of the gospel.
The three highest titles that can be given a man are those of martyr, hero, saint.
Vanity and pride sustain so close an alliance as to be often mistaken for each other.
We cannot change the profound and resistless tendencies of the age toward religious liberty. It is our business to guide and control their application.
Wisdom,—a man’s best friend.
With a sigh for what we have not, we must be thankful for what we have, and leave to One wiser than ourselves the deeper problems of the human soul and of its discipline.
Woman is most perfect when most womanly.