C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.

Mason

O credulity,

Security’s blind nurse, the dream of fools,

The drunkard’s ape, that feeling for his way

Ev’n when he thinks, in his deluded sense

To snatch at safety, falls without defence.

’Tis ever thus

With noble minds, if chance they slide to folly;

Remorse stings deeper, and relentless conscience

Pours more gall into the bitter cup

Of their severe repentance.

Uncurbed ambition, unresisting sloth,

And base dependence, are the fiends accurst.

With what a heavy and retarding weight

Does expectation load the wing of time.

A house without family worship has neither foundation nor covering.

As every thread of gold is valuable, so is every minute of time.

Judge thyself with a judgment of sincerity, and thou wilt judge others with a judgment of charity.

Time’s gradual touch has mouldered into beauty many a tower, which when it frowned with all its battlements was only terrible.