C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Earth
The rugged, all-nourishing earth.
The flowers are but earth vivified.
Earth, air, and ocean, glorious three.
Earth, ocean, air, beloved brotherhood.
The earth, that’s nature’s mother, is her tomb.
This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory.
I believe this earth on which we stand is but the vestibule to glorious mansions through which a moving crowd forever press.
Once every atom of this ground lived, breathed, and felt like me!
We are pilgrims, not settlers; this earth is our inn, not our home.
Speak no harsh words of earth; she is our mother, and few of us her sons who have not added a wrinkle to her brow.
Nought so vile that on the earth doth live, but to the earth some special good doth give.
This poor world, the object of so much insane attachment, we are about to leave; it is but misery, vanity, and folly; a phantom—the very fashion of which “passeth away.”
Friend, hast thou considered the “rugged, all-nourishing earth,” as Sophocles well names her; how she feeds the sparrow on the housetop, much more her darling man?
Lean not on earth; it will pierce thee to the heart; a broken reed at best; but oft a spear, on its sharp point Peace bleeds and Hope expires.
Let the mantle of worldly enjoyments hang loose about you, that it may be easily dropped when death comes to carry you into another world.
The earth, though in comparison of heaven so small, nor glistering, may of solid good contain more plenty than the sun, that barren shines.
I speak of that learning which makes us acquainted with the boundless extent of nature, and the universe, and which even while we remain in this world, discovers to us both heaven, earth, and sea.
Our earthly possessions will indeed perish in the final wreck of all things; but let the ship perish, let all we have sink in the deep, if we may come “safe to land.” From these storms and billows—these dangerous seas—these tempestuous voyages—may we all be brought at last safe to heaven.
Transiency is stamped on all our possessions, occupations, and delights. We have the hunger for eternity in our souls, the thought of eternity in our hearts, the destination for eternity written on our inmost being, and the need to ally ourselves with eternity proclaimed by the most short-lived trifles of time. Either these things will be the blessing or the curse of our lives. Which do you mean that they shall be for you?
It is this earth that, like a kind mother, receives us at our birth, and sustains us when born; it is this alone, of all the elements around us, that is never found an enemy of man.
The waters deluge man with rain, oppress him with hail, and drown him with inundations; the air rushes in storms, prepares the tempest, or lights up the volcano; but the earth, gentle and indulgent, ever subservient to the wants of man, spreads his walks with flowers and his table with plenty; returns with interest every good committed to her care, and though she produces the poison, she still supplies the antidote; though constantly teased more to furnish the luxuries of man than his necessities, yet, even to the last, she continues her kind indulgence, and when life is over she piously covers his remains in her bosom.