C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Position
I take sanctuary in an honest mediocrity.
The well-instructed moon flies not from her orbit to seize on the glories of her partner.
The higher we rise the more isolated we become; and all elevations are cold.
A great many men—some comparatively small men now—if put in the right position, would be Luthers and Columbuses.
Baron Grimm declared that, as a rule, it was easy for little minds to attain splendid positions, because they devoted all their ability to the one object.
A true man never frets about his place in the world, but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as a star.
Where you are is of no moment, but only what you are doing there. It is not the place that ennobles you, but you the place; and this only by doing that which is great and noble.
In general, it is not very difficult for little minds to attain splendid situations. It is much more difficult for great minds to attain the place to which their merit fully entitles them.
Woman has gradually risen in the scale of humanity, till she now occupies a position loftier than which her proudest ambition need scarcely aspire—a position, if not equal to what false flatterers may claim to be her due, yet one, if she but improve the opportunities placed within her reach, equal to the moral regeneration of the world.
Since the foundation of the world man has had nearly all the forces on his side, working with him and for him; his intellect has been stimulated, while that of woman has been abased; he has had the run of the world and all quickening and brightening things, while she has sat in the cinders, and until of late been illumined only by his reflected light.
Lord Bacon has compared those who move in higher spheres to those heavenly bodies in the firmament, which have much admiration, but little rest. And it is not necessary to invest a wise man with power to convince him that it is a garment bedizened with gold, which dazzles the beholder by its splendor, but oppresses the wearer by its weight.