There are times when it would seem as if God fished with a line, and the devil with a net.—Madame Swetchine.
Tenderness.—When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.—George Eliot.
Theatre.—A man who enters the theatre is immediately struck with the view of so great a multitude, participating of one common amusement; and experiences, from their very aspect, a superior sensibility or disposition of being affected with every sentiment which he shares with his fellow-creatures.—Hume.
The theatre has often been at variance with the pulpit; they ought not to quarrel. How much it is to be wished that the celebration of nature and of God were intrusted to none but men of noble minds!—Goethe.
Theories.—Most men take least notice of what is plain, as if that were of no use; but puzzle their thoughts, and lose themselves in those vast depths and abysses which no human understanding can fathom.—Sherlock.
Metaphysicians can unsettle things, but they can erect nothing. They can pull down a church, but they cannot build a hovel.—Cecil.
Thought.—I have asked several men what passes in their minds when they are thinking, and I could never find any man who could think for two minutes together. Everybody has seemed to admit that it was a perpetual deviation from a particular path, and a perpetual return to it; which, imperfect as the operation is, is the only method in which we can operate with our minds to carry on any process of thought.—Sydney Smith.
A delicate thought is a flower of the mind.—Rollin.
Earnest men never think in vain though their thoughts may be errors.—Bulwer-Lytton.
Though an inheritance of acres may be bequeathed, an inheritance of knowledge and wisdom cannot. The wealthy man may pay others for doing his work for him, but it is impossible to get his thinking done for him by another, or to purchase any kind of self-culture.—Samuel Smiles.