To judge of the real importance of an individual, one should think of the effect his death would produce.—Léves.
Eternity.—Upon laying a weight in one of the scales, inscribed eternity, though I threw in that of time, prosperity, affliction, wealth, and poverty, which seemed very ponderous, they were not able to stir the opposite balance.—Addison.
Eternity is a negative idea clothed with a positive name. It supposes in that to which it is applied a present existence; and is the negation of a beginning or of an end of that existence.—Paley.
Etiquette.—Whoever pays a visit that is not desired, or talks longer than the listener is willing to attend, is guilty of an injury that he cannot repair, and takes away that which he cannot give.—Johnson.
The forms required by good breeding, or prescribed by authority, are to be observed in social or official life.—Prescott.
Good taste rejects excessive nicety; it treats little things as little things, and is not hurt by them.—Fénelon.
The law of the table is beauty, a respect to the common soul of the guests. Everything is unreasonable which is private to two or three, or any portion of the company. Tact never violates for a moment this law; never intrudes the orders of the house, the vices of the absent, or a tariff of expenses, or professional privacies; as we say, we never "talk shop" before company. Lovers abstain from caresses, and haters from insults, while they sit in one parlor with common friends.—Emerson.
Events.—Man reconciles himself to almost any event however trying, if it happens in the ordinary course of nature. It is the extraordinary alone that he rebels against. There is a moral idea associated with this feeling; for the extraordinary appears to be something like an injustice of Heaven.—Humboldt.
There can be no peace in human life without the contempt of all events. He that troubles his head with drawing consequences from mere contingencies shall never be at rest.—L'Estrange.
Evil.—Evil is in antagonism with the entire creation.—Zschokke.