I pick up favourite quotations and store them 15 in my mind as ready armour, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence. Of these there is a very favourite one from Thomson: "Attach thee firmly to the virtuous deeds / And offices of life; to life itself, / With all its vain and transient joys, sit loose." Burns.
I pity men who occupy themselves exclusively with the transitory in things and lose themselves in the study of what is perishable, since we are here for this very end that we may make the perishable imperishable, which we can do only after we have learned how to appreciate both. Goethe.
I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry: 'Tis all barren. Swift.
I pounce on what is mine wherever I find it. Marmontel.
I prize the soul that slumbers in a quiet eye. Eliza Cook.
I quote others only in order the better to 20 express myself. Montaigne.
I renounce the friend who eats what is mine with me, and what is his own by himself. Port. Pr.
I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. Thoreau.
I say the acknowledgment of God in Christ, / Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee / All questions on the earth and out of it. Browning.
I scorn the affectation of seeming modesty to cover self-conceit. Burns.