If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us at least live so as to deserve happiness. Fichte.
If we cast off one burden, we are immediately 35 pursued and oppressed by another. Thomas à Kempis.
If we clear the metaphysical element out of modern literature, we shall find its bulk amazingly diminished, and the claims of the remaining writers, or of those whom we have thinned by this abstraction of their straw-stuffing, much more easily adjusted. Ruskin.
If we could have a little patience, we should escape much mortification. Time takes away as much as it gives. Mme. de Sévigné.
If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. Longfellow.
If we do not find happiness in the present moment, in what shall we find it? Goldsmith.
If we do not now reckon a great man literally 40 divine, it is that our notions of the divine are ever rising higher; not altogether that our reverence for the divine, as manifested in our like, is getting lower. Carlyle.
If we do well here, we shall do well there. J. Edwin.
If we engage into a large acquaintance and various familiarities, we set open our gates to the invaders of most of our time. Cowley.
If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future. Pascal.