"The mind of a young creature," says Berkely, "can not remain empty; if you do not put into it that which is good, it will be sure to use even that which is bad."
We all see at sunset the beautiful colors streaming all over the western sky, but no eyes can behold the hand that overturns the urns whence these streams are poured.
We often live under a cloud, and it is well for us that we should do so. Uninterrupted sunshine would parch our hearts. We want shade and rain to cool and refresh them.
Poverty is very terrible to you, and kills the soul in you sometimes; but it is the north wind that lashed men into vikings; it is the soft, luscious south wind that lulls to lotus dreams.
There is nothing so valuable, and yet so cheap, as civility; you can almost buy land with it.
It has been justly said nothing in man is so Godlike as doing good to our fellows.—Selected.
Contentment swells a mite into a talent, and makes even the poor richer than the Indies.—Addison.
Never was a sincere word utterly lost, never a magnanimity fell to the ground; there is some heart always to greet and accept it unexpectedly.
There are people who often talk of the humbleness of their origin, when they are really ashamed of it, though vain of the talent which enabled them to emerge from it.
A witty old deacon put it thus: "Now, brethren, let us get up a supper and eat ourselves rich. Buy your food, then give it to the church; then go and buy it back again; then eat it up, and your church debt is paid."