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wants, by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.--Swift.

DESIRES OF THE WISE.-A wise man will desire no more than he may get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly.

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DESIRES, THEIR EFFECT. When a man's desires are boundless, his labor is endless; they will set him a task he can never go through, and cut him out work he can never finish. The satisfaction which he seeks is always absent, and the happiness which he aims at, ever at a distance. He has perpetually many things to do, and many things to provide; and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.Balguy.

DESIRES, TO BE CONFORMED TO OUR CONDITION.-It should be an indispensable rule in life to contract our desires to our present condition, and whatever may be our expectations, to live within the compass of what we actually possess. It will be time enough to enjoy an estate when it comes into our hands; but if we anticipate our good fortune, we shall lose the pleasure of it when it arrives, and may possibly never possess what we have so foolishly counted on.-Addison.

DESPAIR.-Despair is like froward children, who, when you take away one of their playthings, throw the rest into the fire for madness. It grows angry with itself, turns its own executioner, and revenges its misfortunes on its own head. It refuses to live under disappointments and crosses, and chooses rather not to be at all, than to be without the thing which it hath once imagined necessary to its happiness. - Charron.

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DESPAIR, ITS SOURCE.-Despair makes a despicable figure, and descends from a mean original. 'Tis the offspring of fear, of laziness, and impatience; it argues a defect of spirit and resolution, and oftentimes of honesty too. I would not

despair, unless I saw my misfortune recorded in the book of fate, and signed and sealed by necessity.-Collier.

DETRACTION. Those who propagate evil reports, frequently invent them; and it is no breach of charity to suppose this to be always the case; because no man who spreads detraction, would have scrupled to produce it; as he who should diffuse poison in a brook, would scarce be acquitted of a malicious design, though he should allege that he received it of another who is doing the same elsewhere.— Adventurer.

DETRACTOR, THE.--The detractor may, and often does pull down others, but he never, as he seems to suppose, elevates himself to their position. The most he can do is maliciously to tear from them the blessings which he cannot enjoy himself.

DEVOTION.-The most illiterate man who is touched with devotion, and uses frequent exercises of it, contracts a certain greatness of mind, mingled with a noble simplicity, that raises him above those of the same condition. It is hardly possible it should be otherwise; for the fervors of a pious mind will naturally contract such an earnestness and attention towards a better being, as will make the ordinary passages of life go off with a becoming indifference. By this, a man in the lowest condition will not appear mean, or in the most splendid fortune insolent.-Johnson.

DEVOTION IN THE YOUNG.-It is of the utmost importance to season the passions of the young with devotion, which seldom dies in the mind that has received an early tincture of it. Though it may seem extinguished for a while, by the cares of the world, the heats of youth, or the allurements of vice, it generally breaks out and discovers itself again as soon as discretion, consideration, age, or misfortunes have brought

the man to himself. The fire may be covered and overlaid, but cannot be entirely quenched and smothered.-Addison.

DEVOTIONS OF THE FAMILY.-All the duties of religion, are eminently solemn and venerable in the eyes of children. But none will so strongly prove the sincerity of the parent: none so powerfully awaken the reverence of the child; none so happily recommend the instruction he receives, as family devotions, particularly those in which petitions for the children occupy a distinguished place.-Dwight.

DICE. The best throw with the dice, is to throw them away.-Old Proverbs.

DIFFERENCES.-It is remarkable that men, when they differ in what they think considerable, will be apt to differ in almost everything else. Their difference begets contradiction; contradiction begets heat; heat quickly rises into resentment, rage, and ill-will. Thus they differ in affections, as they differ in judgment; and the contention which began in pride, ends in anger.- Cato.

DISAPPOINTMENT.-It is generally known, that he who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation, or has any other effect than that of producing a moral sentence, or peevish exclamation.— Johnson.

DISAPPOINTMENT.-He that will do no good offices after a disappointment, must stand still, and do just nothing at all. The plough goes on after a barren year; and while the ashes are yet warm, we raise a new house upon the ruins of a former.-Seneca.

DISCIPLINE OF SELF.-That discipline which corrects the baseness of worldly passion; fortifies the heart with virtuous principles; enlightens the mind with useful knowledge, and furnishes it with enjoyment from within itself, is of more con

sequence to real felicity, than all the provision we can make of the goods of fortune.-Blair.

DISCRETION.-There are many shining qualities in the mind of man; but none so useful as discretion. It is this, indeed, which gives a value to all the rest, and sets them at work in their proper places, and turns them to the advantage of their possessor. Without it, learning is pedantry; wit, impertinence; and virtue itself looks like weakness; and the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice.-Addison.

DISCRETION. The greatest parts without discretion, as observed by an elegant writer, may be fatal to their owner; as Polyphemus, deprived of his eye, was only the more exposed, on account of his enormous strength and stature.— Addison.

DISCRETION AS TO ACQUAINTANCE.-It is good discretion not to make too much of any man at the first; because one cannot hold out that proportion.-Lord Bacon.

DISCRETION IN WOMAN.-As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman without discretion.-Solomon.

DISEASE AND MEDICINE.- The disease and its medicine, are like two factions in a besieged town; they tear one another to pieces, but both unite against their common enemy, Nature.-Jeffrey.

DISEASES.-It is with diseases of the mind, as with those of the body: we are half dead before we understand our disorder, and half cured when we do.—Colton.

DISLIKE OF OUR LOT.-To think well of every other man's condition, and to dislike our own, is one of the misfortunes of human nature. "Pleased with cach other's lot, our own we hate."-Burton.

DISLIKES.-Whatever you dislike in another person, take care to correct in yourself by the gentle reproof-Sprat.

DISOBEDIENCE IN CHILDREN.-Disobedient children, if preserved from the gallows, are reserved for the rack, to be tortured by their own posterity. One complaining, that never father had so undutiful a child as he had. Yes, said his son, with less grace than truth, my grandfather had.-Fuller.

DISPARAGEMENT.-Disparage and depreciate no one; an insect has feeling, and an atom a shadow.

DISPOSITION.-The man who has so little knowledge of human nature, as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own dispositions, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove.-Col

ton.

DISPOSITIONS, UNHAPPY.-Envy's memory is nothing but a row of hooks to hang up grudges on. Some people's sensibility is a mere bundle of aversions; and you hear them display and parade it, not in recounting the things they are attached to, but in telling you how many things and persons they cannot bear."-John Foster.

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DISPUTE. Do not use thyself to dispute against thine own judgment, to show thy wit, lest it prepare thee to be too indifferent about what is right; nor against another man to vex him, or for mere trial of skill, since to inform or be informed, ought to be the end of all conferences.-Wm. Penn.

DISPUTES.-There is no dispute managed without passion, and yet there is scarce a dispute worth a passion.-Sherlock.

DISPUTES. It is in disputes, as in armies; where the weaker side sets up false lights, and makes a great noise, to make the enemy believe them more numerous and strong than they really are.-Swift.

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