First Murderer. So when he opens his purse to give us our reward, thy conscience flies out. Second Murderer. Let it go; there's few or none will entertain it. First Murderer. How if it come to thee again? Second Murderer. I'll not meddle with it. It is a dangerous thing. It makes a man a coward. A man cannot steal but it accuseth him: he cannot swear but it checks him: 'tis a blushing, shame-faced spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills one full of obstacles; it made me once restore a purse of gold that I found: it beggars any man that keeps it; it is turned out of all towns and cities for a dangerous thing. First Murderer. Zounds! it is even now at my elbow. 867 Shakespeare: King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 4. Conscience has no more to do with gallantry than it has with politics. Sheridan: The Duenna. Act i. Sc. 4. Trust that man in nothing who has not a conscience in everything. 869 868 Laurence Sterne: Sermons. XXVII. The Begin your day with a clean conscience in every way. Cleanliness is honesty. 870 Thackeray: Miscellanies. Sketches and Travels in London. On Tailoring. Toilets in General. Guilty consciences make men cowards. 871 Vanbrugh: The Provoked Wife. Act v. Sc. 6. Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called Conscience. 872 George Washington: Moral Maxims. Vice. Conscience. Virtue and Conscience is the present opinion a man has of his own actions. 873 Thomas Wilson: Maxims of Piety and of God only needs to deliver a sinner to his own conscience to be avenged of his sin. 874 Thomas Wilson: Maxims of Piety and of When conscience forsakes a man the Spirit of God does so too. 875 CONSECRATION Thomas Wilson: Maxims of Piety and of Consecration is going out into the world where God Almighty is, and using every power for his glory. 876 Henry Ward Beecher: Life Thoughts, CONSISTENCY. No man who is wholly consistent within himself, and who reposes all his interests in himself alone, can be otherwise than completely happy. 877 Cicero: Offices and Moral Works. Paradoxes. II. (Edmonds, Translator.) CONSTANCY. Constancy is human nature. 878 Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield): Contarini Fleming. Pt. iii. Ch. 17. Farewell and stand fast. 879 Shakespeare: King Henry IV. Pt. i. Act 11. Sc. 2. I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their business might be everything, and their intent everywhere; for that's it that always makes a good voyage of nothing. 880 Shakespeare: Twelfth Night. Act ii. Sc. 4. CONTAMINATION. We ought to avoid the friendship of the bad and the enmity of the good. 881 Epictetus: Fragments. CLIII. (Long, Translator.) CONTEMPT · An Englishman fears contempt more than death. 882 Goldsmith: The Citizen of the World. Letter iv. Contempt is a kind of gangrene which, if it seizes one part of a character, corrupts all the rest by degrees. 883 Johnson: Works. VIII. 47. (Oxford edition, 1825.) No man can fall into contempt but those who deserve it. 884 Johnson: Works. Debates. X. 350. (Oxford edition, 1825.) Those only are despicable who fear to be despised. 885 La Rochefoucauld: Reflections; or, Sentences and Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me. 886 Shakespeare: Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 2. If there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another; I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt. 887 Shakespeare: Merry Wives of Windsor. They that touch pitch will be defiled. 888 Shakespeare: Much Ado about Nothing. CONTENTION. Contention is a hydra's head; the more they strive the more they may: and as Praxiteles did by his glass, when he saw a scurvy face in it, brake it in pieces: but for that one he saw many more as bad in a moment. 889 Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. ii. Sec. 3, Mem. 7. CONTENTMENT—see Happiness, Humility, Travellers. The rarest feeling that ever lights a human face is the contentment of a loving soul. 890 Henry Ward Beecher: Life Thoughts. We only see in a lifetime a dozen faces marked with the peace of a contented spirit. 891 Henry Ward Beecher: Proverbs from Plymouth I would do what I pleased; and, doing what I pleased, I should have my will; and, having my will, I should be contented; and, content, there is no more to be desired; and when there is no more to desire, there is an end of it. 892 Cervantes. Don Quixote. Pt. i. Bk. iv. Ch. 50. (Jarvis, Translator.) Content is the best opulence, because it is the pleasantest, and the surest. The richest man is he who does not want that which is wanting to him: the poorest is the miser, who wants that which he has. 893 Paul Chatfield, M.D. (Horace Smith): The Tin To be content with what we possess is the greatest and most secure of riches. 894 Cicero: Offices and Moral Works. Paradoxes. VI. (Edmonds, Translator.) Contentment, as it is a short road and pleasant, has great delight and little trouble. 895 Epictetus: Fragments. CXXXVII. (Long, Trans.) Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress. 896 Epictetus: Fragments. CXXXVIII. (Long, Trans.) Contentment consisteth not in adding more fuel, but in taking away some fire; not in multiplying of wealth, but in subtracting men's desires. 897 Thomas Fuller: The Holy and Profane States. The Holy State. Of Contentment. We shall be made truly wise if we be made content; content, too, not only with what we can understand, but content with what we do not understand, - the habit of mind which theologians call, and rightly, faith in God. 898 - Charles Kingsley: Health and Education. 90 CONTENTMENT-CONVERSATION. Contentment is better than divinations or visions. 899 Landor: Imaginary Conversations. Mahomet and Sergius. We are contented because we are happy, and not happy because we are contented. 900 Landor: Imaginary Conversations. Lord Brooke Mutual content is like a river, which must have its banks on either side. 901 Le Sage: Gil Blas. Bk. xii. Ch. 12. (Smollett, Contentment with to-day's lot makes candidacy for a better lot to-morrow. 902 Charles H. Parkhurst: Sermons. XV. Things Seen and Things not Seen. O Contentment, make me rich! for without thee there is no wealth. 903 Saadi: The Gulistan. Ch. iii. Of the Excellency of Contentment. Tale I. The great quality of Dulness is to be unalterably contented with itself. 904 Thackeray Miscellanies. Men's Wives. Dennis Haggarty's Wife. The fewer desires, the more peace. 905 Thomas Wilson: Maxims of Piety and of CONVERSATION -see Reading, Silence, Talkativeness, War, Wit. Conversation is an abandonment to ideas, a surrender to persons. 906 A. Bronson Alcott: Table Talk. VI. Discourse. Canon of Conversation. Debate is angular, conversation circular and radiant of the underlying unity. 907 A. Bronson Alcott: Concord Days. May. Debate is masculine; conversation is feminine. A. Bronson Alcott: Concord Days. May. Good discourse sinks differences and seeks agreements. Many can argue, not many converse. 910 A. Bronson Alcott: Concord Days. May Discretion of speech is more than eloquence; and to speak agreeably to him with whom we deal, is more than to speak in good words or in good order. A good continued speech, without a good speech of interlocution, shows slowness; and a good reply, or second speech, without a good settled speech, showeth shallowness and weakness. 911 Bacon: Essays. Of Discourse. Conversation stock being a joint and common property. every one should take a share in it; and yet there may be societies in which silence will be our best contribution. 912 Paul Chatfield, M.D. (Horace Smith): The Tin Conversation is the music of the mind, an intellectual orchestra, where all the instruments should bear a part, but where none should play together. 913 Colton: Lacon. A great thing is a great book, but greater than all is the talk of a great man. 914 Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield): Coningsby. Conversation is a game of circles. 915 916 Emerson Essays. Circles. Conversation is the laboratory and work-shop of the student. Emerson: Society and Solitude. Clubs. Conversation is the vent of character as well as of thought. Emerson: Society and Solitude. Clubs. Conversation, which, when it is best, is a series of intoxi 917 cations. 918 Emerson: Letters and Social Aims. Inspiration. The best of life is conversation. 919 Emerson: Conduct of Life. Behavior. Wise, cultivated, genial conversation is the last flower of civilization, and the best result which life has to offer us, -a cup for gods, which has no repentance. Conversation is our account of ourselves. All we have, all we can, all we know, is brought into play, and as the reproduction in finer form, of all our havings. 920 Emerson: Miscellanies. Woman. The great secret of succeeding in conversation is to admire little, to hear much; always to distrust our own reason, and sometimes that of our friends; never to pretend to wit, but to make that of others appear as much as possibly we can; to hearken to what is said, and to answer to the purpose. 921 Benjamin Franklin: Miscellaneous Observations. |