Page images
PDF
EPUB

be wise and virtuous, and none of those that follow thee for gain; but make election rather of thy betters, than thy inferiors, shunning always such as are poor and needy; for if thou givest twenty gifts, and refuse to do the like but once, all that thou hast done will be lost, and such men will become thy mortal enemies.-Sir W. Raleigh-to his Son.

FRIENDS, OLD, BEST.-Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes; they were easiest for his feet. -Selden.

FRIENDS, WEAK.-Those friends are weak and worthless, that will not use the privilege of friendship, in admonishing their friends with freedom and confidence, as well of their errors as of their danger.- Bacon.

FRIENDS, WHO ARE.-Thou mayst be sure that he that will in private tell thee of thy faults, is thy friend, for he adventures thy dislike, and doth hazard thy hatred; for there are few men that can endure it, every man for the most part delighting in self-praise, which is one of the most universal follies that bewitcheth mankind.-Sir W. Raleigh.

FRIENDSHIP.-A faithful and true friend, is a living treasure, inestimable in possession, and deeply to be lamented. when gone. Nothing is more common than to talk of a friend; nothing more difficult than to find one; nothing more rare than to improve by one as we ought.

FRIENDSHIP. Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joy, and dividing our grief.—Addison.

FRIENDSHIP. He that has no friend, and no enemy, is one of the vulgar; and without talents, powers, or energy. Lavater.

FRIENDSHIP.-Be not the fourth friend of him who had three before and lost them.-Lavater.

FRIENDSHIP.-Be careful to make friendship the child, aud not the father of virtue: for many strongly knit minds are rather good friends than good men; so, although they do not like the evil their friend does, yet they like him who does the evil; and though no counsellors of the offence, they yet protect the offender.-Sir P. Sidney.

FRIENDSHIP, A LIMIT TO ITS OBLIGATION.-No one can lay himself under obligation to do a wrong thing. Pericles, when one of his friends asked his services in an unjust cause, excused himself, saying, "I am a friend only as far as the altar."-Fuller.

[ocr errors]

FRIENDSHIP AND FREEDOM.- -There can be no friendship where there is no freedom.-Penn.

FRIENDSHIP, CONSISTENT WITH FRAILTIES.-All men have their frailties; and whoever looks for a friend without imperfections, will never find what he seeks. We love ourselves notwithstanding our faults, and we ought to love our friends in like manner.- - Cyrus.

FRIENDSHIP, FALSE.-False friendship, like the ivy, decays and ruins the walls it embraces; but true friendship gives new life and animation to the object it supports.-Burton.

FRIENDSHIP, ITS ELEMENTS.-Friendship is compounded of all those soft ingredients which can insinuate themselves and slide insensibly into the nature and temper of men of the most different constitutions, as well as of those strong and active spirits which can make their way into perverse and obstinate dispositions; and because discretion is always predominant in it, it works and prevails least upon fools. Wicked men are often reformed by it, weak men seldom.- Clarendon.

FRIENDSHIP, ITS FIRST PRINCIPLES.-Love and esteem are the first principles of friendship, which always is imperfect where either of these two is wanting.-Budgell.

FRIENDSHIP, REAL, FORMED EARLY.-Though judgment must collect the materials of the goodly structure of friendship, it is affection that gives the cement; and passion as well as reason should concur in forming a firm and lasting coali tion. Hence, perhaps, it is, that not only the most powerful, but the most lasting friendships are usually the produce of the early season of our lives, when we are most susceptible of the warm and affectionate impressions. The connections into which we enter into any after period, decrease in strength, as our passions abate in heat; and there is not, I believe, a single instance of a vigorous friendship that ever struck root in a bosom chilled by years.-Fitzosborne's Letters.

FRIENDSHIPS, TO BE RENEWED.—If a man does not make new acquaintances as he passes through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.-Johnson.

FRIENDSHIPS, UNFAITHFUL.-Those who in the common course of the world will call themselves your friends; or whom, according to the common notions of friendship, you may probably think such, will never tell you of your faults, still less of your weaknesses. But on the contrary, more desirous to make you their friend, than to prove themselves yours, they will flatter both, and, in truth, not be sorry for either. Interiorly, most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends.- Chesterfield.

FRUGALITY.-Frugality may be termed the daughter of prudence, the sister of temperance, and the parent of liberty. He that is extravagant will quickly become poor, and poverty will enforce dependence, and invite corruption. It will almost always produce a passive compliance with the wickedness of others, and there are few who do not learn by degrees to practise those crimes which they cease to censure.— Johnson.

FRUGALITY.-Frugality is founded on the principle, that all riches have limits.-Burke.

FRUGALITY-It appears evident that frugality is necessary even to complete the pleasure of expense; for it may be gen. erally remarked of those who squander what they know their fortune not sufficient to allow, that in their most jovial expense, there always breaks out some proof of discontent and impatience; they either scatter with a kind of wild desperation and affected lavishness, as criminals brave the gallows

when they cannot escape it, or pay their money with a peev

ish anxiety, and endeavor at once to spend idly, and to save meanly; having neither firmness to deny their passions, nor courage to gratify them, they murmur at their own enjoyments, and poison the bowl of pleasure by reflection on the cost.-Johnson.

The

FRUGALITY, PUBLIC.-If frugality were established in the state, if our expenses were laid out rather in the necessaries than the superfluities of life, there might be fewer wants, and even fewer pleasures, but infinitely more happiness. rich and the great would be better able to satisfy their creditors; they would be better able to marry their children; and instead of one marriage at present, there might be two, if such regulations took place. Goldsmith.

[ocr errors]

FRUGALITY, SYSTEMATIC.-He seldom lives frugally, who lives by chance. Hope is always liberal, and they that trust her promises, make little scruple of revelling to-day, on the profits of to-morrow.-Johnson.

FUTURE, THE-Everything that looks to the future, elevates human nature; for never is life so low, or so little, as when occupied with the present. Landon.

[ocr errors]

FUTURE, THE, ANXIETY FOR.-Many philosophers imagine that the elements themselves may be in time exhausted; that the sun, by shining long, will effuse all its light; and that

by the continual waste of aqueous particles, the whole earth will at last become a sandy desert. I would not advise my readers to disturb themselves by contriving how they shall live without light and water. For the days of universal thirst and perpetual darkness are at a great distance. The ocean and the sun will last our time, and we may leave posterity to shift for themselves.-Johnson.

[ocr errors]

FUTURE, THE, To be considered. -Planters of trees ought to encourage themselves, by considering all future time ast present; indeed, such consideration would be a useful principle to all men in their conduct of life, as it respects both this world and the next.-Bishop Watson.

G.

GAIETY.-Gaiety is not a proof that the heart is at ease, for often in the midst of laughter the heart is sad.-De Genlis.

GAIETY OF THE WICKED.-The gaiety of the wicked, ıs like the flowery surface of Mount Etna, beneath which materials are gathering for an eruption that will one day reduce all its beauties to ruin and desolation.

GAMBLING.--I look upon every man as a suicide from the moment he takes the dice-box desperately in his hand, and all that follows in his career from that fatal time is only sharpening the dagger before he strikes it to his heart.Cumberland.

GENEROSITY.-Generosity, wrong placed, becometh a vice; a princely mind will undo a private family-Fuller.

GENEROSITY.—True generosity does not consist in obeying every impulse of humanity, in following blind passion for our

« PreviousContinue »