If one's intimate in love or friendship cannot, or does not, share all one's intellectual tastes or pursuits, that is a small matter. Intellectual companions can be found easily in men and books. After all, if we think of it, most of the world's loves and friendships have been between people that could not read nor spell. 802 Holmes: The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. A man's mind is known by the company it keeps. 803 Lowell: My Study Windows. Pope. Company, villanous company, hath been the spoil of me. 804 Shakespeare: King Henry IV. Pt. i. Act iii. Sc. 3. They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts. 805 Sir Philip Sidney: Arcadia. Bk. i. When men are lonely they stoop to any companionship; the dog becomes a comrade, the horse a friend; and it is no shame to shower them with caresses and speeches of love. 806 Lew Wallace: Ben-Hur. Bk. i. Ch. 1. COMPARISON. Comparisons made between wit and wit, courage and courage, beauty and beauty, birth and birth, are always odious and ill taken. 807 Cervantes: Don Quixote. Pt. ii. Ch. 1. Translator.) (Lockhart, By comparison alone we fix the epithets of praise or blame, and learn how to assign the due degree of each. 808 Hume: Essays. XXII. Of the Standard of Taste. Comparisons are odorous. 809 Shakespeare: Much Ado about Nothing. As a rule, there is no surer way to the dislike of men than to behave well where they have behaved badly. Lew Wallace: Ben-Hur. 810 COMPASSION. Bk. iv. Ch. 9. Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation. Henry Ward Beecher: Proverbs from Plymouth Compassion, the parent of all kind offices. 812 Bryant: Prose Writings. I. Literary Essays. COMPENSATION. There is a remedy for every wrong, and a satisfaction for every soul. 813 Emerson: Letters and Social Aims. Immortality. Everything a man parts with is the cost of something. Everything he receives is the compensation of something. 814 J. G. Holland: Plain Talks on Familiar Subjects. VII. Cost and Compensation. Compensation is just, and proceeds from God. 815 La Bruyere: The Characters or Manners of the COMPETENCY -see Power, Riches, Wealth. Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer. 816 Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 2. COMPLAINT. To hear complaints is wearisome alike to the wretched and the happy. 817 COMPLIMENTS. Johnson: Rasselas. Ch. 35. Unusual compliments, to which there is no stated and prescriptive answer, embarrass the feeble, who know not what to say, and disgust the wise, who, knowing them to be false, suspect them to be hypocritical. 818 Johnson: Boswell's Life of Johnson. V. 440. Note 2. (George Birkbeck Hill, Editor, 1887.) Compliments are in their place only where there is full as much of weakness as of merit. 819 Landor: Imaginary Conversations. Lord Chesterfield and Lord Chatham. CONCEIT -see Conversation, Self-Conceit, Sin. Conceit is the most incurable disease that is known to the human soul. 820 Henry Ward Beecher: Proverbs from Plymouth Men lose wisdom just in proportion as they are conceited. Pulpit. Character. Sit thee down, clod-pole! for in whatever place I am seated, that is the upper end to thee. 822 Cervantes: Don Quixote. Pt. ii. Ch. 32. (Jarvis, Translator.) I've never any pity for conceited people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them. 823 George Eliot: The Mill on the Floss. Bk. v. Ch. 6. The worthless and offensive members of society, whose existence is a social pest, invariably think themselves the most ill-used people alive, and never get over their astonish ment at the ingratitude and selfishness of their contemporaries. 824 Emerson: Representative Men. Uses of Great Men. He that overvalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them. 825 Johnson: Works. IX. 344. (Oxford edition, 1825.) Conceit may puff a man up, but never prop him up. 826 Ruskin Pre-Raphaelitism. O that he were here to write me down- an ass! CONCLUSION. Shakespeare: Much Ado about Nothing. Oh, most lame and impotent conclusion! 828 CONDITION. Shakespeare: Othello. Act ii. Sc. 1. Nature makes us vagabonds, the world makes us respectable. Alexander Smith: Dreamthorp. On Vagabonds. 829 CONFIDENCE - -see Conscience, Success, Treason. I see before me the statue of a celebrated minister who said that confidence was a plant of slow growth. But I believe, however gradual may be the growth of confidence, that of credit requires still more time to arrive at maturity. 830 Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield): Speech at Mansion House, Nov. 9, 1867. Trust men, and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great. 831 Emerson Essays. Prudence. The only way to get the confidence of the world is to show the world that you do not want their confidence. 832 B. R. Haydon: Table Talk. Confidence is a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom. William Pitt (Earl of Chatham): Speech, Jan. 14, 1766. 833 I would have some confidence with you that decerns you nearly. 834 Shakespeare: Much Ado about Nothing. Confidence is a thing not to be produced by compulsion. Men cannot be forced into trust. 835 Daniel Webster: Speech, United States Senate, CONGENIALITY. Like talks best with like, laughs best with like, works best with like, and enjoys best with like; and it cannot help it. Timothy Titcomb (J. G. Holland): Gold-Foil. XVIII. Social Classification. 836 CONSCIENCE-see Righteousness, Virtue. A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body. it preserves a constant ease and serenity within us, and more than countervails all the calamities and afflictions which can possibly befall us. I know nothing so hard for a generous mind to get over as calumny and reproach, and cannot find any method of quieting the soul under them, besides this single one, of our being conscious to ourselves that we do not deserve them. 837 Addison: The Guardian. No. 135. It is not history which teaches conscience to be honest; it is the conscience which educates history. 838 Amiel: Journal, Nov. 18, 1851. (Mrs. Humphrey There is one court whose "findings" are incontrovertible, and whose sessions are held in the chambers of our own breast. 839 Hosea Ballou: MSS. Sermons. If you sell your conscience to Interest, you traffic with a fiend. 840 Henry Ward Beecher: Proverbs from Plymouth To make conscience tolerable, love should be thrown around it. Conscience is the frame of character, and love is the covering for it. 841 Henry Ward Beecher: Proverbs from Plymouth The power of conscience is very great, O judges, and is of great weight on both sides; so that they fear nothing who have done no wrong, and they, on the other hand, who have done wrong think that punishment is always hanging over them. 842 Cicero: Orations. For T. A. Milo. Sec. 33. (Yonge, Translator.) Conscience emphasizes the word ought. 843 Joseph Cook: Boston Monday Lectures. Conscience. Matthew Arnold's Views on Conscience. Conscience is that which perceives and feels rightness and obligatoriness in choices. 844 Joseph Cook: Boston Monday Lectures. Conscience. Unexplored Remainders in Conscience. Conscience is your magnetic needle; reason is your chart. 845 Joseph Cook: Boston Monday Lectures. Conscience. Is Conscience Infallible? best. Conscience requires every man to mean well, and to do his It requires us not only to follow all the light we have, but all we can obtain, and to do so gladly. 846 Joseph Cook: Boston Monday Lectures. Conscience. Is Conscience Infallible? God is in the word ought, and therefore it outweighs all but God. 847 Joseph Cook: Boston Monday Lectures. Conscience. Unexplored Remainders in Conscience. No Our secret thoughts are rarely heard except in secret. man knows what conscience is until he understands what solitude can teach him concerning it. 848 Joseph Cook: Boston Monday Lectures. Conscience. Is Conscience Infallible? There is a spectacle grander than the ocean, and that is the conscience. There is a spectacle_grander than the sky, and it is the interior of the soul. To write the poem of the human conscience, were the subject only one man, and he the lowest of men, would be reducing all epic poems into one supreme and final epos. It is no more possible to prevent thought from reverting to an ideal than the sea from returning to the shore. With the sailor this is called the tide; with the culprit it is called remorse. God heaves the soul like the ocean. 849 Joseph Cook: Boston Monday Lectures. Conscience. The Laughter of the Soul at Itself. The unknown is an ocean. What is conscience? The compass of the unknown. 850 Joseph Cook: Boston Monday Lectures. Conscience. The Laughter of the Soul at Itself. We know through conscience that we must answer for what we are, and for what we do, to a power outside of us. 851 Joseph Cook: Boston Monday Lectures. Conscience. Matthew Arnold's Views on Conscience. No man can escape this vitiating effect of an offence against his own sentiment of right. 852 George Eliot: Adam Bede. Ch. 29. Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no ambition corrupt thee, no example sway thee, no persuasion move thee to do anything which thou knowest to be evil; so shalt thou always live jollily, for a good conscience is a continual Christmas. 853 Benjamin Franklin: Poor Richard's Almanac. Conscience is a coward, and those faults it has not strength enough to prevent, it seldom has justice enough to accuse. 854 Oliver Goldsmith: The Vicar of Wakefield. Conscience, the voice of God within us. 855 Ch. 13. J. C. and A. W. Hare: Guesses at Truth. A good conscience expects to be treated with perfect con. fidence. 856 Victor Hugo: The Toilers of the Sea. |
