The man who never makes any blunders, seldom makes any good hits.
_Etiquette._--Good taste rejects excessive nicety; it treats little things as little things, and is not hurt by them.
Sir Peter Lely made it a rule never to look at a bad picture, having found by experience that whenever he did so, his pencil took a tint from it. Bishop Home said of the above: "Apply this to bad books and bad company."
I am endowed by God with power to conquer all evil.
How quickly and quietly the eye opens and closes, revealing and concealing a world!
Achilles: This is not strange, Ulysses, The beauty that is borne here in the face The bearer knows not, but commends itself To other's eyes: nor doth the eye itself, That most pure spirit of sense behold itself, Not going from itself, but eye to eye oppos'd Salutes each other.
The silent upbraiding of the eye is the very poetry of reproach; it speaks at once to the imagination.
Eyes are more accurate witnesses than ears.
Old men's eyes are like old men's memories; they are strongest for things a long way off.
The eyes of other people are the eyes that ruin us. If all but myself were blind, I should never want a fine house nor fine furniture.
He who has seen much of the world, is very prone to exaggeration.
Every man is bound to tolerate the act of which he has himself given the example.
A man must often exercise, or fast, or take physic, or be sick.
I am no longer the fool I was, I have learned by experience.
All is but lip-wisdom, which wants experience.
Among all classes of society we see extravagance keeping pace with prosperity, and indeed outstripping it, realizing Archbishop Whately's paradox: "The larger the income, the harder it is to live within it."
A clouded face Strikes deeper than an angry blow.
We write our lives upon our faces, deep, An autograph which they will always keep. Thoughts cannot come and leave behind no trace Of good or ill; they quickly find a place Where they who will may read as in a book, The hidden meaning of our slightest look.
Nature has written a letter of credit on some men's faces which is honored wherever it is presented.
The surest way not to fail, is to determine to succeed.
In Ross-shire, Scotland, there is an immense mountain gorge. The rocks have been rent in twain, and set apart twenty feet, forming two perpendicular walls two hundred feet in height. On either side of these natural walls, in crevices where earth has collected, grow wild flowers of rare quality and beauty. A company of tourists visiting that part of the country were desirous to possess themselves of specimens of these beautiful mountain flowers; but how to obtain them they knew not. At length they thought they might be gathered by suspending a person over the cliff by a rope. They offered a Highland boy, who was near by, a handsome sum of money to undertake the difficult and dangerous task. The boy looked down into the awful abyss that yawned below, and shrunk from the undertaking; but the money was tempting. Could he confide in the strangers? Could he venture his life in their hands? He felt that he could not; but he thought of his father, and, looking once more at the cliff, and then at the proffered reward, his eyes brightened, and he exclaimed: "I'll go if my father holds the rope." Beautiful illustration of the nature of faith.