Pearls of Thought Part 18

Fear invites danger; concealed cowards insult known ones.--_Chesterfield._

~Felicity.~--The world produces for every pint of honey a gallon of gall; for every dram of pleasure a pound of pain; for every inch of mirth an ell of moan; and as the ivy twines around the oak, so does misery and misfortune encompa.s.s the happy man. Felicity, pure and unalloyed felicity, is not a plant of earthly growth; her gardens are the skies.--_Burton._

~Fickleness.~--Everything by starts, and nothing long.--_Dryden._

It will be found that they are the weakest-minded and the hardest-hearted men that most love change.--_Ruskin._

~Fiction.~--Truth severe, by fairy fiction drest.--_Gray._

Every fiction since Homer has taught friends.h.i.+p, patriotism, generosity, contempt of death. These are the highest virtues; and the fictions which taught them were therefore of the highest, though not of unmixed, utility.--_Sir J. Mackintosh._

I have often maintained that fiction may be much more instructive than real history.--_Rev. John Foster._

Fiction is of the essence of poetry as well as of painting: there is a resemblance in one of human bodies, things, and actions which are not real, and in the other of a true story by fiction.--_Dryden._

Fiction is no longer a mere amus.e.m.e.nt; but transcendent genius, accommodating itself to the character of the age, has seized upon this province of literature, and turned fiction from a toy into a mighty engine.--_Channing._

The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature; and we are not aware that the best histories are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fict.i.tious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy; but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected; but the great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind forever.--_Macaulay._

Those who delight in the study of human nature may improve in the knowledge of it, and in the profitable application of that knowledge, by the perusal of such fictions as those before us [Jane Austen's Novels].--_Archbishop Whately._

~Firmness.~--The greatest firmness is the greatest mercy.--_Longfellow._

Stand firm and immovable as an anvil when it is beaten upon.--_St.

Ignatius._

~Flattery.~--The art of flatterers is to take advantage of the foibles of the great, to foster their errors, and never to give advice which may annoy.--_Moliere._

He does me double wrong that wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.--_Shakespeare._

Flattery is often a traffic of mutual meanness, where, although both parties intend deception, neither are deceived, since words that cost little are exchanged for hopes that cost less.--_Colton._

The most dangerous of all flattery is the inferiority of those about us.--_Madame Swetchine._

Though flattery blossoms like friends.h.i.+p, yet there is a great difference in the fruit.--_Socrates._

The coin that is most current among mankind is flattery; the only benefit of which is that by hearing what we are not we may be instructed what we ought to be.--_Swift._

Blinded as they are to their true character by self-love, every man is his own first and chiefest flatterer, prepared, therefore, to welcome the flatterer from the outside, who only comes confirming the verdict of the flatterer within.--_Plutarch._

Flattery is an ensnaring quality, and leaves a very dangerous impression. It swells a man's imagination, entertains his fancy, and drives him to a doting upon his own person.--_Jeremy Collier._

Because all men are apt to flatter themselves, to entertain the addition of other men's praises is most perilous.--_Sir W. Raleigh._

Out of the pulpit, I trust none can accuse me of too much plainness of speech; but there, madame [Queen Mary], I am not my own master, but must speak that which I am commanded by the King of kings, and dare not, on my soul, flatter any one on the face of all the earth--_John Knox._

~Flowers.~--Luther always kept a flower in a gla.s.s on his writing-table; and when he was waging his great public controversy with Eckius he kept a flower in his hand. Lord Bacon has a beautiful pa.s.sage about flowers.

As to Shakspeare, he is a perfect Alpine valley,--he is full of flowers; they spring, and blossom, and wave in every cleft of his mind. Even Milton, cold, serene, and stately as he is, breaks forth into exquisite gushes of tenderness and fancy when he marshals the flowers.--_Mrs.

Stowe._

Flowers, leaves, fruit, are the air-woven children of light.--_Moleschott._

Ye pretty daughters of the Earth and Sun.--_Sir Walter Raleigh._

I always think the flowers can see us and know what we are thinking about.--_George Eliot._

What a desolate place would be a world without a flower! It would be a face without a smile,--a feast without a welcome! Are not flowers the stars of the earth? and are not our stars the flowers of heaven?--_Mrs.

Balfour._

What a pity flowers can utter no sound! A singing rose, a whispering violet, a murmuring honeysuckle,--oh, what a rare and exquisite miracle would these be!--_Beecher._

The bright mosaic, that with storied beauty, the floor of nature's temple tessellate.--_Horace Smith._

~Fools.~--You pity a man who is lame or blind, but you never pity him for being a fool, which is often a much greater misfortune.--_Sydney Smith._

A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant fool.--_Moliere._

Of all thieves fools are the worst; they rob you of time and temper.--_Goethe._

Fortune makes folly her peculiar care.--_Churchill._

It would be easier to endow a fool with intellect than to persuade him that he had none.--_Babinet._

There are many more fools in the world than there are knaves, otherwise the knaves could not exist.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

There are more fools than sages, and among sages there is more folly than wisdom.--_Chamfort._

~Foppery.~--Foppery is never cured; it is the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, are never rectified; once a c.o.xcomb and always a c.o.xcomb.--_Johnson._

Foppery is the egotism of clothes.--_Victor Hugo._

Nature has sometimes made a fool; but a c.o.xcomb is always of a man's own making.--_Addison._

~Forbearance.~--The little I have seen of the world teaches me to look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not in anger. When I take the history of one poor heart that has sinned and suffered, and represent to myself the struggles and temptations it has pa.s.sed through, the brief pulsations of joy, the feverish inquietude of hope and fear, the pressure of want, the desertion of friends, I would fain leave the erring soul of my fellow-man with Him from whose hand it came.--_Longfellow._

~Forethought.~--Human foresight often leaves its proudest possessor only a choice of evils.--_Colton._

Whoever fails to turn aside the ills of life by prudent forethought, must submit to fulfill the course of destiny.--_Schiller._

In life, as in chess, forethought wins.--_Charles Buxton._

If a man take no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand.--_Confucius._

Those old stories of visions and dreams guiding men have their truth: we are saved by making the future present to ourselves.--_George Eliot._

~Forgetfulness.~--There is nothing, no, nothing, innocent or good that dies and is forgotten: let us hold to that faith or none. An infant, a prattling child, dying in the cradle, will live again in the better thoughts of those that loved it, and play its part through them in the redeeming actions of the world, though its body be burnt to ashes, or drowned in the deep sea. Forgotten! Oh, if the deeds of human creatures could be traced to their source, how beautiful would even death appear!

for how much charity, mercy, and purified affection would be seen to have their growth in dusty graves!--_d.i.c.kens._

~Forgiveness.~--It is more easy to forgive the weak who have injured us, than the powerful whom we have injured. That conduct will be continued by our fears which commenced in our resentment. He that has gone so far as to cut the claws of the lion will not feel himself quite secure until he has also drawn his teeth.--_Colton._