Pearls of Thought Part 3

Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms, and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.--_Coleridge._

Proverbs are potted wisdom.--_Charles Buxton._

~Appeal.~--Seeing all men are not [OE]dipuses to read the riddle of another man's inside, and most men judge by appearances, it behooves a man to barter for a good esteem, even from his clothes and outside. We guess the goodness of the pasture by the mantle we see it wears.--_Feltham._

~Appearances.~--It is the appearances that fill the scene; and we pause not to ask of what realities they are the proxies. When the actor of Athens moved all hearts as he clasped the burial urn, and burst into broken sobs, how few then knew that it held the ashes of his son!--_Bulwer-Lytton._

What waste, what misery, what bankruptcy, come from all this ambition to dazzle others with the glare of apparent worldly success, we need not describe. The mischievous results show themselves in a thousand ways--in the rank frauds committed by men who dare to be dishonest, but do not dare to seem poor; and in the desperate dashes at fortune, in which the pity is not so much for those who fail, as for the hundreds of innocent families who are so often involved in their ruin.--_Samuel Smiles._

Foolish men mistake transitory semblances for eternal fact, and go astray more and more.--_Carlyle._

What is a good appearance? It is not being pompous and starchy; for proud looks lose hearts, and gentle words win them. It is not wearing fine clothes; for such dressing tells the world that the outside is the better part of the man. You cannot judge a horse by his harness; but a modest, gentlemanly appearance, in which the dress is such as no one could comment upon, is the right and most desirable thing.--_Spurgeon._

He was a man who stole the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in.--_Pollok._

I more and more see this, that we judge men's abilities less from what they say or do, than from what they look. 'T is the man's face that gives him weight. His doings help, but not more than his brow.--_Charles Buxton._

~Appet.i.te.~--Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind very studiously; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind this, will hardly mind anything else.--_Johnson._

Here's neither want of appet.i.te nor mouths; pray Heaven we be not scant of meat or mirth.--_Shakespeare._

This dish of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very honest men.--_Izaak Walton._

And do as adversaries do in law,--strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.--_Shakespeare._

The table is the only place where we do not get weary during the first hour.--_Brillat Savarin._

~Appreciation.~--Contemporaries appreciate the man rather than the merit; but posterity will regard the merit rather than the man.--_Colton._

It so falls out that what we have we prize not to the worth while we enjoy it; but being lacked and lost, why, then we rack the value.--_Shakespeare._

A man is known to his dog by the smell--to the tailor by the coat--to his friend by the smile; each of these know him, but how little or how much depends on the dignity of the intelligence. That which is truly and indeed characteristic of man is known only to G.o.d.--_Ruskin._

He who seems not to himself more than he is, is more than he seems.--_Goethe._

Light is above us, and color surrounds us; but if we have not light and color in our eyes, we shall not perceive them outside us.--_Goethe._

When a nation gives birth to a man who is able to produce a great thought, another is born who is able to understand and admire it.--_Joubert._

No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters.--_George Eliot._

Next to invention is the power of interpreting invention; next to beauty the power of appreciating beauty.--_Margaret Fuller._

You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some with you.--_Joubert._

~Architecture.~--Architecture is the art which so disposes and adorns the edifices raised by man, for whatsoever uses, that the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, power, and pleasure.--_Ruskin._

~Argument.~--There is no arguing with Johnson; for if his pistol misses fire he knocks you down with the b.u.t.t end of it.--_Goldsmith._

Weak arguments are often thrust before my path; but although they are most unsubstantial, it is not easy to destroy them. There is not a more difficult feat known than to cut through a cus.h.i.+on with a sword.--_Bishop Whately._

Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not ent.i.tled. The greatest part of men cannot judge of reasoning, and are impressed by character; so that if you allow your adversary a respectable character, they will think that, though you differ from him, you may be in the wrong. Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in a battle.--_Johnson._

The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.--_Colton._

An ill argument introduced with deference will procure more credit than the profoundest science with a rough, insolent, and noisy management.--_Locke._

One may say, generally, that no deeply rooted tendency was ever extirpated by adverse argument. Not having originally been founded on argument, it cannot be destroyed by logic.--_G. H. Lewes._

A reason is often good, not because it is conclusive, but because it is dramatic,--because it has the stamp of him who urges it, and is drawn from his own resources. For there are arguments _ex homine_ as well as _ad hominem_.--_Joubert._

If I were to deliver up my whole self to the arbitrament of special pleaders, to-day I might be argued into an atheist, and to-morrow into a pickpocket.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

~Aristocracy.~--And lords, whose parents were the Lord knows who.--_De Foe._

What can they see in the longest kingly line in Europe, save that it runs back to a successful soldier?--_Walter Scott._

If in an aristocracy the people be virtuous, they will enjoy very nearly the same happiness as in a popular government, and the state will become powerful.--_Montesquieu._

An aristocracy is the true, the only support of a monarchy. Without it the State is a vessel without a rudder--a balloon in the air. A true aristocracy, however, must be ancient. Therein consists its real force,--its talismanic charm.--_Napoleon._

I never could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden.--_Richard Rumbold._

~Armor.~--The best armor is to keep out of gunshot.--_Lord Bacon._

Our armor all is strong, our cause the best; then reason wills our hearts should be as good.--_Shakespeare._

~Art.~--Rules may teach us not to raise the arms above the head; but if pa.s.sion carries them, it will be well done: pa.s.sion knows more than art.--_Baron._

It is a great mortification to the vanity of man that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value. Art is only the underworkman, and is employed to give a few strokes of embellishment to those pieces which come from the hand of the master.--_Hume._

The mission of art is to represent nature; not to imitate her.--_W. M.

Hunt._

True art is not the caprice of this or that individual, it is a solemn page either of history or prophecy; and when, as always in Dante and occasionally in Byron, it combines and harmonizes this double mission, it reaches the highest summit of power.--_Mazzini._

Art is the right hand of Nature. The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men.--_Schiller._

Art does not imitate nature, but it founds itself on the study of nature--takes from nature the selections which best accord with its own intention, and then bestows on them that which nature does not possess, namely, the mind and the soul of man.--_Bulwer-Lytton._

The mother of useful arts is necessity; that of the fine arts is luxury.--_Schopenhaufer._

He who seeks popularity in art closes the door on his own genius, as he must needs paint for other minds and not for his own.--_Was.h.i.+ngton Allston._

In art, form is everything; matter, nothing.--_Heinrich Heine._

Strange thing art, especially music. Out of an art a man may be so trivial you would mistake him for an imbecile, at best a grown infant.

Put him into his art, and how high he soars above you! How quietly he enters into a heaven of which he has become a denizen, and, unlocking the gates with his golden key, admits you to follow, an humble, reverent visitor.--_Bulwer-Lytton._