Pearls of Thought Part 50

Silence in times of suffering is the best.--_Dryden._

Silence! coeval with eternity.--_Pope._

Silence is the sanctuary of prudence.--_Balthasar Gracian._

The unspoken word never does harm.--_Kossuth._

Silence is the understanding of fools and one of the virtues of the wise.--_Bonnard._

Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest. Your still fowl, blinking at you without remark, may all the while be sitting on one addled nest-egg; and when it takes to cackling, will have nothing to announce but that addled delusion.--_George Eliot._

Silence gives consent.--_Goldsmith._

Silence is the safest response for all the contradiction that arises from impertinence, vulgarity, or envy.--_Zimmerman._

~Simplicity.~--Simplicity is doubtless a fine thing, but it often appeals only to the simple. Art is the only pa.s.sion of true artists.

Palestrina's music resembles the music of Rossini, as the song of the sparrow is like the cavatina of the nightingale. Choose.--_Madame de Girardin._

Simplicity is Nature's first step, and the last of Art.--_P. J. Bailey._

The world could not exist if it were not simple. This ground has been tilled a thousand years, yet its powers remain ever the same; a little rain, a little sun, and each spring it grows green again.--_Goethe._

The fairest lives, in my opinion, are those which regularly accommodate themselves to the common and human model, without miracle, without extravagance.--_Montaigne._

There is a majesty in simplicity which is far above the quaintness of wit.--_Pope._

~Sin.~--Original sin is in us like the beard: we are shaved to-day, and look clean, and have a smooth chin; to-morrow our beard has grown again, nor does it cease growing while we remain on earth. In like manner original sin cannot be extirpated from us; it springs up in us as long as we exist; Nevertheless, we are bound to resist it to our utmost strength, and to cut it down unceasingly.--_Luther._

Sin, in fancy, mothers many an ugly fact.--_Theodore Parker._

There is no immunity from the consequences of sin; punishment is swift and sure to one and all.--_Hosea Ballou._

Every man has his devilish minutes.--_Lavater._

Death from sin no power can separate.--_Milton._

Our sins, like to our shadows, when our day is in its glory, scarce appeared. Towards our evening how great and monstrous they are!--_Sir J.

Suckling._

'Tis the will that makes the action good or ill.--_Herrick._

Guilt, though it may attain temporal splendor, can never confer real happiness. The evident consequences of our crimes long survive their commission, and, like the ghosts of the murdered, forever haunt the steps of the malefactor.--_Sir Walter Scott._

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.--_Shakespeare._

Sin is disease, deformity, and weakness.--_Plato._

Sin and her shadow death.--_Milton._

If ye do well, to your own behoof will ye do it; and if ye do evil, against yourselves will ye do it.--_Koran._

It is the sin which we have not committed which seems the most monstrous.--_Boileau._

There are sins of omission as well as those of commission.--_Madame Deluzy._

~Sincerity.~--Sincerity is to speak as we think, to do as we pretend and profess, to perform and make good what we promise, and really to be what we would seem and appear to be.--_Tillotson._

The whole faculties of man must be exerted in order to call forth n.o.ble energies; and he who is not earnestly sincere lives in but half his being, self-mutilated, self-paralyzed.--_Coleridge._

~Skepticism.~--Skepticism is slow suicide.--_Emerson._

~Skill.~--n.o.body, however able, can gain the very highest success, except in one line. He may rise above others, but he will fall below himself.--_Charles Buxton._

Whatever may be said about luck, it is skill that leads to fortune.--_Walter Scott._

The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.--_Gibbon._

~Slander.~--Done to death by slanderous tongues.--_Shakespeare._

Slugs crawl and crawl over our cabbages, like the world's slander over a good name. You may kill them, it is true, but there is the slime.--_Douglas Jerrold._

Slander lives upon succession, forever housed where it gets possession.--_Shakespeare._

When the absent are spoken of, some will speak gold of them, some silver, some iron, some lead, and some always speak dirt, for they have a natural attraction towards what is evil, and think it shows penetration in them. As a cat watching for mice does not look up though an elephant goes by, so are they so busy mousing for defects, that they let great excellences pa.s.s them unnoticed. I will not say it is not Christian to make beads of others' faults, and tell them over every day; I say it is infernal. If you want to know how the devil feels, you do know if you are such an one.--_Beecher._

If parliament were to consider the sporting with reputation of as much importance as sporting on manors, and pa.s.s an act for the preservation of fame as well as game, there are many would thank them for the bill.--_Sheridan._

~Sleep.~--When one asked Alexander how he could sleep so soundly and securely in the midst of danger, he told them that _Parmenio_ watched.

Oh, how securely may they sleep over whom He watches that never slumbers nor sleeps! "I will," said David, "lay me down and sleep, for thou, Lord, makest me to dwell in safety."--_Venning._

After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.--_Shakespeare._

Sleep is no servant of the will; it has caprices of its own; when courted most, it lingers still; when most pursued, 'tis swiftly gone.--_Bowring._

Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.--_Bible._

Heaven trims our lamps while we sleep.--_Alcott._

Night's sepulchre.--_Byron._

Sleep is pain's easiest salve, and doth fulfill all offices of death, except to kill.--_Donne._

Sleep, to the homeless thou art home; the friendless find in thee a friend.--_Ebenezer Elliott._

The soul shares not the body's rest.--_Maturin._

Our foster nurse of nature is repose.--_Shakespeare._