A good historian is timeless; although he is a patriot, he will never flatter his country in any respect. |
All earthly delights are sweeter in expectation than in enjoyment; but all spiritual pleasures more in fruition than in expectation. |
All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers. |
Children are excellent observers, and will often perceive your slightest defects. In general, those who govern children, forgive nothing in them, but everything in themselves. |
Do not make best friends with a melancholy sad soul. They always are heavily loaded, and you must bear half. |
Exactness and neatness in moderation is a virtue, but carried to extremes narrows the mind. |
Genuine good taste consists in saying much in few words, in choosing among our thoughts, in having order and arrangement in what we say, and in speaking with composure |
Had we not faults of our own, we should take less pleasure in complaining of others. |
If the riches of the Indies, or the crowns of all the kingdoms of Europe, were laid at my feet in exchange for my love of reading, I would spurn them all |
If we were faultless we should not be so much annoyed by the defects of those with whom we associate. |
Little opportunities should be improved. |
Mankind, by the perverse depravity of their nature, esteem that which they have most desired as of no value the moment it is possessed, and torment themselves with fruitless wishes for that which is beyond their reach |
Nothing is more despicable than a professional talker who uses his words as a quack uses his remedies. |
Nothing is more despicable than a professional talker who uses his words as a quack uses his remedies. |
Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads one's heart, it's pleasures, and it's pains, to a dear friend. Tell him your troubles, that he may comfort you; tell him your joys, that he may sober them; tell him your longings, that he may purify them; tell him your dislikes, that he may help you coquer them; talk to him of your temptations, that he may shield you from them; show him the wounds of your heart, that he may heal them; lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes for evil, your instability. Tell him how self-love makes you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises you to yourself and others. If you thus pour out your weaknesses, needs, troubles, there will be no lack of what to say. You will never exhaust the subject. It is continually being renewed. People who have no secrets from each other never want for subject of conversation. They do not weigh their words, for there is nothing to be held back, neither do they seek for something to say. They talk out of the abundance of their heart, without consideration they say just what they think. Blessed are they who attain to such familiar, unreserved intercourse with God. |