Wear the old coat and buy the new book. 562 Austin Phelps: The Theory of Preaching. Books form a universal republic, a union of nations, or a society of Jesus, in a nobler sense, or a humane society, whereby a second or duplicate Europe arises, which, like London, lies in several counties and districts. As now, on the one side, the book-pollen flying everywhere brings the disadvantage that no people can any longer produce a bed of flowers true and unspotted with foreign colors; as now no state can be any longer formed purely, slowly, and by degrees from itself, but, like an Indian idol composed of different animals, must see the various members of the neighboring states mingled with its growth; so, on the other side, through the Ecumenic Council of the book world, the spirit of a provincial assembly can no longer slavishly enchain its people, and an invisible church frees it from the visible one. 563 Richter: Levana. Frag. i. Ch. 3. Importance of No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable until it has been read and re-read, and loved, and loved again, and marked so that you can refer to the passages you want in it, as a soldier can seize the weapon he needs in an armory. 564 Ruskin: Sesame and Lilies. Of Kings' Treasures. Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnished me with volumes that I prize above my dukedom. 565 Shakespeare: The Tempest. Act i. Sc. 2. O sir, we quarrel in print by the book, as you have books for good manners. 566 Shakespeare: As You Like It. Act v. Sc. 4. Books are a finer world within the world. 567 Alexander Smith: Dreamthorp. Men of Letters. Of works of art little can be said; their influence is profound and silent, like the influence of nature: they mould by contact; we drink them up like water, and are bettered, yet know not how. 568 Robert Louis Stevenson: Books Which Have Books, like men, their authors, have no more than one way of coming into the world; but there are ten thousand to go out of it, and return no more. 569 Swift: A Tale of a Tub. The Epistle. Dedicatory. For the rest, whatever we have got has been by infinite labor and search, and ranging through every corner of nature; the difference is, that, instead of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two noblest of things, which are, sweetness and light. 570 Swift: The Battle of the Books. The Spider and the Bee, That which, by a universal range, with a long search, much study, true judgment, and distinction of things, brings home honey and wax. 571 Swift: The Battle of the Books. The Spider and the Bee. Books, like proverbs, receive their chief value from the stamp and esteem of ages through which they have passed. 572 Sir William Temple: Ancient and Modern Learning. Of all the needs a book has, the chief need is, that it be readable. 573 Anthony Trollope: Autobiography. Ch. 19. A small number of choice books are sufficient. 575 Voltaire: A Philosophical Dictionary. Books. Sec. 1. It is with books as with men, a very small number play a great part; the rest are confounded with the multitude. 576 Voltaire: A Philosophical Dictionary. Books. Sec. 1. You despise books, you whose whole lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure, or in indolence; but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books. 577 Voltaire: A Philosophical Dictionary. Books. Sec. 1. Good books are the most precious of blessings to a people; bad books are among the worst of curses. 578 E. P. Whipple: Essays and Reviews. Romance of Rascality. Precious and priceless are the blessings which books scatter around our daily paths. We walk, in imagination, with the noblest spirits, through the most sublime and enchanting regions. 579 E. P. Whipple: Literature and Life. Authors in their Relations to Life. They are for company the best friends in doubts counsellors, in damps comforters, times prospective, the home travellers ship or horse, the busy mans best recreation, the opiate of idle weariness, the minds best ordinary, natures garden and seed-plot of immortality. 580 Bulstrode Whitelock: Yootamia. 1654. Books have their fate from the capacities of readers, or rather from their principles. 581 Thomas Wilson: Maxims of Piety and of Christianity. BORES see Laughter, Talkativeness. Description is always a bore, both to the describer and to the describee. 582 Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield): Home Letters. Description is an acknowledged bore. 583 Disraeli (Earl of Beaconsfield): Home Letters. The bore is usually considered a harmless creature, or of that class of irrational bipeds who hurt only themselves. 584 Maria Edgeworth: Thoughts on Bores. All men are bores, except when we want them. There never was but one man whom I would trust with my latchkey. 585 Holmes: The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. Ch. 1. We are always bored by those whom we bore. 586 La Rochefoucauld: Reflections; or, Sentences and We often boast that we are never bored, but yet we are so conceited that we do not perceive how often we bore others. La Rochefoucauld: Reflections; or, Sentences and Moral Maxims. No. 141. 587 If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some, for he that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing. 588 Benjamin Franklin: Poor Richard's Almanac. BRAINS. Often the cockloft is empty in those whom Nature hath built many stories high. 589 Thomas Fuller: Andronicus, ad fin. I. BRAVERY -see Courage. A brave man never dies. Owen Felltham: Resolves. Pt. i. Of Fame. A brave man inspires others to heroism, but his own courage is not diminished when it enters into other souls: it is stimulated and invigorated. 591 Washington Gladden: Things Old and New. Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing. Oh, that's a brave man! he writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of his lover; as a puny tilter, that spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble goose; but all's brave that youth mounts and folly guides. 593 Shakespeare: As You Like It. Act iii. Sc. 4. BREAD. Here is bread, which strengthens man's heart, and therefore called the staff of life. 594 Matthew Henry: Commentaries. Psalm civ. Bread is the staff of life. BRIBERY. Swift: A Tale of a Tub. Preface. Flat burglary as ever was committed. 596 Shakespeare: Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 2. BUFFOONERY. Buffoonery is often want of wit. 597 La Bruyere: Characters. Of Society and Conversation. (Rowe, Translator.) BURDENS. Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use. 598 BUSINESS. Johnson: The Idler. No. 30. That which is everybody's business is nobody's business. 599 Izaak Walton: The Complete Angler. Pt. i. Ch. 2. CALAMITY. C. Public calamity is a mighty leveller. 600 Burke: Speech, March 22, 1775. On Conciliation with America. Calamities that seem insupportable when looked at from a distance, lose half their power if met and resisted with fortitude. 601 CALUMNY -see Perseverance, Reputation, Silence. There is nothing which travels so fast as slander; nothing is more easily sent abroad, nothing is received more rapidly, nothing is spread more extensively. James Fenimore Cooper. Jack Tier. Ch. 8. 602 Cicero: Orations. For C. Plancius. Sec. 23. (Yonge, Translator.) A nickname a man may chance to wear out, but a system of calumny, pursued by a faction, may descend even to posterity. This principle has taken full effect on this state favorite. 603 Isaac Disraeli: Amenities of Literature. The First Jesuits in England. Calumny is the worst of evils. In it there are two who commit injustice, and one who is injured: for he who calumniates another, acts unjustly by accusing one that is not present; and he acts unjustly who is persuaded before he has learnt the exact truth; and he that is absent when the charge is made is thus doubly injured, being caluminated by the one, and by the other deemed to be base. 604 Herodotus. Bk. vii. Sec. 10 (7). (Cary, Translator.) Calumny differs from most other injuries in this dreadful circumstance. He who commits it never can repair it. A false report may spread where a recantation never reaches; and an accusation must certainly fly faster than a defence while the greater part of mankind are base and wicked. The effects of a false report cannot be determined or circumscribed. 605 Johnson: Works. IX. 449. (Oxford Edition, 1825.) Be thou as chaste as ice and pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. 606 Shakespeare: Hamlet. Act iii. Sc. 1. It is a certain sign of an ill heart to be inclined to defamation. They who are harmless and innocent can have no gratification that way; but it ever arises from a neglect of what is laudable in a man's self, and an impatience of seeing it in another. 607 CANDOR. Sir Richard Steele: The Spectator. No. 427. And now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. 608 Shakespeare: King Henry IV. Pt. i. Act i. Sc. 2. CAPRICE. 'Faith, there have been many great men that have flattered the people, who ne'er loved them, and there be many that they have loved, they know not wherefore; so that if they love they know not why, they hate upon no better ground. Shakespeare: Coriolanus. Act ii. Sc. 2. 609 Faith, thou hast some crotchets in thy head now. CARE. Want of care does us more damage than want of knowledge. Hang sorrow, care'll kill a cat. 612 Ben Jonson: Every Man in His Humor. Act i. Sc. 3. Care is an enemy to life. 613 Shakespeare: Twelfth Night. Act i. Sc. 3. |