ADVERSITY. Adversity has ever been considered as the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, particularly being free from flatterers.-Johnson. Prosperity is too apt to prevent us from examining our conduct, but as adversity leads us to think properly of our state, it is most beneficial to us.-Johnson. He that can heroically endure adversity will bear prosperity with equal greatness of soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former is not likely to be transported with the latter.-Fielding. Heaven oft in mercy smites, even when the blow severest is.-Joanna Baillie. The brightest crowns that are worn in heaven have been tried, and smelted, and polished, and glorified through the furnace of Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like the toad, though ugly and venomous, wears yet tribulation.-Chapin. a precious jewel in his head.—Shakespeare. The truly great and good, in affliction, bear a countenance more princely than they are wont; for it is the temper of the highest hearts, like the palm-tree, to strive most upwards when it is most burdened.—Sir P. Sidney. Half the ills we hoard within our hearts are ills because we hoard them.-Barry Cornwall. It is often better to have a great deal of harm happen to one than a little; a great deal may rouse you to remove what a little will only accustom you to endure.-Greville. How full of briers is this working-day world! Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God's favor.-Bacon. Clouds are the veil behind which the face of day coquettishly hides itself, to enhance its beauty.-Richter. By adversity are wrought the greatest works of admiration, and all the fair examples of renown, out of distress and misery are grown.-. Daniel. One month in the school of affliction will teach thee more than the great precepts of Aristotle in seven years; for thou canst never judge rightly of human affairs, unless thou hast first felt the blows, and found out the deceits of fortune.-Fuller. Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.-Horace. The gods in bounty work up storms about us, that give mankind occasion to exert their hidden strength, and throw out into practice Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the virtues that shun the day, and lie concealed in only balance to weigh friends.-Plutarch. the smooth seasons and the calms of life. The willow which bends to the tempest often escapes better than the oak, which resists it; and so, in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.-Walter Scott. Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it, a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not.—Fielding. Men think God is destroying them because he is tuning them. The violinist screws up the key till the tense cord sounds the concert pitch; but it is not to break it, but to use it tunefully, that he stretches the string upon the musical rack.-Beecher. Adversity is the first path to truth.-Byron. Our dependence upon God ought to be so entire and absolute that we should never think it necessary, in any kind of distress, to have recourse to human consolations. Thomas à Kempis Adversity borrows its sharpest sting from our impatience.-Bishop Horne." Addison. Affliction is the good man's shining scene; prosperity conceals his brightest rays; as night to stars, woe lustre gives to man.-Young. For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth. Bible. In adversity be spirited and firm, and with equal prudence lessen your sail when filled with a too fortunate gale of prosperity.—Horace. There is strength deep-bedded in our hearts, of which we reck but little till the shafts of heaven have pierced its fragile dwelling. Must not earth be rent before her gems are found?Mrs. Hemans. Through danger safety comes through trouble rest.-John Marston. Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue, where patience, honor, sweet humanity, calm fortitude, take root and strongly flourish.— Mallet. Much dearer be the things which come through hard distress.-Spenser. Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity is a greater. Possession pampers the mind; privation trains and strengthens it.-Hazlitt. He that has no cross deserves no crown. Quarles. Genuine morality is preserved only in the school of adversity, and a state of continuous prosperity may easily prove a quicksand to virtue.-Schiller. In the wounds our sufferings plough immortal love sows sovereign seed.-Massey. The winter's frost must rend the burr of the nut before the fruit is seen. So adversity tempers the human heart, to discover its real worth. Balzac. He that gives good advice builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example builds with the other; but he that gives good admonition and bad example builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.-Bacon. He who can advise is sometimes superior to him who can give it.-Von Knebel. Advice, as it always gives a temporary appearance of superiority, can never be very grateful, even when it is most necessary or most judicious; but, for the same reason, every one is eager to instruct his neighbors.-Johnson. The worst men often give the best advice. Bailey. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor Know how sublime a thing it is to suffer and men's cottages, princes' palaces. It is a good be strong.-Longfellow. There are minerals called hydrophanous, which are not transparent till they are immersed in water, when they become so; as the hydrophane, a variety of opal. So it is with many a Christian. Till the floods of adversity have been poured over him, his character appears marred and clouded by selfishness and worldly influences. But trials clear away the obscurity, and give distinctness and beauty to his piety.-Professor Hitchcock. Let me embrace these sour adversities, for wise men say it is the wisest course. Shakespeare. The most affluent may be stripped of all, and find his worldly comforts, like so many withered leaves, dropping from him.-Sterne. He that has never known adversity is but half acquainted with others, or with himself.— Colton. ADVICE. How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice when they will not so much as take warning?-Swift. Counsel and conversation is a good second education, that improves all the virtue and corrects all the vice of the former, and of nature itself.-Clarendon. divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.-Shakespeare. Good counsels observed are chains to grace. There is nothing of which men are more liberal than their good advice, be their stock of it ever so small; because it seems to carry in it an intimation of their own influence, importance, or worth.— Young. Wait for the season when to cast good coun. sels upon subsiding passion.-Shakespeare. Nothing is less sincere than our manner of asking and of giving advice. He who asks ad vice would seem to have a respectful deference for the opinion of his friend, whilst yet he only aims at getting his own approved of, and his friend responsible for his conduct. On the other hand, he who gives it repays the confidence supposed to be placed in him by a seemingly disinterested zeal, whilst he seldom means anything by the advice he gives but his own interest or reputation.-Rochefoucauld. Let no man value at a little price a virtuous woman's counsel.-George Chapman. No one was ever the better for advice: in general, what we called giving advice was properly taking an occasion to show our own wisdoin at another's expense; and to receive advice was little better than tamely to afford another the occasion of raising himself a character from our defects.-Lord Shaftesbury. Mishaps are mastered by advice discreet, and counsel mitigates the greatest smart.—Spenser. When we feel a strong desire to thrust our advice upon others, it is usually because we suspect their weakness; but we ought rather to suspect our own.-Colton. Advice is offensive, not because it lays us open to unexpected regret, or convicts us of any fault which has escaped our notice, but because it shows us that we are known to others as well as ourselves; and the officious monitor is persecuted with hatred, not because his accusation is false, but because he assumes the superiority which we are not willing to grant him, and has dared to detect what we desire to conceal.-Johnson. Do not give to thy friends the most agreea ble counsels, but the most advantageous. Tuckerman. We ask advice, but we mean approbation.- No man is so foolish but he may give another good counsel sometimes, and no man so wise but he may easily err, if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that was How is it that even castaways can give such taught only by himself had a fool for a master. good advice?-Ninon de l'Enclos. A man takes contradiction and advice much more easily than people think, only he will not bear it when violently given, even though it be well founded. Hearts are flowers; they remain open to the softly falling dew, but shut up in the violent downpour of rain.-Richter. Let no man presume to give advice to others that has not first given good counsel to himself.-Seneca. There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer; for there is no such flatterer as a man's self, and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man's self as the liberty of a friend.-Bacon. It has been well observed that few are better qualified to give others advice than those who have taken the least of it themselves.-Goldsmith. It was the maxim, I think, of Alphonsus of Aragon, that dead counsellors are safest. The grave puts an end to flattery and artifice, and the information we receive from books is pure from interest, fear, and ambition. Dead counsellors are likewise most instructive, because they are heard with patience and with reverence.-Johnson. Ben Jonson. Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice.-Rochefoucauld. I forget whether advice be among the lost things which Ariosto says are to be found in the moon that and time ought to have been there.-Swift. Advice is seldom welcome. Those who need it most like it least.-Johnson. He who calls in the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own; and he who profits by a superior understanding raises his powers to a level with the height of the superior understanding he unites with.—Burke. Harsh counsels have no effect; they are like hammers which are always repulsed by the anvil.-Helvetius. In order to convince it is necessary to speak with spirit and wit; to advise, it must come from the heart.-D'Águesseau. Every man, however wise, requires the advice of some sagacious friend in the affairs of life.-Plautus. It would truly be a fine thing if men suffered themselves to be guided by reason, that they should acquiesce in the true remonstrances adAdmonish your friends privately, but praise dressed to them by the writings of the learned them openly.-Publius Syrus. and the advice of friends. But the greater part are so disposed that the words which enter by The greatest trust between man and man is one ear do incontinently go out of the other, he trust of giving counsel.-Bacon. I lay very little stress either upon asking or giving advice. Generally speaking, they who ask advice know what they wish to do, and remain firm to their intentions. A man may allow himself to be enlightened on various points, even upon matters of expediency and duty; but, after all, he must determine his course of action for himself.-Wilhelm von Humboldt. Remember this: they that will not be counselled cannot be helped. If you do not hear Reason, she will rap your knuckles.-Franklin. There is nearly as much ability requisite to know how to profit by good advice as to know how to act for one's self.-Rochefoucauld. and begin again by following the custom. The Great vices are the proper objects of our detestation, smaller faults of our pity, but affectation appears to be the only true source of the ridiculous.-Fielding. We are never made so ridiculous by the qualities we have, as by those we affect to have.-Rochefoucauld. Affectation is certain deformity; by forming themselves on fantastic models, the young begin with being ridiculous, and often end in being vicious.-Blair. In all the professions every one affects a particular look and exterior, in order to appear what he wishes to be thought; so that it may be said the world is made up of appearances.Rochefoucauld. Affectation is a greater enemy to the face than the small-pox.-St. Evremond. Paltry affectation, strained allusions, and disgusting finery are easily attained by those who choose to wear them; they are but too frequently the badges of ignorance or of stupidity, whenever it would endeavor to please. Goldsmith. Affectation hides three times as many virtues as Charity does sins.-Horace Mann. Affectation is to be always distinguished from hypocrisy, as being the art of counterfeiting those qualities, which we might with innocence and safety, be known to want. Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villany; affectation part of the chosen trappings of folly.-Johnson. Die of a rose in aromatic pain.-Pope. causes, Affectation proceeds from one of these two vanity or hypocrisy; for as vanity puts us on affecting false characters, in order to purchase applause; so hypocrisy sets us on an endeavor to avoid censure, by concealing our vices under an appearance of their opposite virtues.-Fielding. Affectation in any part of our carriage is lighting up a candle to see our defects, and never fails to make us taken notice of, either as wanting sense or sincerity.-Locke. All affectation is the vain and ridiculous attempt of poverty to appear rich.—Lavater. When Cicero consulted the oracle at Delphos, concerning what course of studies he should pursue, the answer was, "Follow Nature." If every one would do this, affectation would be almost unknown.-J. Beaumont. Avoid all affectation and singularity. What is according to nature is best, and what is contrary to it is always distasteful. Nothing is graceful that is not our own.-Jeremy Collier. Hearts may be attracted by assumed quali ties, but the affections are only to be fixed by those that are real.-De Moy. I will not call vanity and affectation twins, because, more properly, vanity is the mother, and affectation is the darling daughter. Vanity is the sin, and affectation is the punishment; the first may be called the root of self-love, the other the fruit. Vanity is never at its full growth till it spreadeth into affectation, and then it is complete.—Sir H. Saville. There is a pleasure in affecting affectation. It is sweet to feel by what fine-spun threads our affections are drawn together.-Sterne. There are few mortals so insensible that their affections cannot be gained by mildness, their confidence by sincerity, their hatred by scorn or neglect.-Zimmermann. The poor wren, the most diminutive of birds, will fight, her young ones in her nest, against the owl.-Shakespeare. The affection of young ladies is of as rapid growth as Jack's beanstalk, and reaches up to the sky in a night.-Thackeray. Alas! our young affections run to waste, or water but the desert.-Byron. Universal love is a glove without fingers, which fits all hands alike, and none closely; but true affection is like a glove with fingers, which fits one hand only, and sits close to that one.Richter. Our happiness in this world depends on the affections we are enabled to inspire. Duchesse de Praslin. If there is anything that keeps the mind open to angel visits, and repels the ministry of ill, it is human love!- Willis. The heart will commonly govern the head, No decking sets forth anything so much as and it is certain that any strong passion, set the affection.-Sir P. Sidney. wrong way, will soon infatuate even the wisest of men; therefore the first part of wisdom is to watch the affections.-Dr. Waterland. How sacred, how beautiful, is the feeling of affection in pure and guileless bosoms! The proud may sneer at it, the fashionable may call it fable, the selfish and dissipated may affect to despise it; but the holy passion is surely of heaven, and is made evil by the corruptions of those whom it was sent to bless and to preserve.-Mordaunt. There are moments of mingled sorrow and tenderness, which hallow the caresses of affection.-Washington Irving. The affections are immortal! they are the sympathies which unite the ceaseless generations.-Bulwer Lytton. Our sweetest experiences of affection are meant to be suggestions of that realm which is the home of the heart.-Beecher. AFFLICTION. Affliction is a school of virtue it corrects One touch of nature makes the whole world levity, and interrupts the confidence of sinning.kin.- Shakespeare. Atterbury. Why doth Fate, that often bestows thousands of souls on a conqueror or tyrant, to be the sport of his passions, so often deny to the tenderest and most feeling hearts one kindred one on which to lavish their affections? Why is it that Love must so often sigh in vain for an object, and Hate never?-Richter. Of all earthly music, that which reaches the farthest into heaven is the beating of a loving heart.-Beecher. Affections injured by tyranny, or rigor of compulsion, like tempest-threatened trees, unfirmly rooted, never spring to timely growth.John Ford. There comes a time when the souls of human beings, women more even than men, begin to faint for the atmosphere of the affections they are made to breathe.-Holmes. The truth is, when we are under any affliction, we are generally troubled with a malicious kind of melancholy; we only dwell and pore upon the sad and dark occurrences of Providence, but never take notice of the more benign and bright ones. Our way in this world is like a walk under a row of trees, checkered with light and shade; and because we cannot all along walk in the sunshine, we therefore perversely fix only upon the darker passages, and so lose all the comfort of our comforts. We are like froward children who, if you take one of their playthings from them, throw away all the rest in spite.-Bishop Hopkins. As threshing separates the wheat from the chaff, so does affliction purify virtue.—Burton. God washes the eyes by tears until they can behold the invisible land where tears shall come no more. O love! O affliction! ye are the guides that show us the way through the great How cling we to a thing our hearts have airy space where our loved ones walked; and, nursed!-Mrs. C. H. W. Esling. I have given suck, and know how tender it is to love the babe that milks me.-Shakespeare. Let the foundation of thy affection be virtue, then make the building as rich and as glorious as thou canst; if the foundation be beauty or wealth, and the building virtue, the foundation is too weak for the building, and it will fall happy is he, the palace of whose affection is founded upon virtue, walled with riches, glazed with beauty, and roofed with honor.-Quarles. as hounds easily follow the scent before the dew be risen, so God teaches us, while yet our sorrow is wet, to follow on and find our dear ones in heaven.-Beecher. It is from the remembrance of joys we have lost that the arrows of affliction are pointed.Mackenzie. It is a great thing, when our Gethsemane hours come, when the cup of bitterness is pressed to our lips, and when we pray that it may pass away, to feel that it is not fate, that it is not necessity, but divine love for good ends working upon us.-Chapin. If you would not have affliction visit you twice, listen at once to what it teaches.-Burgk. |