Part 19

~Conversation.~--They who have the true taste of conversation enjoy themselves in a communication of each other's excellences, and not in a triumph over their imperfections.--Addison.

It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.--Montaigne.

Your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy.--Shakespeare.

No one will ever shine in conversation who thinks of saying fine things; to please one must say many things indifferent, and many very bad.--Francis Lockier.

Conversation warms the mind, enlivens the imagination, and is continually starting fresh game that is immediately pursued and taken, and which would never have occurred in the duller intercourse of epistolary correspondence.--Franklin.

~Coquetry.~--The most effective coquetry is innocence.--Lamartine.

God created the coquette as soon as he had made the fool.--Victor Hugo.

Affecting to seem unaffected.--Congreve.

Though 'tis pleasant weaving nets, 'tis wiser to make cages.--Moore.

Beautiful tyrant! Fiend angelical!--Shakespeare.

New vows to plight, and plighted vows to break.--Dryden.

~Courage.~--God holds with the strong.--Mazzini.

Courage is generosity of the highest order, for the brave are prodigal of the most precious things.--Colton.

Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes the man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts in a uniform manner.--Addison.

Courage from hearts, and not from numbers, grows.--Dryden.

As to moral courage, I have very rarely met with the two o'clock in the morning courage. I mean unprepared courage, that which is necessary on an unexpected occasion, and which, in spite of the most unforeseen events, leaves full freedom of judgment and decision.--Napoleon.

Courage our greatest failings does supply.--Waller.

To bear is to conquer our fate.--Campbell.

Moral courage is more worth having than physical; not only because it is a higher virtue, but because the demand for it is more constant. Physical courage is a virtue which is almost always put away in the lumber room. Moral courage is wanted day by day.--Charles Buxton.

It is only in little matters that men are cowards.--William Henry Herbert.

Any coward can fight a battle when he's sure of winning; but give me the man who has pluck to fight when he's sure of losing.--George Eliot.

He who would arrive at fairy land must face the phantoms.--Bulwer-Lytton.

~Courtier.~--The court is like a palace built of marble; I mean that it is made up of very hard and very polished people.--La Bruyère.

With the people of court the tongue is the artery of their withered life, the spiral-spring and flag-feather of their souls.--Richter.

~Covetousness.~--Desire of having is the sin of covetousness.--Shakespeare.

The character of covetousness is what a man generally acquires more through some niggardness or ill grace, in little and inconsiderable things, than in expenses of any consequence.--Pope.

The world itself is too small for the covetous.--Seneca.

~Cowardice.~--At the bottom of a good deal of the bravery that appears in the world there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion.--Chapin.