Part 30

Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.--Plato.

~Excitement.~--There is always something interesting and beautiful about a universal popular excitement of a generous character, let the object of it be what it may. The great desiring heart of man, surging with one strong, sympathetic swell, even though it be to break on the beach of life and fall backwards, leaving the sands as barren as before, has yet a meaning and a power in its restlessness with which I must deeply sympathize.--Mrs. Stowe.

Violent excitement exhausts the mind, and leaves it withered and sterile.--Fénelon.

The language of excitement is at best but picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.--Thoreau.

This is so engraven on our nature that it may be regarded as an appetite. Like all other appetites, it is not sinful, unless indulged unlawfully, or to excess.--Dr. Guthrie.

~Excuse.~--Of vain things, excuses are the vainest.--Charles Buxton.

~Expectation.~--'Tis expectation makes a blessing dear; heaven were not heaven, if we knew what it were.--Suckling.

It may be proper for all to remember that they ought not to raise expectations which it is not in their power to satisfy; and that it is more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking into smoke.--Johnson.

~Expediency.~--When private virtue is hazarded upon the perilous cast of expediency, the pillars of the republic, however apparent their stability, are infected with decay at the very centre.--Chapin.

Men in responsible situations cannot, like those in private life, be governed solely by the dictates of their own inclinations, or by such motives as can only affect themselves.--Washington.

~Experience.~--Life consists in the alternate process of learning and unlearning; but it is often wiser to unlearn than to learn.--Bulwer-Lytton.

Experience, the shroud of illusions.--De Finod.

To have a true idea of man, or of life, one must have stood himself on the brink of suicide, or on the door-sill of insanity, at least once.--Taine.

What we learn with pleasure we never forget.--Alfred Mercier.

Who would venture upon the journey of life, if compelled to begin it at the end?--Mme. de Maintenon.

Experience is the extract of suffering.--Arthur Helps.

Every generous illusion adds a wrinkle in vanishing. Experience is the successive disenchantment of the things of life. It is reason enriched by the spoils of the heart.--J. Petit Senn.

~Extravagance.~--Expenses are not rectilinear, but circular. Every inch you add to the diameter adds three to the circumference.--Charles Buxton.

~Extremes.~--Extremes are dangerous; a middle estate is safest; as a middle temper of the sea, between a still calm and a violent tempest, is most helpful to convey the mariner to his haven.--Swinnock.

Superlatives are diminutives, and weaken.--Emerson.

Extremes are for us as if they were not, and as if we were not in regard to them; they escape from us, or we from them.--Pascal.

~Eye.~--Stabbed with a white wench's black eye.--Shakespeare.

The eyes of a man are of no use without the observing power. Telescopes and microscopes are cunning contrivances, but they cannot see of themselves.--Paxton Hood.

Ladies, whose bright eyes rain influence.--Milton.

Where is any author in the world teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?--Shakespeare.

Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent.--Shakespeare.

Her eyes are homes of silent prayer.--Tennyson.

The eyes have one language everywhere.--George Herbert.