Part 33

Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt.--George Sewell.

Fear invites danger; concealed cowards insult known ones.--Chesterfield.

~Felicity.~--The world produces for every pint of honey a gallon of gall; for every dram of pleasure a pound of pain; for every inch of mirth an ell of moan; and as the ivy twines around the oak, so does misery and misfortune encompass the happy man. Felicity, pure and unalloyed felicity, is not a plant of earthly growth; her gardens are the skies.--Burton.

~Fickleness.~--Everything by starts, and nothing long.--Dryden.

It will be found that they are the weakest-minded and the hardest-hearted men that most love change.--Ruskin.

~Fiction.~--Truth severe, by fairy fiction drest.--Gray.

Every fiction since Homer has taught friendship, patriotism, generosity, contempt of death. These are the highest virtues; and the fictions which taught them were therefore of the highest, though not of unmixed, utility.--Sir J. Mackintosh.

I have often maintained that fiction may be much more instructive than real history.--Rev. John Foster.

Fiction is of the essence of poetry as well as of painting: there is a resemblance in one of human bodies, things, and actions which are not real, and in the other of a true story by fiction.--Dryden.

Fiction is no longer a mere amusement; but transcendent genius, accommodating itself to the character of the age, has seized upon this province of literature, and turned fiction from a toy into a mighty engine.--Channing.

The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature; and we are not aware that the best histories are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy; but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected; but the great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind forever.--Macaulay.

Those who delight in the study of human nature may improve in the knowledge of it, and in the profitable application of that knowledge, by the perusal of such fictions as those before us [Jane Austen's Novels].--Archbishop Whately.

~Firmness.~--The greatest firmness is the greatest mercy.--Longfellow.

Stand firm and immovable as an anvil when it is beaten upon.--St. Ignatius.

~Flattery.~--The art of flatterers is to take advantage of the foibles of the great, to foster their errors, and never to give advice which may annoy.--Molière.

He does me double wrong that wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.--Shakespeare.

Flattery is often a traffic of mutual meanness, where, although both parties intend deception, neither are deceived, since words that cost little are exchanged for hopes that cost less.--Colton.

The most dangerous of all flattery is the inferiority of those about us.--Madame Swetchine.

Though flattery blossoms like friendship, yet there is a great difference in the fruit.--Socrates.

The coin that is most current among mankind is flattery; the only benefit of which is that by hearing what we are not we may be instructed what we ought to be.--Swift.

Blinded as they are to their true character by self-love, every man is his own first and chiefest flatterer, prepared, therefore, to welcome the flatterer from the outside, who only comes confirming the verdict of the flatterer within.--Plutarch.

Flattery is an ensnaring quality, and leaves a very dangerous impression. It swells a man's imagination, entertains his fancy, and drives him to a doting upon his own person.--Jeremy Collier.

Because all men are apt to flatter themselves, to entertain the addition of other men's praises is most perilous.--Sir W. Raleigh.

Out of the pulpit, I trust none can accuse me of too much plainness of speech; but there, madame [Queen Mary], I am not my own master, but must speak that which I am commanded by the King of kings, and dare not, on my soul, flatter any one on the face of all the earth--John Knox.

~Flowers.~--Luther always kept a flower in a glass on his writing-table; and when he was waging his great public controversy with Eckius he kept a flower in his hand. Lord Bacon has a beautiful passage about flowers. As to Shakspeare, he is a perfect Alpine valley,--he is full of flowers; they spring, and blossom, and wave in every cleft of his mind. Even Milton, cold, serene, and stately as he is, breaks forth into exquisite gushes of tenderness and fancy when he marshals the flowers.--Mrs. Stowe.

Flowers, leaves, fruit, are the air-woven children of light.--Moleschott.

Ye pretty daughters of the Earth and Sun.--Sir Walter Raleigh.

I always think the flowers can see us and know what we are thinking about.--George Eliot.