Part 34

What a desolate place would be a world without a flower! It would be a face without a smile,--a feast without a welcome! Are not flowers the stars of the earth? and are not our stars the flowers of heaven?--Mrs. Balfour.

What a pity flowers can utter no sound! A singing rose, a whispering violet, a murmuring honeysuckle,--oh, what a rare and exquisite miracle would these be!--Beecher.

The bright mosaic, that with storied beauty, the floor of nature's temple tessellate.--Horace Smith.

~Fools.~--You pity a man who is lame or blind, but you never pity him for being a fool, which is often a much greater misfortune.--Sydney Smith.

A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant fool.--Molière.

Of all thieves fools are the worst; they rob you of time and temper.--Goethe.

Fortune makes folly her peculiar care.--Churchill.

It would be easier to endow a fool with intellect than to persuade him that he had none.--Babinet.

There are many more fools in the world than there are knaves, otherwise the knaves could not exist.--Bulwer-Lytton.

There are more fools than sages, and among sages there is more folly than wisdom.--Chamfort.

~Foppery.~--Foppery is never cured; it is the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, are never rectified; once a coxcomb and always a coxcomb.--Johnson.

Foppery is the egotism of clothes.--Victor Hugo.

Nature has sometimes made a fool; but a coxcomb is always of a man's own making.--Addison.

~Forbearance.~--The little I have seen of the world teaches me to look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not in anger. When I take the history of one poor heart that has sinned and suffered, and represent to myself the struggles and temptations it has passed through, the brief pulsations of joy, the feverish inquietude of hope and fear, the pressure of want, the desertion of friends, I would fain leave the erring soul of my fellow-man with Him from whose hand it came.--Longfellow.

~Forethought.~--Human foresight often leaves its proudest possessor only a choice of evils.--Colton.

Whoever fails to turn aside the ills of life by prudent forethought, must submit to fulfill the course of destiny.--Schiller.

In life, as in chess, forethought wins.--Charles Buxton.

If a man take no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand.--Confucius.

Those old stories of visions and dreams guiding men have their truth: we are saved by making the future present to ourselves.--George Eliot.

~Forgetfulness.~--There is nothing, no, nothing, innocent or good that dies and is forgotten: let us hold to that faith or none. An infant, a prattling child, dying in the cradle, will live again in the better thoughts of those that loved it, and play its part through them in the redeeming actions of the world, though its body be burnt to ashes, or drowned in the deep sea. Forgotten! Oh, if the deeds of human creatures could be traced to their source, how beautiful would even death appear! for how much charity, mercy, and purified affection would be seen to have their growth in dusty graves!--Dickens.

~Forgiveness.~--It is more easy to forgive the weak who have injured us, than the powerful whom we have injured. That conduct will be continued by our fears which commenced in our resentment. He that has gone so far as to cut the claws of the lion will not feel himself quite secure until he has also drawn his teeth.--Colton.

They never pardon who commit the wrong.--Dryden.

May I tell you why it seems to me a good thing for us to remember wrong that has been done us? That we may forgive it.--Dickens.

'Tis easier for the generous to forgive than for offense to ask it.--Thomson.

Life, that ever needs forgiveness, has, for its first duty, to forgive.--Bulwer-Lytton.

It is easy enough to forgive your enemies, if you have not the means to harm them.--Heinrich Heine.

More bounteous run rivers when the ice that locked their flow melts into their waters. And when fine natures relent, their kindness is swelled by the thaw.--Bulwer-Lytton.

~Fortitude.~--White men should exhibit the same insensibility to moral tortures that red men do to physical torments.--Théophile Gautier.