Part 78

~Presentiment.~--We walk in the midst of secrets--we are encompassed with mysteries. We know not what takes place in the atmosphere that surrounds us--we know not what relations it has with our minds. But one thing is sure, that, under certain conditions, our soul, through the exercise of mysterious functions, has a greater power than reason, and that the power is given it to antedate the future,--ay, to see into the future.--Goethe.

We should not neglect a presentiment. Every man has within him a spark of divine radiance which is often the torch which illumines the darkness of our future.--Madame de Girardin.

~Press.~--The press is not only free, it is powerful. That power is ours. It is the proudest that man can enjoy. It was not granted by monarchs, it was not gained for us by aristocracies; but it sprang from the people, and, with an immortal instinct, it has always worked for the people.--B. Disraeli.

~Presumption.~--Presumption is our natural and original disease.--Montaigne.

Presumption never stops in its first attempt. If Cæsar comes once to pass the Rubicon, he will be sure to march further on, even till he enters the very bowels of Rome, and breaks open the Capitol itself. He that wades so far as to wet and foul himself, cares not how much he trashes further.--South.

He that presumes steps into the throne of God.--South.

~Pretence.~--As a general rule, people who flagrantly pretend to anything are the reverse of that which they pretend to. A man who sets up for a saint is sure to be a sinner, and a man who boasts that he is a sinner is sure to have some feeble, maudlin, sniveling bit of saintship about him which is enough to make him a humbug.--Bulwer-Lytton.

~Pretension.~--Pretences go a great way with men that take fair words and magisterial looks for current payment.--L'Estrange.

~Pride.~--I have been more and more convinced, the more I think of it, that in general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes. All the other passions do occasional good; but whenever pride puts in its word, everything goes wrong; and what it might really be desirable to do, quietly and innocently, it is mortally dangerous to do proudly.--Ruskin.

Pride's chickens have bonny feathers, but they are an expensive brood to rear--they eat up everything, and are always lean when brought to market.--Alexander Smith.

When pride thaws look for floods.--Bailey.

Pride, like laudanum and other poisonous medicines, is beneficial in small, though injurious in large, quantities. No man who is not pleased with himself, even in a personal sense, can please others.--Frederick Saunders.

Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.--Johnson.

~Principles.~--Principle is a passion for truth.--Hazlitt.

Principles, like troops of the line, are undisturbed, and stand fast.--Richter.

Whatever lies beyond the limits of experience, and claims another origin than that of induction and deduction from established data, is illegitimate.--G. H. Lewes.

The value of a principle is the number of things it will explain; and there is no good theory of disease which does not at once suggest a cure.--Emerson.

What is the essence and the life of character? Principle, integrity, independence, or, as one of our great old writers has it, "that inbred loyalty unto virtue which can serve her without a livery."--Bulwer-Lytton.

The change we personally experience from time to time we obstinately deny to our principles.--Zimmerman.

~Printing.~--Things printed can never be stopped; they are like babies baptized, they have a soul from that moment, and go on forever.--George Meredith.

~Prison.~--Young Crime's finishing school.--Mrs. Balfour.

The worst prison is not of stone. It is of a throbbing heart, outraged by an infamous life.--Beecher.

~Procrastination.~--Indulge in procrastination, and in time you will come to this, that because a thing ought to be done, therefore you can't do it.--Charles Buxton.

The man who procrastinates struggles with ruin.--Hesiod.

There is, by God's grace, an immeasurable distance between late and too late.--Madame Swetchine.

~Prodigality.~--This is a vice too brave and costly to be kept and maintained at any easy rate; it must have large pensions, and be fed with both hands, though the man who feeds it starve for his pains.--Dr. South.

When I see a young profligate squandering his fortune in bagnios, or at the gaming-table, I cannot help looking on him as hastening his own death, and in a manner digging his own grave.--Goldsmith.

The gains of prodigals are like fig-trees growing on a precipice: for these, none are better but kites and crows; for those, only harlots and flatterers.--Socrates.