Part 96

Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew.--Dryden.

Tears are sometimes the happiest smiles of love.--Stendhal.

~Tediousness.~--The sin of excessive length.--Shirley.

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.--Shakespeare.

~Teeth.~--Teeth like falling snow for white.--~Cowley.~

Such a pearly row of teeth that sovereignty would have pawned her jewels for them.--Sterne.

~Temperance.~--Temperance puts wood on the fire, meal in the barrel, flour in the tub, money in the purse, credit in the country, contentment in the house, clothes on the back, and vigor in the body.--Franklin.

I consider the temperance cause the foundation of all social and political reform.--Cobden.

If temperance prevails, then education can prevail; if temperance fails, then education must fail.--Horace Mann.

Temperance to be a virtue must be free and not forced. Virtue may be defended, as vice may be withstood, by a statute, but no virtue is or can be created by a law, any more than by a battering ram a temple or obelisk can be reared.--Bartol.

If you wish to keep the mind clear and the body healthy, abstain from all fermented liquors.--Sydney Smith.

Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.--Voltaire.

He who would keep himself to himself should imitate the dumb animals, and drink water.--Bulwer-Lytton.

~Temptation.~--No man is matriculated to the art of life till he has been well tempted.--~George Eliot.~

Temptation is a fearful word. It indicates the beginning of a possible series of infinite evils. It is the ringing of an alarm bell, whose melancholy sounds may reverberate through eternity. Like the sudden, sharp cry of "Fire!" under our windows by night, it should rouse us to instantaneous action, and brace every muscle to its highest tension.--Horace Mann.

Most confidence has still most cause to doubt.--Dryden.

It is a most fearful fact to think of, that in every heart there is some secret spring that would be weak at the touch of temptation, and that is liable to be assailed. Fearful, and yet salutary to think of, for the thought may serve to keep our moral nature braced. It warns us that we can never stand at ease, or lie down in the field of life, without sentinels of watchfulness and camp-fires of prayer.--Chapin.

Love cries victory when the tears of a woman become the sole defense of her virtue.--La Fontaine.

When devils will their blackest sins put on, they do suggest at first with heavenly shows.--Shakespeare.

The devil tempts us not: it is we tempt him, beckoning his skill with opportunity.--George Eliot.

Better shun the bait than struggle in the snare.--Dryden.

There are times when it would seem as if God fished with a line, and the devil with a net.--Madame Swetchine.

~Tenderness.~--When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.--George Eliot.

~Theatre.~--A man who enters the theatre is immediately struck with the view of so great a multitude, participating of one common amusement; and experiences, from their very aspect, a superior sensibility or disposition of being affected with every sentiment which he shares with his fellow-creatures.--Hume.

The theatre has often been at variance with the pulpit; they ought not to quarrel. How much it is to be wished that the celebration of nature and of God were intrusted to none but men of noble minds!--Goethe.

~Theories.~--Most men take least notice of what is plain, as if that were of no use; but puzzle their thoughts, and lose themselves in those vast depths and abysses which no human understanding can fathom.--Sherlock.

Metaphysicians can unsettle things, but they can erect nothing. They can pull down a church, but they cannot build a hovel.--Cecil.

~Thought.~--I have asked several men what passes in their minds when they are thinking, and I could never find any man who could think for two minutes together. Everybody has seemed to admit that it was a perpetual deviation from a particular path, and a perpetual return to it; which, imperfect as the operation is, is the only method in which we can operate with our minds to carry on any process of thought.--Sydney Smith.