Figs and Thistles

1900

Worry wears.

Haste makes waste.

Wishing is not willing.

Faith frames fate.

It is best to kill serpents in the egg.

Courtesy is never costly, yet never cheap.

When heaven is in the heart heresies are kept out of the head.

No man was ever healed of a disease by reading a medical book alone.

Only they who have known the great change now know no changes.

Good things are always beautiful, but beautiful things are not always good.

The indiscriminate lash will drive ten devils into the boy for one it drives out.

The prescription for salvation must have an application as well as an understanding before healing is found.

The difficulty that the Bible presents to many skeptics is not that it will not stand deep and rational examination, but that it will not stand superficial examination.

Patriotism is based on principles.

Restraining prayer is retaining care.

That only is done which the heart does.

God's work must have God's power.

No furnace can ever burn out the gold.

To take up a cross is to lay down a care.

— The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 5.

Lovemaking and Practice

1910

The only way to become an expert at lovemaking is to practice. This was the information handed out to a handful of hearers by the Hindu philosopher, Sakharam Ganesh Pandit, in a lecture on "The Science of Love."

"Love is a divine discontent," said the philosopher, "and if you want to arouse love in others it can be done only by giving them love. How to develop the emotion of love in another, is the great question of today — the art of making love. It needs a great deal of study and a great deal of practice."

Gibbon on Fame and Happiness

1910

Edward Gibbon, the historian, was not one to underestimate the pleasures of intellectual occupation or the value of literary fame. "I have drawn a high prize in the lottery of life," he wrote in his autobiography. "I am disgusted with the affectation of men of letters who complain that they have renounced a substance for a shadow, and that their fame affords a poor compensation for envy, censure and persecution.

"My own experience has taught me a very different lesson; twenty happy years have been animated by the labors of my history and its success has given me a name, a rank, a character in the world to which I should otherwise not have been entitled.

"D'Alembert relates that as he was walking in the gardens of Sans Souci with the king of Prussia, Frederick said to him, 'Do you see that old woman, a poor weeder, asleep on that sunny bank? She is probably a more happy being than either of us.'

"The king and philosopher may speak for themselves; for my part, I do not envy the old woman." — Youth's Companion.


Social Requirement

When a young girl appears at the theater with a young man who is a stranger in town, she should circulate a note among her friends telling who he is. It is very hard for the women to enjoy a performance with their curiosity unsatisfied. — Atchison Globe.

A Printer's Apprentice Who Can't Spell

Humor, 1874

A printer in Glasgow was sadly bothered with an apprentice who could not, or would not, be initiated into that portion of grammar which treats of the proper disposition of letters in words. One day he presented such a shockingly inaccurate proof as made his master, after starting with amazement, take the spectacles from off his nose, and give the ill-disposed "devil" the following recipe:
"My man, just gang hame the night, and tell your mither to boil Fulton & Knight's Dictionary in milk, and take it for your supper, as that seems the only way you'll ever get spelling put into ye."



Complimentary

A lumbering old stage-coach, that plies between two inland towns, is called Noah's Ark. The other morning a pompous traveler yelled at the driver, who had got under way, to "hold on."
"Do you want to get into the Ark?" asked the driver.
"Yes," said the traveler.
"Hurry up, then," was the response, "for we've all the animals aboard already except the donkey."



What does man love more than life,
Hate more than death or mortal strife;
That which contented men desire,
Which poor men have, and rich require?
The miser spends, the spendthrift saves,
And all men carry to their graves?
Nothing.



A young couple were sitting together in a romantic spot, with birds and flowers about them, when the following dialogue ensued:
"My dear, if the sacrifice of my life would please thee, most gladly would I lay it at thy feet."
"Oh, sir, you are too kind! But it just reminds me that I wish you'd leave off using tobacco."
"Can't think of it. It's a habit to which I am wedded."
"Very well, sir; since this is the way you lay down your life for me, and as you are already wedded to tobacco, I'll take good care you are never wedded to me, as it would be bigamy."



Don't quarrel with a spiritualist. He can always turn the tables on you!


What fish is most valued by a loving wife? Her-ring.

Words of Wisdom — The Shortest Answer is Doing

1878

Words of Wisdom

Little wealth little care.

The offender never pardons.

The shortest answer is doing.

He is rich that wants nothing.

Praise the sea but keep on land.

Bear with all evil and expect good.

Sometimes the best gain is to lose.

Mental gifts often hide bodily defects.

A gift much expected, is paid not given.

One bad example soils many good precepts.

A wise man makes more opportunities than he finds.

He that hath love in his heart hath spurs in his sides.

Send a wise man on an errand and say nothing unto him.

Pardon and pleasantness are great revengers of slander.

Indolence is the rust of the mind and the inlet of every vice.

Life becomes useless and insipid when we have no longer friends or enemies.

It is always safe to learn even of our enemies — seldom safe to venture to instruct even our friends.

Make no more vows to perform this or that; it shows no great strength, and makes thee ride behind thyself.

Man wastes his mornings in anticipating his afternoons, and wastes his afternoons in regretting his mornings,

When the heart is pure, there is hardly anything which can mislead the understanding in matters of immediate personal concernment.

Try to combine beauty and utility. A flower is none the less sweet because it has a germ in its heart that will fructify after the fall of its petals.

Is it just to forget all the kindness done us by those with whom we live for little pain, which, after all, may have been given unintentionally?

Life is itself neither good nor evil. It the scene of good or evil, as you make it; and if you have lived a day, you have seen all. One day is equal to and like all other days; there is no other light, no other shade; this very sun, this moon, these very stars, this very order and revolution of things, are the same your ancestors enjoyed, and that shall also entertain your posterity.

Leisure, the highest happiness on earth, is seldom enjoyed with perfect satisfaction except in solitude. Indolence and indifference do not always afford leisure, for true leisure is frequently found in that interval of relaxation which divides a painful duty from an agreeable relax — recreation; a toilsome business from the more agreeable occupations of literature and philosophy.

Russian Proverbs

1878

When life is not bright, death does not fright.
A tongue that is pert is its own sure hurt.
Speak out with might when your cause is right.
If Heaven don't forsake us the pigs will not take us.
Truth is severe, but to God 'tis dear.
Don't plunge in the brook for a ford till you look.
If simply you live to five score, you'll survive.
Every fox praises his own tail.
Stretch your feet according to the length of your coat.
Chase two wolves and you will not catch one.
Pledge not thy word rashly but hold to it when pledged.
Dig not a pit for others lest thou fall into it thyself.
Through heedless words the head falls off.
Fear not the threats of the great but rather the tears of the poor.
A word is not a sparrow, for, once flown, you can never catch it again.
Every little frog is great in his own bog.
Disease comes in by hundred weights and goes out by ounces.
An old friend is worth two new ones.
Water runs not beneath a resting stone.
Be praised not for your ancestors but for your virtues.
To the sky 'tis high, to the czar 'tis far.

The Fourteen Mistakes of Life

1888

Somebody has condensed the mistakes of life, and arrived at the conclusion that there are fourteen of them. Most people would say, if they told the truth, that there was no limit to the mistakes of life; that they were like the drops in the ocean or the sands on the shore in number; but it is well to be accurate.

Here, then, are fourteen great mistakes:

It is a great mistake to set up our own standard of right and wrong, and judge people accordingly;

to measure the enjoyment of others by our own;

to expect uniformity of opinion in this world;

to look for judgment and experience in youth;

to endeavor to mold all dispositions alike;

not to yield to immaterial trifles;

to look for perfection in our actions;

to worry ourselves and others with what can not be remedied;

not to alleviate all that needs alleviation as far as lies in one's power;

not to make allowances for the infirmities of others;

to consider every thing impossible that we cannot perform;

to believe only what our finite minds can grasp;

to expect to be able to understand every thing.

The greatest of mistakes is to live for time alone, which any moment may launch into eternity. –from Wives and Daughters.

Sages' Words on War

Let war be so carried on that no other object may seem to be sought but the acquisition of peace. — Cicero.

In war the olive branch of peace is of use. — Ovid.

There can be no tranquility of nations without troops, no troops without pay, no pay without taxes. — Tacitus.

Who asks whether the enemy were defeated by strategy or valor? — Virgil.

The conqueror is not so much pleased by entering into open gates, as by forcing his way. He desires not the fields to be cultivated by the patient husbandman. He would have them laid waste by fire and sword. It would be his shame to go by a way already opened. — Lucan.

And I know we're at war, see — I knew it then, and the enemy has, unfortunately, proved me right because they continue to attack. — George W. Bush.

Girl Tramp Likes Road's Philosophy

1915

Pretty, Convent Bred and of Good Family, Irene Lane Prefers "Freedom"

St. Louis, Mo., (special) — An attractive girl with every indication of education, but with hair cut close to her head and a strange masculine carriage and manner of speaking has provided an interesting study for the police of this city. She gives her name as Irene Lane, admits that her real name, if known would "astonish the east" and boasts of the fact that she is and has been for more than a year a "tramp." Not a common tramp, but an associate of the leaders of the tramp world.

"Miss Lane" was arrested on Monday by a policeman who saw her running near the railroad tracks. She was dressed in feminine attire for the first time in many months, and as she jumped over the railroad ties, ran up a coal pile and dragged herself quickly up by the handles of a freight car the policeman decided that there was something strange about the matter and decided to investigate.

"Miss Lane" went to police headquarters without complaint, and when there amazed the police officials with her description of the life she had been living and of the philosophy which she had developed in her contact with "the road."

She explained that she was a convent graduate and readily convinced her questioners of it. Tired of teaching school and instructing class after class of foreign pupils in the use of English she said, she had made an arrangement with a young man of her acquaintance who was in ill health to take "a fling about the country in the open." He became discouraged after a few weeks, she explained.

—The Bayard Advocate, Bayard, Iowa, January 7, 1915, page 7.

Thinking About Education, Facts or Principles

1921

Something to Think About
By F. A. Walker

EDISON QUESTIONS

THOMAS A. EDISON, who has a very low opinion of the intellectuality of the average college student, has come out with a new set of questions, historical, political, geographical and scientific.

The Wizard is much too honest a man for anybody to suggest that he deliberately got up these posers for the purpose of humiliating his fellow citizens.

So it may be admitted that the wide ground covered by the queries represents his own interest in all sorts of subjects having to do with human activities.

But it is doubtful whether or not ability to answer correctly all or most of these questions could be any test of the intelligence of anybody, in college or out of it. For intelligence and knowledge are very different things.

It was once said of a distinguished man that he had a larger store of useless knowledge than anybody of his time. Mr. Edison would not admit that any knowledge could be useless.

In fact he seems to take the attitude of the late Lord Macaulay who was in the habit of qualifying a statement as to something that nobody knew anything about but himself, by saying "as every schoolboy knows." As a result "Macaulay's Schoolboy" became the proper definition of an infant prodigy.

Lord Kelvin was one of the most distinguished men of science of his time. Addressing his students at Glasgow University on one occasion he said that the great thing about the higher mathematics was that it could be of no possible use to anybody.

Yet the fact that Kelvin and a couple of his friends, one in America and another in Europe, used to amuse themselves with these useless investigations, is, in a way, an argument in favor of Mr. Edison. It goes to show that certain things are worth while even if no direct advantage is to be derived from them.

Old-fashioned schoolmasters were great believers in the importance of facts, and a great part of their time was passed in getting them into the minds of the young.

But the modern schoolmaster goes about his business in a different way. He does not try to teach facts. He does try to teach general principles. It is like the difference between the old geography and the new.

The old dealt with the names of places, rivers, mountains and so on. The new deals with the effect of the physical shape of the earth's surface on the races scattered over it.

A well-trained lawyer is not one who carries all the cases around with him in his head. But he does know how to put his hand on anything he wants.

In the same way it is more important to be able to get at your facts than to know them.

—Mountain Democrat, Placerville, California, October 29, 1921, page 6.