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.

Wise Words — "Whatever Love Undertakes"

1896

Whatever love undertakes to do, it does well.

A sunbeam in the heart is bound to light the face.

Some people might as well be crazy; they have no sense.

Labor is drudgery only when we do not put heart in our work.

A pessimist is not blind, yet he can not see even a bright prospect.

It is to live twice when we enjoy the recollections of our former life.

Some people prepare their excuses before they make their failures.

Everyone believes in friends until he has had occasions to try them.

Nothing succeeds like success. It can convert a traitor into a patriot in five seconds.

When we come close to a giant, he often turns out to be only a common man on stilts.

A little lovers' quarrel or two is a good thing by which to take each other's measure.

It is a question with many bright young men whether they will practice law, medicine or deception.

Never lie in bed thinking that the cat that is howling in the back yard will grow weary and go away.

A single man has nobody but himself to blame if things go wrong. A married man can blame it all to his wife.

It is not in the power of a good man to refuse making another happy, where he has both ability and opportunity. — The South-West.

Wise Words — "Get Experience Firsthand"

1896

Get your experience firsthand.

A burnt child dreads a whipping.

It is easy to make a failure of success.

Women make friends; men keep them.

Every man has enemies of whom he is justly proud.

If there were no wise men there would be no fools.

There is an old saw to cover every species of deviltry.

There are many days when the road seems to be all uphill.

Believe only half that you hear, and tell only half that you believe.

With a good many women interest is only another name for curiosity.

Some men reach a turning point in life every time a pretty woman passes.

Economy follows the acquisition of wealth about as often as it precedes it.

The average popular song attains its greatest popularity when it is forgotten.

Don't try to do right. The right is done without trying. — New York Press.

About every third woman is convinced that she is some kind of a martyr.

The man who marries only to "get a home" shouldn't kick if he doesn't get one.

Women will do much to please the men but more from fear of what other women will say about them.

Whenever a man does anything especially mean he is prone to lay the blame on poor, weak human nature.

Wise Words — "Frenzy and Folly"

1896

Frenzy is the safety-valve of folly.

How fast we learn in a day of sorrow.

If thou desire rest unto thy soul; be just.

Nothing multiplies so much as kindness.

The fire of hate usually flashes in the pan.

Humility is the truest abstinence in the world.

Discretion of speech is more than eloquence.

A sunbeam in the heart is bound to light the face.

Sometimes a man doesn't like justice when he gets it.

A man without mirth is like a wagon without springs.

It never does any good to talk religion with a snap like that of a steel trap.

It is easy to discharge a man who realizes that he is not entitled to anything.

The woman who marries a man to reform him is a noble example of wasted effort.

When you call a fellow a gentleman and he gets his back up it's a sign that you are lying.

The dignity of the law is interesting to contemplate. The men made the laws and then they represented justice by a woman with a bandage around her eyes. They have hoisted this travesty around on monuments and court-houses too much. Justice has been "going it blind" long enough.

Wise Words — No Man Wants To Be A Saint

1896

No man wants to be a saint unless he knows what it means to be a sinner.

It is just as easy to predict a severe winter as any other kind.

People never mean it when they say they don't care how they look.

Widowers do not have half so much fun as they are supposed to have.

It is to live twice when you can enjoy the recollection of our former life.

There are several things worse than disappointment in love. Rheumatism is one.

Unfriended indeed is he who has no friend bold enough to point out his faults.

The only way some people ever prepare for a rainy day is by stealing an umbrella.

A man's conduct is only a picture-book of his creed. He acts after what he believes.

Waste of wealth is sometimes retrieved; waste of health seldom; waste of time never.

The man who sells ice in the summer and coal in the winter is about the only fellow who can safely defy the elements.

Scandal is described as something which one-half the world takes pleasure in inventing and the other half in believing. — The South-West.

Of Interest To Drunkards

1900

Vaccination May Enable Us to Drink Rum

It seems that the advance of medical science may yet allow a man to be vaccinated for the "rum habit" so that he will be immune. Not immune in the way that a "Keeley graduate" is — with a lost desire for drink — but in such a manner that he will be able to drink enough to kill an ordinary man and not suffer any ill effects.

Dr. Reynold Webb Wilcox, in writing of "Recent Advances in Medical Science" in the International Monthly, says: "The work of Ehrlich showed that the antitoxins may be produced in the blood by successively increased doses of ricin and abrin. Maramaldi applied the same line of reasoning to alcohol. Increasing doses of ordinary alcohol, well diluted, were administered to dogs through an oesophageal tube until tolerance was established for a larger than an ordinary lethal dose. The blood serum of these animals was employed in the experimentation.

"His conclusions were: (1) It is possible to confer a real immunity on dogs by administering progressively increasing doses of this poison, ultimately reaching very large doses without producing functional disturbances or organic degenerations. (2) The serum of such a dog rendered immune to alcohol, contains a special antitoxin, capable of neutralizing the toxic action of a dose of alcohol one-fourth larger than the minimum fatal dose. (3) Normal blood serum does not possess the power of augmenting the organic resistance to alcohol, much less does it explain the curative action in acute poisoning." — New York Press.


Aphorisms

Be a philosopher; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man. — Hume.

There is no friendship, no love, like that of parent for child. — H. W. Beecher.

To persevere in one's duty and be silent is the best answer to calumny. — George Washington.

Good humor and generosity carry the day with the popular heart all the world over. — Alexander Smith.

To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life. — Johnson.

Short Shorts

1900

Conventional Wisdom

The duelist's aim is at the point of honor.

Some business men only win financial success through failures.

The fresh young man is generally not worth his salt.

If a lazy man is comfortable he is happy.

The woman who is fond of home isn't necessarily homely.

A vain woman is like a street piano — she is full of airs.

Never judge a man by his relatives — they are not of his own selection.

Every man who isn't prominent imagines he will be some day.

The boy who works in a bowling alley earns his pin money.

The aristocratic dentist should be a man of excellent extraction.

There are few people who think they are worse than they really are.

Wit is a diamond in the rough that is polished by adversity.

The only step from the sublime to the ridiculous is usually a short one.

The flustrated bride usually has all sorts of presence except presence of mind.

He who lacks time to make also lacks time to mend.

A woman who probably speaks from experience says a husband who can be led isn't worth leading.

You will observe that men who post as fancy whistlers seldom amount to much.

Return good for evil. If your enemy heaps coals of fire on your head, pile chunks of ice on his.

Words of Wisdom for Bachelors

1906

Candy catches more girls than poetry.

Half the time a girl gets engaged just for practice.

A man could be very fond of his sister if she were somebody else's.

There is money in most any occupation except the one you are in.

A man can keep a fair share of his popularity by not running for office.

It's very improper to do an improper thing you are going to get caught at.

A very rich widow can get very stout without any one daring to call her fat.

If a man did the things he tells his sons to do he would think he was a milk-sop.

What a woman likes about spooning in the moonlight is the way it doesn't hurt her complexion.

It takes a widow an awful long time to learn what she knew before her husband died.

You will always find that when a girl will admit her shoe pinches her it's over the instep.

A woman would be much crosser than she is if she weren't so busy trying to keep her husband from getting cross.

When a man tries to build a chicken house himself to save money it's a sign he is going to be broke for the next three years.

If a woman can't think of anything else to be miserable about she will go away from home so as to worry over the children.

Babies have very strong constitutions not to have spasms over every new language the women folk discover to talk to them.

A girl seems to have an awful easy time making a man think he wants to marry her, when she is the one that is doing the wanting.

There is hardly anything that tickles a woman so much as to have you remember her boy's name when you just happened to guess it. — From "Reflections of a Bachelor," in the New York Press.

Words of Wise Men

1921

Diffused knowledge immortalizes itself.

A little commendation goes a long way.

Ambition to merit praise fortifies our virtue.

He who does what he can has done what he ought.

The strength of will is the test of a young man's possibilities.

Truth is a mighty instrument, whatsoever hand may wield it.

All the best men have been best because they possessed "ideals."

The thought that conquers the world not contemplative but active.

Some doubts are as generous and passionate as the very noblest conditions.

Every noble life leaves the fiber of it interwoven with the work of the world.

To strive with difficulties and to conquer them is the highest human triumph.

Proverbs More Read Than Followed

1874

Proverbs in general are more read than followed. We hear often of the expression "the more the merrier." Now go and ask a couple of doting lovers, if they believe in that sort of thing. They would undoubtedly think that two was company, and three was a crowd.

One thing is certain it is hard, very hard to crowd that idea into the heads of some that is or that was to be mother-in-laws. When I sparked Mariah McGoozleum, her dear mamma always helped to make up the crowd. But for that I might have had the gall, if she would have had me. I can't for the life of me, see why some mammas so far forget themselves, as to forget that they were once girls, and once considered three was a crowd.

The old saying is that "an honest man's word is as good as his bond," but that's "too thin" (Shakespeare again) now-a-days. It might have been so at the time of the flood, when the world had a good washing, but it won't wash now.



Truth and Character

Truth lies in character. Christ did not simply speak truth; He was truth ; true through and through, for truth is a thing not of words but of life and being. None but a spirit can be true.



Training Children

It is apparent to a parent that a great many children get on the wrong track because the switch is misplaced.

What the Microscope Reveals

1878

Mold is a forest of beautiful trees, with the branches, leaves and fruit.

Butterflies are fully feathered.

Hairs are hollow tubes.

The surface of our bodies is covered with scales like a fish; a single grain of sand would cover one hundred and fifty of these scales, and yet a scale covers five hundred pores. Through these narrow openings the perspiration forces itself like water through a sieve.

Each drop of stagnant water contains a world of living creatures, swimming with as much liberty as whales in the sea.

Each leaf has a colony of insects grazing it, like a cow in a meadow. — Exchange.


Words of Wisdom

It is easier to blame than to do better.

If you wish to succeed in life, govern your temper.

We love much more warmly by cherishing the intention of giving pleasure than an hour afterwards when we have given it.

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other hearts, but a continent that joins them.

The last, best fruit which comes to late perfection, even in the kindliest soul, is tenderness toward the hard, forbearance toward the unforbearing, warmth of heart toward the cold, and philanthropy toward the misanthropic.

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.

Proverbs from the Talmud

The ass complains of the cold even in July.

A single light answers as well for a hundred men as for one.

Teach thy tongue to say: "I do not know."

Thy friend has a friend, and thy friend's friend has a friend; be discreet.

Deal with those who are fortunate.

The doctor who prescribes gratuitously gives a worthless prescription.

The soldiers fight, and the kings are heroes.

Make but one sale, and thou art called a merchant.

If the fox is king bow before him.

The rivalry of scholars advances science.

The world is saved by the breath of school-children.

Even to rebuild the Temple, the schools must not be closed.

If a word spoken is its time is worth one piece of money, silence in its time is worth two.

Blessed is the son who has studied with his father, and blessed the father who has instructed his son.

Rab said: "Men should be careful lest they cause women to weep, for God counts their tears."

In cases of charity, where both women and men claim relief, the latter should be first assisted; if there should not be enough for both, the men should cheerfully relinquish their claims.

Rabbah said: "When one stands at the judgment seat of God these questions are asked: "Hast thou been honest in all thy dealings? Hast thou set aside a portion of thy time for the study of the Law? Hast thou observed the first commandment? Hast thou in trouble still hoped and believed in God? Hast thou spoken wisely?"

Words of Wisdom – Look For Happiness in Useful Work

1878

It is but poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.

If what is said be not to the purpose a single word is already too much.

As nothing truly valuable can be obtained without industry, so there can be no persevering industry without a deep sense of the value of time.

The most common error of men and women is that of looking for happiness somewhere outside of useful work. It has never yet been found when thus sought, and never will be while the world stands; and the sooner the truth is learned, the better for everyone. If you doubt the proposition, go around among your friends and acquaintances and select those who have the most enjoyment through life. Are they idlers and pleasure-seekers, or are the earnest workers? We know what your answer will be. Of the miserable human beings it has been our fortune or misfortune to know, those were the most wretched who had retired from useful employment in order to enjoy themselves.

Truth will never die; the stars will grow dim, the sun will pale his glory, but truth will be ever young. Integrity, uprightness, honesty, love, goodness, these are all imperishable. No grave can ever entomb these immortal principles. They have been in prison, but they have been freer than before; those who enshrined them in their hearts have been burned at the stake, but out of their ashes other witnesses have arisen. No sea can drown, no storm can wreck, no abyss can swallow up the everlasting truth. You cannot kill goodness and integrity and righteousness; the way that is consistent with these must be a way everlasting.

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.

Words of Wisdom

1878

Go among great folks for great sinners.

Love drifts into hate more easily than indifference into animosity.

He is no true friend who has nothing, but compliments and praise for you.

Sharp and intelligent rascals are more respected by the world than virtuous fools.

Many people find their only happiness in forcing themselves to be unhappy.

Ennui is a malady for which the only remedy is work; pleasure is only a palliative.

He who has no desire to improve upon his present condition, is usually one who most needs improvement.

Adverse criticism is cheaper than noble attempts to improve upon existing models.

We could not endure solitude were it not for the powerful companionship of hope or of some unseen one.

It is not difficult to do good for the means are constantly clustering about every man's lips and hands.

Pride is like the beautiful acacia, that lifts its head proudly above its neighbor plants, forgetting that it too, like them, has its root in the dirt.

We shall never learn to feel and respect our real calling and destiny unless we have taught ourselves to consider everything as moonshine compared with the education of the heart.

The great blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach, but we shut our eyes and, like people in the dark, we fall foul upon the very thing we search for without finding it.

Evils in the journey of life are like the hills which alarm travelers upon their road; they both appear great at a distance, but when we approach them we find that they are far less insurmountable than when we had conceived them.

Manners are the shadows of virtues; the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow creatures love and respect. If we strive to become, then, what we strive to appear, manners may often be rendered useful guides to the performance of our duties.

Among the many arguments, while others have been refuted, this alone remains unshaken, that we ought to beware of committing injustice rather than of being injured, and that, above all, a man ought to study not to appear good, but to be so, both privately and publicly.

It is resignation and contentment that are best calculated to lead us safely through life. Whoever has not sufficient power to endure privations and even suffering can never feel that he is armor proof against painful emotion — nay, he must attribute to himself, or at least to the morbid sensitiveness of his nature, every disagreeable feeling he may suffer.