Scraps Worth Saving

The trials of life are the tests which ascertain how much gold is in it.

• Experience is a pocket-compass that few think of consulting till they have lost their way.

• Most of the shadows that cross our path through life are caused by our standing in our own light.

• There is nothing like a fixed, steady aim, with an honourable purpose. It dignifies your nature, and insures you success.

• MEEKNESS. – A boy was asked what meekness was. He thought a moment, and said, “Meekness gives smooth answers to rough question.”

• Idleness is the dead sea that swallows all virtues, and the self-made sepulchre of a living man. The idle man is the devil’s urchin, whose livery is rags, and whose diet and wages are famine and disease.

• FIRST STEP TO MISERY. – The first step to misery is to nourish in ourselves an affection for evil things, and the height of misfortunes is to be able to indulge such affections.

• Domestic society is the prime charm of life. If our fireside is comfortable, we may despise the malevolence or the ingratitude of the world, and bear with fortitude the injuries of fortune.

• Just as the wind clears the heavens deep sorrow eventually tranquillises the soul; the tumult gradually subsides; the flitting memories, the scudding thoughts, that coursed about in such wild order, vanish and melt away, and a feeling of circumambient serenity succeeds.

•MOTTOES

o A vain man’s motto: “Win gold and wear it.”
o A Generous Man’s: “Win gold and share it.”
o A Miser’s: “Win gold and spare it.”
o A Profligate’s: “Win gold and spend it.”
o A Broker’s: “Win gold and lend it.”
o A Gambler’s: “Win gold and lose it.”
o A Sailor’s: “Win gold and cruise it.”
o A Wise Man’s: “Win gold and use it.”

• MARRY. – Jeremy Taylor says, if you are for pleasure, marry – if you prize rosy health, marry.

o A good wife is Heaven’s last best gift to man
o His angel and minister of graces innumerable
o His gem of many virtues
o His casket of jewels;
o Her voice is sweet music
o Her arms, the pale of his safety, the balm of his health, the balsam of his life
o Her industry, his surest wealth
o Her economy, his sagest steward
o Her lips, his faithful counsellors
o Her bosom, the softest pillow of his cares, and
o Her prayers, the ablest advocates of Heaven’s blessings on his head.

• THE INFINITUDE OF IMPUDENCE – It is often been asked. What is it which gives the strongest and liveliest idea of the infinite? Is it the multitudinous ocean, or the abyss of her, or the incomputable sand-grains upon the sea-shores? No; these, if not numerable by human arithmetic, are taken up by imagination as but “a little thing.” She engulphs them easily, and continues to cry. “More, more: Give, give!” We, of course, can only speak for ourselves; but certain it is, that our liveliest notion of bottomless depth and boundless extent is derived from our observation of the identity of human impudence. That to a breadth without a bound, an elevation without a summit, a circumference without a centre a length without a limit. We are perpetually led to imagine that we are nearing its bottom, when, lo! Some new adventurous genius takes another piece, and discovers a lower deep beyond the lowest.

Eclectic Review.