All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou can'st not see;
All discord, harmony, not understood;
All partial evil, Universal Good;

And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.

-Pope. Essay on Man, Ep. I., line 289.

Ignorance is a blank sheet on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one on which we must first erase.

-Colton, Lacon, I.

True love's the gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven :

It is not fantasy's hot fire,

Whose wishes, soon as granted, fly;

It liveth not in fierce desire,

With dead desire it doth not die ;

It is the secret sympathy,

The silver link, the silken tie,

Which heart to heart, and mind to mind,

In body and in soul can bind.

-Sir W. Scott.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Can. V., XIII.

If the affections were taken away, reason would be like the pilot of a ship forsaken by the winds, in a profound calm.

-Kenelm Digby. The Broad Stone of Honor (Godefridus), XVII.

(Thus), conscience does make cowards of us all ; And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

-Thakspere. Hamlet (Hamlet), Act III.,
Sc. I.

If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.

-St. Matthew, Ch. XV,, ver. 14.

If the past is not to bind us, where can duty lie? We should have no law but the inclination of the moment.

-George Eliot. The Mill on the Floss (Maggie), Bk. VI., Ch. XIV.

The virtuous man is free, though bound in chains; Though poor, content; though banished, yet no stranger;

Though sick, in health of mind; secure in danger; And o'er himself, the world, and fortune reigns.

-A. W. Cuddy's Emblem, The Christian
Stoick.

If reasons were as plenty as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion. -Shakspere. Henry IV., Pt. I. (Falstaff), Act II., Sc. IV.

He who blesses most is blest :

And God and man shall own his worth Who toils to leave as his bequest

An added beauty to the earth.

- Whittier. Lines for the Agricultural Exhibition at Amesbury.

If men were better instructed themselves, they would be less imposing on others.

-Locke. Essay on the Understanding.
Bk. IV., Ch. XVI., 4.

Far better never to have heard the name
Of zeal and just ambition, than to live
Baffled and plagued by a mind that every hour
Turns recreant to her task: takes heart again,
Then feels immediately some hollow thought
Hang like an interdict upon her hopes.

Wordsworth.

The Prelude, Book First.

Wise bearing or ignorant courage is caught, as men take diseases, one of another; therefore let men take heed of their company.

—Shakspere. Henry IV., Pt. II. (Falstaff), Act V., Sc. I.

A pride there is of rank-a pride of birth,
A pride of learning, and a pride of purse,
A London pride-in short, there be on earth
A host of prides, some better and some

worse;

But of all prides, since Lucifer's attaint,
The proudest swells a self-elected saint.
-Hood. Ode to Rae-Wilson.

I have heard, indeed, that two negatives make an affirmative; but I never heard before that two nothings ever made anything.

-Duke of Buckingham. Speech in the
House of Lords.

Beside the Eternal Nile

The pyramids have risen.

Nile shall pursue his changeless way;
Those pyramids shall fall;

Yea! not a stone shall stand to tell

The spot whereon they stood;

Their very site shall be forgotten,

As is their builder's name.

-Shelley. Queen Mab. II.

Worthless things receive a value, when they are made the offerings of respect, esteem, and gratitude.

-Locke. Essay on Human Understanding, Dedicatory Epistle.

I remember, I remember,
The fir-trees dark and high:
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky.
It was a childish ignorance,

But now 'tis little joy

To know I'm farther off from heaven

Than when I was a boy.

-Hood. I Remember.

Which of your philosophical Systems is other than a dream-theorem; a net quotient, confidently given out, where divisor and divident are both unknown?

-Carlyle. Sartor Resartus, Bk. I.,
Chap. VIII.

A foot more light, a step more true,
Ne'er from the heath-flower dash'd the dew;
E'en the slight harebell raised its head,
Elastic from her airy tread.

-Scott. The Lady of the Lake, Can. I.,
St. 18.

When debtors once have borrowed all we have to lend, they are very apt to grow shy of their creditors' company.

-Vanburgh. The Provoked Wife (Lady
Brute), Act III., Sc. I.

Nothing is lost on him who sees

With an eye that feeling gave ;

For him there's a story in every breeze,
And a picture in every wave.

-T. Moore. Boat Glee. Song from M. P„, or the Blue Stocking.

When ingratitude barbs the dart of injury, the wound has double danger in it.

-Sheridan. The School for Scandal (Jos.
Surface), Act IV., Sc. III.