Life and Literature

Chapter 97

1339

Merit does not always meet its due reward.

1340

Merit and good-breeding will make their way everywhere.

1341

All are not merry that dance lightly.

--_Herbert._

1342

When I dinna ken what I say, Sandy, And ye dinna ken what I mean--that"s metaphysics.

--_Scotch._

1343

Method will teach you to win time.

--_Goethe._

1344

FRIENDS IN NEED.

Perhaps one of the most noteworthy characteristics of Methodists is the spirit of clannishness which runs through the whole body. Is any sick, the rest are eager to pray; is any merry, the rest are delighted to sing psalms; and they will not only pray and sing in sympathy, which is comparatively easy, but they are ready to spend, and to be spent, for the brethren to almost any extent. Men may know that they are Methodists from the love they have one to another.

Through whatsoever ill betide For you I will be spent and spend: I"ll stand forever by your side, And naught shall you and me divide, Because you are my friend.

--_Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler._

1345

Where might is right, right is not upright.

--_From the German._

1346

It is indicative of a weak mind to be much depressed by adversity or elated by prosperity.

1347

A well-governed mind learns in time, to find pleasure in nothing but the true and the just.

--_Amiel._

1348

Overtasking the mind is an unwise act; when nature is unwilling, the labour is vain.

--_Seneca._

1349

Who fills his mind with matters small For great things has no room at all.

1350

When the mind is in a state of uncertainty, the smallest impulse directs it to either side.

--_Terence._

1351

MIND.

It cannot be too deeply impressed on the mind, that application is the price to be paid for mental acquisitions, and that it is as absurd to expect them without it, as to hope for a harvest where we have not sown the seed.

--_Bailey._

1352

Narrowness of mind is often the cause of obstinacy: we do not easily believe beyond what we see.

--_La Rochefoucauld._

1353

I am one, Who finds within me a n.o.bility, That spurns the idle pratings of the great, And their mean boast of what their fathers were, While they themselves are fools effeminate, The scorn of all who know the worth of mind And virtue.