True happiness

 

True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise: it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self; and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions; it loves shade and solitude, and naturally haunts groves and fountains, fields and meadows: in short, it feels everything it wants within itself, and receives no addition from multitudes of witnesses and spectators. On the contrary, false happiness loves to be in a crowd, and to draw the eyes of the world upon her. She does not receive any satisfaction from the applauses which she gives herself, but from the admiration which she raises in others. She flourishes in courts and palaces, theatres and assemblies, and has no existence but when she is looked upon. Joseph Addison: Spectator, No. 15.	3

Some lives anticipate happiness of heaven

 

Some real lives do—for certain days or years—actually anticipate the happiness of heaven; and I believe if such perfect happiness is once felt by good people (to the wicked it never comes) its sweet effect is never wholly lost. Whatever trials follow, whatever pains of sickness or shades of death, the glory precedent still shines through, cheering the keen anguish and tinging the deep cloud. I will go further: I do believe there are some human beings so born, so reared, so guided from a soft cradle to a calm and late grave, that no excessive suffering penetrates their journey. And often these are not pampered, selfish beings, but Nature’s elect, harmonious and benign; men and women mild with charity, kind agents of God’s kind attributes…. But it is not so for all. What then? His will be done! as done it surely will be, whether we humble ourselves to resignation or not. Charlotte Brontë.

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 First feed the face. Then tell right from wrong.

Even honest men may act like sinners unless they’ve had their customary dinners.

Bertolt Brecht 

Attention

 

Our minds are so constructed that we can keep the attention fixed on a particular object until we have, as it were, looked all around it; and the mind that possesses this faculty in the highest degree of perfection will take cognizance of relations of which another mind has no perception. It is this, much more than any difference in the abstract power of reasoning, which constitutes the vast difference between the minds of different individuals. This is the history alike of the poetic genius and of the genius of discovery in science. “I keep the subject,” said Sir Isaac Newton, “constantly before me, and wait until the dawnings open by little and little into a full light.” It was thus that after long meditation he was led to the invention of fluxions, and to the anticipation of the modern discovery of the combustibility of the diamond. It was thus that Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, and that those views were suggested by Davy which laid the foundation of that grand series of experimental researches which terminated in the decomposition of the earths and alkalies. Sir Benjamin Brodie.	1
In the power of fixing the attention, the most precious of the intellectual habits, mankind differ greatly; but every man possesses some, and it will increase the more it is exerted. He who exercises no discipline over himself in this respect acquires such a volatility of mind, such a vagrancy of imagination, as dooms him to be the sport of every mental vanity: it is impossible such a man should attain to true wisdom. If we cultivate, on the contrary, a habit of attention, it will become natural; thought will strike its roots deep, and we shall, by degrees, experience no difficulty in following the track of the longest connected discourse. Robert Hall: On Hearing the Word.	2

There is not much difficulty in confining the mind to contemplate what we have a great desire to know. Dr. Isaac Watts.

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Anxiety

 

This fear of any future difficulties or misfortune is so natural to the mind, that were a man’s sorrows and disquietudes summed up at the end of his life, it would generally be found that he had suffered more from the apprehension of such evils as never happened to him, than from those evils which had really befallen him. To this we may add, that among those evils which befall us, there are many which have been more painful to us in the prospect than by their actual pressure. Joseph Addison: Spectator, No. 505.	1
Anxiety is the poison of human life. It is the parent of many sins, and of more miseries. In a world where everything is doubtful, where you may be disappointed, and be blessed in disappointment,—what means this restless stir and commotion of mind? Can your solicitude alter the cause or unravel the intricacy of human events? Can your curiosity pierce through the cloud which the Supreme Being hath made impenetrable to mortal eye? To provide against every important danger by the employment of the most promising means is the office of wisdom; but at this point wisdom stops. Hugh Blair.	2

Charity

   Shall we repine at a little misplaced charity, we who could no way foresee the effect,—when an all-knowing, all-wise Being showers down every day his benefits on the unthankful and undeserving?

Francis Atterbury.    

Age

   One’s age should be tranquil, as one’s childhood should be playful; hard work at either extremity of human existence seems to me out of place: the morning and the evening should be alike cool and peaceful; at mid-day the sun may burn, and men may labour under it.

Dr. Thomas Arnold.    

Affliction

 

It is by affliction chiefly that the heart of man is purified, and that the thoughts are fixed on a better state. Prosperity, alloyed and imperfect as it is, has power to intoxicate the imagination, to fix the mind upon the present scene, to produce confidence and elation, and to make him who enjoys affluence and honours forget the hand by which they were bestowed. It is seldom that we are otherwise than by affliction awakened to a sense of our imbecility, or taught to know how little all our acquisitions can conduce to safety or to quiet, and how justly we may ascribe to the superintendence of a higher power those blessings which in the wantonness of success we considered as the attainments of our policy or courage. Dr. Samuel Johnson.	19
When any calamity has been suffered, the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped. Dr. Samuel Johnson.

Adversity

 

A remembrance of the good use he had made of prosperity contributed to support his mind under the heavy weight of adversity which then lay upon him. Francis Atterbury.	1
He that has never known adversity is but half acquainted with others, or with himself. Constant success shows us but one side of the world. For, as it surrounds us with friends, who will tell us only our merits, so it silences those enemies from whom alone we can learn our defects. Charles Caleb Colton: Lacon.	2

Adversity borrows its sharpest sting from our impatience. Bishop George Horne.	5
As adversity leads us to think properly of our state, it is most beneficial to us. Dr. Samuel Johnson.	6

Atheist

 Not one man in a thousand has either strength of mind or goodness of heart to be an atheist. I repeat it. Not one man in ten thousand has goodness of heart or strength of mind to be an atheist.

Samuel Coleridge