Many Thoughts of Many Minds Part 25

We go to the grave of a friend saying, "A man is dead;" but angels throng about him, saying, "A man is born."--BEECHER.

Always the idea of unbroken quiet broods around the grave. It is a port where the storms of life never beat, and the forms that have been tossed on its chafing waves lie quiet forevermore. There the child nestles as peacefully as ever it lay in its mother's arms, and the workman's hands lie still by his side, and the thinker's brain is pillowed in silent mystery, and the poor girl's broken heart is steeped in a balm that extracts its secret woe, and is in the keeping of a charity that covers all blame.--CHAPIN.

There is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living. Oh, the grave!--the grave! It buries every error, covers every defect, extinguishes every resentment! From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections.--WASHINGTON IRVING.

What is the grave?

'Tis a cool, shady harbor, where the Christian Wayworn and weary with life's rugged road, Forgetting all life's sorrows, joys, and pains, Lays his poor body down to rest-- Sleeps on--and wakes in heaven.

GREATNESS.--He who, in questions of right, virtue, or duty, sets himself above all ridicule, is truly great, and shall laugh in the end with truer mirth than ever he was laughed at.--LAVATER.

The greatest man is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution, who resists the sorest temptations from within and without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully, who is calmest in storms and most fearless under menace and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on G.o.d, is most unfaltering. I believe this greatness to be most common among the mult.i.tude, whose names are never heard.--CHANNING.

Great minds, like heaven, are pleased in doing good, Though the ungrateful subjects of their favors Are barren in return.

--ROWE.

Great truths are portions of the soul of man; Great souls are the portions of eternity.

--LOWELL.

No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.--CARLYLE.

If the t.i.tle of great man ought to be reserved for him who cannot be charged with an indiscretion or a vice, who spent his life in establishing the independence, the glory and durable prosperity of his country; who succeeded in all that he undertook, and whose successes were never won at the expense of honor, justice, integrity, or by the sacrifice of a single principle--this t.i.tle will not be denied to Washington.--SPARKS.

He only is great who has the habits of greatness; who, after performing what none in ten thousand could accomplish, pa.s.ses on like Samson, and "tells neither father nor mother of it."--LAVATER.

He who comes up to his own idea of greatness must always have had a very low standard of it in his mind.--HAZLITT.

In life, we shall find many men that are great, and some men that are good, but very few men that are both great and good.--COLTON.

A really great man is known by three signs,--generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, and moderation in success.--BISMARCK.

Nothing can make a man truly great but being truly good and partaking of G.o.d's holiness.--MATTHEW HENRY.

The greatest truths are the simplest; so are the greatest men.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.--SHAKESPEARE.

No man has come to true greatness who has not felt in some degree that his life belongs to his race, and that what G.o.d gives him, He gives him for mankind.--PHILLIPS BROOKS.

Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great.--EMERSON.

GRIEF.--Grief is the culture of the soul, it is the true fertilizer.

--MADAME DE GIRARDIN.

Light griefs are plaintive, but great ones are dumb.--SENECA.

If the internal griefs of every man could be read, written on his forehead, how many who now excite envy would appear to be the objects of pity?--METASTASIO.

Excess of grief for the deceased is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.--XENOPHON.

All the joys of earth will not a.s.suage our thirst for happiness; while a single grief suffices to shroud life in a sombre veil, and smite it with nothingness at all points.--MADAME SWETCHINE.

What an argument in favor of social connections is the observation that by communicating our grief we have less, and by communicating our pleasure we have more.--GREVILLE.

They truly mourn that mourn without a witness.--BYRON.

Alas! I have not words to tell my grief; To vent my sorrow would be some relief; Light sufferings give us leisure to complain; We groan, we cannot speak, in greater pain.

--DRYDEN.

It is folly to tear one's hair in sorrow, as if grief could be a.s.suaged by baldness.--CICERO.

Dr. Holmes says, both wittily and truly, that crying widows are easiest consoled.--H.W. SHAW.

Who fails to grieve, when just occasion calls, Or grieves too much, deserves not to be blest: Inhuman, or effeminate, his heart.

--YOUNG.

Great grief makes sacred those upon whom its hand is laid. Joy may elevate, ambition glorify, but sorrow alone can consecrate.--HORACE GREELEY.

Every one can master a grief but he that has it.--SHAKESPEARE.

GRUMBLING.--When a man is full of the Holy Ghost, he is the very last man to be complaining of other people.--D.L. MOODY.

Every one must see daily instances of people who complain from a mere habit of complaining.--GRAVES.

There is an unfortunate disposition in a man to attend much more to the faults of his companions which offend him, than to their perfections which please him.--GREVILLE.

No talent, no self-denial, no brains, no character, is required to set up in the grumbling business; but those who are moved by a genuine desire to do good have little time for murmuring or complaint.--ROBERT WEST.

I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, "It is all barren."--STERNE.

GUILT.--Think not that guilt requires the burning torches of the Furies to agitate and torment it. Their own frauds, their crimes, their remembrances of the past, their terrors of the future,--these are the domestic furies that are ever present to the mind of the impious.--ROBERT HALL.

Guilt alone, like brain-sick frenzy in its feverish mood, fills the light air with visionary terrors, and shapeless forms of fear.--JUNIUS.

Guilt, though it may attain temporal splendor, can never confer real happiness; the evil consequences of our crimes long survive their commission, and, like the ghosts of the murdered, forever haunt the steps of the malefactor; while the paths of virtue, though seldom those of worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and peace.--SIR WALTER SCOTT.

He who is conscious of secret and dark designs, which, if known, would blast him, is perpetually shrinking and dodging from public observation, and is afraid of all around him, and much more of all above him.--WIRT.

They whose guilt within their bosom lies, imagine every eye beholds their blame.--SHAKESPEARE.

Life is not the supreme good; but of all earthly ills the chief is guilt.--SCHILLER.

They who once engage in iniquitous designs miserably deceive themselves when they think that they will go so far and no farther; one fault begets another, one crime renders another necessary; and thus they are impelled continually downward into a depth of guilt, which at the commencement of their career they would have died rather than have incurred.--SOUTHEY.

Let wickedness escape as it may at the bar, it never fails of doing justice upon itself; for every guilty person is his own hangman.

--SENECA.