Edwin Hubbel Chapin Quotes - Page 6

Into what boundless life, does education admit us. Every truth gained through it expands a moment of time into illimitable being--positively enlarges our existence, and endows us with qualities which time cannot weaken or destroy.

Consider and act with reference to the true ends of existence. This world is but the vestibule of an immortal life. Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.

The highest genius never flowers in satire, but culminates in sympathy with that which is best in human nature, and appeals to it.

Honor to the idealists, whether philosophers or poets. They have improved us by mingling with our daily pursuits great and transcendent conceptions. They have thrown around our sensual life the grandeur of a better, and drawn us up from contacts with the temporal and the selfish to communion with beauty and truth and goodness.

The brightest crowns that are worn in heaven have been tried, and smelted, and polished and glorified through the furnaces of tribulation.

In the isolation of his clear, cold intellect, the sceptic abides in a glacial and spectral universe. No glow from the affections lights up the frost and shadow of the grave. He feels no prophecy in the thrill of the human heart-in the incompleteness of nature. He believes merely in things tangible, and sees only in the daytime. He will not confess the authenticity of that paler light of faith which was meant to shine when the sunshine of reason falls short, and the firmament of mystery is over our heads.

However logical our induction, the end of the thread is fastened upon the assurance of faith.

The bosom can ache beneath diamond brooches; and many a blithe heart dances under coarse wool.

Death is a great revealer of what is in a man, and in its solemn shadow appear the naked lineaments of the soul.

Objects close to the eye shut out much larger objects on the horizon; and splendors born only of the earth eclipse the stars. So a man sometimes covers up the entire disk of eternity with a dollar, and quenches transcendent glories with a little shining dust.

A true man never frets about his place in the world, but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as a star.

Home is the seminary of all other institutions.

There is no happiness in life, there is no misery like that growing out of the dispositions which consecrate or desecrate a home.

Bigotry dwarfs the soul by shutting out the truth.

As for environments, the kingliest being ever born in the flesh lay in a manger.

Let us not fear that the issues of natural science shall be scepticism or anarchy. Through all God's works there runs a beautiful harmony. The remotest truth in his universe is linked to that which lies nearest the Throne.

Revolution does not insure progress. You may overturn thrones, but what proof that anything better will grow upon the soil?

It is the penalty of fame that a man must ever keep rising. "Get a reputation, and then go to bed," is the absurdest of all maxims. "Keep up a reputation or go to bed, "would be nearer the truth.

Neutral men are the devil's allies.

Morality is but the vestibule of religion.

Is there anything so wretched as to look at a man of fine abilities doing nothing?

O, how much those men are to be valued who, in the spirit with which the widow gave up her two mites, have given up themselves! How their names sparkle! How rich their very ashes are! How they will count up in heaven!

All natural results are spontaneous. The diamond sparkles without effort, and the flowers open impulsively beneath the summer rain. And true religion is a spontaneous thing,--as natural as it is to weep, to love, or to rejoice.

A man's love for his native land lies deeper than any logical expression, among those pulses of the heart which vibrate to the sanctities of home, and to the thoughts which leap up from his father's graves.

A thousand wheels of labor are turned by dear affections, and kept in motion by self-sacrificing endurance; and the crowds that pour forth in the morning and return at night are daily procession of love and duty.