May Quotes - Page 329

Nothing is so much to be feared as fear. Atheism may comparatively be popular with God himself.

Great God, I ask thee for no meaner pelf Than that I may not disappoint myself, That in my action I may soar as high As I can now discern with this clear eye.

The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow,-one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness.

Be not anxious to avoid poverty. In this way the wealth of the universe may be securely invested.

It is said that some Western steamers can run on a heavy dew, whence we can imagine what a canoe may do.

One may be drunk with love without being any nearer to finding his mate.

I confess that I have hitherto indulged very little in philanthropic enterprises.... While my townsmen and women are devoted in somany ways to the good of their fellows, I trust that one at least may be spared to other and less humane pursuits. You must have a genius for charity as well as for anything else. As for Doing-good, that is one of the professions which are full.

Art may varnish and gild, but it can do no more.

You ask particularly after my health. I suppose that I have not many months to live; but, of course, I know nothing about it. I may add that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret nothing.

A man might well pray that he may not taboo or curse any portion of nature by being buried in it.

Where there is not discernment, the behavior even of the purest soul may in effect amount to coarseness.

Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man?... We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.

You may tell by looking at any twig of the forest, ay, at your very wood-pile, whether its winter is past or not.

Everything may serve a lower as well as a higher use.

A nation may be ever so civilized and yet lack wisdom.

Why do you ever mend your clothes, unless that, wearing them, you may mend your ways. Let us sing.

Biography, too, is liable to the same objection; it should be autobiography. Let us not, as the Germans advise, endeavor to go abroad and vex our bowels that we may be somebody else to explain him. If I am not I, who will be?

In the planting of the seeds of most trees, the best gardeners do no more than follow Nature, though they may not know it.

You must get your living by loving. But as it is said of the merchants that ninety-seven in a hundred fail, so the life of men generally, tried by this standard, is a failure, and bankruptcy may be surely prophesied.

Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government.

Be as the sailor who keeps the polestar in his eye. By so doing we may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we will maintain a true course.

A fact may blossom into a truth.

Whatever sentence will bear to be read twice, we may be sure was thought twice.

A man may grow rich in Turkey even, if he will be in all respects a good subject of the Turkish government.

I now first began to inhabit my house, I may say, when I began to use it for warmth as well as shelter.