C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Watts
A dogmatical spirit inclines a man to be censorious of his neighbors. Every one of his opinions appears to him written, as it were, with sunbeams, and he grows angry that his neighbors do not see it in the same light. He is tempted to disdain his correspondents as men of low and dark understandings because they do not believe what he does.
A hermit who has been shut up in his cell in a college has contracted a sort of mould and rust upon his soul.
Academical disputation gives vigor and briskness to the mind thus exercised, and relieves the languor of private study and meditation.
Affect not little shifts and subterfuges to avoid the force of an argument.
Among all the accomplishments of youth there is none preferable to a decent and agreeable behavior among men, a modest freedom of speech, a soft and elegant manner of address, a graceful and lovely deportment, a cheerful gravity and good-humor, with a mind appearing ever serene under the ruffling accidents of human life.
Disputation carries away the mind from that calm and sedate temper which is so necessary to contemplate truth.
Do not be deceived; happiness and enjoyment do not lie in wicked ways.
Every one of his opinions appears to himself to be written with sunbeams.
Fancy and humour, early and constantly indulged in, may expect an old age overrun with follies.
For one drop calls another down, till we are drowned in seas of grief.
Hark! from the tombs a doleful sound.
I believe the promises of God enough to venture an eternity on them.
I love the soul that dares tread the temptations of his years beneath his youthful feet.
If a book has no index or good table of contents, it is very useful to make one as you are reading it.
If you would convince a person of his mistake, accost him not when he is ruffled.
In common discourse we denominate persons and things according to the major part of their character; he is to be called a wise man who has but few follies.
In Job and the Psalms we shall find more sublime ideas, more elevated language, than in any of the heathen versifiers of Greece or Rome.
In matters of equity between man and man, our Saviour has taught us to put my neighbor in place of myself, and myself in place of my neighbor.
Instructors should not only be skilful in those sciences which they teach, but have skill in the method of teaching, and patience in the practice.
Learn good-humor, never to oppose without just reason; abate some degree of pride and moroseness.
Logic helps us to strip off the outward disguise of things, and to behold and judge of them in their own nature.
Nothing tends so much to enlarge the mind as traveling.
One glance of Thine creates a day.
Poesy and oratory omit things not essential, and insert little beautiful digressions, in order to place everything in the most effective light.
Preserve your conscience always soft and sensitive. If but one sin force its way into that tender part of the soul and dwell there, the road is paved for a thousand iniquities.
Reason is the glory of human nature, and one of the chief eminences whereby we are raised above the beasts, in this lower world.
Satirists do expose their own ill nature.
So shines the setting sun on adverse skies, and paints a rainbow on the storm.
Some have a violent and turgid manner of talking and thinking; they are always in extremes, and pronounce concerning everything in the superlative.
Some persons believe everything that their kindred, their parents, and their tutors believe. The veneration and the love which they have for their ancestors incline them to swallow down all their opinions at once, without examining what truth or falsehood there is in them. Men take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them.
Talking over the things which you have read with your companions fixes them on the mind.
The calmest and serenest hours of life, when the passions of nature are all silent, and the mind enjoys its most perfect composure.
The child taught to believe any occurrence a good or evil omen, or any day of the week lucky, hath a wide inroad made upon the soundness of his understanding.
The eyes of a man in the jaundice make yellow observations on everything; and the soul tinctured with any passion diffuses a false color over the appearance of things.
The fondness we have for self furnishes another long rank of prejudices.
The passions are the gales of life; and it is religion only that can prevent them from rising into a tempest.
The very substance which last week was grazing in the field, waving in the milk pail, or growing in the garden, is now become part of the man.
Then let these useless streams be stayed; wear native courage in your face.
Thou sun, whose beams adorn the spheres, and with unwearied swiftness move to form the circles of our years.
To be angry about trifles is mean and childish; to rage and be furious is brutish; and to maintain perpetual wrath is akin to the practice and temper of devils.
Two sentiments alone suffice for man, were he to live the age of the rocks—love, and the contemplation of the Deity.
Vice and virtue chiefly imply the relation of our actions to men in this world; sin and holiness rather imply their relation to God and the other world.
Were both the golden Indies mine, I’d give both Indies for a tear.
When a false argument puts on the appearance of a true one, then it is properly called a sophism or fallacy.
When general observations are drawn from so many particulars as to become certain and indisputable, these are jewels of knowledge.
When two or three sciences are pursued at the same time if one of them be dry, as logic, let another be more entertaining, to secure the mind from weariness.