WISE SAYINGS.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3861, 14 May 1881, Page 4

WISE SAYINGS.

Success is duty, whether duty is success or not.

Moral strength is the highest kind of health, and inward purity the richest fountain of peace and joy. The greatest evils in life have had their rise from something which was thought of far too little importance to be attended to.

A naturally selfish disposition may by continual and gentle influence bejbrought to rejoice in another's happiness'and to work for it, while a naturally generous heart may by coldness be shut up from its own warm instincts.

Opportunity is much, and energy is much; but unless we have wisdom to choose the one and direct the other, they will not bring us the advantages or the blessing that we fondly expect. All that is noble and heroic in humanity, all that is devoted and tender in friendship, all the courtesy and grace of refined society, all the respect and chivalry due to women, all the self-denial and generosity which make life beautiful, have their root in the family, and in its soil are best cultivated.

The wear and tear of life come chiefly from straining after the impossible. Nervous excitement, alternate hopes and disappointments, unavailing struggles, feverish anxieties, bitter failures —these are the worst enemies of health and happiness, the most fatal destroyers of peace and prosperity. They come for the most part from taking up needless -burdens.

Without steadiness of character in social life, there can be no true fellowship. Accomodation may please, beauty may charm, fluency and grace m >y attract, but to win confidence and respect, to be trusted and relied upon, the man or the woman must be stable in character, self-poised, true to promises, punctual, uniting h'rmn'ese to geniality and steadfastness to good nature. i

A good habit is a labor-saving instru» ment. A machine which enables one man to do the work of twenty sets the nineteen free for other efforts and increases by so much the welfare and comfort of the community. So every good habit, thoroughly acquired, whether it be useful action of the band or a virtuous choice of the mind, sets free all the power and energy that have been employed in its cultivation for fresh efforts anH new conquests.