THINGS THOUGHTFUL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 29 March 1930, Page 11

THINGS THOUGHTFUL

ATTEMPT NOT A FAILURE Scarcely any attempt is entirely a failure.—Professor Whewell. • » » • A THANKFUL SPIRIT Cultivate the thankful spirit —it will he to thee a perpetual feast.—Newman. • • • • GENTLENESS' If you would fall into any extreme, let it be on the side of gentleness.— St. Francis do Sales. • » * * PRESERVING WISDOM The wisdom of the wise and the experience of ages may be preserved by quotations.—Anon. • • • • TAKE NO NOTICE OF FOOLS There's no sort of work that could ever be clone well if you minded what fools say.—George Eliot. • * * » THE SIMPLEST IDEAS The simplest ideas about any matter arc generally the truest and the greatest—and the ones which matter most. —Anon. • • • ■ THE WAY TO SUCCESS There is no electric elevator to success. Step lip the stairs—don't stare up the steps.—Anon. • • • • LESS FEAR, LESS DANGER The less there is of fear, so "much the less generally is there of danger.— Livy.

LIKE A POTATO The man who has nothing to boast of but his illustrious parentage is like a potato—the only good belonging to him is under ground.—Sir T. Overbury. T•• • •

DRUNKENNESS All the crimes on earth do not destroy so many of the human race, nor alienate so much property, as drunkenness.—Bacon.

WISDOM AND OPPORTUNITY Wisdom walks before Time, Opportunity with it, and Repentance behind it.—J. Bullar. • • • • YOUR FRIENDS Go to your rich friend's house when invited: to your poor friend's without invitation.—Anon. • • • • THE DEED AND ITS DOING What I need to realise is how infinitesimal is the importance of anything I can do and how infinitely important it is that I should do it.— Herbert Spencer. • • • • THE INFLUENCE OF SPEECH Be it true or false, what is said about men often has as much influence upon their lives, and especially upon their destinies, as what they do.— Victor Hugo. • • « • ALTERED VIEWS OF LIFE He that has seen both sides of fifty has lived to little purpose if he has not other views of the world than he had when he was, much younger.— Cowper. • • • THE HUMILIATION OF LOSING ' ONE'S TEMPER The humiliation one feels after losing one's temper, except on a great occasion, is evidence 'that ,there is something silly in it.—Robert Lynd. • • • • NO GOOD PRAYER IS LOST A generous prayer is nevcy presented in vain; the petition may be refused, but the petitioner is always, I believe, rewarded by some gracious visitation.—Robert Louis Stevenson. • ' • • •• | IF YOU WOULD BE REMEMBERED Write your name by kindness, love, and mercy, on the hearts of the people you come in contact with year by year, and you will never be forgotten.—Dr. Chalmers.

THE SHAM KNOW-ALLS I would rather confess my ignorance • than falsely profess knowledge. It is no • shamo not to know of all things, but • it is a just shame to over-reach in any • thing.—Bishop Hall. • • • • SPORTSMANSHIP Sportsmanship means: Straight deal- • ing and playing the game, self-reliance, team work, playing for your side, and ■ hot for yourself, winning without swank, and losing without bad temper.—The Prince of Wales. • • • •' BE STRONG Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; He will come and save you. ■—lsaiah. * * * * THE ESSENCE OF WORK The real essence of work is concentrated energy. . . people who really have that in a superior degree, are independent of the forms and habits and! artifices by which less able and active) people are kept up to their labours.— I Walter Bagehot.

ALWAYS SOMETHING SINGS It is not only in the rose, It is not only in the bird, Not only where the rainbow glows, Nor in the song of woman heard; But in the darkest, meanest things There alway, alway something sings. —Emerson. • • • • LAWFUL PLEASURE Would you judge of the lawfulness or the unlawfulness of a pleasure, take this rule: Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God or takes off the relish of spiritual things; whatever increases the authority of your body over your mind —that thing to you is sin.—John Wesley's Mother to her Son. « * » • LOVE OF HOME And let me linger in this placo for an instant to remark that if ever household affections and loves are graceful things, they are graceful in the poor. The ties that bind the wealthy and the proud to home may be forged on earth, but those which link the poor man to .his humble hearth are of the truer metal, and bear the stamp of heaven. The man of high descent may love the halls and lands of his inheritance as a part of himself —as trophies of his birth and power; his associations with them arc associations of pride and wealth and triumph. The poor man's attachment to the tenement he holds, which strangers have held before, and may to-morrow occupy again, has a worthier root, stuck deep into a purer soil. His household gods are of flesh and blood, with no alloy of silver, gold or precious stone; ho has no property but in the affections of his own heart; and when they endear bare floors and walls, despite of rags and toil and scanty fare, that man has his love of home from God, and his rude hut becomes a solemn place. —Dickens.