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Pearls of Thought By: Maturin Murray Ballou (1820-1895) |
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PEARLS OF THOUGHT. BY MATURIN M. BALLOU, AUTHOR OF THE "TREASURY OF THOUGHT," "HISTORY OF CUBA," "BIOGRAPHY OF
HOSEA BALLOU," ETC., ETC. Infinite riches in a little room. MARLOWE. BOSTON: HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. The Riverside Press, Cambridge.
1881. COPYRIGHT, 1880, By MATURIN M. BALLOU. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge: Electrotyped and Printed by H. O.
Houghton & Co. To MY WIFE, THE PATIENT AND CHEERFUL ASSOCIATE OF MY STUDIES, AFTER MORE THAN FORTY YEARS OF HAPPY COMPANIONSHIP, This Volume IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THE COMPILER. Writers of an abler sort,
Whose wit well managed, and whose classic style,
Give Truth a lustre, and make Wisdom smile. COWPER. General observations drawn from particulars are the jewels of
knowledge, comprehending great store in a little room. LOCKE. Out of monuments, names, wordes, proverbs, traditions, private
recordes, and evidences, fragments of stories, passages of bookes,
and the like, we doe save and recover somewhat from the deluge of
time. BACON. I would fain coin wisdom, mould it, I mean, into maxims, proverbs,
sentences, that can easily be retained and transmitted. JOUBERT.
PREFACE. A verse may find him whom a sermon flies. GEORGE HERBERT.
The volume herewith presented is the natural result of the compiler's
habit of transferring and classifying significant passages from known
authors. No special course of reading has been pursued, the thoughts
being culled from foreign and native tongues from the moss grown tomes
of ancient literature and the verdant fields of to day. The terse
periods of others, appropriately quoted, become in a degree our own; and
a just estimation is very nearly allied to originality, or, as the
author of Vanity Fair tells us, "Next to excellence is the
appreciation of it." Without indorsing the idea of a modern authority
that the multiplicity of facts and writings is becoming so great that
every available book must soon be composed of extracts only, still it is
believed that such a volume as "Pearls of Thought" will serve the
interest of general literature, and especially stimulate the mind of the
thoughtful reader to further research. The pleasant duty of the
compiler has been to follow the expressive idea of Colton, and he has
made the same use of books as a bee does of flowers, she steals the
sweets from them, but does not injure them. To the observant reader many familiar quotations will naturally occur,
the absence of which may seem a singular omission in such a connection
and classification, but doubtless such excerpts will be found in the
"Treasury of Thought," a much more extended work by the same author, to
which this volume is properly a supplement. Of course care has been
taken not to repeat any portion of the previous collection. M. M. B.
PEARLS OF THOUGHT.
A. ~Ability.~ Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every
kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the
want of natural abilities. Schopenhaufer. Words must be fitted to a man's mouth, 'twas well said of the fellow
that was to make a speech for my Lord Mayor, when he desired to take
measure of his lordship's mouth. Selden. ~Absence.~ Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens,
but much extinguishes it... Continue reading book >>
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