They [dogs] never talk about themselves but listen to you while you talk about yourself, and keep up an appearance of being interested in the conversation.
If there is one person I do despise more than another, it is the man who does not think exactly the same on all topics as I do.
The less taste a person has in dress, the more obstinate he always seems to be.
I often arrive at quite sensible ideas and judgements, on the spur of the moment. It is when I stop to think that I become foolish.
If you are foolish enough to be contented, don't show it, but grumble with the rest; and if you can do with a little, ask for a great deal. Because if you don't you won't get any.
Life works upon a compensating balance, and the happiness we gain in one direction we lose in another.
There are many families where the whole interest of life is centered upon the dog.
One we discover how to appreciate the timeless values in our daily experiences, we can enjoy the best things in life.
We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can't do without.
That is just the way with Memory; nothing that she brings to us is complete. She is a willful child; all her toys are broken. I remember tumbling into a huge dust-hole when a very small boy, but I have not the faintest recollection of ever getting out again; and if memory were all we had to trust to, I should be compelled to believe I was there still.
A boy's muscles move quicker than his thoughts.
Fox-terriers are born with about four times as much original sin in them as other dogs.
The advantage of literature over life is that its characters are clearly defined, and act consistently.
But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand.
We are so bound together that no man can labor for himself alone. Each blow he strikes in his own behalf helps to mold the universe.
Ambition is only vanity ennobled.
Truth and fact are old-fashioned and out-of-date, my friends, fit only for the dull and vulgar to live by. Appearance, not reality, is what the clever dog grasps at in these clever days. We spurn the dull-brown solid earth; we build our lives and homes in the fair-seeming rainbow-land of shadow and chimera.
It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach wills so. It dictates to us our emotions, our passions.... We are but the veriest, sorriest slaves of our stomach. Reach not after morality and righteousness, my friends; watch vigilantly your stomach, and diet it with care and judgment. Then virtue and contentment will come and reign within your heart, unsought by any effort of your own; and you will be a good citizen, a loving husband, and a tender father—a noble, pious man.
Oh, give me back the good old days of fifty years ago,“ has been the cry ever since Adam's fifty-first birthday.
(Speaking of the Cistercian monks) A grim fraternity, passing grim lives in that sweet spot, that God had made so bright! Strange that Nature's voices all around them--the soft singing of the waters, the wisperings of the river grass, the music of the rushing wind--should not have taught them a truer meaning of life than this. They listened there, through the long days, in silence, waiting for a voice from heaven; and all day long and through the solemn night it spoke to them in myriad tones, and they heard it not.
Life will always remain a gamble, with prizes sometimes for the imprudent, and blanks so often to the wise.
If a man stopped me in the street and demanded of me my watch, I should refuse to give it to him. If he threatened to take it by force, I feel I should, though not a fighting man, do my best to protect it. If, on the other hand, he should assert his intention of trying to obtain it by means of an action in any court of law, I should take it out of my pocket and hand it to him, and think I had got off cheaply.
Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They form a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted against, and they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent, audience for the active spirits of the age to play before. I have not a word to say against contented people so long as they keep quiet.
In the church is a memorial to Mrs. Sarah Hill, who bequeathed 1 pound annually, to be divided at Easter, between two boys and two girls who "have never been undutiful to their parents; who have never been known to swear or to tell untruths, to steal, or to break windows." Fancy giving up all that for five shillings a year! It is not worth it!
There may be a better land where bicycle saddles are made of rainbow, stuffed with cloud; in this world the simplest thing is to get used to something hard.
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