Nature is the armory of genius. Cities serve it poorly, books and colleges at second hand; the eye craves the spectacle of the horizon, of mountain, ocean, river and plain, the clouds and stars; actual contact with the elements, sympathy with the seasons as they rise and roll.--_Alcott._
Nothing is rich but the inexhaustible wealth of Nature. She shows us only surfaces, but she is million fathoms deep.--_Emerson._
Nature is an absolute and jealous divinity. Lovely, eloquent, and instructive in all her inequalities and contrasts, she hides her face, and remains mute to those who, by attempting to re-fashion her, profane her.--_Mazzini._
~Necessity.~--Necessity is a bad recommendation to favors of any kind, which as seldom fall to those who really want them, as to those who really deserve them.--_Fielding._
It is observed in the golden verses of Pythagoras, that power is never far from necessity. The vigor of the human mind quickly appears when there is no longer any place for doubt and hesitation, when diffidence is absorbed in the sense of danger, or overwhelmed by some resistless pa.s.sion.--_Johnson._
When G.o.d would educate a man He compels him to learn bitter lessons. He sends him to school to the necessities rather than to the graces, that, by knowing all suffering, he may know also the eternal consolation.--_Celia Burleigh._
Necessity may render a doubtful act innocent, but it cannot make it praiseworthy.--_Joubert._
What was once to me mere matter of the fancy now has grown the vast necessity of heart and life.--_Tennyson._
~Neglect.~--He that thinks he can afford to be negligent is not far from being poor.--_Johnson._
~News.~--Give to a gracious message an host of tongues; but let ill tidings tell themselves when they be felt.--_Shakespeare._
~Newspapers.~--In these times we fight for ideas, and newspapers are our fortresses.--_Heinrich Heine._
Before this century shall run out journalism will be the whole press.
Mankind will write their book day by day, hour by hour, page by page.
Thought will spread abroad with the rapidity of light; instantly conceived, instantly written, instantly understood at the extremities of the earth; it will spread from Pole to Pole, suddenly burning with the fervor of soul which made it burst forth; it will be the reign of the human mind in all its plenitude; it will not have time to ripen, to acc.u.mulate in the form of a book; the book will arrive too late; the only book possible from day to day is a newspaper.--_Lamartine._
Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.--_Napoleon._
They preach to the people daily, weekly; admonishing kings themselves; advising peace or war with an authority which only the first Reformers and a long-past cla.s.s of Popes were possessed of; inflicting moral censure; imparting moral encouragement, consolation, edification; in all ways diligently "administering the discipline of the Church." It may be said, too, that in private disposition the new preachers somewhat resemble the mendicant Friars of old times; outwardly, full of holy zeal; inwardly, not without stratagem, and hunger for terrestrial things.--_Carlyle._
These papers of the day have uses more adequate to the purposes of common life than more pompous and durable volumes.--_Johnson._
~Night.~--Wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.--_Mrs. Barbauld._
The day is done, and the darkness falls from the wings of night.--_Longfellow._
Sable-vested night, eldest of things.--_Milton._
O mysterious night! Thou art not silent: many tongues hast thou.--_Joanna Baillie._
Night, when deep sleep falleth on men.--_Bible._
~No.~--No is a surly, honest fellow, speaks his mind rough and round at once.--_Walter Scott._
Learn to say No! and it will be of more use to you than to be able to read Latin.--_Spurgeon._
The woman who really wishes to refuse contents herself with saying No.
She who explains wants to be convinced.--_Alfred de Musset._
~n.o.bility.~--Virtue is the first t.i.tle of n.o.bility.--_Moliere._
~Nonsense.~--Nonsense is to sense as shade to light--it heightens effect.--_Fred. Saunders._
~Nothing.~--There is nothing useless to men of sense; clever people turn everything to account.--_Fontaine._
Variety of mere nothings gives more pleasure than uniformity of something.--_Richter._
~Novels.~--Novels are sweet. All people with healthy literary appet.i.tes love them--almost all women; a vast number of clever, hard-headed men,--Judges, bishops, chancellors, mathematicians,--are notorious novel readers, as well as young boys and sweet girls, and their kind, tender mothers.--_Thackeray._
We must have books for recreation and entertainment, as well as books for instruction and for business; the former are agreeable, the latter useful, and the human mind requires both. The canon law and the codes of Justinian shall have due honor and reign at the universities, but Homer and Virgil need not therefore be banished. We will cultivate the olive and the vine, but without eradicating the myrtle and the rose.--_Balzac._
A little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious, and low.--_Swift._
~Novelty.~--The enormous influence of novelty--the way in which it quickens observation, sharpens sensation, and exalts sentiment--is not half enough taken note of by us, and is to me a very sorrowful matter.
And yet, if we try to obtain perpetual change, change itself will become monotonous; and then we are reduced to that old despair, "If water chokes, what will you drink after it?" The two points of practical wisdom in the matter are, first, to be content with as little novelty as possible at a time; and secondly, to preserve, as as much possible, the sources of novelty.--_Ruskin._
Novelty is the great-parent of pleasure.--_South._
O.
~Obedience.~--To obey is better than sacrifice.--_Bible._
How will you find good? It is not a thing of choice, it is a river that flows from the foot of the Invisible Throne, and flows by the path of obedience.--_George Eliot._
~Oblivion.~--Oblivion is the flower that grows best on graves.--_George Sand._
The grave of human misery.--_Alfred de Musset._
~Observation.~--It is the close observation of little things which is the secret of success in business, in art, in science, and in every pursuit in life. Human knowledge is but an acc.u.mulation of small facts, made by successive generations of men,--the little bits of knowledge and experience carefully treasured up by them growing at length into a mighty pyramid.--_Samuel Smiles._
Observation made in the cloister, or in the desert, will generally be as obscure as the one, and as barren as the other; but he that would paint with his pencil must study originals, and not be over fearful of a little dust.--_Colton._
Each one sees what he carries in his heart.--_Goethe._
~Occupation.~--The want of occupation is no less the plague of society than of solitude.--_Rousseau._
The busy have no time for tears.--_Byron._
One of the princ.i.p.al occupations of man is to divine woman.--_Lacretelle._
~Ocean.~--Wave rolling after wave in torrent rapture.--_Milton._
It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies, or like a cradled creature lies.--_Barry Cornwall._
The visitation of the winds, who take the ruffian billows by the top, curling their monstrous heads.--_Shakespeare._
~Office.~--The grat.i.tude of place-expectants is a lively sense of future favors.--_Walpole._