Three Thousand Selected Quotations from Brilliant Writers/E
EARNESTNESS.
This world is given as a prize for the men in earnest; and that which is true of this world is truer still of the world to come.
Without earnestness no man is ever great, or does really great things. He may be the cleverest of men; he may be brilliant, entertaining, popular; but he will want weight. No soul-moving picture was ever painted that had not in it depth of shadow.
The best way for a man to get out of a lowly position is to be conspicuously effective in it.
Rouse to some work of high and holy love,
And thou an angel's happiness shalt know.
Earnestness is the devotion of all the faculties.
Child of earth and earthly sorrows—child of God and immortal hopes—arise from thy sadness, gird up the loins of thy mind, and with unfaltering energy press toward thy rest and reward on high.
Up, then, with speed, and work;
Fling ease and self away—
This is no time for thee to sleep—
Up, watch, and work, and pray!
My God, help me always resolutely to strive, and, through life and death, to force my way unto Thee.
EARTH.
This poor world, the object of so much insane attachment, we are about to leave; it is but misery, vanity, and folly; a phantom,—the very fashion of which "passeth away."
We are pilgrims, not settlers; this earth is our inn, not our home.
Build your nest upon no tree here, for ye see that God hath sold the forest to death.
Too low they build who build beneath the stars.
Our earthly possessions will indeed perish in the final wreck of all things; but let the ship perish, let all we have sink in the deep, if we may come "safe to land." From these storms and billows—these dangerous seas—these tempestuous voyages—may we all be brought at last, safe to heaven.
Transiency is stamped on all our possessions, occupations, and delights. We have the hunger for eternity in our souls, the thought of eternity in our hearts, the destination for eternity written on our inmost being, and the need to ally ourselves with eternity proclaimed by the most short-lived trifles of time. Either these things will be the blessing or the curse of our lives. Which do you mean that they shall be for you?
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this unsubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.
Let the mantle of worldly enjoyments hang loose about you, that it may be easily dropped when death comes to carry you into another world.
Do not wade far out into the dangerous sea of this world's comfort. Take the good that God provides you, but say of it, "It passeth away;" for, indeed, it is but a temporary supply for a temporary need. Never suffer your goods to become your God.
ENEMIES.
We pray for our enemies; we seek to persuade those who hate us without cause to live conformably to the goodly precepts of Christ, that they may become partakers with us of the joyful hope of blessings from God, the Lord of all.
A man's enemies have no power to harm him, if he is true to himself and loyal to God.
ENTHUSIASM.
Enthusiasm is the element of success in every thing. It is the light that leads, and the strength that lifts men on and up in the great struggles of scientific pursuits and of professional labor. It robs endurance of difficulty, and makes a pleasure of duty.
Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph of enthusiasm.
Those who have arrived at any very eminent degree of excellence in the practice of an art or profession have commonly been actuated by a species of enthusiasm in their pursuit of it. They have kept one object in view amidst all the vicissitudes of time and fortune.
In the whole range of human vision, nothing is more attractive than to see a young man full of promise and of hope, bending all his energies in the direction of truth and duty and God, his soul pervaded with the loftiest enthusiasm, and his life consecrated to the noblest ends. To be such a young man is to rival the noblest and best of men in heroic valor and Christian chivalry. Nay, to be such a young man is to be like Christ, the highest type, the most illustrious example of enthusiasm the world has ever seen.
Earnestly contend for the faith.
Be not afraid of enthusiasm; you need it; you can do nothing effectually without it.
Depend upon it, my younger brethren, the bright, self-sacrificing enthusiasms of early manhood are among the most precious things in the whole course of human life.
ENVY.
What a wretched and apostate state is this! To be offended with excellence, and to hate a man because we approve him! The condition of the envious man is the most emphatically miserable; he is not only incapable of rejoicing in another's merit or success, but lives in a world wherein all mankind are in a plot against his quiet, studying their own happiness and advantage.
It is the practice of the multitude to bark at eminent men, as little dogs do at strangers.
If we did but know how little some enjoy of the great things that they possess, there would not be much envy in the world.
ETERNAL LIFE.
This is eternal life; a life of everlasting love, showing itself in everlasting good works; and whosoever lives that life, he lives the life of God, and hath eternal life.
Yes, what I am to be everlastingly, I am growing to be now—now in this present time so little thought of, this time which the sun rises and sets in, and the clock strikes in, and I wake and sleep in.
Yes, I live in God, and shall eternally. It is His hand upholds me now; and death will be but an uplifting of me into His bosom.
What a sublime doctrine it is, that goodness cherished now is eternal life already entered on!
Every natural longing has its natural satisfaction. If we thirst, God has created liquid to gratify thirst. If we are susceptible of attachment, there are beings to gratify that love. If we thirst for life and love eternal, it is likely there are an eternal life and an eternal love to satisfy that craving.
It is only Jesus Christ who has thrown light on life and immortality through the gospel; and because He has done so, and has enabled us by His atoning death and intercession to make the most of this discovery, His gospel is, for all who will, a power of God unto salvation.
Eternal life does not depend upon our perfection; but because it does depend upon the grace of Christ and the love of the Spirit, that love shall prompt us to emulate perfection.
God has given to us eternal life; and this life is in His Son.
You reap what you sow—not something else, but that. An act of love makes the soul more loving. A deed of humbleness deepens humbleness. The thing reaped is the very thing sown, multiplied a hundred fold. You have sown a seed of life, you reap life everlasting.
Sow the seeds of life—humbleness, pure-heartedness, love; and in the long eternity which lies before the soul, every minutest grain will come up again with an increase of thirty, sixty, or a hundred fold.
Life everywhere is in vast and endless variety. So it is with life eternal, that gift of God, constituting, in its length and breadth and height and depth, the reward of the righteous. The penitent, dying thief is not going into heaven like the triumphant, dying Paul.
The more we can be raised above the petty vexations and pleasures of this world into the eternal life to come, the more shall we be prepared to enter into that eternal life whenever God shall please to call us hence.
Yes, my brethren, Christ will reign—must reign. O what a grand, glorious destiny awaits us who are saved! I stand in the presence of a scheme that I have neither power to comprehend nor to delineate. I tell you, when the end shall come, and God Almighty shall gather into His kingdom the souls and bodies of men saved upon the earth, they will reach the pinnacle of eternal life in all its splendor! Happy, happy will be the day when you and I, by God's grace, stand in full proportion on the granite platform of an eternal, happy immortality!
O, if we could tear aside the vail, and see for but one hour what it signifies to be a soul in the power of an endless life, what a revelation would it be!
ETERNITY.
Beyond the grave! As the vision rises how this side dwindles into nothing—a speck—a moment—and its glory and pomp shrink into the trinkets and baubles that amuse an infant for a day. Only those things, in the glory of this light, which lay hold of immortality, seem to have any value.
And can eternity belong to me,
Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?
Yes, from the mountain of eternity we shall look down, and behold the whole plain spread before us. Down here we get lost and confused in the devious valleys that run off from the roots of the hills everywhere, and we cannot make out where the streams are going, and what there is behind that low shoulder of the hill yonder. But when we get to the summit peak and look down, it will all shape itself into one consistent whole, and we shall see it all at once.
None can comprehend eternity but the eternal God.
Eternity invests every state, whether of bliss or of suffering, with a mysterious and awful importance, entirely its own. It gives that weight and moment to whatever it attaches, compared to which all interests that know a period fade into absolute insignificance.
The youth of the soul is everlasting, and eternity is youth.
Eternity has no gray hairs! The flowers fade, the heart withers, man grows old and dies, the world lies down in the sepulchre of ages, but time writes no wrinkles on the brow of Eternity.
The tree will not only lie as it falls, but it will fall as it leans. What is the inclination of my soul?
Eternity forbids thee to forget.
EVIL.
Many have puzzled themselves about the origin of evil; I observe that there is evil, and that there is a way to escape it, and with this I begin and end.
Nothing is to be esteemed evil which God and nature have fixed with eternal sanction.
The cardinal method with faults is to overgrow them and choke them out with virtues.
Nothing can work me damage except myself. The harm that I sustain I carry about with me, and never am a real sufferer but by my own fault.
The best antidote against evils of all kinds, against the evil thoughts that haunt the soul, against the needless perplexities which distract the conscience, is to keep hold of the good we have. Impure thoughts will not stand against pure words and prayers and deeds. Little doubts will not avail against great certainties. Fix your affections on things above, and then you will less and less be troubled by the cares, the temptations, the troubles of things on earth.
EVIL SPEAKING.
Keep clear of personalities in conversation. Talk of things, objects, thoughts. The smallest minds occupy themselves with persons. Do not needlessly report ill of others. As far as possible, dwell on the good side of human beings. There are family boards where a constant process of depreciating, assigning motives, and cutting up character, goes forward. They are not pleasant places. One who is healthy does not wish to dine at a dissecting table. There is evil enough in man, God knows. But it is not the mission of every young man and woman to detail and report it all. Keep the atmosphere as pure as possible, and fragrant with gentleness and charity.
If there is any person to whom you feel a dislike, that is the person of whom you ought never to speak.
Slander is a poison which extinguishes charity, both in the slanderer and in the persons who listen to it.
Never throw mud. You may miss your mark; but you must have dirty hands.
A doctor might as well stand with his saddle-bags and scatter their contents through the community as a man tell all that he knows about people indiscriminately. Medicine is to be administered carefully. It is the work of skill to properly administer it. It is to be given according to the constitution, temperament, and condition of the patient. And truth, being a medicine, instead of being thrown about heedlessly, and indiscriminately, and with brutal barbarity, is to be administered with care and discretion.
To persevere in one's duty, and to be silent is the best answer to calumny.
The man recovered of the bite.
The dog it was that died.
We cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a good life enables us to despise them.
And so the blasts of calumny, howl they ever so fiercely over the good man's head, contribute to his juster appreciation and to his wider fame. Preserve only a good conscience toward God, and a loving purpose toward your fellow men, and you need not wince nor tremble, though the pack of the spaniel-hearted hounds snarl at your heels.
Is the scrupulous attention I am paying to the government of my tongue at all proportioned to that tremendous truth revealed through St. James, that if I do not bridle my tongue, all my religion is vain?
EVOLUTION.
God has been always working, evolving, in His quiet power, from the seeming, the real, from the false, the true. Not for nothing blazed the martyr's fires—not for nothing toiled brave sufferers up successive hills of shame. God's purpose doth not languish. The torture and the trial of the past have been the stern ploughers in His service who never suspended their husbandry, and who have made long their furrows. Into those furrows the imperishable seed hath fallen. The heedless world hath trodden it in; tears and blood have watered it; the patient sun hath warmed and cheered it to its ripening; and it shall be ready soon.
The tree of human history, as it has grown from age to age, has been but the unfolding of a single germ—but the development of Christ and Him crucified.
As ages roll on there is doubtless a progression in human nature. The intellectual comes to rule the physical, and the moral claims to subordinate both. It is no longer strength of body that prevails, but strength of mind; while the law of God proclaims itself superior to both.
All true development tends ever to God. Its objective aim is the restoration by the second Adam of the Divine image forfeited by the first; and, incidentally, it transmutes grief into gladness and sighs into songs. But it is always a development in Christ, since it is only "in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God" that any of our race can come "unto a perfect man."
EXAMPLE.
The best teachers of humanity are the lives of great men.
We can do more good by being good than in any other way.
No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle, pure, and good, without the world being the better for it, without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness.
What you learn from bad habits and in bad society, you will never forget, and it will be a lasting pang to you. I tell you in all sincerity, not as in the excitement of speech, but as I would confess and have confessed before God, I would give my right hand if I could forget that which I have learned in bad society.
You cannot undo your acts. If you have depraved another's will, and injured another's soul, it may be in the grace of God that hereafter you will be personally accepted, and the consequence of your guilt inwardly done away; but your penitence cannot undo the evil you have done. The forgiveness of God—the blood of Christ itself—does not undo the past.
Though Manasseh repented, his son Amon followed in the footsteps of his father in his wickedness, but not in his righteousness. Children will imitate their fathers in their vices, seldom in their repentance.