Diamond Dust

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F. Pitman, 1865 - Aphorisms and apothegms - 192 pages

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Page 56 - It is easy' in the world to live after the world's opinion ; it is easy in solitude to live after our own ; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Page 176 - Genius, unexerted, is no more genius than a bushel of acorns is a forest of oaks." There may be epics in men's brains, just as there are oaks in acorns, but the tree and the bark must come out before we can measure them.
Page 116 - It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity...
Page 123 - Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths nor in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.
Page 5 - Be substantially great in thyself, and more than thou appearest unto others ; and let the world be deceived in thee, as they are in the lights of heaven. Hang early plummets upon the heels of pride, and let ambition have but an epicycle and narrow circuit in thee. Measure not thyself by thy morning shadow, but by the extent of thy grave : and reckon thyself above the earth, by the line thou must be contented with under it.
Page 108 - If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them...
Page 106 - NONE are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them ; such persons covet secrets, as a spendthrift covets money, for the purpose of circulation.
Page 151 - When the world has once got hold of a lie, it is astonishing how hard it is to get it out of the world. You beat it about the head, till it seems to have given up the ghost; and, lo ! the next day it is as healthy as ever.
Page 55 - God be thanked for books. They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levellers. They give to all, who will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our race.
Page 24 - Books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason ; — they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.

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