Every fiction since Homer has taught friendship, patriotism, generosity, contempt of death. These are the highest virtues; and the fictions which taught them were therefore of the highest, though not of unmixed, utility. —

Sir J. Mackintosh.

I have often maintained that fiction may be much more instructive than real history. —

Rev. John Foster.

Fiction is of the essence of poetry as well as of painting: there is a resemblance in one of human bodies, things, and actions which are not real, and in the other of a true story by fiction. —

Dryden.

Fiction is no longer a mere amusement; but transcendent genius, accommodating itself to the character of the age, has seized upon this province of literature, and turned fiction from a toy into a mighty engine. —

Channing.

The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature; and we are not aware that the best histories are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy; but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected; but the great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind forever. —

Macaulay.

Those who delight in the study of human nature may improve in the knowledge of it, and in the profitable application of that knowledge, by the perusal of such fictions as those before us . —

Archbishop Whately.

Firmness.

– The greatest firmness is the greatest mercy. —

Longfellow.

Stand firm and immovable as an anvil when it is beaten upon. —

St. Ignatius.

Flattery.

– The art of flatterers is to take advantage of the foibles of the great, to foster their errors, and never to give advice which may annoy. —

Molière.

He does me double wrong that wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue. —

Shakespeare.

Flattery is often a traffic of mutual meanness, where, although both parties intend deception, neither are deceived, since words that cost little are exchanged for hopes that cost less. —

Colton.

The most dangerous of all flattery is the inferiority of those about us. —

Madame Swetchine.

Though flattery blossoms like friendship, yet there is a great difference in the fruit. —

Socrates.

The coin that is most current among mankind is flattery; the only benefit of which is that by hearing what we are not we may be instructed what we ought to be. —

Swift.

Blinded as they are to their true character by self-love, every man is his own first and chiefest flatterer, prepared, therefore, to welcome the flatterer from the outside, who only comes confirming the verdict of the flatterer within. —

Plutarch.

Flattery is an ensnaring quality, and leaves a very dangerous impression. It swells a man's imagination, entertains his fancy, and drives him to a doting upon his own person. —

Jeremy Collier.

Because all men are apt to flatter themselves, to entertain the addition of other men's praises is most perilous. —

Sir W. Raleigh.

Out of the pulpit, I trust none can accuse me of too much plainness of speech; but there, madame , I am not my own master, but must speak that which I am commanded by the King of kings, and dare not, on my soul, flatter any one on the face of all the earth —

John Knox.

Flowers.

– Luther always kept a flower in a glass on his writing-table; and when he was waging his great public controversy with Eckius he kept a flower in his hand. Lord Bacon has a beautiful passage about flowers. As to Shakspeare, he is a perfect Alpine valley, – he is full of flowers; they spring, and blossom, and wave in every cleft of his mind. Even Milton, cold, serene, and stately as he is, breaks forth into exquisite gushes of tenderness and fancy when he marshals the flowers. —

Mrs. Stowe.

Flowers, leaves, fruit, are the air-woven children of light. —

Moleschott.

Ye pretty daughters of the Earth and Sun. —

Sir Walter Raleigh.

I always think the flowers can see us and know what we are thinking about. —

George Eliot.

What a desolate place would be a world without a flower! It would be a face without a smile, – a feast without a welcome! Are not flowers the stars of the earth? and are not our stars the flowers of heaven? —

Mrs. Balfour.

What a pity flowers can utter no sound! A singing rose, a whispering violet, a murmuring honeysuckle, – oh, what a rare and exquisite miracle would these be! —

Beecher.

The bright mosaic, that with storied beauty, the floor of nature's temple tessellate. —

Horace Smith.

Fools.

– You pity a man who is lame or blind, but you never pity him for being a fool, which is often a much greater misfortune. —

Sydney Smith.

A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant fool. —

Molière.

Of all thieves fools are the worst; they rob you of time and temper. —

Goethe.

Fortune makes folly her peculiar care. —

Churchill.

It would be easier to endow a fool with intellect than to persuade him that he had none. —

Babinet.

There are many more fools in the world than there are knaves, otherwise the knaves could not exist. —

Bulwer-Lytton.

There are more fools than sages, and among sages there is more folly than wisdom. —

Chamfort.

Foppery.

– Foppery is never cured; it is the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, are never rectified; once a coxcomb and always a coxcomb. —

Johnson.

Foppery is the egotism of clothes. —

Victor Hugo.

Nature has sometimes made a fool; but a coxcomb is always of a man's own making. —

Addison.

Forbearance.

– The little I have seen of the world teaches me to look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not in anger. When I take the history of one poor heart that has sinned and suffered, and represent to myself the struggles and temptations it has passed through, the brief pulsations of joy, the feverish inquietude of hope and fear, the pressure of want, the desertion of friends, I would fain leave the erring soul of my fellow-man with Him from whose hand it came. —

Longfellow.

Forethought.

– Human foresight often leaves its proudest possessor only a choice of evils. —

Colton.

Whoever fails to turn aside the ills of life by prudent forethought, must submit to fulfill the course of destiny. —

Schiller.

In life, as in chess, forethought wins. —

Charles Buxton.

If a man take no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand. —

Confucius.

Those old stories of visions and dreams guiding men have their truth: we are saved by making the future present to ourselves. —

George Eliot.

Forgetfulness.

– There is nothing, no, nothing, innocent or good that dies and is forgotten: let us hold to that faith or none. An infant, a prattling child, dying in the cradle, will live again in the better thoughts of those that loved it, and play its part through them in the redeeming actions of the world, though its body be burnt to ashes, or drowned in the deep sea. Forgotten! Oh, if the deeds of human creatures could be traced to their source, how beautiful would even death appear! for how much charity, mercy, and purified affection would be seen to have their growth in dusty graves! —

Dickens.

Forgiveness.

– It is more easy to forgive the weak who have injured us, than the powerful whom we have injured. That conduct will be continued by our fears which commenced in our resentment. He that has gone so far as to cut the claws of the lion will not feel himself quite secure until he has also drawn his teeth. —

Colton.

They never pardon who commit the wrong. —

Dryden.

May I tell you why it seems to me a good thing for us to remember wrong that has been done us? That we may forgive it. —

Dickens.

'Tis easier for the generous to forgive than for offense to ask it. —

Thomson.

Life, that ever needs forgiveness, has, for its first duty, to forgive. —

Bulwer-Lytton.

It is easy enough to forgive your enemies, if you have not the means to harm them. —

Heinrich Heine.

More bounteous run rivers when the ice that locked their flow melts into their waters. And when fine natures relent, their kindness is swelled by the thaw. —

Bulwer-Lytton.

Fortitude.

– White men should exhibit the same insensibility to moral tortures that red men do to physical torments. —

Théophile Gautier.

There is a strength of quiet endurance as significant of courage as the most daring feats of prowess. —

Tuckerman.

Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues. —

Locke.

Fortune.

– Fortune loves only the young. —

Charles V.

Ill fortune never crushed that man whom good fortune deceived not. —

Ben Jonson.

It is often the easiest move that completes the game. Fortune is like the lady whom a lover carried off from all his rivals by putting an additional lace upon his liveries. —

Bulwer-Lytton.

The use we make of our fortune determines its sufficiency. A little is enough if used wisely, and too much if expended foolishly. —

Bovée.

The fortunate circumstances of our lives are generally found at last to be of our own producing. —

Goldsmith.

Fortune has been considered the guardian divinity of fools; and, on this score, she has been accused of blindness; but it should rather be adduced as a proof of her sagacity, when she helps those who certainly cannot help themselves. —

Colton.

Fortunes made in no time are like shirts made in no time; it's ten to one if they hang long together. —

Douglas Jerrold.

There is some help for all the defects of fortune; for if a man cannot attain to the length of his wishes, he may have his remedy by cutting of them shorter. —

Cowley.

Fortune, to show us her power in all things, and to abate our presumption, seeing she could not make fools wise, she has made them fortunate. —

Montaigne.

See'st thou not what various fortunes the Divinity makes man to pass through, changing and turning them from day to day? —

Euripides.

Fortune is but a synonymous word for nature and necessity. —

Bentley.

Foolish I deem him who, thinking that his state is blest, rejoices in security; for Fortune, like a man distempered in his senses, leaps now this way, now that, and no man is always fortunate. —

Euripides.

They say Fortune is a woman and capricious. But sometimes she is a good woman, and gives to those who merit. —

George Eliot.

If Fortune has fairly sat on a man, he takes it for granted that life consists in being sat upon. But to be coddled on Fortune's knee, and then have his ears boxed, that is aggravating. —

Charles Buxton.

Fraud.

– The more gross the fraud the more glibly will it go down, and the more greedily will it be swallowed; since folly will always find faith wherever impostors will find impudence. —

Colton.

Friendship.

– Friendship has steps which lead up to the throne of God, though all spirits come to the Infinite; only Love is satiable, and like Truth, admits of no three degrees of comparison; and a simple being fills the heart. —

Richter.

Very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. —

Bible.

Fix yourself upon the wealthy. In a word, take this for a golden rule through life: Never, never have a friend that is poorer than yourself. —

Douglas Jerrold.

Experience has taught me that the only friends we can call our own, who can have no change, are those over whom the grave has closed; the seal of death is the only seal of friendship. —

Byron.

What is commonly called friendship even is only a little more honor among rogues. —

Thoreau.

So great a happiness do I esteem it to be loved, that I fancy every blessing both from gods and men ready to descend spontaneously upon him who is loved. —

Xenophon.

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes. —

Thoreau.

The friendship between great men is rarely intimate or permanent. It is a Boswell that most appreciates a Johnson. Genius has no brother, no co-mate; the love it inspires is that of a pupil or a son. —

Bulwer-Lytton.

The firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity; as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame. —

Colton.

Never contract a friendship with a man that is not better than thyself. —

Confucius.

There are three friendships which are advantageous, and three which are injurious. Friendship with the upright, friendship with the sincere, and friendship with the man of much information, – these are advantageous. Friendship with the man of specious airs, friendship with the insinuatingly soft, friendship with the glib-tongued, – these are injurious. —

Confucius.

Friendship survives death better than absence. —

J. Petit Senn.

This communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects, for it redoubleth joys and cutteth griefs in half: for there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more; and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less. —

Bacon.

Sweet is the memory of distant friends! Like the mellow rays of the declining sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart. —

Washington Irving.

It may be worth noticing as a curious circumstance, when persons past forty before they were at all acquainted form together a very close intimacy of friendship. For grafts of

old

wood to

take

, there must be a wonderful congeniality between the trees. —

Whately.

An old friend is not always the person whom it is easiest to make a confidant of. —

George Eliot.

Fun.

– There is nothing like fun, is there? I haven't any myself, and I do like it in others. Oh, we need it, – we need all the counter-weights we can muster to balance the sad relations of life. God has made sunny spots in the heart; why should we exclude the light from them? —

Haliburton.

Futurity.

– The best preparation for the future is the present well seen to, the last duty done. —

George MacDonald.

We always live prospectively, never retrospectively, and there is no abiding moment. —

Jacobi.

Another life, if it were not better than this, would be less a promise than a threat. —

J. Petit Senn.

The spirit of man, which God inspired, cannot together perish with this corporeal clod. —

Milton.

Gambling.

– Gaming is a kind of tacit confession that the company engaged therein do, in general, exceed the bounds of their respective fortunes, and therefore they cast lots to determine upon whom the ruin shall at present fall, that the rest may be saved a little longer. —

Blackstone.

A mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good. —

Johnson.

Gems.

– How very beautiful these gems are! It is strange how deeply colors seem to penetrate one, like scent. I suppose that is the reason why gems are used as spiritual emblems in the Revelation of St. John. They look like fragments of heaven. —

George Eliot.

Generosity.

– A friend to everybody is often a friend to nobody, or else in his simplicity he robs his family to help strangers, and becomes brother to a beggar. There is wisdom in generosity as in everything else. —

Spurgeon.

Generosity is the accompaniment of high birth; pity and gratitude are its attendants. —

Corneille.

It is good to be unselfish and generous; but don't carry that too far. It will not do to give yourself to be melted down for the benefit of the tallow-trade; you must know where to find yourself. —

George Eliot.

If cruelty has its expiations and its remorses, generosity has its chances and its turns of good fortune; as if Providence reserved them for fitting occasions, that noble hearts may not be discouraged. —

Lamartine.

Genius.

– Genius is rarely found without some mixture of eccentricity, as the strength of spirit is proved by the bubbles on its surface. —

Mrs. Balfour.

All great men are in some degree inspired. —

Cicero.

This is the highest miracle of genius: that things which are not should be as though they were; that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another. —

Macaulay.

The path of genius is not less obstructed with disappointment than that of ambition. —

Voltaire.

One misfortune of extraordinary geniuses is that their very friends are more apt to admire than love them. —

Pope.

Genius speaks only to genius. —

Stanislaus.

A nation does wisely, if not well, in starving her men of genius. Fatten them, and they are done for. —

Charles Buxton.

Genius has no brother. —

Bulwer-Lytton.

Genius never grows old; young to-day, mature yesterday, vigorous to-morrow: always immortal. It is peculiar to no sex or condition, and is the divine gift to woman no less than to man. —

Juan Lewis.

Gentleman.

– A gentleman's first characteristic is that fineness of structure in the body which renders it capable of the most delicate sensation; and of structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most delicate sympathies; one may say, simply, "fineness of nature." This is of course compatible with heroic bodily strength and mental firmness; in fact, heroic strength is not conceivable without such delicacy. —

Ruskin.

It is a grand old name, that of gentleman, and has been recognized as a rank and power in all stages of society. To possess this character is a dignity of itself, commanding the instinctive homage of every generous mind, and those who will not bow to titular rank will yet do homage to the gentleman. His qualities depend not upon fashion or manners, but upon moral worth; not on personal possessions, but on personal qualities. The Psalmist briefly describes him as one "that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart." —

Samuel Smiles.

There is no man that can teach us to be gentlemen better than Joseph Addison. —

Thackeray.

Gentleness.

– Fearless gentleness is the most beautiful of feminine attractions, born of modesty and love. —

Mrs. Balfour.

Gentleness is far more successful in all its enterprises than violence; indeed, violence generally frustrates its own purpose, while gentleness scarcely ever fails. —

Locke.

Sweet speaking oft a currish heart reclaims. —

Sidney.

The golden beams of truth and the silken cords of love, twisted together, will draw men on with a sweet violence, whether they will or not. —

Cudworth.

Gifts.

– One must be poor to know the luxury of giving! —

George Eliot.

Riches, understanding, beauty, are fair gifts of God. —

Luther.

And with them words of so sweet breath composed as made the things more rich. —

Shakespeare.

How can that gift leave a trace which has left no void? —

Madame Swetchine.

The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity. —

Mrs. Balfour.

Examples are few of men ruined by giving. Men are heroes in spending, very cravens in what they give. —

Bovée.

When a friend asks, there is no to-morrow. —

George Herbert.

Strange designs lurk under a gift. "Give the horse to his Holiness," said the cardinal. "I cannot serve you!" —

Zimmermann.

Glory.

– To a father who loves his children victory has no charms. When the heart speaks, glory itself is an illusion. —

Napoleon.

Those who start for human glory, like the mettled hounds of Actæon, must pursue the game not only where there is a path, but where there is none. They must be able to simulate and dissimulate, to leap and to creep; to conquer the earth like Cæsar, or to fall down and kiss it like Brutus; to throw their sword like Brennus into the trembling scale; or, like Nelson, to snatch the laurels from the doubtful hand of Victory, while she is hesitating where to bestow them. —

Colton.

Obloquy is a necessary ingredient in the composition of all true glory. —

Burke.

The best kind of glory is that which is reflected from honesty, – such as was the glory of Cato and Aristides; but it was harmful to them both, and is seldom beneficial to any man whilst he lives; what it is to him after his death I cannot say, because I love not philosophy merely notional and conjectural, and no man who has made the experiment has been so kind as to come back to inform us. —

Cowley.

Nothing is so expensive as glory. —

Sydney Smith.

The love of glory can only create a hero, the contempt of it creates a wise man. —

Talleyrand.

Gluttony.

– Whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame. —

Bible.

The kitchen is their shrine, the cook their priest, the table their altar, and their belly their god. —

Buck.

God.

– He that doth the ravens feed, yea, providentially caters for the sparrow, be comfort to my age! —

Shakespeare.

To escape from evil, we must be made as far as possible like God; and this resemblance consists in becoming just and holy and wise. —

Plato.

Whenever I think of God I can only conceive him as a Being infinitely great and infinitely good. This last quality of the divine nature inspires me with such confidence and joy that I could have written even a

miserere

tempo allegro

. —

Haydn.

All flows out from the Deity, and all must be absorbed in him again. —

Zoroaster.

It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such an opinion as is unworthy of him; for the one is unbelief, and the other is contumely; and certainly superstition is the reproach of the Deity. —

Bacon.

I have seen two miracles lately. I looked up, and saw the clouds above me in the noontide; and they looked like the sea that was hanging over me, and I could see no cord on which they were suspended, and yet they never fell. And then when the noontide had gone, and the midnight came, I looked again, and there was the dome of heaven, and it was spangled with stars, and I could see no pillars that held up the skies, and yet they never fell. Now He that holds the stars up and moves the clouds in their course can do all things, and I trust Him in the sight of these miracles. —

Luther.

This avenging God, rancorous torturer who burns his creatures in a slow fire! When they tell me that God made himself a man, I prefer to recognize a man who made himself a god. —

Alfred de Musset.

This is one of the names which we give to that eternal, infinite, and incomprehensible being, the Creator of all things, who preserves and governs everything by his almighty power and wisdom, and is the only object of our worship. —

Cruden.

Gold.

– Midas longed for gold. He got gold so that whatever he touched became gold, and he, with his long ears, was little the better for it. —

Carlyle.

A mask of gold hides all deformities. —

Dekker.

There are two metals, one of which is omnipotent in the cabinet, and the other in the camp, – gold and iron. He that knows how to apply them both may indeed attain the highest station, but he must know something more to keep it. —

Colton.

Thou true magnetic pole, to which all hearts point duly north, like trembling needles! —

Byron.

Judges and senates have been bought for gold. —

Pope.

Gold is, in its last analysis, the sweat of the poor, and the blood of the brave. —

Joseph Napoleon.

Gold all is not that doth golden seem. —

Spenser.

There is no place so high that an ass laden with gold cannot reach it. —

Rojas.

Good.

– When what is good comes of age and is likely to live, there is reason for rejoicing. —

George Eliot.

How indestructibly the good grows, and propagates itself, even among the weedy entanglements of evil! —

Carlyle.

Good, the more communicated, more abundant grows. —

Milton.

Whatever mitigates the woes or increases the happiness of others is a just criterion of goodness; and whatever injures society at large, or any individual in it, is a criterion of iniquity. One should not quarrel with a dog without a reason sufficient to vindicate one through all the courts of morality. —

Goldsmith.

The true and good resemble gold. Gold seldom appears obvious and solid, but it pervades invisibly the bodies that contain it. —

Jacobi.

He is good that does good to others. If he suffers for the good he does, he is better still; and if he suffers from them to whom he did good, he is arrived to that height of goodness that nothing but an increase of his sufferings can add to it; if it proves his death, his virtue is at its summit, – it is heroism complete. —

Bruyère.

That is good which doth good. —

Venning.

The Pythagoreans make good to be certain and finite, and evil infinite and uncertain. There are a thousand ways to miss the white; there is only one to hit it. —

Montaigne.

Good-humor.

– Honest good-humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no jovial companionship equal to that where the jokes are rather small and the laughter abundant. —

Washington Irving.

Affability, mildness, tenderness, and a word which I would fain bring back to its original signification of virtue, – I mean good-nature, – are of daily use: they are the bread of mankind and staff of life. —

Dryden.

This portable quality of good-humor seasons all the parts and occurrences we meet with, in such a manner that there are no moments lost, but they all pass with so much satisfaction that the heaviest of loads (when it is a load), that of time, is never felt by us. —

Steele.

Gayety is to good-humor as perfumes to vegetable fragrance: the one overpowers weak spirits, the other recreates and revives them. —

Johnson.

That inexhaustible good-nature, which is the most precious gift of Heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather. —

Washington Irving.

Goodness.

– Nothing rarer than real goodness. —

Rochefoucauld.

True goodness is like the glow-worm in this, that it shines most when no eyes except those of Heaven are upon it. —

Archdeacon Hare.

Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame. —

Pope.

Goodness thinks no ill where no ill seems. —

Milton.

Gossip.

– A long-tongued babbling gossip. —

Shakespeare.

He sits at home until he has accumulated an insupportable load of ennui, and then he sallies forth to distribute it amongst his acquaintance. —

Colton.

As to people saying a few idle words about us, we must not mind that, any more than the old church-steeple minds the rooks cawing about it. —

George Eliot.

Government.

– The proper function of a government is to make it easy for people to do good and difficult for them to do evil. —

Gladstone.

Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters. —

Burke.

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. —

Burke.

Government owes its birth to the necessity of preventing and repressing the injuries which the associated individuals had to fear from one another. It is the sentinel who watches, in order that the common laborer be not disturbed. —

Abbé Raynal.

But I say to you, and to our whole country, and to all the crowned heads and aristocratic powers and feudal systems that exist, that it is to self-government, the great principle of popular representation and administration, the system that lets in all to participate in the counsels that are to assign the good or evil to all, that we may owe what we are and what we hope to be. —

Daniel Webster.

The culminating point of administration is to know well how much power, great or small, we ought to use in all circumstances. —

Montesquieu.

Of governments, that of the mob is the most sanguinary, that of soldiers the most expensive, and that of civilians the most vexatious. —

Colton.

Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest, and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. —

Thomas Paine.

Grace.

– As amber attracts a straw, so does beauty admiration, which only lasts while the warmth continues; but virtue, wisdom, goodness, and real worth, like the loadstone, never lose their power. These are the true graces, which, as Homer feigns, are linked and tied hand in hand, because it is by their influence that human hearts are so firmly united to each other. —

Burton.

The king-becoming graces – devotion, patience, courage, fortitude. —

Shakespeare.

Know you not, master, to some kind of men their graces serve them but as enemies? No more do yours; your virtues, gentle master, are sanctified and holy traitors to you. Oh, what a world is this, when what is comely envenoms him that bears it! —

Shakespeare.

How inimitably graceful children are before they learn to dance! —

Coleridge.

That word, grace, in an ungracious mouth, is but profane. —

Shakespeare.

Grace comes as oft clad in the dusky robe of desolation as in white attire. —

Sir J. Beaumont.

Gratitude.

– Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people. —

Johnson.

God is pleased with no music below so much as the thanksgiving songs of relieved widows and supported orphans; of rejoicing, comforted, and thankful persons. �