No company is far preferable to bad, because we are more apt to catch the vices of others than their virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.-Colton.

There are like to be short graces where the devil plays host.—Lamb.

Bad company is like a nail driven into a post, which, after the first and second blow, may be drawn out with little difficulty; but being once driven up to the head, the pincers cannot take hold to draw it out, but which can only be done by the destruction of the wood.-St. Augustine.

It is best to be with those in time that we hope to be with in eternity.-Fuller.

Even high dome and the expansive interior of a cathedral have a sensible effect upon manners. I have heard that stiff people fose some of their awkwardness under high ceilings. Emerson.

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How we delight to build our recollections upon some basis of reality, a place, a country, a local habitation! how the events of life, as we look back upon them, have grown into the wellremembered background of the places where they fell upon us! Here is some sunny garden or summer lane, beautified and canonized forever with the flood of a great joy; and here are dim and silent places, -rooms always shadowed and dark to us, whatever they may be to others, - where distress or death came once, and since then dwells forevermore.-Washington Irving.

I have only to take up this, or this, to flood my brain with memories.-Madame Deluzy.

There is no man who has not some interesting associations with particular scenes, or airs, or books, and who does not feel their beauty or sublimity enhanced to him by such connections. Sir A. Alison.

The narrow sectarian cannot read astronomy with impunity. The creeds of his church shrivel like dried leaves at the door of the observatory.-Emerson.

An undevout astronomer is mad.-Young. ATHEISM.

There is no being eloquent for atheism. In that exhausted receiver the mind cannot use its wings, the clearest proof that it is out of its element.-Hare.

Settle it, therefore, in your minds, as a maxim never to be effaced or forgotten, that atheism is an inhuman, bloody, ferocious system, equally hostile to every useful restraint, and to every virtuous affection; that leaving nothing above us to excite awe, nor round us to awaken tenderness, it wages war with heaven and earth: its first object is to dethrone God, its next to destroy man.-Robert Hall.

No atheist, as such, can be a true friend, an affectionate relation, or a loyal subject.—

Bentley.

Whoever considers the study of anatomy, I believe, will never be an atheist; the frame of man's body, and coherence of his parts, being so strange and paradoxical, that I hold it to be the greatest miracle of nature.-Lord Herbert.

The great atheists are, indeed, the hypocrites, which are ever handling holy things, but without feeling; so as they must need be cauterized in the end.-Bacon.

The owlet atheism, sailing on obscene wings across the noon, drops his blue-fringed lids, and shuts them close, and, hooting at the glorious sun in heaven, cries out, "Where is it?"

Coleridge. A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.-Bacon.

I should like to see a man sober in his habits, moderate, chaste, just in his dealings, assert that there is no God; he would speak at least without interested motives; but such a man is not to be found.-Bruyère.

The three great apostles of practical atheism, that make converts without persecuting, and retain them without preaching, are wealth, health, and power.-Colton.

Thank Heaven, the female heart is unten. antable by atheism.-Horace Mann.

Atheism is the result of ignorance and pride, of strong sense and feeble reasons, of good eating and ill-living. It is the plague of society, the corrupter of manners, and the underminer of property.-Jeremy Collier.

By night an atheist half believes a God.—

Young.

Atheism is a system which can communicate neither warmth nor illumination, except from those fagots which your mistaken zeal has lighted up for its destruction.-Colton.

An atheist's laugh is a poor exchange for Deity offended.-Burns.

Supposing all the great points of atheism were formed into a kind of creed, I would fain ask whether it would not require an infinite greater measure of faith than any set of articles which they so violently oppose.-Addison.

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt; they have done abominable works.—Bible.

The footprint of the savage traced in the sand is sufficient to attest the presence of man to the atheist who will not recognize God, whose hand is impressed upon the entire universe.—Hugh Miller.

There are few men so obstinate in their atheism whom a pressing danger will not reduce to an acknowledgment of the divine power. Plato. ATTENTION.

Attention makes the genius; all learning, fancy, and science depend upon it. Newton traced back his discoveries to its unwearied employment. It builds bridges, opens new worlds, and heals diseases; without it taste is useless, and the beauties of literature are unobserved.-Willmott.

One would fancy that the zealots in atheism would be exempt from the single fault which seems to grow out of the imprudent fervor of religion. But so it is, that irreligion is propagated with as much fierceness and contention, wrath and indignation, as if the safety of mankind depended upon it.-Addison.

The statements of atheists ought to be perfectly clear of doubt. Now it is not perfectly clear that the soul is material.-Pascal

Manners more reserved and harsh, less complaisant and frank, only serve to give a false idea of piety to the people of the world, who are already but too much prejudiced against it, and who believe that we cannot serve God but by a melancholy and austere life. Let us go on our way in the simplicity of our hearts, with the peace and joy that are the fruits of the Holy Spirit.-Fenelon.

AUTHORITY.

Nothing is more gratifying to the mind of man than power or dominion.-Addison.

Professed authors who overestimate their vocation are too full of themselves to be agreeable companions. The demands of their egotism are inveterate. They seem to be incapable of that abandon which is the requisite condition of social pleasure; and bent upon winning a tribute of admiration, or some hint which they can turn to the account of pen-craft, there is seldom in their company any of the delightful unconsciousness which harmonizes a circle.Tuckerman. Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well. — Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham.

There is no author so poor who cannot be of some service, if only for a witness of his time.-Claude Fauchet.

The success of many works is found in the relation between the mediocrity of the authors' ideas and that of the ideas of the public.

Chamfort.

Authors are the vanguard in the march of mind, the intellectual backwoodsmen, reclaiming from the idle wilderness new territories for the thought and activity of their happier brethren.-Carlyle.

It is quite as much of a trade to make a book as to make a clock. It requires more than mere genius to be an author.-Bruyère.

Our writings are so many dishes, our readers guests, our books like beauty; that which one admires another rejects; so are we approved as men's fancies are inclined.-Burton.

One hates an author that is all author; fellows in foolscap uniform turned up with ink.Byron.

Whoever has set his whole heart upon bookmaking had better be sought in his works, for it is only the lees of his cup of life which he offers, in person, to the warm lips of his fellows. Tuckerman.

The motives and purposes of authors are not always so pure and high as, in the enthusiasm of youth, we sometimes imagine.-Longfellow.

The wonderful fortune of some writers deludes and leads to misery a great number of young people. It cannot be too often repeated that it is dangerous to enter upon a career of letters without some other means of living. An illustrious author has said in these times, "Literature must not be leant on as upon a crutch; it is little more than a stick.-J. Petit, Senn.

The familiar writer is apt to be his own satirist. Out of his own mouth is he judged.Whipple.

The faults of a brilliant writer are never dangerous on the long run; a thousand people read his work who would read no other; inquiry is directed to each of his doctrines; it is soon discovered what is sound and what is false; the sound become maxims, and the false beacons.-Bulwer Lytton.

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, and familiar things new.-Thackeray.

Those authors into whose hands nature has placed a magic wand, with which they no sooner touch us than we forget the unhappiness in life, than the darkness leaves our soul, and we are reconciled to existence, should be placed among the benefactors of the human race.

I believe that there is much less difference between the author and his works than is currently supposed; it is usually in the physical appearance of the writer, his manners, his mien, his exterior,- that he falls short of the ideal a reasonable man forms of him - rarely in his mind.-Bulwer Lytton.

The authors who affect contempt for a name in the world put their names to the books which they invite the world to read.-Cicero.

Dr. Johnson has said that the chief glory of a country arises from its authors. But then that is only as they are oracles of wisdom; unless they teach virtue, they are more worthy of a halter than of the laurel.-Jane Porter.

Nothing is so beneficial to a young author as the advice of a man whose judgment stands constitutionally at the freezing-point.Douglas Jerrold.

That an author's work is the mirror of his mind is a position that has led to very false conclusions. If Satan himself were to write a book it would be in praise of virtue, because the good would purchase it for use, and the bad for ostentation.-Colton.

Never write anything that does not give you great pleasure; emotion is easily propagated from the writer to the reader.-Joubert.

Certain I am that every author who has written a book with earnest forethought and fondly cherished designs will bear testimony to the fact that much which he meant to convey has never been guessed at in any review of his work; and many a delicate beauty of thought, on which he principally valued himself, remains, like the statue of Isis, an image of truth from which no hand lifts the veil.-Bulwer Lytton.

Of all unfortunate men one of the unhappiest is a middling author endowed with too lively a sensibility for criticism.-Disraeli.

To write well is to think well, to feel well, and to render well; it is to possess at once intellect, soul, and taste.-Buffon.

We may observe in humorous authors that the faults they chiefly ridicule have often a likeness in themselves. Cervantes had much of the knight-errant in him; Sir George Etherege was unconsciously the Fopling Flutter of his own satire; Goldsmith was the same hero to chambermaids, and coward to ladies that he has immortalized in his charming comedy; and the antiquarian frivolities of Jonathan Oldbuck had their resemblance in Jonathan Oldbuck's creator.-Bulwer Lytton.

He who purposes to be an author should first be a student.-Dryden.

Never write on a subject without having first read yourself full on it; and never read on a subject till you have thought yourself hungry on it.-Richter.

Friend, howsoever thou camest by this book, I will assure thee thou wert least in my thoughts when I writ it.-Bunyan.

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.

Clear writers, like clear fountains, do not seem so deep as they are: the turbid look thể most profound.-Landor.

O thou who art able to write a book, which once in the two centuries or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not him whom they name city-builder, and inexpressibly pity him whom they name conqueror or city-burner.

Carlyle.

So idle are dull readers, and so industrious are dull authors, that puffed nonsense bids fair to blow unpuffed sense wholly out of the field.— Colton.

The triumphs of the warrior are bounded by the narrow theatre of his own age; but those of a Scott or a Shakespeare will be renewed with greater and greater lustre in ages yet unborn, when the victorious chieftain shall be forgotten, or shall live only in the song of the minstrel and the page of the chronicler.-Prescott,

The little mind who loves itself, will write and think with the vulgar; but the great mind will be bravely eccentric, and scorn the beaten road, from universal benevolence.-Goldsmith.

There is nothing more dreadful to an author than neglect; compared with which, reproach, hatred, and opposition are names of happiness; yet this worst, this meanest fate, every one who dares to write has reason to fear.Johnson.

Every fool describes in these bright days his wondrous journey to some foreign court, and spawns his quarto, and demands your praise.-Byron.

From the moment one sets up for an author, one must be treated as ceremoniously, that is as unfaithfully," as a king's favorite or a king."Pope.

I have observed that vulgar readers almost always lose their veneration for the writings of the genius with whom they have had personal intercourse.-Sir Egerton Brydges.

There is a natural disposition with us to judge an author's personal character by the character of his works. We find it difficult to understand the common antithesis of a good writer and a bad man.— -Whipple.

Satire lies respecting literary men during their life, and eulogy does so after their death.Voltaire.

This is the magnanimity of authorship, when a writer having a topic presented to him, fruitful of beauties for common minds, waives his privilege, and trusts to the judicious few for understanding the reason of his abstinence.Lamb.

Would a writer know how to behave himself with relation to posterity? Let him consider in old books what he finds that he is glad to know, and what omissions he most laments.-Swift.

Be very careful how you tell an author he is droll. Ten to one he will hate you; and if he does, be sure he can do you a mischief, and very probably will. Say you cried over his romance or his verses, and he will love you and send you a copy. You can laugh over that as much as you like, — in private.-Holmes.