The Art of Employing Time to the Greatest Advantage, the True Source of Happiness

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H. Colburn, 1822 - 312 pages
 

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Page 57 - How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful, is man! How passing wonder He who made him such, Who centred in our make such strange extremes!
Page 293 - I determined to give a week's strict attention to each of the virtues successively. Thus, in the first week, my great guard was to avoid every the least offence against Temperance, leaving the other virtues to their ordinary chance, only marking every evening the faults of the day. Thus, if in the first week I could keep my first line, marked T, clear of spots, I...
Page 294 - Here will I hold. If there's a power above us (And that there is, all Nature cries aloud Through all her works), he must delight in virtue ; And that which he delights in must be happy.
Page 233 - ... pride, and four times as much by our folly ; and from these taxes the commissioners cannot ease or deliver us, by allowing an abatement. However, let us hearken to good advice, and something may be done for us ; God helps them that help themselves, as Poor Richard says.
Page 287 - It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time, and to conquer all that either natural inclination, custom or company, might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other.
Page 289 - ... 6. INDUSTRY. — Lose no time : be always employed in something useful : cut off all unnecessary actions. 7. SINCERITY. — Use no hurtful deceit : think innocently and justly ; and if you speak, speak accordingly. 8. JUSTICE. — Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are our duty. 9. MODERATION. — Avoid extremes : forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
Page 287 - In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking; while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition.
Page 293 - I could go thro' a Course compleat in Thirteen Weeks, and four Courses in a Year. And like him who having a Garden to weed, does not attempt to eradicate all the bad Herbs at once, which would exceed his Reach and his Strength, but works on one of the Beds at a time, and having...
Page 303 - And to this habit (after my character of integrity) I think it principally owing that I had early so much weight with my fellowcitizens when I proposed new institutions, or alterations in the old, and so much influence in public councils when I became a member ; for I was but a bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to much hesitation in my choice of words, hardly correct in language, and yet I generally carried my points.
Page 302 - I determined endeavouring to cure myself, if I could, of this vice or folly among the rest, and I added Humility to my list, giving an extensive meaning to the word. I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it.

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