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Show The noblest gift of God ever bestowed upon man was the liberty to work out his own salvation. The seeds of repentance are sown in youth by pleasure, but the harvest is reaped in old age by pain. The slightest sorrow for sin is sufficient if it produce amendment, the greatest is insufficient if it does not. We should have all our communications with men, as in the presence of men. To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, and the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the execution. A modest person seldom fails to gain the good will of those he conversed with, because nobody envies a man who does not appear to be pleased with himself. The law of harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act and you reap a habit, sew a habit and you reap a character; sow a character, and you reap a destiny. When you have found a man who thinks it his duty to tell you of your faults you have also found a man who never thinks it his duty to tell you of your virtues. If a man thinks it a small matter, or of mean concernment to bridle his tongues, he is much mistaken, for it is a point to be silent when occasion requires and better than to speak, though never so well. Chesterfield says: If you would avoid the accusation of pedantry on one hand, or the suspicion of ignorance on the other, abstain from learned ostentation. Speak the language of the company you are in. Never seem wiser or more learned than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket; and do not pull it out ?? to show that you have one. |