BURGH, James Quotes
(1714-1775), Scottish author
If you would not have affliction visit you twice, listen at once to what it teaches.
No state can be more destitute than that of a person, who, when the delights of sense forsake him, has no pleasures of the mind.
Poverty is not always of the nature of an affliction or judgment, but is rather merely a state of life, appointed by God for the proper trial and exercise of the virtues of contentment, patience, and resignation; and for one man to murmur against God, because he possesses not the riches he has given to another, is "the wrath that killeth the foolish man, and the envy that slayeth the silly one."
In prosperity prepare for a change; in adversity hope for one.
As nothing is more provoking to some tempers than raillery, a prudent person will not always be satirically witty where he can, but only where he may without offence. For he will consider that the finest stroke of raillery is but a witticism; and that there is hardly any person so mean, whose good will is not preferable to the pleasure of a horse-laugh.
Before you think of retiring from the world, be sure you are fit for retirement; in order to which it is necessary that you have a mind so composed by prudence, reason, and religion, that it may bear being looked into; a turn to rural life, and a love for study.
|
