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SIMMONS, Charles Quotes
(1798-1856), American clergyman and litterateur
Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.
Agitation, under pretence of reform, with a view to overturn revealed truth and order, is the worst kind of mischief.
The agrarian, like the communist, would bring all above him down to his own level, or raise himself to theirs, but is not anxious to bring those below him up to himself.
Those who reason only by analogies, rarely reason by logic, and are generally slaves to imagination.
Sensible men show their sense by saying much in few words.—If noble actions are the substance of life, good sayings are its ornament and guide.
Speech is the body; thought, the soul, and suitable action the life of eloquence.
Exaggerated language employed on trivial occasions spoils that simplicity and singleness of mind so necessary to a right judgment of ourselves and others.
Those who exaggerate in their statements belittle themselves.
Uncalled for excuses are practical confessions.
Never live in hope or expectation, while your arms are folded. God helps those that help themselves. Providence smiles on those who put their shoulders to the wheel that propels to wealth and happiness.
It is only the constant exertion and working of our sensitive, intellectual, moral, and physical machinery that keeps us from rusting, and so becoming useless.
Many things lawful are not expedient, but nothing can be truly expedient which is unlawful or sinful.
The vices, and follies, and sins of men, cost more than everything else; and the useless and abominable expenditures of nations are a weight on their prosperity, and crush the spirits, benight the minds, and well-nigh enslave the bodies of their people.
He who feasts every day, feasts no day.
To pamper the body is a miserable expression of kindness and courtesy; the most sumptuous repast is "the feast of reason and the flow of soul "—an intellectual and moral treat.
A fickle memory is bad; a fickle course of conduct is worse; but a fickle heart and purposes, worst of all.
To bear injuries, or annoying and vexatious events, meekly, patiently, prayerfully, and with self-control, is more than taking a city.
There is a noble forgetfulness—that which does not remember injuries.
For the most part fraud in the end secures for its companions repentance and shame.
The best throw with the dice is to throw them away.
We are indebted to Christianity for gentleness, especially toward women.
Our thanks should be as fervent for mercies received, as our petitions for mercies sought.
Gratitude to God should be as habitual as the reception of mercies is constant, as ardent as the number of them is great, as devout as the riches of divine grace and goodness is incomprehensible.
Malice can always find a mark to shoot at, and a pretence to fire.
When the heart is won, the undertanding is easily convinced.
Fear nothing so much as sin, and your moral heroism is complete.
True honesty takes into account the claims of God as well as those of man; it renders to God the things that are God's, as well as to man the things that are man's.
Immortality is the greatness of our being; the scene for attaining the fullness and perfection of our existence.
Great men are very apt to have great faults; and the faults appear the greater by their contrast with their excellencies.
Much of the wisdom of one age, is the folly of the next.
He that knows the world will not be bashful; he who knows himself will not be impudent.
He that takes time to think and consider will act more wisely than he that acts hastily and on impulse.
A conscience enlightened, and yet a heart erratic, make mankind a bundle of marvelous incongruities and inconsistencies.
It is a great evil, as well as a misfortune, to be unable to utter a prompt and decided "No."
Sensual indulgencies are costly at both ends.
Live only for today, and you ruin tomorrow.
Infidelity, is seated in the heart; its origin is not in the head.—It is the wish that Christianity might not be true, that leads to an argument to prove it.
The injuries we do, and those we suffer, are seldom weighed in the same balance.
It is an alarming state to be past feeling, especially as to religious truth and duty.
He who begins many things finishes nothing.
The great business of the moral teacher is, to make the best moral impressions and excite the best feelings, by giving the clearest, fullest and most accurate instruction as to truth and duty.
Integrity is the first step to true greatness.—Men love to praise, but are slow to practice it.—To maintain it in high places costs self-denial; in all places it is liable to opposition, but its end is glorious, and the universe will yet do it homage.
Intellect, talent, and genius, like murder, "will out."
Good intentions are very mortal and perishable things; like very mellow and choice fruit they are difficult to keep.
The failures of life come from resting in good intentions, which are in vain unless carried out in wise action.
Who can refute a sneer?—It is independent of proof, reason, argument, or sense, and may as well be used against facts and truth, as against falsehood.
Joking often loses a friend, and never gains an enemy.
The kingdom of God is the only absolute monarchy that is free from despotism.
There is nothing seems so like an honest man as an artful knave.
Accurate knowledge is the basis of correct opinions; the want of it makes the opinions of most people of little value.
Liberty consists in the right which God has given us, of doing, getting, and enjoying all the good in our power, according to the laws of God, of the State, and of our conscience.—True liberty, therefore, can never interfere with the duties, rights, and interests of others.
Impure thoughts waken impure feelings, lead to impure expressions, and beget impure actions, and these lead to imbecility both of body and mind, and to the ruin of all that is noble and pure in character.
Lewdness is a very broad way to death, ornamented with artful flowers, and begins to allure and seduce travelers at an early age.—Parental watchfulness, guarding them from early childhood, should be diligent to keep them from this way to ruin.
A person's character is but half formed till after wedlock.
In choosing a wife, a nurse, or a school-teacher, look to the breed.—There is as much blood in men as in horses.
Precepts and maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones at hand, do more toward a wise and happy life, than whole volumes of cautions that we know not where to find.
Meditation is the nurse of thought, and thought the food for meditation.
Method facilitates every kind of business, and by making it easy makes it agreeable, and also successful.
"Three things," says Luther, "make a Divine—prayer, meditation, and trials."—These make a Christian; but a Christian minister needs three more, talent, application, and acquirements.
I have heard many great orators, said Louis XIV to Massilon, and have been highly pleased with them; but whenever I hear you, I go away displeased with myself.—This is the highest encomium that could be bestowed on a preacher.
The smallest number, with God and truth on their side, are weightier than thousands.
Wealth is a very dangerous inheritance, unless the inheritor is trained to active benevolence.
The morose man takes both narrow and selfish views of life and the world; he is either envious of the happiness of others, or denies its existence.
If you would reform the world from its errors and vices, begin by enlisting the mothers.
Newspapers should be news-carriers, not news-makers.—There is truth and entertainment enough to print, without fiction or falsehood, and to publish the latter is to betray the former.
The oblivions of time will be the reminiscences of eternity.
Blindness of heart beclouds the understanding, conscience, memory, and indeed all the intellectual powers, and throws a mischievous obscurity over theological, moral, and even classical science.
Party-spirit is a lying, vociferous, reckless spirit, a stranger to candor, willing to pervert truth, and to use underhand and dishonest means, so it may gain the victory.
The resource of bigotry and intolerance, when convicted of error, is always the same; silenced by argument, it endeavors to silence by persecution, in old times by fire and sword, in modern days by the tongue.
Give me a positive character, with a positive faith, positive opinions and positive actions, though frequently in error, rather than a negative character, with a doubting faith, wavering opinions, undecided actions and faintness of heart. Something is better than nothing.
Promptitude is not only a duty, but is also a part of good manners; it is favorable to fortune, reputation, influence, and usefulness; a little attention and energy will form the habit, so as to make it easy and delightful.
Public opinion, or public sentiment, is able to sustain, or to pull down any law of the commonwealth.
Wickedness, when properly punished, is disgraceful only to the offender; unpunished, it is disgraceful to the whole community.
The very worst use to which you can put a man, says Wilkes, is to hang him; but the hanging is not to make the man useful, but to punish his crime and protect society.
Quackery has no such friend as credulity.
Good humor is the best shield against the darts of satirical raillery.
Some act first, think afterward, and then repent forever.
Imprint the beauties of authors upon your imagination, and their good morals upon your heart.
To recreate strength, rest. To recreate mind, repose. To recreate cheerfulness, hope in God, or change the object of attention to one more elevated and worthy of thought.
The true reformer will not only hate evil, but will earnestly endeavor to fill its place with good.
Dare not usurp thy maker's place by giving way to wrath—wrath that goes forth in vengeance; "vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord."
Reverence is the very first element of religion; it cannot but be felt by everyone who has right views of the divine greatness and holiness, and of his own character in the sight of God.
Both mind and heart, when given up to reverie and dreaminess, have a thousand avenues open for the entrance of evil.
Ridicule is the first and last argument of fools.
No man has a right to do as he pleases, except when he pleases to do right.
Arrows of satire, feathered with wit, and wielded with sense, fly home to their mark.
Self-approbation, when founded in truth and a good conscience, is a source of some of the purest joys known to man.
A wise man knows his own ignorance; a fool thinks he knows everything.
There are different kinds of self-love. As an instinct, it is desirable and important. As a modification of true benevolence, it is commendable. But as an idolatrous affection, it is censurable.
A person who despises or undervalues, or neglects the opposite sex, will soon need humanizing. What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.
As to all that we have and are, we are but stewards of the Most High God.—On all our possessions, on our time, and talents, and influence, and property, he has written, "Occupy for me, and till I shall come."—To obey his instructions and serve him faithfully, is the true test of obedience and discipleship.
Patience, says another, is an excellent remedy for grief, but submission to the hand of him that sends it is a far better.
He who accustoms himself to buy superfluities, may be obliged, ere long, to sell his necessities.
Endorsing character is hazardous; endorsing credit, presumptuous.
Discreet and well-founded suspicion avoids a multitude of evils, which credulity brings upon itself. We ought always to be suspicious enough to avoid all improper and forbidden trust in man, or in our own hearts.
A quick and sound judgment, good common sense, kind feeling, and an instinctive perception of character, in these are the elements of what is called tact, which has so much to do with acceptability and success in life.
Great talkers are like leaky vessels; everything runs out of them.
The thoughtless tattling tongue often murders the peace, and blights the good name of others, as surely and wickedly as if inflamed by malice.
The secret of successful teaching is to teach accurately, thoroughly, and earnestly; this will impart interest to instructions, and awaken attention to them. All sciences, in their nature or connections, are replete with interest, if teachers properly illustrate and impress their truths in a pleasing, earnest manner.
Johnson well says, "He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything." Life is made up of little things. It is very rarely that an occasion is offered for doing a great deal at once. True greatness consists in being great in little things.
Deny first-truths, and reasoning is void. If an opponent denies them, we can only add: "Be not as the horse and the mule, who have no understanding."
Fundamental truths should be both clear and familiar truths; self-evident truths are a solid foundation for reasoning.
"I seem," says Hume, "affrighted and confounded with the solitude in which I am placed by my philosophy. When I look abroad, on every side I see dispute, contradiction, distraction. When I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. Where am I? or what am I? From what cause do I derive my existence? To what condition shall I return? I am confounded with questions. I begin to fancy myself in a most deplorable condition, environed with darkness on every side." —What a confession of the wretchedness of unbelief!
What Shakespeare says of doubts is equally true of vacillation and uncertainty of purpose, "that they make us lose the good we oft might win by fearjng to attempt."'
Dare to do your duty always; this is the height of true valor.
The weakest spot with mankind is where they fancy themselves most wise.
Those who obtain riches by labor, care, and watching, know their value. Those who impart them to sustain and extend knowledge, virtue, and religion, know their use. Those who lose them by accident or fraud know their vanity. And those who experience the difficulties and dangers of preserving them know their perplexities.
There is no security against the perils of wealth except in becoming rich toward God.
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