Piano Pilot

*Great men are the gifts of kind heaven to our poor world; instruments by which the Highest One works out His designs; light-radiators to give guidance and blessing to the travelers of time. Moses Harvey.

*Grief, like a tree, has tears for its fruit. Bulwer-Lytton.

*She grieves sincerely who grieves unseen. Martial.

*Well has it been said that there is no grief like the grief which does not speak. Longfellow.

*We hear the rain fall, but not the snow. Bitter grief is loud, calm grief is silent. Auerbach.

*It is dangerous to abandon one’s self to the luxury of grief; it deprives one of courage, and even of the wish for recovery.

*Nothing speaks our grief so well as to speak nothing. Crashaw.

*If our griefs were

seen written on our brow, how many would be pitied who are now envied! Metastasio.

*Great grief makes sacred those upon whom its hand is laid. Joy may elevate, ambition glorify, but sorrow alone can consecrate. Horace Greeley.

*Grief, which disposes gentle natures to retirement, to inaction, and to meditation, only makes restless spirits more restless. Macaulay.

*All the joys of earth will not assuage our thirst for happiness; while a single grief suffices to shroud life in a sombre veil, and smite it with nothingness at all points. Mme. Swetchine.

*What is grief? It is an obscure labyrinth into which God leads man, that he may remember his faults and abjure them, that he may appreciate the calm which virtue gives. Leopold Scheffer.

*Griefs

are like the beings that endure them–the little ones are the most clamorous and noisy; those of older growth and greater magnitude are generally tranquil, and sometimes silent. Chatfield.

*He that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down on his little handful of thorns. Jeremy Taylor.

*I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, it is all barren. Sterne.

*When a man is full of the Holy Ghost, he is the very last man to be complaining of other people. D.L. Moody.

*There is an unfortunate disposition in a man to attend much more to the

faults of his companions which offend him, than to their perfections which please him. Greville. *Those who are moved by a genuine desire to do good have little time for murmuring or complaint. Robert West.

*Habit is a cable. We weave a thread of it every day, and at last we cannot break it. Horace Mann.

*The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt till they are too strong to be broken. Johnson.

*To learn new habits is everything, for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a tissue of habits. Amiel.

*Habits, soft and pliant at first, are like some coral stones, which are easily cut when first quarried, but soon become hard as adamant. Spurgeon.

*That

beneficent harness of routine, which enables silly men to live respectably and happy men to live calmly. George Eliot.

*The law of the harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a habit, and you reap a character; sow a character, and you reap a destiny. G.D. Boardman.

*It must be conceded that, after affection, habit has its peculiar value. It is a little stream which flows softly, but freshens everything along its course. Madame Swetchine.

*The will that yields the first time with some reluctance does so the second time with less hesitation, and the third time with none at all, until presently the habit is adopted. Henry Giles.

*The habit of virtue cannot

be formed in a closet. Habits are formed by acts of reason in a persevering struggle through temptation. Gilpin.

*To be perpetually longing and impatiently desirous of anything, so that a man cannot abstain from it, is to lose a man’s liberty…Jeremy Taylor.

*I will govern my life and my thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and to read the other; for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God (who is the searcher of our hearts) all our privacies are open? Seneca.

*Like flakes of snow that fall unperceived upon the earth the seemingly unimportant events of life succeed one another. As the snow gathers together, so are our habits

formed. No single flake that is added to the pile produces a sensible change; no single action creates, however it may exhibit, a man’s character. Jeremy Taylor.

*And it is a singular truth that, though a man may shake off national habits, accent, manner of thinking, style of dress,–though he may become perfectly identified with another nation, and speak its language well, perhaps better than his own,–yet never can he succeed in changing his handwriting to a foreign style. Disraeli.

*If we look back upon the usual course of our feelings, we shall find that we are more influenced by the frequent recurrence of objects than by their weight and importance; and that habit has more force in forming our characters than

our opinions have. The mind naturally takes its tone and complexion from what it habitually contemplates. Robert Hall.

*Happiness: The soul’s calm sunshine. Pope.

*Happiness is the natural flower of duty. Phillips Brooks.

*Happiness is a rare cosmetic. G.J.W. Melville.

*Happiness is where we find it, but rarely where we seek it. J. Petit-Senn.

*We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier. Landor.

*Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse. It we attempt to steal a glimpse of its features it disappears. Alexander Smith.

*Beware what earth calls happiness; beware all joys but joys that never can expire. Young.

*Happiness is not the end of duty, it is a constituent of it. It is in it and of it; not an equivalent,

but an element. Henry Giles.

*Happiness is always the inaccessible castle which sinks in ruin when we set foot on it. Arsene Houssaye.

*The sunshine of life is made up of very little beams, that are bright all the time. Aiken.

*He who has no wish to be happier is the happiest of men. W.R. Alger.

*Happiness is a sunbeam, which may pass through a thousand bosoms without losing a particle of its original ray. Sir P. Sidney. *The happiness of the tender heart is increased by what it can take away of the wretchedness of others. J. Petit-Senn.

*Happiness and virtue react upon each other–the best are not the happiest, but the happiest are usually the best. Lytton.

*Hunting after happiness is like hunting after

a lost sheep in the wilderness–when you find it, the chances are that it is a skeleton. H.W. Shaw.

*A sound mind in a sound body is a short but full description of a happy state in this world. Locke.

*The body is like a piano, and happiness is like music. It is needful to have the instrument in good order. Beecher.

*That state of life is most happy where superfluities are not required and necessaries are not wanting. Plutarch.

*Wouldst you ever roam abroad? See, what is good lies by thy side. Only learn to catch happiness, for happiness is ever by you. Goethe.

*The common course of things is in favor of happiness; happiness is the rule, misery the exception. Were the order

reversed, our attention would be called to examples of health and competency, instead of disease and want. Paley.

*True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise. It arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self, and, in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select friends. Addison.

*When we are not too anxious about happiness and unhappiness, but devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing performance of duty, then happiness comes of itself–nay, even springs from the midst of a life of troubles and anxieties and privation. Humboldt.

*Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and

is never attained. Hawthorne.

*There is a gentle element, and man may breathe it with a calm, unruffled soul, and drink its living waters, till his heart is pure; and this is human happiness. Willis.

*To be happy is not only to be freed from the pains and diseases of the body, but from anxiety and vexation of spirit; not only to enjoy the pleasures of sense, but peace of conscience and tranquility of mind. Tillotson.

*Without strong affection, and humanity of heart, and gratitude to that Being whose code is mercy, and whose great attribute is benevolence to all things that breathe, true happiness can never be attained. Dickens.

*I have lived to know that the great secret of human happiness is this:

Never suffer your energies to stagnate. The old adage of “too many irons in the fire” conveys an untruth–you cannot have too many –poker, tongs–and all, keep them going. Adam Clark.

*The haunts of happiness are varied and rather unaccountable, but I have more often seen her among little children, and home firesides, and in country houses, than anywhere else…Sydney Smith.

*The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions–the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of a playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of pleasant thought and feeling. Coleridge.

*God loves to see His creatures happy; our lawful delight is His; they know not God that think to please

Him with making themselves miserable. Bishop Hall.

*The happiness of life consists, like the day, not in single flashes of light, but in one continuous mild serenity. The most beautiful period of the heart’s existence is in this calm, equable light, even although it be only moonshine or twilight. Now the mind alone can obtain for us this heavenly cheerfulness and peace. Richter.

*Happiness no more depends on station, rank, or any local or adventitious circumstances in individuals than a man’s life is connected with the color of his garment. The mind is the seat of happiness, and to make it so in reality, nothing is necessary but the balm of gospel peace, and the saving knowledge of the Son of God.

Anonymous.

*Harvest: Nature’s bank-dividends. Haliburton.

*The husbandman is close to the heart of nature, lives in touch with God, and so, more than many, shares His deep content, His tranquility, and builds up a character of hardy independence, of kindly considerateness for His servants, and of helpful ministry to the poor…Believe in God, believe in nature, and do your duty; and the farm life, with its regular round of duties, its simple loves, its high thoughts, its wise economies, its immediate touch of earth, its charming gossip, its pleasant human interests, and its many windows through which we may catch sight of the face of God, will yield us all we need for a simply, manly, godly life…Do not despise your work.

Do it well. Be a whole man to it while you are at it. Israel’s great men did not think it beneath them to inspect their flocks. The patriarchs were shepherds and cultivators of the soil. Job was a shepherd. Moses was a shepherd. David looked well after his flocks. Gideon was accosted by God when he was threshing wheat. A great and noble life does not depend on rank or place, but on purpose, faith, love, character and service. John Clifford, D.D.

*The year’s food only is grown in the year. Each year the world depends for subsistence upon something freshly given it which it cannot provide for itself. As the harvest approaches the wolf is at the door. Nothing

stands between us and starvation but the harvest covenant of the ever-faithful God: “Seed-time and harvest shall not cease.” Away, then, with our fancied independence!…We pray in the line of the harvest covenant when we say, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Illustrated Christian Weekly.

*The life of agricultural industry has better guaranties than the crown of kings…In its simple and steady processes it reveals the Father’s care for His children. John Clifford, D.D.

*It is the peculiarity of all the cereals that they are never found growing wild… Presbyterian Witness.

*Health and cheerfulness mutually beget each other. Addison.

*A hale cobbler is a better man than a sick king. Bickerstaff.

*Reason’s whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, lie in three words–health, peace,

and competence. Pope.

*The root of sanctity is sanity. A man must be healthy before he can be holy. We bathe first, and then perfume. Mme. Swetchine.

*Refuse to be ill. Never tell people you are ill; never own it to yourself. Illness is one of those things which a man should resist on principle at the onset. Lytton.

*He who overlooks a healthy spot for the site of his house is mad and ought to be handed over to the care of his relations and friends. Varro.

*The morbid states of health, the irritableness of disposition, arising from unstrung nerves, the impatience, the crossness, the fault-finding of men, who, full of morbid influences, are unhappy themselves, and throw the cloud of their troubles

like a dark shadow upon others, teach us what eminent duty there is in health. Beecher.

*Home-keeping hearts are happiest. Longfellow.

*Be persuaded that your only treasures are those which you carry in your heart. Demophilus. 937. What sad faces one always sees in the asylums for orphans! It is more fatal to neglect the heart than the head. Theodore Parker.

*If you should take the human heart and listen to it, it would be like listening to a sea-shell; you would hear in it the hollow murmur of the infinite ocean to which it belongs, from which it draws its profoundest inspiration, and for which it yearns. Chapin.

*Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal. Moore.

*In a better world we will find

our young years and our old friends. J. Petit-Senn.

*If I am allowed to give a metaphorical allusion to the future state of the blessed, I should imagine it by the orange-grove in that sheltered glen on which the sun is now beginning to shine, and of which the trees are, at the same time, loaded with sweet golden fruit and balmy silver flowers. Such objects may well portray a state in which hope and fruition become one eternal feeling. Sir Humphry Davy.

*Troops of heroes undistinguished die. Addison.

*We can all be heroes in our virtues, in our homes, in our lives. James Ellis.

*Each man is a hero and an oracle to somebody, and to that person whatever he says has an

enhanced value. Emerson.

*The gentle breath of peace would leave him on the surface neglected and unmoved. It is only the tempest that lifts him from his place. Junius.

*The heroes of literary history have been no less remarkable for what they have suffered than for what they have achieved. Johnson.

*Nobody, they say, is a hero to his valet. Of course; for a man must be a hero to understand a hero. The valet, I dare say, has great respect for some person of his own stamp. Goethe.