Three Thousand Selected Quotations from Brilliant Writers/K
KINDNESS.
I expect to pass through this life but once. If therefore there be any kindnesses I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow beings, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindnesses and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart, and secure comfort.
The art of saying appropriate words in a kindly way is one that never goes out of fashion, never ceases to please, and is within the reach of the humblest.
If you consider that the constant tenor of the gospel precepts is to promote love, peace, and good-will amongst men, you will not doubt that the cultivation of an amiable disposition is a great part of your religious duty; since nothing leads more directly to the breach of charity, and to the injury and molestation of our fellow-creatures than the indulgence of an ill-temper.
Kindness has converted more sinners than either zeal, eloquence, or learning.
Every one of us knows how painful it is to be called by malicious names, to have his character undermined by false insinuations, to be overreached in a bargain, to be neglected by those who rise in life, to be thrust on one side by those who have stronger wills and stouter hearts. Every one knows, also, the pleasure of receiving a kind look, a warm greeting, a hand held out to help in distress, a difficulty solved, a higher hope revealed for this world or the next. By that pain and by that pleasure let us judge what we should do to others.
He had a face like a benediction.
KNOWLEDGE.
The end of learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love Him and imitate Him.
—Milton.
Real knowledge, like every thing else of the highest value, is not to be obtained easily. It must be worked for,—studied for,—thought for,—and, more than all, it must be prayed for.
To understand at all what life means, one must begin with Christian belief. And I think knowledge may be sorrow with a man unless he loves.
As revelation is the great strengthener of reason, the march of mind which leaves the Bible in the rear, is an advance, like that of our first parents in Paradise, towards knowledge, but, at the same time, towards death.
Knowledge is folly unless grace guide it.
An uneducated population may be degraded: a population educated, but not in righteousness, will be ungovernable. The one may be slaves, the other must be tyrants.
Every increase of knowledge may possibly render depravity more depraved, as well as it may increase the strength of virtue. It is in itself only power; and its value depends on its application.
Learning, without Christ, is among the most dangerous attainments the human race has ever secured and one of the most unsatisfying.
If thou knewest the whole Bible by heart, and the sayings of all the philosophers, what would it profit thee without the love of God and without grace?
What a man knows should find its expression in what he does. The value of superior knowledge is chiefly in that it leads to a performing manhood.
Let me always remember that it is not the amount of religious knowledge which I have, but the amount which I use, that determines my religious position and character.
The essential difference between that knowledge which is, and that which is not conclusive evidence of Christian character, lies in this: the object of the one is the agreement of the several parts of a theological proposition; the object of the other is moral beauty, the intrinsic loveliness of God and Divine things. The sinner sees and hates; the saint sees and loves.
There is oftentimes a great deal of knowledge where there is but little wisdom to improve that knowledge. It is not the most knowing Christian but the most wise Christian that sees, avoids, and escapes Satan's snares. Knowledge without wisdom is like mettle in a blind horse, which is often an occasion of the rider's fall.
How empty learning, and how vain is art,
But as it mends the life, and guides the heart!
—Young.
One pound of learning requires ten pounds of common sense to apply it.
The wish falls often warm upon my heart that I may learn nothing here that I cannot continue in the other world; that I may do nothing here but deeds that will bear fruit in heaven.
Much learning shows how little mortals know;
Much wealth, how little worldlings can enjoy.
—Young.
As all true virtue, wherever found, is a ray of the life of the All-Holy; so all solid knowledge, all really accurate thought, descends from the Eternal Reason, and ought, when we apprehend it, to guide us upwards to Him.
Young converts are sometimes so taken up with religious feeling and doing as to forget the importance even, in reference to that of knowing. "Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."
Real knowledge never promoted either turbulence or unbelief; but its progress is the forerunner of liberality and enlightened toleration.
O Lord, let me be blessed with the knowledge of what Thou hast revealed; let me content myself to adore Thy Divine wisdom in what Thou hast not revealed.