Pearls of Thought
Public-domain ebook
Pearls of Thought
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In: Essays, Letters & Speeches
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #26604.
About this book
Pearls of Thought is a compact anthology of maxims assembled by Maturin M. Ballou, who describes his work as a “natural result of the compiler’s habit of transferring and classifying significant passages from known authors.” The book opens with a modest preface that explains its method: the author has drawn terse sayings from a wide range of sources, ancient classics, contemporary writers, and foreign tongues, then arranged them under headings such as Ability, Absence, and Adversity. Each entry is introduced with a brief heading, followed by a quotation and a short commentary, allowing the reader to glimpse the original thinker’s intent while seeing how Ballou’s own reflections intertwine with the excerpts. The collection is positioned as a supplement to his larger Treasury of Thought, promising fresh selections without repeating material from the earlier volume.
The voice is that of a 19th‑century literary compiler, earnest and slightly didactic, whose style blends concise paraphrase with occasional flourish. The language reflects the period’s reverence for moral instruction and the habit of citing authorities like Shakespeare, Johnson, and Goethe. Readers who enjoy wandering through a garden of proverbial wisdom, students of philosophy, lovers of quotation, or anyone who appreciates a measured, reflective tone, will find this volume a satisfying companion for contemplation and for sparking further research.
The opening · free to read
JOUBERT.
PREFACE.
A verse may find him whom a sermon flies.
GEORGE HERBERT.
The volume herewith presented is the natural result of the compiler's habit of transferring and classifying significant passages from known authors. No special course of reading has been pursued, the thoughts being culled from foreign and native tongues--from the moss-grown tomes of ancient literature and the verdant fields of to-day. The terse periods of others, appropriately quoted, become in a degree our own; and a just estimation is very nearly allied to originality, or, as the author of Vanity Fair tells us, "Next to excellence is the appreciation of it." Without indorsing the idea of a modern authority that the multiplicity of facts and writings is becoming so great that every available book must soon be composed of extracts only, still it is believed that such a volume as "Pearls of Thought" will serve the interest of general literature, and especially stimulate the mind of the thoughtful reader to further research. The pleasant duty of the compiler has been to follow the expressive idea of Colton, and he has made the same use of books as a bee does of flowers,--she steals the sweets from them, but does not injure them.
To the observant reader many familiar quotations will naturally occur, the absence of which may seem a singular omission in such a connection and classification, but doubtless such excerpts will be found in the "Treasury of Thought," a much more extended work by the same author, to which this volume is properly a supplement. Of course care has been taken not to repeat any portion of the previous collection.
M. M. B.
PEARLS OF THOUGHT.
A.
~Ability.~--Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.--_Schopenhaufer._
Words must be fitted to a man's mouth,--'twas well said of the fellow that was to make a speech for my Lord Mayor, when he desired to take measure of his lordship's mouth.--_Selden._
~Absence.~--Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens, but much extinguishes it.--_Hannah More._
Absence from those we love is self from self! A deadly banishment.--_Shakespeare._
Short retirement urges sweet return.--_Milton._
Whatever is genuine in social relations endures despite of time, error, absence, and destiny; and that which has no inherent vitality had better die at once. A great poet has truly declared that constancy is no virtue, but a fact.--_Tuckerman._
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