Just because there’s fallen A snow-flake on his forehead, He must go and fancy ’Tis winter all the year! --_Aldrich._ How poor they are that have not patience.--_Shakespeare._ O God, animate us to cheerfulness! May we have a joyful sense of our blessings, learn to look on the bright circumstances of our lot, and maintain a perpetual contentedness.--_W. E. Channing._ Thy love shall chant its own beatitudes After its own self-working. A child’s kiss Set on the sighing lips shall make thee glad; A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich; A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong; Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense Of service which thou renderest. --_E. B. Browning._ “Then take this honey for the bitterest cup; There is no failure, save in giving up; No real fall so long as one still tries, For seeming setbacks make the strong man wise. There’s no defeat, in truth, save from within; Unless you’re beaten there, you’re bound to win.” A crowd of troubles passed him by As he with courage waited; He said, “Where do you troubles fly When you are thus belated?” “We go,” they say, “to those who mope, Who look on life dejected, Who weakly say ‘good-bye’ to hope, We go where we’re expected.” --_Francis J. Allison._ “Bring me men to match my mountains, Bring me men to match my plains; Men with empires in their purpose And new eras in their brains.” “Who will remember that skies are gray If he carries a happy heart all day?” A man is specially and divinely fortunate, not when his conditions are easy, but when they evoke the very best that is in him; when they provoke him to nobleness, and sting him to strength, when they clear his vision, kindle his enthusiasm and inspire his will.--_Hamilton Wright Mabie._ The deeper the feeling the less demonstrative will be the expression of it.--_Balzac._ The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. If he knows I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward.--_H. D. Thoreau._ “Live blameless; God is near.”--_Inscribed over the door of the house of Linnæus, at Hammerby, Sweden._ It is always good to know, if only in passing, charming human beings. It refreshes one like flowers and woods and clear brooks.--_George Eliot._ Do not discharge in haste the arrow which can never return: it is easy to destroy happiness; most difficult to restore it.--_Herder._ Disappointment should always be taken as a stimulant, and never viewed as a discouragement.--_C. B. Newcomb._ In all the crowded Universe There is but one stupendous word: Love. There is no tree that rears its crest, No fern or flower that cleaves the sod Nor bird that sings above its nest, But tries to speak this word of God. --_J. G. Holland._