ODDS AND-ENDS
Reading edition
Man's greatest enemy is himself.
Never chide fate while will sleeps.
The prophet must know the past.
Foul words kill the sweetest flowers.
Repentant tears are the soul's pearls.
Common customs are not nature's laws.
No man blesses the calm until after the storm.
Much study makes a full head and an empty stomach.
You cannot fan the ashes of a dead love into a flame.
Innocence, like a beautiful dying day, goes out with a purple blush.
To steer the true course, one must not only see the star but have a pilot.
It is easier to remove a mountain than to wash out a spot on a woman's reputation.
The marble heart has valves of flint.
Women covet satin, as men covet gold.
The garments of virtue are of spun gold.
When law is blind examine your own heart.
Valour in defence of wrong becomes a crime.
Man ceases to be a man when his passions die.
Trembling patience is better than proud evil.
Malice and ignorance constantly itch for trouble.
Life is not a funeral dole but a living present.
He honours the state who refuses to commit a wrong.
Opportunities, like pretty maids, should be embraced.
Man's injustice to man shall not be an eternal stain.
Defeat may be more glorious than victory.
Venom is the juice of a toad tainting the sweet air.
You have but to sow the seeds of malice to reap a crop of grief.
Men who would face a cannon, tremble before a golden calf.
There is no music for man so sweet as that set upon a woman's tongue.
I never could understand why doleful songs should herald a joyous hereafter.
If you keep your eyes fixed upon the stars you will fall into the first mill pond.
You are told, "That if you violate a sacrament of the church you will howl in hell for it." You know that if you violate nature's laws you will howl here.
While poverty spins threads of gold with which to weave a garment to cover her nakedness, the plutocrat melts the threads into sovereigns for his own use.
Every yellow stream is not the Tiber.
The wise man dreads, not noise, but eternal silence.
Loud complaints may be only vents for little ills.
It is not enough to conceive a truth, we must act.
When one is bereft of hope the last sorrow has arrived.
The woman who loves not flattery has yet to be born.
This must be a golden age—everybody is running after it.
Beauty is the recompense given to women for her weakness.
Some sins squeak like a snared rabbit—others roar like a lion.
An immaculate reputation may hide a multitude of black lies.
Angels walk on threads of gold from heaven to earth. These threads are only spun in the loom of the human heart.
Abject spirits creep—men walk.
A small hole is a cavern to a mole.
A kiss hangs not long on a pretty lip.
You cannot rear a new babe on old milk.
A man may woo a dove and marry a screech owl.
Satire is a javelin which pierces the thickest skin.
A mist may hide the sun but it does not blot it out.
Some women prefer a great infamy to a little honour.
Regard not the manner of your death but your daily life.
A churlish silence is harder to endure than a sharp tongue.
The man who gives away his freedom is everlastingly bankrupt.
The rubbish from men's tongues is hoarded while nature speaks unheard.
Human misery is not a volunteer.
Mirth's best nursery is contentment.
Men fly, women melt into a passion.
Prejudice is the marrow of superstition.
Better a crust of bread than a funeral elegy.
Woman's first fault is no excuse for man's last.
Kind words are honey drops to the tired soul.
A bad tongue is not the clapper of a good heart.
Crossed love is forgotten—crossed opinions, never.
Distrust but do not refuse an untried remedy.
Hope is the only flavour for a diet of adversity.
He is near to happiness who makes another smile.
Greed is swifter than a greyhound.
Results give the lie to many boasts.
Nothing beslimes like a fawning tongue.
The smallest pirates fly the blackest flags.
The coming tempest is no less a great wind.
Better a bleeding wound than pent up agony.
Gigantic robberies are nevertheless robberies.
Every furrow in the brow represents a drag-tooth of care.
A tempestuous petticoat is more bewitching than a satin gown.
For the light of beauty men go down into the darkest pits.
The smart of the lash soon dies—the memory of it never.
The meaner a man is, the meaner he not only feels but looks.
The greenest turf covers the blackest soil.
Only an earthquake can shake a selfish soul.
One woman-wolf is more to be dreaded than a den of lions.
There are women whose smile is poison, whose touch is death.
Bequeath your good deeds to memory, your bad deeds to oblivion.
Pity, as soft as feathered flakes of snow, whitens all it falls upon.
If we peep behind a curtain we may see the ghost of our own hopes grinning at us.
The albatross, like a great soul, remains aloft without the flutter of a feather.
My sovereign hope is the inate desire of the human heart that justice be done.
Love is as much higher, than justice as is the tallest mountain above an ant hill.
The people have so often been beguiled that now they refuse to believe the truth.
Why is it that down hill is always greased?
A stain upon a woman's honour is indelible.
Insolence is brutal—arrogance, intolerable.
The seeds of ill grow best in the most sterile soil.
A heart pickled in gall cannot be called a sweetmeat.
The promise of eternal sleep is not sweet to a live man.
The most worthless woman is bought at the highest price.
A man can put away his wife but he cannot divorce a memory.
Many of our good intentions are so feeble, that like snow flakes, they melt as they come.
The earth is a fertile womb bringing forth fruits for all. A few men claim they are God's first sons and take the crop.
There are women who breath forth intoxicating perfumes. The man who inhales them is in danger of great good or of great evil.
Nature, unheard, performs her greatest deeds.
Ingratitude is a tree whose fruit poisons the very air.
Many could make lye out of the cold ashes of their hopes.
Gather the blossoms daily—the frost may come at night.
Plant no flowers on the graves of those we have neglected in life.
Some men are not content so long as an unfinished crime remains.
Some men prefer the drudgery of the devil to the sleep of innocence.
Women are tempted to taste a little evil, just to know what it is like.
Every life leads up to a precipice, over which a few jump, the others tumble in and are lost.
We know that death is ever marching behind us but we never name the day when he will catch up.
To hunt for mischief is to catch disaster.
Even a sigh trembles through the universe.
Nature must love woman to fashion her so beautiful.
The chain of some men's fate must be made of adamant.
Revere the dust—it was the men and women of long ago.
The keenest blade in South Africa is made from Ralph iron.
He believed her an angel—married and found her only a woman.
A curled knot of snakes is not as deadly as the signature to a mortgage.
In London they no longer say, "Lend me your purse—but your name."
A painter's description of matrimony— Introduction: the background. Courtship: the middle ground. Engagement: the foreground. Marriage: the nude subject.
Kruger is the epitome of obsolete ideas and living force.
A bleating lamb in a great city is in greater danger than in the darkest wood.
There be three birds.
One lives only in the highest altitudes.
This bird is Truth.
One lives on the plain.
This bird is Expediency.
One lives in the mire.
This bird is Subserviency.
He who writes with a feather plucked from the wing of the first bird will not be listened to for ages to come.
He who writes with a feather plucked from the wing of the second bird will receive the plaudits of the people.
He who writes with a feather plucked from the wing of the third bird will be worshipped by the mob.
Not gold, not broad acres, not vast power, not blazoned titles, not eloquence, but truth is the lever which moves the world.
When Europe completes the process of Christianizing China that nation will have disappeared from the map.
The truth-seeker never digs in the columns of the political newspaper.
A money shaver with a conscience would soon be poorer than his clients.
I have read of the dog-like affection of woman—I have seen their cat-like characteristics.
Bread snatched from the poor becomes a stone in the rich man's belly. He has only to eat his fill to sink.
What a gas lamp is to a moth, the same is a rose diamond to a woman—neither see the danger till they are dead.
In olden times Sodom and Gomorrah swallowed up the wicked. In modern times Chicago swallows up the good.
Chinaman's soliloquy. "First come missionary, big prayers, little book. Singee 'Peace on earth and good willee to all men.' Russian Bear swallow Manchuria, French Eagle strippe off Yellow Jacket, Bille Emperor stealee Peacock Feather, English Lion grabbe Pig Tail. Damme, hungry lion want everything."
Slander is more subtile than any microbe.
You cannot squander ten thousand a year and then balance the account by thrusting a stale bun, dipped in charity soup, into a beggar's hand.
Lolling on a velvet cushion in a fashionable church will not be a valid answer when you meet the poor girl 'beyond' whom you ground down to make trousers for twenty cents a pair. You didn't do it? You wore the trousers, it's all the same.
A cynic's description of the honeymoon— Kisses allopathic. Kisses homeopathic. The cold douche. Hot mustard plasters.
A lawyer's description of matrimony in the United States— Court—Appeal. The suit filed. Rival—an interpleader. Marriage. Judgement given. Household expenses. Costs. Family jars. Proceedings for alimony. Final hearing. Divorce absolute. Quit claim. Deed to another man.
The sea-side resorts attract many queer fish.
The politician is what the people make him.
The child which cries for bread is a menace to the state.
Infamy may rise to such a height as to become famous.
More women have been killed by innuendo than by hard work.
To the small boy a circus is more alluring than the Psalms of Solomon.
Eternity is an endless chain whose links are youth, old age and decay.
The shark turns on his back to devour his prey—the hypocrite prays that he may devour.
The money lender should provide himself with an asbestos overcoat when he leaves this world.
Every girl in store or office means a man without employment. Every man without employment is a man incapable of supporting a wife. Do you see the inevitable result?
Laughter is the doctor's deadliest enemy.
Praise is the cheapest coin but more potent than gold.
If all men were brothers nations would cease to exist.
Years are required to make a brutal man—hours, a woman.
We praise God for our victories. What does the other fellow do?
Patriotism is but another name for, 'love yourself and hate your neighbors.'
If churches were made as attractive as gin palaces, the former, not the latter, would be open six days in the week.
When you get there, you will find that Eternal Justice is not built on the departmental store system. Some pale-faced girl will offer the evidence.
Once Pity and Charity perched on every cloistered gate and cried, 'welcome.' Now they only venture forth on public occasions, when they will be seen of all men.
The cat's serenade gives tone to the back yard.
Mental problem. Suicide or side-tracked. Which?
The laugh of a child is sweeter to God than a forty minute prayer.
The Klondike is as alluring as a pretty woman and equally as freakish.
The greatness of the Yukon is only surpassed by the greatness of its liars.
Innocence is a rose bud with a worm outside waiting to gnaw a hole in it.
A blood-sucker on a boy's toe looks bigger to him than a sea-serpent to a man.
An Easter bonnet is more satisfying to a woman than the most eloquent sermon.
The witch doctor taboos a banana tree, the parson the joyous dance. Both are bigots.
The nigger who has learned to drink rum does not regard civilization as an unmixed blessing.
The beautiful is eternal.
An epitaph. "He went North and found his grave."
The cold marble becomes a living flame under the hands of the sculptor.
We cannot turn water into wine but some men come very near turning wine into water.
The coral shell stores up the glorious tints of the sun's rays—the thoughtful man the words of the wise.
A returned Klondiker with gold very much resembles charity—frequently read of, seldom seen.
Whence comes eternal truths? They are written in the rocks, they are breathed out of the soft, South wind; they are painted in the sunset, they speak in the flowers and the tiny blade of grass, they twinkle in distant stars. Ages go by and yet man grasps but one, here and there. They are messengers to every man, gifted or untaught. He who seizes but one and embalms it has done a greater service to mankind than the mightiest king.
Prohibition is a frozen dream, real life a red-hot time.
Inquisitiveness is but another name for the Auditor General.
Capital account is a cavern wherein politicians hide their sins.
The summer girl, in the biggest wind, is never blown away from a man.
The editor writes most charmingly of country life in his easiest chair.
Church choirs are always at sixes and sevens. One day of harmony and six of discord.
A young widow's sorrow for her husband is a phantom minnow—looks genuine but hides the hook.
While the bankrupt tradesman rides in his carriage, his honest competitor is in the back yard sawing wood.
The uglier a woman's face, the nearer to her chin is the hem of her bathing skirt, no doubt to hide her blushes.
The French are steadfast of purpose.
What purpose?
Changing the Ministry!
English poet in the Soudan,—"We are carrying 'Sweetness and light' into darkest Africa!"
Tommy,—"Yes, we let the light in with the Lee-Metford and the Egyptian tax-collector will sweeten these coves later on."
Mayor of New York,—"We must return the 'Torch of Liberty' by the first French steamer."
"What for?"
"To dispel the Dreyfus gloom."
Irate Mother-in-law (to son-in-law about to marry second wife),—"Is this the way you treat my daughter, lying in the dark grave?"
"Only striking a match to see into it."
Out of the loins of pride and avarice comes the innocent child. Why is this? It cannot be chance. It means something. When we discover what that something is we shall remain innocent.
Greed grasps while poverty gasps.
The agony of despair breeds the monster, 'Human Hate.'
The man who refuses to lend to the Lord distrusts the security.
The blood of the pauper shall smear the couch of the indolent.
The sweat of the poor, frozen into gold, gilds the rich man's purse.
The time must come when the dragon's teeth, sown by the rich, will bring forth a harvest of cold steel.
Mother in the kitchen at the wash tub. Daughter in the parlor at the piano. Quite proper; its a case of rub-a-dub-dub.
Why came we here? By blind chance or design? The books are full of guesses, half-truths and lies. We only know that we are here. From whence we came and whither we go is the problem. Being here, our highest endeavors should be to do some little good. Then close our eyes and wait for the answer. We can find it in no other way.
Man and misery are not twins but father and son.
The woman to whom temptation never came cannot be said to be virtuous.
The blast of the golden bugle shall not always drown the wail of the poor.
When faults lie thick and die, the crop of good deeds to follow will be the greater.
A priest at ten thousand a year is a monument erected over the grave of Christianity.
The cry of the child for bread reaches further into the universe than peans sung to kings.
When Eve was created nature must have cried 'no,' for ever since woman has continued to repeat the word.
The rich go about the world on stilts, lest the poor should touch the hems of their garments. They are so so high in the air that they gather no perfume from the wild flowers blooming by the wayside.
The hand of Justice has lost its thumb and forefinger.
Vulgar speech is a drop of filth from a rotten heart.
A fly never sees the window pane until his bruised nose bleeds.
The greatest kindness is that which we are not compelled to remember.
My aspirations are cut out with a broad sword. My results with a pen knife.
The mathemetician can measure a world, yet he cannot weigh the secret thing which stirs a poet's heart.
Man has waited for ages for heaven to help him. Heaven has waited equally long for man to help himself.
Slaves are bound with fetters of steel—poor men with fetters of law. One corrodes with age, the other is perpetually renewed.
The devil fish of the sea claws his victim, then sinks to the bottom. The devil fish of the land claws his, then rises to the top.
Want issues from the womb of greed.
Justice will be done when greed dies.
Sympathy is the sheet-anchor of the Ship of Life.
One tear is more potent for good than a thousand laws.
Charity, though white of plumage, is born of black parents.
The avenger strikes down one evil and creates a thousand.
Universal love is, but another name for universal happiness.
Life without hope is death without a grave wherein to find rest.
A man is not only responsible for his acts, but for their influence.
To know, and not to do is vile—to do and not to know, an accident.
The white flowers of sympathy shall yet bloom over graves in which the rich rot.
Luxury lulls—poverty dulls.
A fat priest and a poor flock.
The hooked fish has an open mouth.
The money lender loves a close shave.
Preachers and brokers, alike, deal in future options.
Humility is sweet but its path is strewn with bitter herbs.
The change for which every woman prays—a change of name.
Passengers inside the coach 'Prosperity,' never see the galled steeds.
The knout pinches the slave's back. The combine, the free man's belly.
The ball dress is diplomatic, in that it reveals what it pretends to conceal.
There is colour in the statement that one nigger in a missionary report throws a shadow greater than ten white men.
Vile thoughts only bloom on the dung-hills of depravity.
Coarseness is as akin to vice as the flame to the candle.
Indolence lolls in luxury while energy goes hungry to bed.
Toil with recompense is sweeter than recompense without toil.
Is the African heathen more precious than a sick child in a London garret?
The ashes of a bad woman cannot be cleansed with the waters of an ocean.
She who walks the street by night is an outcast. She who seduces a Prince may die a Queen.
Princes on sale for gold, women for titles, virtue for bread, statesmen for place, and priests for salary.
Monopoly. A whip in the hands of plutocrats, which bites the backs of men and saddens the hearts of women.
No soul can remain stagnant.
A gossip scatters more ills than a pestilence.
'Tis useless to kill the serpent after she has laid her eggs.
The poison on the fang cannot injure till the snake strikes.
When the unctious priest wants to borrow he cries, 'Lend to the Lord.'
We should not blot out the sun because its rays will hatch the eggs of a serpent.
The lion of the jungle seizes his prey by night. The lion of the city by day; one is stripped to the bone, the other to the shirt.
Birds are charmed by snakes, women by beasts in human form. The glitter of the eye subdues the one, the glitter of gold, the other.
Over the grave of each child which dies in the slums should stand a tablet inscribed, "Died for want of sunlight and pure air." "Who stole the land?"
One tyrant dies that two may be born.
A wise man prefers virgin soil to a cultivated widow.
The bone of contention is never covered with sweet meat.
The woman is most lost who forgets her babe for the ball.
Self-righteousness can walk so straight that it leans backwards.
More women are drowned 'in the swim' than in mill ponds.
When death knocks at the door the servant answers, 'Not at home.'
A winged Cupid without a feather can soar higher than the pinioned eagle.
He who seeks for spiritual rest in dogma will find only a bottomless pit.
A wish from the heart travels beyond the blare of the loudest trumpet.
It is better to lavish your affections upon a faithful dog than upon an unfaithful friend.
The poor man craves for bread—not logic.
A woman without love is a tree without sap.
The plutocrats, like the Catholics, thrive on curses.
Good advice is an atom; good deeds the universe.
The beautiful seraph makes the most dangerous fiend.
The ghost of poverty is more dreadful than poverty itself.
A religion of details is a fruit tree which produces only blossoms.
Each grain in the universe is a unit, remove but one and chaos will follow.
Hills sunlit with promise are easier to traverse than the level road upon which hope died.
It is as easy for the poor man to pluck money from the rich as for the missionary to pick the pocket's of a naked savage.
A tainted heart soils the sweetest lip.
Exchange the virus of hate for the antidote, love.
A woman prefers a fervent lover to a cold husband.
A fickle woman may conquer the most constant soldier.
The begrimed soul cannot be hidden with a white-wash brush.
Our efforts should be to harmonize, not simply to change.
The most precious gem is found in the most worthless sand.
The Senate joined to the Commons is an impotent man wedded to a vigorous maid.
The bombastic egotist floats on the crest of prosperity while the philosopher starves in his tub.
The priest counsels men in the sterile present to feed upon a pregnant future. Tomorrows dinner never yet fed a hungry man.
All the good in a human heart can never die.
You cannot denude a woman of her masked thoughts.
Diplomacy is cultivated in men and bred in women.
He who would pluck contentment must abandon force.
To console a widow is more agreeable than to court a maid.
The man who stains the purity of a woman tarnishes his own soul.
It is difficult to distinguish the fleshy lie from the ghostly truth.
The private ownership of land is crystalized in the question "Is the unborn child an heir or a bastard?"
Love of the artistic does not account for the crookedness of men, though the curve is the only true line of beauty.
Sly women walk where blunt men fall.
The stench of corruption is fragrant to the lobbyist.
A shrivelled soul may hide in a bishop's paunch.
A slippery friend is more dangerous than thin ice.
The kangaroo and the miser carry all they love in a pouch.
You cannot staunch a bleeding wound with a memory or a promise.
Marriage is a covenant which few women refuse and many revoke.
Emotion in woman is the locomotive—wisdom, the cow-catcher.
A misfit policy is as dangerous to a statesman as a misfit dress to a woman.
The sting of a bee is not the less to be dreaded because the bee makes honey.
Creed is as akin to righteousness as a 'bucket shop' to the kingdom of heaven.
An act cannot die.
To exist is not to live.
Degeneracy is born of many parents.
The rich man gives advice, the poor man bread.
Happiness is now a theory, I would make it a fact.
The statute of limitation runs not against evil deeds.
The quickest cure for a passionate longing is a cold woman.
Through lapse of time the few claim the inheritance of the many.
The cause of truth will not triumph so long as it is intrusted to fools.
If the weakness of the present industrial system were realized it would cease to be dangerous.
Snakes eggs are hatched by the sun. Misers eggs—gold—by labor. Young snakes hiss at their mother, misers at men.
The charitable heart hath an empty pocket.
The cry of the poor is an eternal remonstrance.
The ocean of hope springs from a single drop of sympathy.
The old-time robber was the father of the new time financier.
Injustice sleeps in a bed of roses which rests on a bed of thorns.
The lamb 'love' and the wolf 'hate' tarry not long in the same pen.
A feather from the wing of truth is of more weight than a mountain of lies.
Only the key sympathy can unlock the sacred chamber hidden in every heart.
The bloodless wreath of love is stronger than a tyrant's chain. The one shall yet bind the world, the other be broken by a simple wish.
