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appetites to control, imaginations to restrain, tempers to regulate, passions to subdue, and how can this internal work be effected, how can our thoughts be kept within due bounds, how can a proper bias be given to the affections, how can the little state of man ” served from continual insurrection, how can this restraining power be maintained, if this capacity of discerning, if this faculty of inspecting be not kept in regular exercise?

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We should examine not only our conduct but our opinions; not only our faults but our prejudices; not only our propensities but our judgments. Our actions themselves will be obvious enough; it is our intentions which require the scrutiny. These we should follow up to their remotest springs, scrutinize to their deepest recesses, trace through their most perplexing windings.

-HANNAH MORE.

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power.

-TENNYSON.

But we know ourselves least; mere outward shows

Our minds so store,

That our souls, no more than our eyes, disclose
But form and colour. Only he, who knows

Himself, knows more.

Could we ourselves as clearly scan
As we unshroud our brother man,

How humbly might we walk!

And never in the maddest hour

-DONNE.

When vile self-worship wields its power,
Of our meek virtues talk.

--ROBERT MONTGOMERY.

That man must daily wiser grow,

Whose search is bent himself to know.

-GAY.

We shall have read the deepest secret of nature, when we have read our own hearts.

Beware of no man than yourself. We carry our worst enemies with us.

Your looking-glass will tell you what none of your

friends will.

-OLD SPANISH PROVERB.

Every one is least known to himself, and the most difficult task is to get acquainted with one's own character.

-CICERO.

Men lay out all their understanding in studying to know one another, and so no man knows himself.

--OLD SPANISH PROVERB.

He is the best accountant, who can count up correctly the sum of his own errors.

It is great folly not to part with your own faults, which is possible, but to try instead to escape from other people's faults, which is impossible.

-MARCUS AURELIUS.

Reform those things in yourself that you blame in

others.

Pardon others often, thyself seldom.

Happy is he that chastens himself.

Our enemies, in their judgment of us, come nearer to truth than we do to ourselves.

-ROCHEFOUcauld.

By all means, use sometimes to be alone;
Salute thyself--see what thy soul doth wear;
Dare to look in thy chest, for 'tis thine own,
And tumble up and down what thou find'st there.
-WORDSWORTH.

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Read not books alone, but men, and amongst them chiefly thyself if thou find anything questionable there, use the commentary of a severe friend, rather than the phrase of a sweet lip-flatterer; there is more profit in a distasteful truth, than deceitful sweetness.

Nor let soft slumber close thine eyes,
Ere every action of the day

Impartially thou dost survey.

-QUARLES.

Where have my feet chose out their way?
What have I learnt where'er I've been,
From all I've heard, from all I've seen?
What know I more that's worth the knowing?
What have I done that's worth the doing?
What have I sought that I should shun?
What duties have I left undone ?
Or into what new follies run?
These self-inquiries are the road
That leads to virtue and to God.

-DR. WATTS.

Sum up at night what thou hast done by day,
And in the morning what thou hast to do.

-GEORGE HERBERT.

I daily examine myself in a threefold manner; in my transactions with men, whether I am upright; in my intercourse with friends, whether I am faithful; and whether I exemplify the instructions of my master. -CHUNG CHEE. *

Vespasian, a Roman Emperor, had one remarkable habit, and that was that at night he rendered an account to himself of what he had done during the day. When he found that a day had been spent without doing any good act, he used to note down in his diary that he had lost one day.

* A disciple of Confucius From Marshman's Works of Confucius.

134. THE SHEPHERD.

SHEPHERD'S LIFE.

His certain life, that never can deceive him,
Is full of thousand sweets and rich content;
The smooth-leaved beeches in the field receive him
With coolest shades, till noon-tide's rage is spent ;

His life is neither tossed in boisterous seas
Of troublous world, nor lost in slothful ease;
Pleased and full blessed he lives,

When he his God can please.

His bed of wool yields safe and quiet sleep,
While by his side his faithful spouse hath place;
His little son into his bosom creeps,

The lively picture of his father's face;

Never his humble house or state torment him;

Less he could like, if less his God had sent him, And when he dies, green turf

With grassy tomb content him.

-PHINEAS FLETCHER.

THE SHEPHERD AND THE PHILOSOPHER.

Remote from cities liv'd a swain,

Unvex'd with all the cares of gain;
His head was silver'd o'er with age,
And long experience made him sage;
In summer's heat, and winter's cold,
He fed his flock, and penn'd the fold;
His hours in cheerful labor flew,
Nor envy nor ambition knew;

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