C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Wishes
Every wish is like a prayer with God.
Our wishes lengthen, as our sun declines.
We cannot wish for that we know not.
Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.
I have immortal longings in me.
Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek.
What one has wished for in youth, in old age one has in abundance.
If all our wishes were gratified, most of our pleasures would be destroyed.
Wishes, like castles in the air, are inexpensive and not taxable.
Wishes, at least, are the easy pleasures of the poor.
Men’s thoughts are much according to their inclination.
Unattainable wishes are often “pious.” This seems to indicate that only profane wishes are fulfilled.
I could write down twenty cases, wherein I wished God had done otherwise than He did; but which I now see, had I had my own will, would have led to extensive mischief. The life of a Christian is a life of paradoxes.
The apparently irreconcilable dissimilarity between our wishes and our means, between our hearts and this world, remains a riddle.
Before we passionately wish for anything, we should carefully examine into the happiness of its possessor.
We are poor, indeed, when we have no half-wishes left us. The heart and the imagination close the shutters the instant they are gone.
It is a fearful mistake to believe that because our wishes are not accomplished they can do no harm.
I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wishes. The greater part of all the mischief in the world arises from the fact that men do not sufficiently understand their own aims. They have undertaken to build a tower, and spend no more labor on the foundation than would be necessary to erect a hut.
Knowest thou the land where the lemon-trees flourish, where amid the shadowed leaves the golden oranges glisten,—a gentle zephyr breathes from the blue heavens, the myrtle is motionless, and the laurel rises high? Dost them know it well? Thither, thither, fain would I fly with thee, my beloved!