C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917. Stillingfleet
A story should, to please, at least seem true, Be apropos, well told, concise, and new: And whenso’er it deviates from these rules, The wise will sleep, and leave applause to fools.
1 Spite of all the fools that pride has made, ’Tis not on man a useless burthen laid; Pride has ennobled some, and some disgraced; It hurts not in itself, but as ’tis placed; When right, its views know none but virtue’s bound; When wrong, it scarcely looks one inch around.
2 ’Tis good nature only wins the heart; It moulds the body to an easy grace And brightens every feature of the face; It smoothes th’ unpolish’d tongue with eloquence And adds persuasion to the finest sense.
3 Astrological prayers seem to me to be built on as good reason as the predictions. 4 Error is but the shadow of the truth. 5 Kircher lays it down as a certain principle, that there never was any people so rude which did not acknowledge and worship one supreme Deity. 6 Nothing enlarges the gulf of atheism more than the wide passage that lies between the faith and lives of men pretending to teach Christianity. 7 Peace and wickedness are far asunder. 8 Philosophers and common heathen believed one God, to whom all things were referred; but under this God they worshipped many inferior and subservient gods. 9 Prayer among men is supposed a means to change the person to whom we pray; but prayer to God doth not change him, but fits us to receive the things prayed for. 10 See how the skilful lover spreads his toils. 11
