![It is a celebrated thought of Socrates, that if all the misfortunes of mankind were cast into a public stock, in order to be equally distributed among the whole species, those who now think themselves the most unhappy would prefer the share they are already possessed of, before that which would fall to them by such a division. [as they realise their problems could be worse!]](/assets/img/quote-photos/it-is-a-celebrated-thought-of-socrates-that-if-all-the-misfortunes-of-mankind-we.jpg)
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gratitude circles fire
Envy, if surrounded on all sides by the brightness of another's prosperity, like the scorpion confined within a circle of fire, will sting itself to death. Charles Caleb Colton
gratitude men serenity
The benevolent have the advantage of the envious, even in this present life; for the envious man is tormented not only by all the ill that befalls himself, but by all the good that happens to another; whereas the benevolent man is the better prepared to bear his own calamities unruffled, from the complacency and serenity he has secured from contemplating the prosperity of all around him.
gratitude dross made
It is not until we have passed through the furnace that we are made to know how much dross there is in our composition.
gratitude revenge punctual
Revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude
gratitude revenge games
An act by which we make one friend and one enemy is a losing game; because revenge is a much stronger principle than gratitude
gratitude powerful yield
There are three kinds of praise, that which we yield, that which we lend, and that which we pay. We yield it to the powerful from fear, we lend it to the weak from interest, and we pay it to the deserving from gratitude.
gratitude revenge adversity
The reason why great men meet with so little pity or attachment in adversity, would seem to be this: the friends of a great man were made by his fortune, his enemies by himself, and revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude.
gratitude grateful language
No metaphysician ever felt the deficiency of language so much as the grateful.
gratitude appreciation attitude
True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.
fall rain wind
External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Charles Dickens
fall mind excess
Minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort.
fall vanity world
He [the miser] falls down and worships the god of this world, but will have neither its pomps, its vanities nor its pleasures for his trouble.
fall velocity vacuums
The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.
fall errors giving
Power. like the diamond, dazzles the beholder, and also the wearer; it dignifies meanness; it magnifies littleness; to what is contemptible, it gives authority; to what is low, exaltation. To acquire it, appears not more difficult than to be dispossessed of it when acquired, since it enables the holder to shift his own errors on dependents, and to take their merits to himself. But the miracle of losing it vanishes, when we reflect that we are as liable to fall as to rise, by the treachery of others; and that to say "I am" is language that has been appropriated exclusively to God!
fall giving wife
There is no quality of the mind, or of the body, that so instantaneously and irresistibly captivates, as wit. An elegant writer has observed that wit may do very well for a mistress, but that he should prefer reason for a wife. He that deserts the latter, and gives himself up entirely to the guidance of the former, will certainly fall into many pitfalls and quagmires, like him who walks by flashes of lightning, rather than the steady beams of the sun.
fall errors common
Let us not be too prodigal when we are young, nor too parsimonious when we are old. Otherwise we shall fall into the common error of those, who, when they had the power to enjoy, had not the prudence to acquire; and when they had the prudence to acquire, had no longer the power to enjoy.
fall passion world
You fear the world too much,' she answered gently. 'All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off, one by one, until the master passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?
fall scary house
Around and around the house the leaves fall thick, but never fast, for they come circling down with a dead lightness that is sombre and slow.
thinking hiking feet-and-walking
If I could not walk far and fast, I think I should just explode and perish.
thinking vanity
None of us are so much praised or censured as we think.
thinking two glory
There are two things which ought to teach us to think but meanly of human glory; the very best have had their calumniators, the very worst their panegyrists.
thinking enemy frankness
He that openly tells, his friends all that he thinks of them, must expect that they will secretly tell his enemies much that they do not think of him.
thinking people remember
A thorough-paced antiquary not only remembers what all other people have thought proper to forget, but he also forgets what all other people think is proper to remember.
thinking daring finished
Those who have finished by making all others think with them, have usually been those who began by daring to think with themselves.
thinking mind wish
I never thought before, that there was a woman in the world who could affect me so much by saying so little. But don't be hard in your construction of me. You don't know what my state of mind towards you is. You don't know how you haunt and bewilder me. You don't know how the cursed carelessness that is over-officious in helping me at every other turning of my life WON'T help me here. You have struck it dead, I think, and I sometimes wish you had struck me dead along with it.
thinking greed words-of-wisdom
"As I think I told you once before," said I, "it is you who have been, in your greed and cunning, against all the world. It may be profitable to you to reflect, in future, that there never were greed and cunning in the world yet, that did not do too much, and overreach themselves. It is as certain as death."
thinking words-of-wisdom secret
Don't you think that any secret course is an unworthy one?