Make Me Chaste And To What Excesses

Life Is Short And Tedious, And Is Wholly Spent In Wishing; We Trust To Find Rest And Enjoyment At Some Future Time, Often At An Age When Our Best Blessings, Youth And Health, Have Already Left Us. When At Last I That Time Has Arrived, It Surprises Us In The Midst Of Fresh Desires; We Have Got No Farther When We Are Attacked By A Fever Which Kills Us; If We Had Been Cured, It Would Only Have Been To Give Us More Time For Other Desires.

When A Book Raises Your Spirit, And Inspires You With Noble And Manly Thoughts, Seek For No Other Test Of Its Excellence. It Is Good, And Made By A Good Workman.

What Greater Weakness Can There Be Than Not To Know What Is The Source Of One's Being, Of One's Life, Of One's Senses, Of One's Knowledge, And What Is To Be Their End? What Can Be More Deeply Disheartening Than To Wonder Whether One's Soul Is, Perhaps, A Material Thing, Like A Stone Or A Reptile, Corruptible Like These Base Creatures? Is There Not More Strength And Greatness Of Mind In Admitting The Idea Of A Being Superior To All Other Beings, Who Has Made Them All And To Whom All Owe Their Existence; Of A Being Supremely Perfect, Who Is Pure, Who Had No Beginning And Can Have No Ending, Of Whom Our Soul Is The Image And, So To Speak, A Portion, Being A Spiritual And Immortal Thing?

Life Is A Kind Of Sleep: Old Men Sleep Longest, Nor Begin To Wake But When They Are To Die.

A Man's Worth Is Estimated In This World According To His Conduct.