Hugh Blair: Mind

“That discipline which corrects the baseness of worldly passion, fortifies the heart with virtuous principles, enlightens the mind with useful knowledge, and furnishes it with enjoyment from within itself, is of more consequence to real felicity, than all the provision we can make of the goods of fortune.”

Hugh Blair

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 109.

Knowledge , Passion , Heart

“Anxiety is the poison of human life; the parent of many sins and of more miseries. – In a world where everything is doubtful, and where we may be disappointed, and be blessed in disappointment, why this restless stir and commotion of mind? – Can it alter the cause, or unravel the mystery of human events?”

Hugh Blair

Quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern, https://books.google.com/books?id=zlMxAAAAIAAJ ed. Tryon Edwards, F. B. Dickerson Company (1908), p. 23.

Life , World , Disappointment , Parent

“In whatever light we view religion it appears solemn and venerable. It is a temple full of majesty, to which the worshiper may approach with comfort, in the hope of obtaining grace and finding mercy; but where they cannot enter without being inspired with awe. If we may be permitted to compare spiritual with natural things, religion resembles not those scenes of natural beauty where every object smiles. It cannot be likened to the gay landscape or the flowery field. It resembles more the august and sublime appearances of Nature — the lofty mountain, the expanded ocean, and the starry firmament; at the sight of which the mind is at once overawed and delighted; and, from the union of grandeur with beauty, derives a pleasing but a serious devotion.”

Hugh Blair

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 493.

Religion , Smile , Beauty , Hope

“Embellish truth only with a view to gain it the more full and free admission into your hearer's minds; and your ornaments will, in that case, be simple, masculine, natural.”

Hugh Blair

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 481.

Truth , Nature

“Between levity and cheerfulness there is a wide distinction; and the mind which is most open to levity is frequently a stranger to cheerfulness.”

Hugh Blair

Reported in The Saturday Magazine‎ (September 28, 1833), p. 118 https://books.google.com/books?id=jh_nAAAAMAAJ&pg=118.

“Anxiety is the poison of human life; the parent of many sins and of more miseries. – In a world where everything is doubtful, and where we may be disappointed, and be blessed in disappointment, why this restless stir and commotion of mind?”

Hugh Blair

Can it alter the cause, or unravel the mystery of human events?
Quoted in A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern, https://books.google.com/books?id=zlMxAAAAIAAJ ed. Tryon Edwards, F. B. Dickerson Company (1908), p. 23.

World , Disappointment , Life , Parent