Few people know how to be old.—­La ROCHEFOUCAULD.

When men grow virtuous in their old age, they are merely making a sacrifice to God of the devil’s leavings.—­Swift.

The defects of the mind, like those of the countenance, increase with age.—­La ROCHEFOUCAULD.

He who would pass the declining years of his life with honor and comfort, should when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young.—­Addison.

Winter, which strips the leaves from around us, makes us see the distant regions they formerly concealed; so does old age rob us of our enjoyments, only to enlarge the prospect of eternity before us.—­Richter.

The easiest thing for our friends to discover in us, and the hardest thing for us to discover in ourselves, is that we are growing old.  —­H.W.  Shaw.

Ambition.—­Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.—­Longfellow.

He who ascends to mountain tops, shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind,
Must look down on the hate of those below. 

          
                          —­Southey.

They that stand high, have many blasts to shake them;
And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces. 
—­Shakespeare.

The path of glory leads but to the grave.—­Gray.

We should be careful to deserve a good reputation by doing well; and when that care is once taken, not to be over anxious about the success.—­Rochester.

Say what we will, you may be sure that ambition is an error; its wear and tear of heart are never recompensed,—­it steals away the freshness of life,—­it deadens its vivid and social enjoyments,—­it shuts our souls to our own youth,—­and we are old ere we remember that we have made a fever and a labor of our raciest years.—­Lytton.

I charge thee, fling away ambition: 
By that sin fell the angels. 
—­Shakespeare.

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself, and a mean man by one which is lower than himself.  The one produces aspiration; the other, ambition.  Ambition is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.—­Beecher.

It is not for man to rest in absolute contentment.  He is born to hopes and aspirations, as the sparks fly upward, unless he has brutified his nature, and quenched the spirit of immortality, which is his portion.  —­Southey.

Ambition has but one reward for all: 
A little power, a little transient fame,
A grave to rest in, and a fading name! 

                                    —­William winter.

All my ambition is, I own,
To profit and to please unknown;
Like streams supplied from springs below,
Which scatter blessings as they go. 

                                    —­Dr. Cotton.