"Even our very breath teaches us moderation; when walking we catch the smell of  a fresh mown lawn, and we tarry to drink it in. We may say, I think I'll spend an hour here enjoying this smell, only to find that after a minute or two the fragrance diminishes. We may think that something's wrong with our nose, but then we catch the scent of the lilac and learn that moderation brings joy but to overindulge is to lose." Author unknown. 

  "Don't always confine yourself to one sort of company, or to people of the same party or opinion, whether its in matters of learning, religion, or civil life; lest if you happened to be nursed up or educated in an early mistake, you will be confirmed and established in that same mistake if you converse only with people of the same thoughts and sentiments. A free and general conversation with people of various countries, and of different parties, opinions and practices, is of excellent use to undeceive us in many wrong judgments which we may have framed, and will help lead us to more just thoughts.

It is said, when the king of Siam, near China, first talked with some European merchants, who sought his favor to trade on his coast, he inquired of them some of the common appearances of summer and winter in their country; and when they told him of water growing so hard in their rivers, that men and horses could walk on it; and that rain sometimes fell down as white and light as feathers, and sometimes almost as hard as stones, he could not believe a word they said, for ice, snow, and hail, were names and things utterly unknown to him in his hot climate; her therefore renounced all traffic with them because he considered them shameful liars and would not allow them to trade with his people. See here the natural effects of gross ignorance.

Conversation with foreigners, on various occasions, has a happy influence to enlarge our minds, and to set them free from many errors and gross prejudices we are ready to believe concerning them." Isaac Watts.

  "My best presentations of the gospel to you are so incomplete! Sometimes, when I am alone, I have such sweet and rapturous visions of the love of God and the truths of his word that I think, if I could speak to you then, I should move your hearts. I am like a child, who, walking forth on some sunny summer's morning, sees grass and flowers all shining with drops of dew. "O," he cries, "I'll carry these beautiful things to my mother." And, eagerly plucking them, the dew drops into his little palm, and all the charm is gone. There is but grass in his hand, and no longer pearls." Henry Ward Beecher.

  "Morality must always precede and accompany religion, and yet religion is much more than morality. You buy a camellia, and determine, in spite of the florists advice, to make it blossom in your parlor. You watch and tend it, and at length the buds appear. Day by day you see them swell, and fondly hope they will come to perfect flower; but just as they should open, one after another they drop off; and you look at it despairingly exclaiming," All is over for this year!" But are not camellia roots, and branches and leaves good?" "Yes," you answer; "but I do not care for them. I bought it for the blossom."

  Now, when we bring God the roots and branches and leaves of morality, he is not satisfied. He wants the blossoming of the heart; and that is religion."  Henry W. Beecher.

I like the following quote by George Whitefield, he longs to be encouraged, not lulled to sleep; he hungers for heavenly fire, not earthly comfort; he exhorts his friends, not to speak to him in words of flattery or accomplishment, but rather to sound the alarm and help kindle the gift of God within his breast.

"Let none of my friends cry out to such a sluggish, lukewarm, unprofitable worm, "Spare thyself!" Rather spur me up, I pray you, with an "Awake thou that sleepesst," and begin to do something for thy God!" Whitefield.

In modern English it would read something like this -- 

I confess my soul is sluggish, lukewarm and unprofitable, so if you are a true friend, don't cry out to me to "spare myself", but rather, stir me up, spur me on like in the book of Ephesians 5:14 where it says, "Wake up sleeper, rise from the dead," and begin to do something for your God.