Essays: First SeriesD. McKay, 1888 - 396 pages |
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Page 8
... by the hours . Of the universal mind each individual man is one more incarna- tion . All its properties consist in him . Every step in his private experience flashes a light on what great bodies of men have done , and the 8 ESSAY I.
... by the hours . Of the universal mind each individual man is one more incarna- tion . All its properties consist in him . Every step in his private experience flashes a light on what great bodies of men have done , and the 8 ESSAY I.
Page 9
... experience , or we shall see nothing , learn nothing , keep nothing . What befell Asdrubal or Cæsar Borgia , is as much an illustration of the mind's powers and depravations as what has befallen us . Each new law and political movement ...
... experience , or we shall see nothing , learn nothing , keep nothing . What befell Asdrubal or Cæsar Borgia , is as much an illustration of the mind's powers and depravations as what has befallen us . Each new law and political movement ...
Page 23
... experience of every day is always verifying some old prediction to us , and con- verting into things for us also the words and signs which we had heard and seen without heed . Let me add a few examples , such as fall within the scope of ...
... experience of every day is always verifying some old prediction to us , and con- verting into things for us also the words and signs which we had heard and seen without heed . Let me add a few examples , such as fall within the scope of ...
Page 33
... experiences of his own . To the sacred history of the world , he has the same key . When the voice of a prophet out of the deeps of antiquity merely echoes to him a sentiment of his infancy , a prayer of his youth , he then pierces to ...
... experiences of his own . To the sacred history of the world , he has the same key . When the voice of a prophet out of the deeps of antiquity merely echoes to him a sentiment of his infancy , a prayer of his youth , he then pierces to ...
Page 45
... experience . He shall collect into a focus the rays of nature . History no longer shall be a dull book . shall walk incarnate in every just and wise man . You shall not tell me by languages and titles a catalogue of the volumes you have ...
... experience . He shall collect into a focus the rays of nature . History no longer shall be a dull book . shall walk incarnate in every just and wise man . You shall not tell me by languages and titles a catalogue of the volumes you have ...
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Common terms and phrases
action affection appear beautiful soul beauty becomes behold better black event Bonduca Cæsar Calvinistic character child circle conversation divine doctrine Egypt Epaminondas eternal evanescent fact fear feel friendship genius gifts give Greek hand heart heaven Heraclitus heroism hour human instinct intel intellect less light live look lose man's marriage ment mind moral nature ness never noble object OVER-SOUL painted pass perception perfect persons Petrarch Phidias Phocion Pindar Plato Plotinus Plutarch poet poetry proverb prudence Pyrrhonism relations religion Rome sculpture secret seek seems seen sense sensual Shakspeare society Socrates Sophocles soul speak Spinoza spirit stand stoicism sweet talent teach thee things thou thought tion to-day true truth ture universal virtue whilst whole wisdom wise words Xenophon youth
Popular passages
Page 64 - A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.
Page 52 - There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance ; that imitation is suicide ; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion ; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.
Page 52 - A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
Page 75 - These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are ; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose ; it is perfect in every moment of its existence.
Page 128 - Some damning circumstance always transpires. The laws and substances of nature water, snow, wind, gravitation - become penalties to the thief. On the other hand, the law holds with equal sureness for all right action. Love, and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation.
Page 78 - Why, then, do we prate of self-reliance ? Inasmuch as the soul is present, there will be power not confident but agent. To talk of reliance is a poor external way of speaking. Speak rather of that which relies, because it works and is.
Page 121 - As no man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him, so no man had ever a defect that was not somewhere made useful to him. The stag in the fable admired his horns and blamed his feet, but when the hunter came, his feet saved him, and afterwards, caught in the thicket, his horns destroyed him.
Page 60 - What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.
Page 53 - Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.
Page 81 - O father, O mother, O wife, O brother, O friend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward I am the truth's. Be it known unto you that henceforward I obey no law less than the eternal law.