Essays: First SeriesD. McKay, 1888 - 396 pages |
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Page 13
... have thus made a constellation of it to hang in heaven an immortal sign ? London and Paris and New York must go the same way . " What is History , " said Napoleon , “ but a fable agreed upon ? " This life of ours is stuck HISTORY . 13.
... have thus made a constellation of it to hang in heaven an immortal sign ? London and Paris and New York must go the same way . " What is History , " said Napoleon , “ but a fable agreed upon ? " This life of ours is stuck HISTORY . 13.
Page 37
... heaven had sent its insane angels into our world as to an asylum , and here they will break out into their native music and utter at intervals the words they have heard in heaven ; then the mad fit returns , and they mope and wallow ...
... heaven had sent its insane angels into our world as to an asylum , and here they will break out into their native music and utter at intervals the words they have heard in heaven ; then the mad fit returns , and they mope and wallow ...
Page 39
... heaven - facing speakers . Ah , brother , hold fast to the man and awe the beast ; stop the ebb of thy soul — ebbing downward into the forms into whose habits thou hast now for many years slid . As near and proper to us is also that old ...
... heaven - facing speakers . Ah , brother , hold fast to the man and awe the beast ; stop the ebb of thy soul — ebbing downward into the forms into whose habits thou hast now for many years slid . As near and proper to us is also that old ...
Page 46
... heaven and earth . Is there somewhat overweening in this claim ? Then I reject all I have written , for what is the use of pretending to know what we know not ? But it is the fault of our rhetoric that we can- not strongly state one ...
... heaven and earth . Is there somewhat overweening in this claim ? Then I reject all I have written , for what is the use of pretending to know what we know not ? But it is the fault of our rhetoric that we can- not strongly state one ...
Page 55
... Heaven ! it is he ! it is that very lump of bashfulness and phlegm which for weeks has done nothing but eat when you were by , that now rolls out these words like bell - strokes . It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries ...
... Heaven ! it is he ! it is that very lump of bashfulness and phlegm which for weeks has done nothing but eat when you were by , that now rolls out these words like bell - strokes . It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries ...
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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.