Essays: First SeriesD. McKay, 1888 - 396 pages |
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Page 10
... persons of Solomon , Alcibiades , and Catiline . It is this universal nature which gives worth to particular men and things . Human life as containing this is mysterious and inviolable , and we hedge it round with penalties and laws ...
... persons of Solomon , Alcibiades , and Catiline . It is this universal nature which gives worth to particular men and things . Human life as containing this is mysterious and inviolable , and we hedge it round with penalties and laws ...
Page 12
... wonderful manner to ab- breviate itself and yield its whole virtue to him . He should see that he can live all history in his own person . He must sit at home with might L and main , and not suffer himself to be bullied 12 ESSAY I.
... wonderful manner to ab- breviate itself and yield its whole virtue to him . He should see that he can live all history in his own person . He must sit at home with might L and main , and not suffer himself to be bullied 12 ESSAY I.
Page 31
... persons who have great good sense without knowing it , before yet the reflective habit has become the pre- dominant habit of the mind . Our admiration of the antique is not admiration of the old , but of the natural . The Greeks are not ...
... persons who have great good sense without knowing it , before yet the reflective habit has become the pre- dominant habit of the mind . Our admiration of the antique is not admiration of the old , but of the natural . The Greeks are not ...
Page 32
... person of childlike genius and inborn energy is still a Greek , and revives our love of the muse of Hellas . A great boy , a great girl , with good sense , is a Greek . Beau- tiful is the love of nature in the Philoctetes . But in ...
... person of childlike genius and inborn energy is still a Greek , and revives our love of the muse of Hellas . A great boy , a great girl , with good sense , is a Greek . Beau- tiful is the love of nature in the Philoctetes . But in ...
Page 35
... person makes against the superstition of his times , he reacts step for step the part of old reformers , and in the search after truth finds . like them new perils to virtue . He learns again what moral vigor is needed to supply the ...
... person makes against the superstition of his times , he reacts step for step the part of old reformers , and in the search after truth finds . like them new perils to virtue . He learns again what moral vigor is needed to supply the ...
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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.