Discourses in America

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Macmillan, 1896 - 207 pages
 

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Page 155 - THOUGH love repine, and reason chafe, There came a voice without reply, — • " 'Tis man's perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die.
Page 82 - Some of you may possibly remember a phrase of mine which has been the object of a good deal of comment ; an observation to the effect that in our culture, the aim being to know ourselves and tlie world, we have, as the means to this end, to know the best which has been thought and said in the world.
Page 147 - 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 2 - Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be : Why then should we desire to be deceived?
Page 135 - And for the generality of men there will be found, I say, to arise, when they have duly taken in the proposition that their ancestor was "a hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits...
Page 182 - Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River and Boston Bay you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and. if we will tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best.
Page 110 - The notions of the beginning and the end of the world entertained by our forefathers are no longer credible. It is very certain that the earth is not the chief body in the material universe, and that the world is not subordinated to man's use. It is even more certain that nature is the expression of a definite order with which nothing interferes, and that the chief business of mankind is to learn that order and govern themselves accordingly.
Page 183 - The exclusive in fashionable life does not see that he excludes himself from enjoyment, in the attempt to appropriate it. The exclusionist in religion does not see that he shuts the door of heaven on himself, in striving to shut out others.
Page 109 - Moreover, it is quite true that the habit of dealing with facts, which is given by the study of nature, is, as the friends of physical science praise it for being, an excellent discipline. The appeal in the study of nature is constantly to observation and experiment; not only is it said that the thing...
Page 137 - ... the majority of men will always require humane letters; and so much the more, as they have the more and the greater results of science to relate to the need in man for conduct, and to the need in him for beauty.

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