Essays, First SeriesHoughton, Mifflin and Company, 1883 - 290 pages |
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Page 15
... fable agreed upon ? " This life of ours is stuck round with Egypt , Greece , Gaul , England , War , Coloni- zation , Church , Court and Commerce , as with so many flowers and wild ornaments grave and gay . I will not make more account ...
... fable agreed upon ? " This life of ours is stuck round with Egypt , Greece , Gaul , England , War , Coloni- zation , Church , Court and Commerce , as with so many flowers and wild ornaments grave and gay . I will not make more account ...
Page 18
... fables with one moral . Through the bruteness and toughness of matter , a subtle spirit bends all things to its own will . The ada- mant streams into soft but precise form before it , and whilst I look at it its outline and texture 18 ...
... fables with one moral . Through the bruteness and toughness of matter , a subtle spirit bends all things to its own will . The ada- mant streams into soft but precise form before it , and whilst I look at it its outline and texture 18 ...
Page 33
... fable of sop , of Homer , of Hafiz , of Ariosto , of Chaucer , of Scott , and verifies them with his own head and hands . The beautiful fables of the Greeks , being proper creations of the imagination and not of the fancy , are ...
... fable of sop , of Homer , of Hafiz , of Ariosto , of Chaucer , of Scott , and verifies them with his own head and hands . The beautiful fables of the Greeks , being proper creations of the imagination and not of the fancy , are ...
Page 35
... fable . I would it were ; but men and women are only half human . Every animal of the barn - yard , the field and the forest , of the earth and of the waters that are under the earth , has contrived to get a footing and to leave the ...
... fable . I would it were ; but men and women are only half human . Every animal of the barn - yard , the field and the forest , of the earth and of the waters that are under the earth , has contrived to get a footing and to leave the ...
Page 62
... and take possession . The picture waits for my verdict ; it is not to command me , but I am to settle its claims to praise . That popular fable of the sot who was picked up dead - drunk in the street , carried to the 62 SELF - RELIANCE .
... and take possession . The picture waits for my verdict ; it is not to command me , but I am to settle its claims to praise . That popular fable of the sot who was picked up dead - drunk in the street , carried to the 62 SELF - RELIANCE .
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action affection appear beautiful soul beauty become behold better black event Bonduca Cæsar character conversation divine doctrine earth Egypt Epaminondas ergy eternal evanescent experience fable fact fear feel friendship genius gifts give Greek hand heart heaven Heraclitus heroism hour human intel intellect less light live look man's marriage ment mind moral nature never noble object OVER-SOUL painted pass perception perfect persons Petrarch Phidias Phocion picture Pindar Plato Plotinus Plutarch poet poetry prudence relations religion Rome sculpture secret seek seems seen sense sensual sentiment Shakspeare society Socrates Sophocles soul speak Spinoza spirit stand Stoicism sweet talent teach tence thee things thou thought tion to-day to-morrow true truth ture universal virtue whilst whole wisdom wise words Xenophon youth
Popular passages
Page 318 - God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please, — you can never have both. Between these, as a pendulum, man oscillates. He in whom the love of repose predominates will accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political party he meets, — most likely his father's. He gets test, commodity, and reputation ; but he shuts the door of truth.
Page 83 - What a contrast between the well-clad, reading, writing, thinking American, with a watch, a pencil and a bill of exchange in his pocket, and the naked New Zealander, whose property is a club, a spear, a mat and an undivided twentieth of a shed to sleep under ! But compare the health of the two men and you shall see that the white man has lost his aboriginal strength.
Page 54 - I will go to prison, if need be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now stand; alms to sots; and the thousandfold Relief Societies; - though I confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar which by and by I shall have the manhood to withhold.
Page 67 - 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.
Page 87 - It is only as a man puts off from himself all external support and stands alone that I see him to be strong and to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner. Is not a man better than a town? Ask nothing of men, and, in the endless mutation, thou only firm column must presently appear the upholder of all that surrounds thee.
Page 9 - THERE is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he may think ; what a saint has felt, he may feel ; what at any time has befallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent.
Page 281 - THE eye is the first circle ; the horizon which it forms is the second ; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world.
Page 82 - It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For everything that is given something is taken.
Page 106 - All things are double, one against another. — Tit for tat ; an eye for an eye ; a tooth for a tooth ; blood for blood ; measure for measure ; love for love. — Give, and it shall be given you. — He that watereth shall be watered himself. — What will you have ? quoth God ; pay for it and take it.
Page 82 - There is at this moment, there is for me an utterance bare and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or trowel of the Egyptians, or the pen of Moses or Dante, but different from all these. Not possibly will the soul, all rich, all eloquent, with thousand-cloven tongue, deign to repeat itself...