Essays: First SeriesHoughton, Mifflin, 1876 - 290 pages |
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Page 13
... persons of Solomon , Alcibiades , and Cati- line . It is the universal nature which gives worth to partic- ular 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 Cati- line . It is the universal nature which gives worth to partic- ular men and things . Human life as containing this is mysterious and inviolable , and we hedge it round with penalties and laws ...
Page 15
... person . He must sit solidly at home , and not suffer himself to be bullied by kings or empires , but know that he is greater than all the geography and all the government of the world ; he must transfer the point of view from which ...
... person . He must sit solidly at home , and not suffer himself to be bullied by kings or empires , but know that he is greater than all the geography and all the government of the world ; he must transfer the point of view from which ...
Page 17
... person as he , so armed and so motived , and to ends to which he himself should also have worked , the problem is solved ; his thought lives along the whole line of temples and sphinxes and catacombs , passes through them all with ...
... person as he , so armed and so motived , and to ends to which he himself should also have worked , the problem is solved ; his thought lives along the whole line of temples and sphinxes and catacombs , passes through them all with ...
Page 19
... persons they were , and what they did . We have the same national mind expressed for us again in their literature , in epic and lyric poems , drama , and philosophy ; a very complete - form . Then we have it once more in HISTORY . 19.
... persons they were , and what they did . We have the same national mind expressed for us again in their literature , in epic and lyric poems , drama , and philosophy ; a very complete - form . Then we have it once more in HISTORY . 19.
Page 27
... persons speak simply , - - speak as persons who have great good sense without knowing HISTORY . 27.
... persons speak simply , - - speak as persons who have great good sense without knowing HISTORY . 27.
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Common terms and phrases
action affection appear beautiful soul beauty becomes behold better black event Bonduca Cæsar Calvinistic character conversation divine doctrine earth Egypt Epaminondas eternal evanescent experience fable fact fear feel friendship genius gifts give Greek hand heart heaven Heraclitus hour human instinct intellect Last Judgment less light ligion live look lose man's marriage mind moral nature never noble object ourselves OVER-SOUL paint pass passion perfect persons Petrarch Phidias Phocion Pindar Plato Plotinus Plutarch poet poetry proverb prudence Pyrrhonism relations religion Rome sculpture secret seek seems seen sense sensual sentiment Shakspeare society Sophocles soul speak Spinoza spirit stand star Stoicism sweet talent teach thee things thou thought tion to-day true truth universal virtue whilst whole wisdom wise words Xenophon youth
Popular passages
Page 43 - 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 44 - 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 282 - Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.
Page 46 - Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.
Page 72 - Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. 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.
Page 44 - 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 50 - If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for the government or against it, spread your table like base housekeepers, — under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are. And, of course, so much force is withdrawn from your proper life. But do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself.
Page 57 - We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves but allow a passage to its beams.
Page 216 - God comes to see us without bell:" that is, as there is no screen or ceiling between our heads and the infinite heavens, so is there no bar or wall in the soul where man, the effect, ceases, and God, the cause, begins. The walls are taken away. We lie open on one side to the deeps of spiritual nature, to all the attributes of God.
Page 103 - We cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go out that archangels may come in. We are idolaters of the old. We do not believe in the riches of the soul, in its proper eternity and omnipresence. We do not believe there is any force in to-day to rival or re-create that beautiful yesterday. We linger in the ruins of the old tent where once we had bread and shelter and organs, nor believe that the spirit can feed, cover, and nerve us again. We cannot again...