God gave us faculties for...

God gave us faculties for our use; each of them will receive its proper reward. Then do not let us try to charm them to sleep, but permit them to do their work until divinely called to something higher.

Truth lies within a little...

Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense.

[H]e could be both severe...

[H]e could be both severe and plain-spoken as anybody in Parliament or out, and knew how to run an adversary clean through with a sword that was no spinster's arm. Fitzjames Stephen, who led the first effective attack on Mill's pontifical authority, said he was cold as ice, a walking book. On the contrary, he was a man of extreme sensibility and vital heat in things worth waxing hot about. In truth he sometimes let sensibility carry him too far. One notable afternoon in European history, I saw him in an instant blaze into uncontrollable anger. It was July 14, 1870. He was sitting in his garden, and I brought him the news that France had declared war upon Prussia. He violently struck his chair and broke out in a passionate exclamation, "What a pity the bombs of Orsini missed their mark, and left the crime-stained usurper alive!"

Imminent seems the collapse of...

Imminent seems the collapse of that which for millennium has constituted man's universe. The new world which has arisen as an apparatus for supply of the necessaries of life compels everything and everyone to serve it. It annihilates whatever it has no place for person seems to be going undergoing absorption into that which is nothing more than a means to an end, into that which is devoid of purpose of significance.

Whensoever by some present hard...

Whensoever by some present hard occurrences thou art constrained to be in some sort troubled and vexed, return unto thyself as soon as may be, and be not out of tune longer than thou must needs. For so shalt thou be the better able to keep thy part another time, and to maintain the harmony, if thou dost use thyself to this continually; once out, presently to have recourse unto it, and to begin again.

In pursuit of gain, men...

In pursuit of gain, men have begun to consider their violence an article to be bought and sold.

A patriot king is the...

A patriot king is the most powerful of all reformers; for he is himself a sort of standing miracle, so rarely seen and so little understood, that the sure effects of his appearance will be admiration and love in every honest breast, confusion and terror to every guilty conscience, but submission and resignation in all. A new people will seem to arise with a new king. In numerable metamorphoses, like those which poets feign, will happen in very deed: and while men are conscious that they are the same individuals, the difference of their sentiments will almost persuade them that they are changed into different beings.

From Antisthenes: It is royal...

From Antisthenes: It is royal to do good and be abused.

I know not whether this...

I know not whether this book is worth anything, nor what the world will do with it, or misdo, or entirely forbear to do, as is likeliest; but this I could tell the world: You have not had for a hundred years any book that comes more direct and flamingly from the heart of a living man. Do what you like with it, you—.

Anything can be made to...

Anything can be made to look good or bad by being redescribed.

The woman who goes to...

The woman who goes to bed with a man must put off her modesty with her petticoat, and put it on again with the same.

The truth of practical intellect...

The truth of practical intellect is understood not as conformity to an extramental being but as conformity to a right desire; the end is no longer to know what is, but to bring into existence that which is not yet.

Remember this, then, that this...

Remember this, then, that this little compound, thyself, must either be dissolved, or thy poor breath must be extinguished, or be removed and placed elsewhere.

History is the essence of...

History is the essence of innumerable biographies.

Now if I should question...

Now if I should question any sect (for there is no Communion in Christendom) whither these later intimations drive? They can but return me to the first rudiments, or produce some empty pretense of Spirit.

I do not know what...

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

Liberals, unless they are professional...

Liberals, unless they are professional politicians seeking votes in the hinterland, are not subject to strong feelings of national patriotism and are likely to feel uneasy at patriotic ceremonies. These, like the organizations in whose conduct they are still manifest, are dismissed by liberals rather scornfully as ‘flag-waving’ and ‘100 percent Americanism.’ The national anthem is not customarily sung or the flag shown, unless prescribed by law, at meetings of liberal associations. When a liberal journalist uses the phrase ‘patriotic organization,’ the adjective is equivalent in meaning to ‘stupid, reactionary and rather ludicrous.’ The rise of liberalism to predominance in the controlling sectors of American opinion is in almost exact correlation with the decline in the ceremonial celebration of the Fourth of July, traditionally regarded as the nation’s major holiday. To the liberal mind, the patriotic oratory is not only banal but subversive of rational ideals; and judged by liberalism’s humanitarian morality, the enthusiasm and pleasures that simple souls might have got from the fireworks could not compensate the occasional damage to the eye or finger of an unwary youngster. The purer liberals of the Norman Cousins strain, in the tradition of Eleanor Roosevelt, are more likely to celebrate UN day than the Fourth of July.

Things that have a common...

Things that have a common quality ever quickly seek their kind.

Religion in most countries, more...

Religion in most countries, more or less in every country, is no longer what it was, and should be,—a thousand-voiced psalm from the heart of Man to his invisible Father, the fountain of all Goodness, Beauty, Truth, and revealed in every revelation of these; but for the most part, a wise prudential feeling grounded on mere calculation; a matter, as all others now are, of Expediency and Utility; whereby some smaller quantum of earthly enjoyment may be exchanged for a far larger quantum of celestial enjoyment. Thus Religion too is Profit, a working for wages; not Reverence, but vulgar Hope or Fear.

Believe me, there is no...

Believe me, there is no such thing as great suffering, great regret, great memory...Everything is forgotten, even great love.

I had in my hand...

I had in my hand a very long cane, and at last wee came to a churchyard, and it was the Brightest Day-light, that ever I beheld: when wee were about the middle of the churchyard, I struck upon the ground with my cane at the full length, and it gave a most shrill reverberating eccho. I turned back to look upon my wife, and shee appeared to mee in green silk downe to the ground, and much taller, and slenderer then shee was in her life-time, but in her face there was so much glorie, and beautie, that noe Angell in Heaven can have more.

After dinner, the weather being...

After dinner, the weather being warm, we went into the garden, & drank tea under the shade of some apple trees; only he & myself. Amidst other discourse, he told me, he was just in the same situation, as when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. "Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground," thought he to him self; occasion'd by the fall of an apple, as he sat in a contemplative mood. "Why should it not go sideways, or upwards? but constantly to the earths centre? Assuredly, the reason is, that the earth draws it. There must be a drawing power in matter. The sum of the drawing power in the matter must be in the earth's center, not in any side of the earth. Therefore does this apple fall perpendicularly or toward the center. If matter thus draws matter; it must be in proportion to its quantity. Therefore the apple draws the earth, as well as the earth draws the apple."

We cannot embrace his cross,...

We cannot embrace his cross, and yet refuse our own. We cannot raise the cup of his remembrance to our lips, without a secret pledge to him, to one another, to the great company of the faithful in every age that we too hold ourselves at God's disposal, that we will ask nothing on our own account, that we will pass simply into the Divine hand to take us whither it will.

Live as on a mountain....

Live as on a mountain. ...Let men see, let them know a real man who lives according to nature. If they cannot endure him, let them kill him. For that is better than to live thus.

I like thought which preserves...

I like thought which preserves a whiff of flesh and blood, and I prefer a thousand times an idea rising from sexual tension or nervous depression to empty abstraction.

Ever, as before, does Madness...

Ever, as before, does Madness remain a mysterious-terrific, altogether infernal boiling-up of the Nether Chaotic Deep, through this fair-painted Vision of Creation, which swims thereon, which we name the Real.

I do not want to...

I do not want to found anything on the incomprehensible. I want to know whether I can live with what I know and with that alone.

There is, however, no advantage...

There is, however, no advantage in reflections on the past further than may be of service to the present. For the future we must provide by maintaining what the present gives us and redoubling our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue as the fruit of labour, and you must not change the habit, even though you should have a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right that what was won in want should be lost in plenty.

There is a big difference...

There is a big difference between being anti-American and being critical of the United States. Once again: critiques are appropriate and necessary, provided that they rest on facts and address real abuses, real errors and real excesses -- without deliberately losing sight of America's wise decisions, beneficent interventions and salutary policies. But critiques of this kind -- balanced, fair and well-founded are hard to find, except in America herself: in the daily press in weekly news magazines, on television and radio, and in highbrow monthly journals, which are more widely read than their equivalents in Europe.

Notwithstanding their attacks on the...

Notwithstanding their attacks on the basic conception of rationalism, on synthetic a priori judgments, that is, material propositions that cannot be contradicted by any experience, the empiricist posits the forms of being as constant.

Socrates used to call the...

Socrates used to call the opinions of the many by the name of Lamiae, bugbears to frighten children.

If there were only one...

If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two they would cut each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness.

...all of the philosophers put...

...all of the philosophers put together are not worth a single saint.

The entire method consists in...

The entire method consists in the order and arrangement of the things to which the mind's eye must turn so that we can discover some truth.

Cash Payment the sole nexus;...

Cash Payment the sole nexus; and there are so many things which cash will not pay! Cash is a great miracle; yet it has not all power in Heaven, nor even on Earth. 'Supply and demand' we will honour also; and yet how many 'demands' are there, entirely indispensable, which have to go elsewhere than to the shops, and produce quite other than cash, before they can get their supply? On the whole, what astonishing payments does cash make in this world!

The gods had condemned Sisyphus...

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

Of the gods we believe,...

Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessary law of their nature they rule wherever they can.

Who in the same given...

Who in the same given time can produce more than others has vigor; who can produce more and better, has talents; who can produce what none else can, has genius.

The quality of the human...

The quality of the human that precludes identifying the individual with the class is ‘metaphysical’ and has no place in empiricist epistemology. The pigeon hole into which a man is shoved circumscribes his fate.

Enough of this miserable, whining...

Enough of this miserable, whining life. Stop monkeying around! Why are you troubled? What’s new here? What’s so confounding? The one responsible? Take a good look. Or just the matter itself? Then look at that. There’s nothing else to look at. And as far as the gods go, by now you could try being more straightforward and kind. It’s the same, whether you’ve examined these things for a hundred years, or only three.

Alas! how can we always...

Alas! how can we always resist? The devil tempts us, and the flesh is weak.

Death is too exact; it...

Death is too exact; it has all the reasons on its side. Mysterious for our instincts, it takes shape, to our reflection, limpid, without glamor, and without the false lures of the unknown. By dint of accumulating non-mysteries and monopolizing non-meanings, life inspires more dread than death: it is life which is the Great Unknown.

We are to remember what...

We are to remember what an umpire Nature is; what a greatness, composure of depth and tolerance there is in her. You take wheat to cast into the Earth's bosom; your wheat may be mixed with chaff, chopped straw, barn-sweepings, dust and all imaginable rubbish; no matter: you cast it into the kind just Earth; she grows the wheat, — the whole rubbish she silently absorbs, shrouds it in, says nothing of the rubbish. The yellow wheat is growing there; the good Earth is silent about all the rest, — has silently turned all the rest to some benefit too, and makes no complaint about it! So everywhere in Nature! She is true and not a lie; and yet so great, and just, and motherly in her truth. She requires of a thing only that it be genuine of heart; she will protect it if so; will not, if not so. There is a soul of truth in all the things she ever gave harbor to. Alas, is not this the history of all highest Truth that comes or ever came into the world?

He kept the middle way,...

He kept the middle way, that's all: he was the type of man for whom one has an affection of the mild but steady order - which is the kind that wears best.

Nothing emboldens sin so much...

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

All great minds sympathize.

All great minds sympathize.

All the passions die with...

All the passions die with the years; self-love alone never dies.

What surrounds us we endure...

What surrounds us we endure better for giving it a name — and moving on.

For, in fact, I say...

For, in fact, I say the degree of vision that dwells in a man is a correct measure of the man. If called to define Shakspeare's faculty, I should say superiority of Intellect, and think I had included all under that. What indeed are faculties? We talk of faculties as if they were distinct, things separable; as if a man had intellect, imagination, fancy, &c., as he has hands, feet and arms. That is a capital error. Then again, we hear of a man's "intellectual nature," and of his "moral nature," as if these again were divisible, and existed apart. Necessities of language do perhaps prescribe such forms of utterance; we must speak, I am aware, in that way, if we are to speak at all. But words ought not to harden into things for us. It seems to me, our apprehension of this matter is, for most part, radically falsified thereby. We ought to know withal, and to keep forever in mind, that these divisions are at bottom but names; that man's spiritual nature, the vital Force which dwells in him, is essentially one and indivisible; that what we call imagination, fancy, understanding, and so forth, are but different figures of the same Power of Insight, all indissolubly connected with each other, physiognomically related; that if we knew one of them, we might know all of them. Morality itself, what we call the moral quality of a man, what is this but another side of the one vital Force whereby he is and works? All that a man does is physiognomical of him. You may see how a man would fight, by the way in which he sings; his courage, or want of courage, is visible in the word he utters, in the opinion he has formed, no less than in the stroke he strikes. He is one; and preaches the same Self abroad in all these ways.

No human being, even the...

No human being, even the most passionately loved and passionately loving, is ever in our possession.