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People Are So Ridiculous With Their Illusions, Carrying Their Fool's Caps Unawares, Thinking Their Own Lies Opaque While Everybody Else's Are Transparent, Making Themselves Exceptions To Everything, As If When All The World Looked Yellow Under A Lamp They Alone Are Rosy.

-George Eliot

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People Are So Ridiculous

George Eliot

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People Are So Ridiculous With Their Illusions, Carrying Their Fool's Caps Unawares, Thinking Their Own Lies Opaque While Everybody Else's Are Transparent, Making Themselves Exceptions To Everything, As If When All The World Looked Yellow Under A Lamp They Alone Are Rosy.

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As Leopard Feels At Home With Leopard.

Primary (the Lds Church's Sunday School For Children) Is Where You Go To Do With Somebody Else's Mother The Things You Would Do With Your Own Mother If She Weren't So Busy Teaching Primary.

What Sunshine Is To Flowers, Smiles Are To Humanity.

Our Deeds Are Like Children That Are Born To Us; They Live And Act Apart From Our Own Will. Nay, Children May Be Strangled, But Deeds Never: They Have An Indestructible Life Both In And Out Of Our Consciousness.

There's Good Chances And Bad Chances, And Nobody's Luck Is Pulled Only By One String.

I Suppose It Was That In Courtship Everything Is Regarded As Provisional And Preliminary, And The Smallest Sample Of Virtue Or Accomplishment Is Taken To Guarantee Delightful Stores Which The Broad Leisure Of Marriage Will Reveal. But The Door-sill Of Marriage Once Crossed, Expectation Is Concentrated On The Present. Having Once Embarked On Your Marital Voyage, It Is Impossible Not To Be Aware That You Make No Way And That The Sea Is Not Within Sight-that, In Fact, You Are Exploring An Enclosed Basin.

Each Thought Is A Nail That Is Driven In Structures That Cannot Decay; And The Mansion At Last Will Be Given To Us As We Build It Each Day.

A Blush Is No Language; Only A Dubious Flag - Signal Which May Mean Either Of Two Contradictories

People Are So Ridiculous With Their Illusions, Carrying Their Fool's Caps Unawares, Thinking Their Own Lies Opaque While Everybody Else's Are Transparent, Making Themselves Exceptions To Everything, As If When All The World Looked Yellow Under A Lamp They Alone Are Rosy.

Correct English Is The Slang Of Prigs.

She Thought It Was Part Of The Hardship Of Her Life That There Was Laid Upon Her The Burthen Of Larger Wants Than Others Seemed To Feel – That She Had To Endure This Wide Hopeless Yearning For That Something, Whatever It Was, That Was Greatest And Best On This Earth.

Oh, Child, Men's Men: Gentle Or Simple, They're Much Of A Muchness.

In The Love Of A Brave And Faithful Man There Is Always A Strain Of Maternal Tenderness; He Gives Out Again Those Beams Of Protecting Fondness Which Were Shed On Him As He Lay On His Mother's Knee.

Appearances Have Very Little To Do With Happiness.

The Dew-bead Gem Of Earth And Sky Begotten.

... Indefinite Visions Of Ambition Are Weak Against The Ease Of Doing What Is Habitual Or Beguilingly Agreeable.

A Difference Of Taste In Jokes Is A Great Strain On The Affections.

Ignorance ... Is A Painless Evil; So, I Should Think, Is Dirt, Considering The Merry Faces That Go Along With It.

Fine Art, Poetry, That Kind Of Thing, Elevates A Nation.

Man May Content Himself With The Applause Of The World And The Homage Paid To His Intellect, But Woman's Heart Has Holier Idols.

The Nature O' Things Doesn't Change, Though It Seems As If One's Own Life Was Nothing But Change.

I Have Always Been Thinking Of The Different Ways In Which Christianity Is Taught, And Whenever I Find One Way That Makes It A Wider Blessing Than Any Other, I Cling To That As The Truest--i Mean That Which Takes In The Most Good Of All Kinds, And Brings In The Most People As Sharers In It. It Is Surely Better To Pardon Too Much, Than To Condemn Too Much.

Genius At First Is Little More Than A Great Capacity For Receiving Discipline.

Perhaps The Most Delightful Friendships Are Those In Which There Is Much Agreement, Much Disputation, And Yet More Personal Liking.

Any Coward Can Fight A Battle When He's Sure Of Winning; But Give Me The Man Who Has The Pluck To Fight When He's Sure Of Losing.

I Used To Come From The Village With All That Dirt And Coarse Ugliness Like A Pain Within Me, And The Simpering Pictures In The Drawing-room Seemed To Me Like A Wicked Attempt To Find Delight In What Is False, While We Don't Mind How Hard The Truth Is For The Neighbors Outside Our Walls. I Think We Have No Right To Come Forward And Urge Wider Changes For Good, Until We Have Tried To Alter The Evils Which Lie Under Our Own Hands.

Failure After Long Perseverance Is Much Grander Than Never To Have A Striving Good Enough To Be Called A Failure.

It Cuts One Sadly To See The Grief Of Old People; They've No Way O' Working It Off; And The New Spring Brings No New Shoots Out On The Withered Tree.

Cruelty, Like Every Other Vice, Requires No Motive Outside Of Itself; It Only Requires Opportunity.

Life Seems To Go On Without Effort When I Am Filled With Music.

So Much Of Our Early Gladness Vanishes Utterly From Our Memory: We Can Never Recall The Joy With Which We Laid Our Heads On Our Mother's Bosom Or Rode On Our Father's Back In Childhood; Doubtless That Joy Is Wrought Up Into Our Nature, As The Sunlight Of Long-past Mornings Is Wrought Up In The Soft Mellowness Of The Apricot; But It Is Gone Forever From Our Imagination, And We Can Only Believe In The Joy Of Childhood.

Thought Has Joys Apart, Even In Blackest Woe, And Seizing Some Fine Thread Of Verity Knows Momentary Godhead.

That Is The Bitterest Of All,--to Wear The Yoke Of Our Own Wrong-doing.

A Child, More Than All Other Gifts That Earth Can Offer To Declining Man, Brings Hope With It, And Forward-looking Thoughts." —wordsworth.

I Am Feeling Easy Now, And You Will Well Understand That After Undergoing Pain This Ease Is Opening Paradise. Invalids Must Be Excused For Being Eloquent About Themselves.

Things Are Achieved When They Are Well Begun. The Perfect Archer Calls The Deer His Own While Yet The Shaft Is Whistling.

If You Had A Table Spread For A Feast, And Was Making Merry With Your Friends, You Would Think It Was Kind To Let Me Come And Sit Down And Rejoice With You, Because You'd Think I Should To Share Those Good Things; But I Should Better To Share In Your Trouble And Your Labour.

Fear Was Stronger Than The Calculation Of Probabilities.

What Loneliness Is More Lonely Than Distrust?

When We Get To Wishing A Great Deal For Ourselves, Whatever We Get Soon Turns Into Mere Limitation And Exclusion.

These Fellow-mortals, Every One, Must Be Accepted As They Are: You Can Neither Straighten Their Noses, Nor Brighten Their Wit, Nor Rectify Their Dispositions; And It Is These People-amongst Whom Your Life Is Passed-that It Is Needful You Should Tolerate, Pity, And Love: It Is These More Or Less Ugly, Stupid, Inconsistent People Whose Movements Of Goodness You Should Be Able To Admire-for Whom You Should Cherish All Possible Hopes, All Possible Patience.

But I Think It Is Hardly An Argument Against A Man's General Strength Of Character, That He Should Be Apt To Be Mastered By Love. A Fine Constitution Doesn't Insure One Against Small-pox Or Any Other Of Those Inevitable Diseases. A Man May Be Very Firm In Other Matters, And Yet Be Under A Sort Of Witchery From A Woman.

Perhaps There Is No Time In A Summer's Day More Cheering, Than When The Warmth Of The Sun Is Just Beginning To Triumph Over The Freshness Of The Morning--when There Is Just A Lingering Hint Of Early Coolness To Keep Off Languor Under The Delicious Influence Of Warmth.

Little Children Are Still The Symbol Of The Eternal Marriage Between Love And Duty.

To Know Intense Joy Without A Strong Bodily Frame, One Must Have An Enthusiastic Soul.

Animals Are Such Agreeable Friends.

No Anguish I Have Had To Bear On Your Account Has Been Too Heavy A Price To Pay For The New Life Into Which I Have Entered In Loving You.

Religion, Like All Things, Begins With Self, And Naught Is Known, Until One Knows Himself.

What To One Man Is The Virtue Which He Has Sunk Below The Possibility Of Aspiring To, Is To Another The Backsliding By Which He Forfeits His Spiritual Crown.

The Beginning Of Compunction Is The Beginning Of A New Life.

I Care Only To Know, If Possible, The Lasting Meaning That Lies In All Religious Doctrine From The Beginning Till Now.

The Floods Of Nonsense Printed In The Form Of Critical Opinions Seem To Me A Chief Curse Of The Times, A Chief Obstacle To True Culture.

We Mustn't Be In A Hurry To Fix And Choose Our Own Lot; We Must Wait To Be Guided.

Young Love-making--that Gossamer Web! Even The Points It Clings To--the Things Whence Its Subtle Interlacings Are Swung--are Scarcely Perceptible: Momentary Touches Of Finger-tips, Meetings Of Rays From Blue And Dark Orbs, Unfinished Phrases, Lightest Changes Of Cheek And Lip, Faintest Tremors. The Web Itself Is Made Of Spontaneous Beliefs And Indefinable Joys, Yearnings Of One Life Towards Another, Visions Of Completeness, Indefinite Trust.

It Is A Fact Perhaps Kept A Little Too Much In The Background, That Mothers Have A Self Larger Than Their Maternity, And That When Their Sons Have Become Taller Than Themselves, And Are Gone From Them To College Or Into The World, There Are Wide Spaces Of Their Time Which Are Not Filled With Praying For Their Boys, Reading Old Letters, And Envying Yet Blessing Those Who Are Attending To Their Shirt-buttons.

Consequences Are Unpitying.

There Are Glances Of Hatred That Stab, And Raise No Cry Of Murder.

We Could Never Have Loved The Earth So Well If We Had No Childhood In It If It Were Not The Earth Where The Same Flowers Come Up Again Every Spring That We Used To Gather With Our Tiny Fingers As We Sat Lisping To Ourselves On The Grass . . .

Until Every Good Man Is Brave, We Must Expect To Find Many Good Women Timid--too Timid Even To Believe In The Correctness Of Their Own Best Promptings, When These Would Place Them In A Minority.

For Character Too Is A Process And An Unfolding. . . Among Our Valued Friends Is There Not Someone Or Other Who Is A Little Too Self Confident And Disdainful. . . .

Things Are Achieved When They Are Well Begun.

Perhaps His Might Be One Of The Natures Where A Wise Estimate Of Consequences Is Fused In The Fires Of That Passionate Belief Which Determines The Consequences It Believes In.

Net The Large Fish And You Are Sure To Have The Small Fry.

One Must Be Poor To Know The Luxury Of Giving!

Inclination Snatches Arguments To Make Indulgence Seem Judicious Choice.

Ingenious Philosophers Tell You, Perhaps, That The Great Work Of The Steam-engine Is To Create Leisure For Mankind. Do Not Believe Them; It Only Creates A Vacuum For Eager Thought To Rush In.

After All, The True Seeing Is Within.

He Who Rules Must Fully Humor As Much As He Commands.

The Higher Life Begins For Us ... When We Renounce Our Own Will To Bow Before A Divine Law.

Our Impartiality Is Kept For Abstract Merit And Demerit, Which None Of Us Ever Saw.

I Have No Courage To Write Much Unless I Am Written To. I Soon Begin To Think That There Are Plenty Of Other Correspondents More Interesting - So If You All Want To Hear From Me You Know The Conditions.

Enveloped In A Common Mist, We Seem To Walk In Clearness Ourselves, And Behold Only The Mist That Enshrouds Others.

We Are Apt To Think It The Finest Era Of The World When America Was Beginning To Be Discovered, When A Bold Sailor, Even If He Were Wrecked, Might Alight On A New Kingdom.

We Could Never Have Loved The Earth So Well If We Had Had No Childhood In It.

The Idea Of Duty--that Recognition Of Something To Be Lived For Beyond The Mere Satisfaction Of Self--is To The Moral Life What The Addition Of A Great Central Ganglion Is To Animal Life.

The Soul Of Man, When It Gets Fairly Rotten, Will Bear You All Sorts Of Poisonous Toad-stools, And No Eye Can See Whence Came The Seed Thereof.

I Easily Sink Into Mere Absorption Of What Other Minds Have Done, And Should Like A Whole Life For That Alone.

What Greater Thing Is There For Two Human Souls Than To Feel That They Are Joined - To Strengthen Each Other - To Be At One With Each Other In Silent Unspeakable Memories.

If Troubles Were Put Up To Market, I'd Sooner Buy Old Than New. It's Something To Have Seen The Worst.

The Sense Of An Entailed Disadvantage - The Deformed Foot Doubtfully Hidden By The Shoe, Makes A Restlessly Active Spiritual Yeast, And Easily Turns A Self-centered, Unloving Nature Into An Ishmaelite.

Our Selfishness Is So Robust And Many-clutching That, Well Encouraged, It Easily Devours All Sustenance Away From Our Poor Little Scruples.

There Is Nothing I Should Care More To Do, If It Were Possible, Than To Rouse The Imagination Of Men And Women To A Vision Of Human Claims In Those Races Of Their Fellow-men Who Most Differ From Them In Customs And Beliefs.

Certainly The Determining Acts Of Her Life Were Not Ideally Beautiful. They Were The Mixed Result Of Young And Novel Impulse Struggling Amidst The Conditions Of An Imperfect Social State, In Which Great Feelings Will Often Take The Aspect Of Error, And Great Faith The Aspect Of Illusion.

Nature Has The Deep Cunning Which Hides Itself Under The Appearance Of Openness, So That Simple People Think They Can See Through Her Quite Well, And All The While She Is Secretly Preparing A Refutation Of Their Confident Prophecies.

What Novelty Is Worth That Sweet Monotony Where Everything Is Known, And Loved Because It Is Known?

The Desire To Conquer Is Itself A Sort Of Subjection.

Mighty Is The Force Of Motherhood! It Transforms All Things By Its Vital Heat.

It Had Already Occurred To Him That Books Were Stuff, And That Life Was Stupid.

What Do We Live For, If Not To Make Life Less Difficult For Each Other?

Say "i Love You" To Those You Love. The Eternal Silence Is Long Enough To Be Silent In, And That Awaits Us All.

I Like Not Only To Be Loved, But To Be Told That I Am Loved; The Realm Of Silence Is Large Enough Beyond The Grave.

What A Different Result One Gets By Changing The Metaphor!

As To People Saying A Few Idle Words About Us, We Must Not Mind That, Any More Than The Old Church Steeple Minds The Rooks Cawing About It.

One Can Begin So Many Things With A New Person! - Even Begin To Be A Better Man.

Finding Yourself

Letter-writing I Imagine Is Counted As 'work' From Which You Must Abstain, And I Scribble This Letter Simply From The Self-satisfied Notion That You Will Like To Hear From Me. You See, I Have Asked No Questions, Which Are The Torture-screws Of Correspondence. Hence You Have Nothing To Answer.

Boots And Shoes Are The Greatest Trouble Of My Life.

What Can Still That Hunger Of The Heart Which Sickens The Eye For Beauty, And Makes Sweet-scented Ease An Oppression?

What People Do Who Go Into Politics I Can't Think; It Drives Me Almost Mad To See Mismanagement Over Only A Few Hundred Acres.

He Was One Of Those Men, And They Are Not The Commonest, Of Whom We Can Know The Best Only By Following Them Away From The Marketplace, The Platform, And The Pulpit, Entering With Them Into Their Own Homes, Hearing The Voice With Which They Speak To The Young And Aged About Their Own Hearthstone, And Witnessing Their Thoughtful Care For The Everyday Wants Of Everyday Companions, Who Take All Their Kindness As A Matter Of Course, And Not As A Subject For Panegyric.

It's A Strange Thing To Think Of A Man As Can Lift A Chair With His Teeth, And Walk Fifty Mile On End, Trembling And Turning Hot And Cold At Only A Look From One Woman Out Of All The Rest I' The World. It's A Mystery We Can Give No Account Of.

Receptiveness Is A Rare And Massive Power, Like Fortitude.

Of New Acquaintances One Can Never Be Sure Because One Likes Them One Day That It Will Be So The Next. Of Old Friends One Is Sure That It Will Be The Same Yesterday, Today, And Forever.

How Oft Review; Each Finding, Like A Friend, Something To Blame, And Something To Commend.

College Mostly Makes People Like Bladders-just Good For Nothing But T'hold The Stuff As Is Poured Into 'em.

A Perverted Moral Judgment Belongs To The Dogmatic System.

Childhood Has No Forebodings; But Then, It Is Soothed By No Memories Of Outlived Sorrow.

If We Only Look Far Enough Off For The Consequence Of Our Actions, We Can Always Find Some Point In The Combination Of Results By Which Those Actions Can Be Justified: By Adopting The Point Of View Of A Providence Who Arranges Results, Or Of A Philosopher Who Traces Them, We Shall Find It Possible To Obtain Perfect Complacency In Choosing To Do What Is Most Agreeable To Us In The Present Moment.

I Think Any Hardship Is Better Than Pretending To Do What One Is Paid For, And Never Really Doing It.

Every Man Who Is Not A Monster, A Mathematician, Or A Mad Philosopher, Is The Slave Of Some Woman Or Other.

Great Feelings Will Often Take The Aspect Of Error, And Great Faith The Aspect Of Illusion.

I Shall Be So Glad If You Will Tell Me What To Read. I Have Been Looking Into All The Books In The Library At Offendene, But There Is Nothing Readable. The Leaves All Stick Together And Smell Musty. I Wish I Could Write Books To Amuse Myself, As You Can! How Delightful It Must Be To Write Books After One's Own Taste Instead Of Reading Other People's! Home-made Books Must Be So Nice.

"heaven Help Us," Said The Old Religion; The New One, From Its Very Lack Of That Faith, Will Teach Us All The More To Help One Another.

There Is A Sort Of Subjection Which Is The Peculiar Heritage Of Largeness And Of Love; And Strength Is Often Only Another Name For Willing Bondage To Irremediable Weakness.

For Pain Must Enter Into Its Glorified Life Of Memory Before It Can Turn Into Compassion.

People Who Write Finely Must Not Expect To Be Left In Repose; They Will Be Molested With Thanks, At Least.

There Is No Private Life Which Has Not Been Determined By A Wider Public Life.

You Must Learn To Deal With The Odd And Even In Life, As Well As In Figures.

A Proud Heart And A Lofty Mountain Are Never Fruitful.

Pity That Consequences Are Determined Not By Excuses But By Actions!

It Was Not That She Was Out Of Temper, But That The World Was Not Equal To The Demands Of Her Fine Organism.

The Saints Were Cowards Who Stood By To See Christ Crucified: They Should Have Flung Themselves Upon The Roman Spears, And Died In Vain-- The Grandest Death, To Die In Vain--for Love Greater Than Sways The Forces Of The World!

It's Well Known There's Always Two Sides, If No More.

The Right To Rebellion Is The Right To Seek A Higher Rule, And Not To Wander In Mere Lawlessness.

Quarrel? Nonsense; We Have Not Quarreled. If One Is Not To Get Into A Rage Sometimes, What Is The Good Of Being Friends?

I'm Not Denyin' The Women Are Foolish. God Almighty Made 'em To Match The Men.

Well, Well, My Boy, If Good Luck Knocks At Your Door, Don't You Put Your Head Out At Window And Tell It To Be Gone About Its Business, That's All.

Delicious Autumn! My Very Soul Is Wedded To It.

Music Sweeps By Me As A Messenger - Carrying A Message That Is Not For Me

A Common Fallacy: To Imagine A Measure Will Be Easy Because We Have Private Motives For Desiring It.

It Is Difficult For Woman To Try To Be Anything Good When She Is Not Believed In.

And, Of Course Men Know Best About Everything, Except What Women Know Better.

Half The Sorrows Of Women Would Be Averted If They Could Repress The Speech They Know To Be Useless-nay, The Speech They Have Resolved Not To Utter.

Expenditure--like Ugliness And Errors--becomes A Totally New Thing When We Attach Our Own Personality To It, And Measure It By That Wide Difference Which Is Manifest (in Our Own Sensations) Between Ourselves And Others.

What Deep And Worthy Love Is So, Whether Of Woman Or Child, Or Art Or Music. Our Caresses, Our Tender Words, Our Still Rapture Under The Influence Of Autumn Sunsets, Or Pillared Vistas, Or Calm Majestic Statues, Or Beethoven Symphonies All Bring With Them The Consciousness That They Are Mere Waves And Ripples In An Unfathomable Ocean Of Love And Beauty; Our Emotion In Its Keenest Moment Passes From Expression Into Silence, Our Love At Its Highest Flood Rushes Beyond Its Object And Loses Itself In The Sense Of Divine Mystery.

Our Instructed Vagrancy, Which Has Hardly Time To Linger By The Hedgerows, But Runs Away Early To The Tropics, And Is At Home With Palms And Banyans - Which Is Nourished On Books Of Travel, And Stretches The Theatre Of Its Imagination To The Zambesi.

Miss Brooke Had That Kind Of Beauty Which Seems To Be Thrown Into Relief By Poor Dress.

No Man Is Matriculated To The Art Of Life Till He Has Been Well Tempted.

Self-consciousness Of The Manner Is The Expensive Substitute For Simplicity.

I Protest Against Any Absolute Conclusion.

Old Men's Eyes Are Like Old Men's Memories; They Are Strongest For Things A Long Way Off.

Excellence Encourages One About Life Generally; It Shows The Spiritual Wealth Of The World.

It Is The Moment When Our Resolution Seems About To Become Irrevocable--when The Fatal Iron Gates Are About To Close Upon Us--that Tests Our Strength. Then, After Hours Of Clear Reasoning And Firm Conviction, We Snatch At Any Sophistry That Will Nullify Our Long Struggles, And Bring Us The Defeat That We Love Better Than Victory.

But What We Strive To Gratify, Though We May Call It A Distant Hope, Is An Immediate Desire; The Future Estate For Which Men Drudge Up City Alleys Exists Already In Their Imagination And Love.

But If Maggie Had Been That Young Lady, You Would Probably Have Known Nothing About Her: Her Life Would Have Had So Few Vicissitudes That It Could Hardly Have Been Written; For The Happiest Women, Like The Happiest Nations, Have No History.

When One Is Five-and-twenty, One Has Not Chalk-stones At One's Finger-ends That The Touch Of A Handsome Girl Should Be Entirely Indifferent.

Teach Love, For That Is What You Are.

But With Regard To Critical Occasions, It Often Happens That All Moments Seem Comfortably Remote Until The Last.

Kisses Honeyed By Oblivion.

Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover

Haste Makes Waste

... In No Part Of The World Is Genteel Visiting Founded On Esteem, In The Absence Of Suitable Furniture And Complete Dinner-service.

We Cannot Reform Our Forefathers.

Her Little Butterfly Soul Fluttered Incessantly Between Memory And Dubious Expectation.

What Moments Of Despair That Life Would Ever Be Made Precious To Me By The Consciousness That I Lived To Some Good Purpose! It Was That Sort Of Despair That Sucked Away The Sap Of Half The Hours Which Might Have Been Filled By Energetic Youthful Activity: And The Same Demon Tries To Get Hold Of Me Again Whenever An Old Work Is Dismissed And A New One Is Being Meditated.

The Disappointments Of Life Can Never, Any More Than Its Pleasures, Be Estimated Singly; And The Healthiest And Most Agreeable Of Men Is Exposed To That Coincidence Of Various Vexations, Each Heightening The Effect Of The Other, Which May Produce In Him Something Corresponding To The Spontaneous And Externally Unaccountable Moodiness Of The Morbid And Disagreeable.

To Most Mortals There Is A Stupidity Which Is Unendurable And A Stupidity Which Is Altogether Acceptable - Else, Indeed, What Would Become Of Social Bonds?

To An Old Memory Like Mine The Present Days Are But As A Little Water Poured On The Deep.

There Is No Compensation For The Woman Who Feels That The Chief Relation Of Her Life Has Been No More Than A Mistake. She Has Lost Her Crown. The Deepest Secret Of Human Blessedness Has Half Whispered Itself To Her, And Then Forever Passed Her By.

A Maggot Must Be Born I' The Rotten Cheese To Like It.

We Are All Apt To Believe What The World Believes About Us.

It Is Only A Poor Sort Of Happiness That Could Ever Come By Caring Very Much About Our Own Pleasures. We Can Only Have The Highest Happiness Such As Goes Along With Being A Great Man, By Having Wide Thoughts And Much Feeling For The Rest Of The World As Well As Ourselves.

Somebody Put A Drop Under A Magnifying-glass And It Was All Semicolons And Parentheses.

Magnifying Glass

People Glorify All Sorts Of Bravery Except The Bravery They Might Show On Behalf Of Their Nearest Neighbors.

Ah, I Often Think It's Wi' Th' Old Folks As It Is Wi' The Babies; They're Satisfied Wi' Looking, No Matter What They're Looking At. It's God A'mighty's Way O' Quietening 'em, I Reckon, Afore They Go To Sleep.

Boots And Shoes Are The Greatest Trouble Of My Life. Everything Else One Can Turn And Turn About, And Make Old Look Like New; But There's No Coaxing Boots And Shoes To Look Better Than They Are.

What Destroys Us Most Effectively Is Not A Malign Fate But Our Own Capacity For Self-deception And For Degrading Our Own Best Self.

It Is A Sad Weakness In Us, After All, That The Thought Of A Man's Death Hallows Him Anew To Us; As If Life Were Not Sacred Too.

How Impossible It Is For Strong Healthy People To Understand The Way In Which Bodily Malaise And Suffering Eats At The Root Of One's Life! The Philosophy That Is True - The Religion That Is Strength To The Healthy - Is Constantly Emptiness To One When The Head Is Distracted And Every Sensation Is Oppressive.

There Is No Human Being Who Having Both Passions And Thoughts Does Not Think In Consequences Of His Passions--does Not Find Images Rising In His Mind Which Soothe The Passion With Hope Or Sting It With Dread.

Plainness Has Its Peculiar Temptations And Vices Quite As Much As Beauty.

Beautiful Women

Hostesses Who Entertain Much Must Make Up Their Parties As Ministers Make Up Their Cabinets, On Grounds Other Than Personal Liking.

Souls Have Complexions Too: What Will Suit One Will Not Suit Another

I Am Not Resigned: I Am Not Sure Life Is Long Enough To Learn That Lesson.

You Have Such Strong Words At Command, That They Make The Smallest Argument Seem Formidable.

Our Consciousness Rarely Registers The Beginning Of A Growth Within Us Any More Than Without Us; There Have Been Many Circulation Of The Sap Before We Detect The Smallest Sign Of The Bud.

Life Is Measured By The Rapidity Of Change, The Succession Of Influences That Modify The Being.

Science Is Properly More Scrupulous Than Dogma. Dogma Gives A Charter To Mistake, But The Very Breath Of Science Is A Contest With Mistake, And Must Keep The Conscience Alive.

Of What Use, However, Is A General Certainty That An Insect Will Not Walk With His Head Hindmost, When What You Need To Know Is The Play Of Inward Stimulus That Sends Him Hither And Thither In A Network Of Possible Paths?

I Like Not Only To Be Loved, But Also To Be Told I Am Loved.

You Are Discontented With The World Because You Can't Get Just The Small Things That Suit Your Pleasure, Not Because It's A World Where Myriads Of Men And Women Are Ground By Wrong And Misery, And Tainted With Pollution.

What If My Words Were Meant For Deeds.

I Take A Dose Of Mathematics Every Day To Prevent My Brain From Becoming Quite Soft.

Fatally Powerful As Religious Systems Have Been, Human Nature Is Stronger And Wider, And Though Dogmas May Hamper They Cannot Absolutely Repress Its Growth.

It Is Easy To Say How We Love New Friends, And What We Think Of Them, But Words Can Never Trace Out All The Fibers That Knit Us To The Old.

A Human Being In This Aged Nation Of Ours Is A Very Wonderful Hole, The Slow Creation Of Long Interchanging Influences; And Charm Is A Result Of Two Such Wholes, The One Loving And The One Loved.

All Meanings, We Know, Depend On The Key Of Interpretation.

The Intensest Form Of Hatred Is That Rooted In Fear.

What Is Opportunity To The Man Who Can't Use It? An Unfecundated Egg, Which The Waves Of Time Wash Away Into Nonentity.

... Happy Husbands And Wives Can Hear Each Other Say The Same Thing Over And Over Again Without Being Tired.

It Is A Common Enough Case, That Of A Man Being Suddenly Captivated By A Woman Nearly The Opposite Of His Ideal.

When You've Been Used To Doing Things, And They've Been Taken Away From You, It's As If Your Hands Had Been Cut Off, And You Felt The Fingers As Are Of No Use To You.

Marriage, Which Has Been The Bourne Of So Many Narratives, Is Still A Great Beginning, As It Was To Adam And Eve, Who Kept Their Honey-moon In Eden, But Had Their First Little One Among The Thorns And Thistles Of The Wilderness. It Is Still The Beginning Of The Home Epic - The Gradual Conquest Or Irremediable Loss Of That Complete Union Which Make The Advancing Years A Climax, And Age The Harvest Of Sweet Memories In Common.

Whether Happiness May Come Or Not, One Should Try And Prepare One's Self To Do Without It.

The Jews Are Among The Aristocracy Of Every Land; If A Literature Is Called Rich In The Possession Of A Few Classic Tragedies, What Shall We Say To A National Tragedy Lasting For Fifteen Hundred Years, In Which The Poets And The Actors Were Also The Heroes.

Marriage Must Be A Relation Either Of Sympathy Or Of Conquest.

No Evil Dooms Us Hopelessly Except The Evil We Love, And Desire To Continue In, And Make No Effort To Escape From.

For My Part I Am Very Sorry For Him. It Is An Uneasy Lot At Best, To Be What We Call Highly Taught And Yet Not To Enjoy: To Be Present At This Great Spectacle Of Life And Never To Be Liberated From A Small Hungry Shivering Self--never To Be Fully Possessed By The Glory We Behold, Never To Have Our Consciousness Rapturously Transformed Into The Vividness Of A Thought, The Ardour Of A Passion, The Energy Of An Action, But Always To Be Scholarly And Uninspired, Ambitious And Timid, Scrupulous And Dimsighted.

Doesn't This Quote Just Call Up Feelings Of Comfort And Home? Comparing Friendship To The Nest A Bird Lives In And Builds With Loving Determination Reminds Me That Having A Solid Relationship Takes Work And Dedication. And Yet, When You Succeed In Crafting A Friendship, You Can Rest In The Comfort It Provides.

Melodies Die Out, Like The Pipe Of Pan, With The Ears That Love Them And Listen For Them.

But Certain Winds Will Make Men's Temper Bad.

With Memory Set Smarting Like A Reopened Wound, A Man's Past Is Not Simply A Dead History, An Outworn Preparation Of The Present: It Is Not A Repented Error Shaken Loose From The Life: It Is A Still Quivering Part Of Himself, Bringing Shudders And Bitter Flavors And The Tinglings Of A Merited Shame.

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