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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.

-George Eliot

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I Shall Be So

George Eliot

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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.

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As They Who Make Good Luck A God Count All Unlucky Men.

Things Are Achieved When They Are Well Begun.

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.

I Have Nothing To Tell Except Travellers' Stories, Which Are Always Tiresome, Like The Description Of A Play Which Was Very Exciting To Those Who Saw It.

The Worst Service, I Fancy, That Anyone Can Do For Truth, Is To Set Silly People Writing On Its Behalf.

I Protest Against Any Absolute Conclusion.

What Furniture Can Give Such Finish To A Room As A Tender Woman's Face? And Is There Any Harmony Of Tints That Has Such Stirring Of Delight As The Sweet Modulation Of Her Voice?

No Story Is The Same To Us After A Lapse Of Time; Or Rather We Who Read It Are No Longer The Same Interpreters.

But, Bless Us, Things May Be Lovable That Are Not Altogether Handsome, I Hope?

Strong Souls Live Like Fire-hearted Suns To Spend Their Strength In Farthest Striving Action; Breathe More Free In Mighty Anguish Than In Trivial Ease.

Justice Is Like The Kingdom Of God--it Is Not Without Us As A Fact, It Is Within Us As A Great Yearning.

Gossip Is A Sort Of Smoke That Comes From The Dirty Tobacco-pipes Of Those Who Diffuse It: It Proves Nothing But The Bad Taste Of The Smoker.

Solomon's Proverbs, I Think, Have Omitted To Say, That As The Sore Palate Findeth Grit, So An Uneasy Consciousness Heareth Innuendos.

Blessed Is The Influence Of One True, Loving Human Soul On Another.

Iteration, Like Friction, Is Likely To Generate Heat Instead Of Progress.

There's Folks As Make Bad Butter And Trusten To The Salt T' Hide It.

There Are Answers Which, In Turning Away Wrath, Only Send It To The Other End Of The Room.

More Helpful Than All Wisdom Is One Draught Of Simple Human Pity That Will Not Forsake Us.

Rome - The City Of Visible History, Where The Past Of A Whole Hemisphere Seems Moving In Funeral Procession With Strange Ancestral Images And Trophies Gathered From Afar.

A Woman's Lot Is Made For Her By The Love She Accepts.

I Like Not Only To Be Loved, But Also To Be Told That I Am Loved. I Am Not Sure That You Are Of The Same Mind. But The Realm Of Silence Is Large Enough Beyond The Grave. This Is The World Of Light And Speech, And I Shall Take Leave To Tell You That You Are Very Dear.

Hatred Is Like Fire, It Makes Even Light Rubbish Deadly.

Kisses Honeyed By Oblivion.

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 . . .

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.

I've Been Turning It Over In After-dinner Speeches, But It Looks Awkward-it's Not What People Are Used To-it Wants A Good Deal Of Latin To Make It Go Down.

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.

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

Miserliness Is A Capital Quality To Run In Families; It's The Safe Side For Madness To Dip On.

'character," Says Novalis, In One Of His Questionable Aphorisms - Character Is Destiny'.

... It Is Because Sympathy Is But A Living Again Through Our Own Past In A New Form, That Confession Often Prompts A Response Of Confession.

That Farewell Kiss Which Resembles Greeting, That Last Glance Of Love Which Becomes The Sharpest Pang Of Sorrow.

Yes, Isaac Taylor, Who Has Just Published 'the World Of Mind,' Is The Isaac Taylor, Author Of The 'natural History Of Enthusiasm.' I Dare Say By This Time There Is A Want Of Fatty Particles In His Brain.

Only Those Who Know The Supremacy Of The Intellectual Life──the Life Which Has A Seed Of Ennobling Thought And Purpose Within──can Understand The Grief Of One Who Falls From That Serene Activity Into The Absorbing Soul-wasting Struggle With Worldly Annoyances.

The Difficult Task Of Knowing Another Soul Is Not For Young Gentlemen Whose Consciousness Is Chiefly Made Up Of Their Own Wishes.

There Are Few Of Us That Are Not Rather Ashamed Of Our Sins And Follies As We Look Out On The Blessed Morning Sunlight, Which Comes To Us Like A Bright-winged Angel Beckoning Us To Quit The Old Path Of Vanity That Stretches Its Dreary Length Behind Us.

Only In The Agony Of Parting Do We Look Into The Depths Of Love.

Religion Can Only Change When The Emotions Which Fill It Are Changed; And The Religion Of Personal Fear Remains Nearly At The Level Of The Savage.

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

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.

One Of The Tortures Of Jealousy Is, That It Can Never Turn Away Its Eyes From The Thing That Pains It.

It Seems To Me We Can Never Give Up Longing And Wishing While We Are Thoroughly Alive. There Are Certain Things We Feel To Be Beautiful And Good, And We Must Hunger After Them.

The Thing We Look Forward To Often Comes To Pass, But Never Precisely In The Way We Have Imagined To Ourselves.

Education Is An Asset No Man Can Take Away.

After All, People May Really Have In Them Some Vocation Which Is Not Quite Plain To Themselves, May They Not? They May Seem Idle And Weak Because They Are Growing. We Should Be Very Patient With Each Other, I Think.

Every Woman Is Supposed To Have The Same Set Of Motives, Or Else To Be A Monster.

I'm Proof Against That Word Failure. I've Seen Behind It. The Only Failure A Man Ought To Fear Is Failure Of Cleaving To The Purpose He Sees To Be Best.

But Is It What We Love, Or How We Love, That Makes True Good?

The Right Word Is Always A Power, And Communicates Its Definiteness To Our Action.

Inclination Snatches Arguments To Make Indulgence Seem Judicious Choice.

The Press Has No Band Of Critics Who Go The Round Of The Churches And Chapels, And Are On The Watch For A Slip Or Defect In The Preacher, To Make A 'feature' In Their Article: The Clergy Are, Practically, The Most Irresponsible Of All Talkers.

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

It Was One Of Those Dangerous Moments When Speech Is At Once Sincere And Deceptive - When Feeling, Rising High Above Its Average Depth, Leaves Flood-marks Which Are Never Reached Again.

I Not Only Want To Be Loved, I Want To Be Told That I'm Loved.

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

The Sons Of Judah Have To Choose That God May Again Choose Them. The Divine Principle Of Our Race Is Action, Choice, Resolved Memory.

I Like Trying To Get Pregnant. I'm Not So Sure About Childbirth.

In Spite Of His Practical Ability, Some Of His Experience Had Petrified Into Maxims And Quotations.

It Is A Common Sentence That Knowledge Is Power; But Who Hath Duly Considered Or Set Forth The Power Of Ignorance? Knowledge Slowly Builds Up What Ignorance In An Hour Pulls Down.

I Think I Am Quite Wicked With Roses. I Like To Gather Them, And Smell Them Till They Have No Scent Left.

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.

Where Women Love Each Other, Men Learn To Smother Their Mutual Dislike.

Pride Helps Us; And Pride Is Not A Bad Thing When It Only Urges Us To Hide Our Own Hurts—not To Hurt Others.

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.

I Don't Remember Ever Being See-saw, When I'd Made My Mind Up That A Thing Was Wrong. It Takes The Taste Out O' My Mouth For Things, When I Know I Should Have A Heavy Conscience After 'em. I've Seen Pretty Clear, Ever Since I Could Cast Up A Sum, As You Can Never Do What's Wrong Without Breeding Sin And Trouble More Than You Can Ever See. It's Like A Bit O' Bad Workmanship--you Never See Th' End O' The Mischief It'll Do. And It's A Poor Look-out To Come Into The World To Make Your Fellow Creatures Worse Off Instead O' Better.

Men Can Do Nothing Without The Make-believe Of A Beginning.

I Cherish My Childish Loves--the Memory Of That Warm Little Nest Where My Affections Were Fledged.

It Is A Narrow Mind Which Cannot Look At A Subject From Various Points Of View.

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.

Among The Blessings Of Love There Is Hardly One More Exquisite Than The Sense That In Uniting The Beloved Life To Ours We Can Watch Over Its Happiness, Bring Comfort Where Hardship Was, And Over Memories Of Privation And Suffering Open The Sweetest Fountains Of Joy.

People Who Live At A Distance Are Naturally Less Faulty Than Those Immediately Under Our Own Eyes.

Perfect Love Has A Breath Of Poetry Which Can Exalt The Relations Of The Least-instructed Human Beings.

A Man Vows, And Yet Will Not East Away The Means Of Breaking His Vow. Is It That He Distinctly Means To Break It? Not At All; But The Desires Which Tend To Break It Are At Work In Him Dimly, And Make Their Way Into His Imagination, And Relax His Muscles In The Very Moments When He Is Telling Himself Over Again The Reasons For His Vow.

There Is A Great Deal Of Unmapped Country Within Us Which Would Have To Be Taken Into Account In An Explanation Of Our Gusts And Storms.

What Sunshine Is To Flowers, Smiles Are To Humanity.

In So Complex A Thing As Human Nature, We Must Consider It Is Hard To Find Rules Without Exception.

The Reward Of One Duty Is The Power To Fulfill Another.

It Is One Thing To See Your Road, Another To Cut It.

The Devil Tempts Us Not--'tis We Tempt Him, Reckoning His Skill With Opportunity.

An Ingenious Web Of Probabilities Is The Surest Screen A Wise Man Can Place Between Himself And The Truth.

A Proud Heart And A Lofty Mountain Are Never Fruitful.

To The Receptive Soul The River Of Life Pauseth Not, Nor Is Diminished.

Affection Is The Broadest Basis Of A Good Life.

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

There Comes A Terrible Moment To Many Souls When The Great Movements Of The World, The Larger Destinies Of Mankind, Which Have Lain Aloof In Newspapers And Other Neglected Reading, Enter Like An Earthquake Into Their Own Lives--when The Slow Urgency Of Growing Generations Turns Into The Tread Of An Invading Army Or The Dire Clash Of Civil War, And Grey Fathers Know Nothing To Seek For But The Corpses Of Their Blooming Sons, And Girls Forget All Vanity To Make Lint And Bandages Which May Serve For The Shattered Limbs Of Their Betrothed Husbands.

It Is Seldom That The Miserable Can Help Regarding Their Misery As A Wrong Inflicted By Those Who Are Less Miserable.

To Be A Poet Is To Have A Soul So Quick To Discern, That No Shade Of Quality Escapes It, And So Quick To Feel, That Discernment Is But A Hand Playing With Finely-ordered Variety On The Chords Of Emotion--a Soul In Which Knowledge Passes Instantaneously Into Feeling, And Feeling Flashes Back As A New Organ Of Knowledge.

It Is Strange How Deeply Colours Seem To Penetrate One, Like Scent.

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.

Surely It Is Not True Blessedness To Be Free Of Sorrow While There Is Sorrow And Sin In The World. Sorrow Is A Part Of Love And Love Does Not Seek To Throw It Off.

It Always Remains True That If We Had Been Greater, Circumstance Would Have Been Less Strong Against Us.

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.

When A Homemaking Aunt Scolds A Niece For Following Her Evangelistic Passion Instead Of Domestic Pursuits, Her Reply Is Interesting. First, She Clarifies That God's Individual Call On Her Doesn't Condemn Those In More Conventional Roles. Then, She Says She Can No More Ignore The Cry Of The Lost Than Her Aunt Can The Cry Of Her Child.

There Are Natures In Which, If They Love Us, We Are Conscious Of Having A Sort Of Baptism And Consecration.

Women Should Be Protected From Anyone's Exercise Of Unrighteous Power... But Then, So Should Every Other Living Creature.

It Is Always Chilling, In Friendly Intercourse, To Say You Have No Opinion To Give.

Perhaps Nothing Ud Be A Lesson To Us If It Didn't Come Too Late. It's Well We Should Feel As Life's A Reckoning We Can't Make Twice Over; There's No Real Making Amends In This World, Any More Nor You Can Mend A Wrong Subtraction By Doing Your Addition Right.

Perhaps The Wind Wails So In Winter For The Summers Dead, And All Sad Sounds Are Nature's Funeral Cries For What Has Been And Is Not.

It Seems To Me As A Woman's Face Doesna Want Flowers; It's Almost Like A Flower Itself.... It's Like When A Man's Singing A Good Tune, You Don't Want T' Hear Bells Tinkling And Interfering Wi' The Sound.

Satan Was A Blunderer ... Who Made A Stupendous Failure. If He Had Succeeded, We Should All Have Been Worshipping Him, And His Portrait Would Have Been More Flattering.

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.

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.

... As Usual I Am Suffering Much From Doubt As To The Worth Of What I Am Doing And Fear Lest I May Not Be Able To Complete It So As To Make It A Contribution To Literature And Not A Mere Addition To The Heap Of Books.

Fear Was Stronger Than The Calculation Of Probabilities.

Quick Souls Have Their Intensest Life In The First Anticipatory Sketch Of What May Or Will Be, And The Pursuit Of Their Wish Is The Pursuit Of That Paradisiacal Vision Which Only Impelled Them, And Is Left Farther And Farther Behind, Vanishing Forever Even Out Of Hope In The Moment Which Is Called Success.

In Our Spring-time Every Day Has Its Hidden Growths In The Mind, As It Has In The Earth When The Little Folded Blades Are Getting Ready To Pierce The Ground.

Dear Friends All, A Thousand Christmas Pleasures And Blessings To You -- Good Resolutions And Bright Hopes For The New Year! Amen. People Who Can't Be Witty Exert Themselves To Be Pious Or Affectionate.

Hear Everything And Judge For Yourself

There Is A Great Deal Of Unmapped Country Within Us.

There's Folks 'ud Stand On Their Heads And Then Say The Fault Was I' Their Boots.

As Soon As We Lay Ourselves Entirely At His Feet, We Have Enough Light Given Us To Guide Our Own Steps; As The Foot-soldier Who Hears Nothing Of The Councils That Determine The Course Of The Great Battle He Is In, Hears Plainly Enough The Word Of Command That They Must Themselves Obey.

The Light Can Be A Curtain As Well As The Darkness.

Steady Work Turns Genius To A Loom.

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

In The Days When The Spinning Wheels Hummed Busily In The Farmhouses--and Even Great Ladies, Clothed In Silk And Thread Lace, Had Their Toy Spinning Wheels Of Polished Oak--there Might Be Seen, In Districts Far Away Among The Lanes, Or Deep In The Bosom Of The Hills, Certain Palled Undersized Men Who, By The Side Of The Brawny Country-folk, Looked Like The Remnants Of A Disinherited Race.

All Writing Seems To Me Worse In The State Of Proof Than In Any Other Form. In Manuscript One's Own Wisdom Is Rather Remarkable To One, But In Proof It Has The Effect Of One's Private Furniture Repeated In The Shop Windows. And Then There Is The Sense That The Worst Errors Will Go To Press Unnoticed!

All Our Ignorance Brings Us Closer To Death.

It Will Never Rain Roses: When We Want To Have More Roses We Must Plant More Trees.

Among All The Many Kinds Of First Love, That Which Begins In Childish Companionship Is The Strongest And Most Enduring: When Passion Comes To Unite Its Force To Long Affection, Love Is At Its Spring-tide.

The Presence Of A Noble Nature, Generous In Its Wishes, Ardent In Its Charity, Changes The Lights For Us: We Begin To See Things Again In Their Larger, Quieter Masses, And To Believe That We Too Can Be Seen And Judged In The Wholeness Of Our Character.

Go Forward With Joyful Confidence.

People Are Almost Always Better Than Their Neighbors Think They Are.

I Hold It A Blasphemy To Say That A Man Ought Not To Fight Against Authority: There Is No Great Religion And No Great Freedom That Has Not Done It, In The Beginning.

Every Limit Is A Beginning As Well As An Ending.

What Mortal Is There Of Us, Who Would Find His Satisfaction Enhanced By An Opportunity Of Comparing The Picture He Presents To Himself Of His Doings, With The Picture They Make On The Mental Retina Of His Neighbours? We Are Poor Plants Buoyed Up By The Air-vessels Of Our Own Conceit.

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.

That By Desiring What Is Perfectly Good, Even When We Don't Quite Know What It Is And Cannot Do What We Would, We Are Part Of The Divine Power Against Evil -- Widening The Skirts Of Light And Making The Struggle With Darkness Narrower.

The Dew-bead Gem Of Earth And Sky Begotten.

How Unspeakably The Lengthening Of Memories In Common Endears Our Old Friends!

I've Seen Pretty Clear, Ever Since I Was A Young Un, As Religion's Something Else Besides Notions. It Isn't Notions Sets People Doing The Right Things--it's Feelings. It's The Same With The Notions In Religion As It Is With Math'matics--a Man May Be Able To Work Problems Straight Off In's Head As He Sits By The Fire And Smokes His Pipe; But If He Has To Make A Machine Or A Building, He Must Have A Will And A Resolution, And Love Something Else Better Than His Own Ease.

One Can Say Everything Best Over A Meal.

Nothing At Times Is More Expressive Than Silence.

We Have All Our Secret Sins; And If We Knew Ourselves We Should Not Judge Each Other Harshly.

I Like Breakfast-time Better Than Any Other Moment In The Day. No Dust Has Settled On One's Mind Then, And It Presents A Clear Mirror To The Rays Of Things.

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

Finding Yourself

There Is Much Pain That Is Quite Noiseless; And Vibrations That Make Human Agonies Are Often A Mere Whisper In The Roar Of Hurrying Existence.

Self-confidence Is Apt To Address Itself To An Imaginary Dullness In Others; As People Who Are Well Off Speak In A Cajoling Tone To The Poor.

Self Confidence

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

For What We Call Illusions Are Often, In Truth, A Wider Vision Of Past And Present Realities - A Willing Movement Of A Man's Soul With The Larger Sweep Of The World's Forces - A Movement Towards A More Assured End Than The Chances Of A Single Life.

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.

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.

... We All Know The Wag's Definition Of A Philanthropist: A Man Whose Charity Increases Directly As The Square Of The Distance.

It Is Always Your Heaviest Bore Who Is Astonished At The Tameness Of Modern Celebrities: Naturally; For A Little Of His Company Has Reduced Them To A State Of Flaccid Fatigue.

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.

What Is Opportunity To The Man Who Cant Use It?

Explain! Tell A Man To Explain How He Dropped Into Hell! Explain My Preference! I Never Had A Preference For Her, Any More Than I Have A Preference For Breathing. No Other Woman Exists By The Side Of Her. I Would Rather Touch Her Hand If It Were Dead, Than I Would Touch Any Other Woman's Living.

The Moment Of Finding A Fellow-creature Is Often As Full Of Mingled Doubt And Exultation, As The Moment Of Finding An Idea.

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

There's Times When The Crockery Seems Alive, An' Flies Out O' Your Hand Like A Bird. It's Like The Glass, Sometimes, 'ull Crack As It Stands. What Is To Be Broke Will Be Broke.

Much Of Our Waking Experience Is But A Dream In The Daylight.

Wine And The Sun Will Make Vinegar Without Any Shouting To Help Them.

Is It Not Rather What We Expect In Men, That They Should Have Numerous Strands Of Experience Lying Side By Side And Never Compare Them With Each Other?

A Human Life, I Think, Should Be Well Rooted In Some Spot Of A Native Land, Where It May Get The Love Of Tender Kinship For The Face Of Earth, For The Labors Men Go Forth To, For The Sounds And Accents That Haunt It, For Whatever Will Give That Early Home A Familiar, Unmistakable Difference Amidst The Future Widening Of Knowledge.

If You Could Make A Pudding Wi' Thinking O' The Batter, It 'ud Be Easy Getting Dinner.

The Human Heart Finds Nowhere Shelter But In Human Kind.

When We Are Dead : It Is The Living Only Who Cannot Be Forgiven The Living Only From Whom Men's Indulgence And Reverence Are Held Off, Like The Rain By The Hard East Wind .

Wise Books For Half The Truths They Hold Are Honored Tombs.

Hurt, He'll Never Be Hurt--he's Made To Hurt Other People.

Wit Is A Form Of Force That Leaves The Limbs At Rest.

Appearances Have Very Little To Do With Happiness.

We Get A Deal O' Useless Things About Us, Only Because We've Got The Money To Spend.

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.

It Is Possible To Have A Strong Self-love Without Any Self-satisfaction, Rather With A Self-discontent Which Is The More Intense Because One's Own Little Core Of Egoistic Sensibility Is A Supreme Care.

Don't You Meddle With Me, And I Won't Meddle With You.

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

... The Business Of Life Shuts Us Up Within The Environs Of London And Within Sight Of Human Advancement, Which I Should Be So Very Glad To Believe In Without Seeing.

As Leopard Feels At Home With Leopard.

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.

Lord! Thou Art With Thy People Still; They See Thee In The Night-watches, And Their Hearts Burn Within Them As Thou Talkest With Them By The Way. And Thou Art Near To Those That Have Not Known Thee; Open Their Eyes That They May See Thee--see Thee Weeping Over Them, And Saying, "ye Will Not Come Unto Me That Ye Might Have Life"--see Thee Hanging On The Cross And Saying, "father, Forgive Them, For They Know Not What They Do"--see Thee As Thou Wilt Come Again In Thy Glory To Judge Them At The Last. Amen.

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

The Tread Of Coming Footsteps Cheats The Midnight Watcher Who Holds Her Heart And Waits To Hear Them Pause, And Hears Them Never Pause, But Pass And Die.

Art Is The Nearest Thing To Life; It Is A Mode Of Amplifying Experience And Extending Our Contact With Our Fellow Men Beyond The Bounds Of Our Personal Lot.

Human Experience Is Usually Paradoxical.

Human Experience

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.

It's No Trifle At Her Time At Her Time Of Life To Part With A Doctor Who Knows Her Constitution.

When A Workman Knows The Use Of His Tools, He Can Make A Door As Well As A Window.

It Must Be Sad To Outlive Aught We Love.

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.

It Is A Very Good Quality In A Man To Have A Trout-stream.

Correct English Is The Slang Of Prigs.

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

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

Harold, Like The Rest Of Us, Had Many Impressions Which Saved Him The Trouble Of Distinct Ideas.

Destiny Stands By Sarcastic With Our Dramatis Personae Folded In Her Hand.

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.

Breed Is Stronger Than Pasture.

But What Is Opportunity To The Man Who Can't Use It?

Among All Forms Of Mistake, Prophecy Is The Most Gratuitous.

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

How Should All The Apparatus Of Heaven And Earth Make Poetry For A Mind That Had No Movements Of Awe And Tenderness, No Sense Of Fellowship Which Thrills From The Near To The Distant, And Back Again From The Distant To The Near?

The Best Happiness Will Be To Escape The Worst Misery.

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

Of A Truth, Knowledge Is Power, But It Is A Power Reined By Scruple, Having A Conscience Of What Must Be And What May Be; Whereas Ignorance Is A Blind Giant Who, Let Him But Wax Unbound, Would Make It A Sport To Seize The Pillars That Hold Up The Long-wrought Fabric Of Human Good, And Turn All The Places Of Joy As Dark As A Buried Babylon.

A Man Falling Into Dark Waters Seeks A Momentary Footing Even On Sliding Stones.

When One Wanted One's Interests Looking After Whatever The Cost, It Was Not So Well For A Lawyer To Be Over Honest, Else He Might Not Be Up To Other People's Tricks.

Our Passions Do Not Live Apart In Locked Chambers But Dress In Their Small Wardrobe Of Notions, Bring Their Provisions To A Common Table And Mess Together, Feeding Out Of The Common Store According To Their Appetite.

The Tendency Toward Good In Human Nature Has A Force Which No Creed Can Utterly Counteract, And Which Insures The Ultimate Triumph Of That Tendency Over All Dogmatic Perversions.

Two Angels Guide The Path Of Man, Both Aged And Yet Young. As Angels Are, Ripening Through Endless Years, On One He Leans: Some Call Her Memory, And Some Tradition; And Her Voice Is Sweet, With Deep Mysterious Accords: The Other, Floating Above, Holds Down A Lamp With Streams A Light Divine And Searching On The Earth, Compelling Eyes And Footsteps. Memory Yields, Yet Clings With Loving Check, And Shines Anew, Reflecting All The Rays Of That Bright Lamp Our Angel Reason Holds. We Had Not Walked But For Tradition; We Walk Evermore To Higher Paths By Brightening Reason's Lamp.

It's No Use Filling Your Pocket With Money If You Have Got A Hole In The Corner.

But Very Little Achievement Is Required In Order To Pity Another Man's Shortcomings.

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Alexander Calder

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