Background Image

...

In Old Days There Were Angels Who Came And Took Men By The Hand And Led Them Away From The City Of Destruction. We See No White-winged Angels Now. But Yet Men Are Led Away From Threatening Destruction: A Hand Is Put Into Theirs, Which Leads Them Forth Gently Towards A Calm And Bright Land, So That They Look No More Backward; And The Hand May Be A Little Child's.

-George Eliot

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

In Old Days There

George Eliot

...

In Old Days There Were Angels Who Came And Took Men By The Hand And Led Them Away From The City Of Destruction. We See No White-winged Angels Now. But Yet Men Are Led Away From Threatening Destruction: A Hand Is Put Into Theirs, Which Leads Them Forth Gently Towards A Calm And Bright Land, So That They Look No More Backward; And The Hand May Be A Little Child's.

Views: 6

Topic

More From George Eliot

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

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.

I Always Think The Flowers Can See Us, And Know What We Are Thinking About.

When A Man Has Seen The Woman Whom He Would Have Chosen If He Had Intended To Marry Speedily, His Remaining A Bachelor Will Usually Depend On Her Resolution Rather Than On His.

Shall We, Because We Walk On Our Hind Feet, Assume To Ourselves Only The Privilege Of Imperishability?

It Is, I Fear, But A Vain Show Of Fulfilling The Heathen Precept, ''know Thyself,'' And Too Often Leads To A Self- Estimate Which Will Subsist In The Absence Of That Fruit By Which Alone The Quality Of The Tree Is Made Evident.

Best Friend, My Well-spring In The Wilderness!

Don't Seem To He On The Lookout For Crows, Else You'll Set Other People Watching.

A Proud Heart And A Lofty Mountain Are Never Fruitful.

The Only Failure One Should Fear, Is Not Hugging To The Purpose They See As Best.

...there's Never A Garden In All The Parish But What There's Endless Waste In It For Want O' Somebody As Could Use Everything Up. It's What I Think To Myself Sometimes, As There Need Nobody Run Short O' Victuals If The Land Was Made The Most On, And There Was Never A Morsel But What Could Find It's Way To A Mouth.

It Is Painful To Be Told That Anything Is Very Fine And Not Be Able To Feel That It Is Fine--something Like Being Blind, While People Talk Of The Sky.

How Could A Man Be Satisfied With A Decision Between Such Alternatives And Under Such Circumstances No More Than He Can Be Satisfied With His Hat, Which He's Chosen From Among Such Shapes As The Resources Of The Age Offer Him. . . .

But Indefinite Visions Of Ambition Are Weak Against The Ease Of Doing What Is Habitual Or Beguilingly Agreeable; And We All Know The Difficulty Of Carrying Out A Resolve When We Secretly Long That It May Turn Out To Be Unnecessary. In Such States Of Mind The Most Incredulous Person Has A Private Leaning Towards Miracle: Impossible To Conceive How Our Wish Could Be Fulfilled, Still - Very Wonderful Things Have Happened!

What Loneliness Is More Lonely Than Distrust?

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

To See An Enemy Humiliated Gives A Certain Contentment, But This Is Jejune Compared With The Highly Blent Satisfaction Of Seeing Him Humiliated By Your Benevolent Action Or Concession On His Behalf. That Is The Sort Of Revenge Which Falls Into The Scale Of Virtue.

Here Undoubtedly Lies The Chief Poetic Energy: - In The Force Of Imagination That Pierces Or Exalts The Solid Fact, Instead Of Floating Among Cloud-pictures.

But Let The Wise Be Warned Against Too Great Readiness To Explanation: It Multiplies The Sources Of Mistake, Lengthening The Sum For Reckoners Sure To Go Wrong.

Everybody Liked Better To Conjecture How The Thing Was, Than Simply To Know It; For Conjecture Soon Became More Confident Than Knowledge, And Had A More Liberal Allowance For The Incompatible.

Our Life Is Determined For Us--and It Makes The Mind Very Free When We Give Up Wishing, And Only Think Of Bearing What Is Laid Upon Us, And Doing What Is Given Us To Do.

For We All Of Us, Grave Or Light, Get Our Thoughts Entangled In Metaphors, And Act Fatally On The Strength Of Them.

May I Reach That Purest Heaven - Be To Other Souls The Cup Of Strength In Some Great Agony; Enkindle Generous Ardor, Feed Pure Love, Beget The Smiles That Have No Cruelty. Be The Sweet Presence Of A Good Diffused, And In The Diffusion Ever More Intense! So Shall I Join The Choir Invisible Whose Music Is The Gladness Of The World.

It Is Good To Be Helpful And Kindly, But Don't Give Yourself To Be Melted Into Candle Grease For The Benefit Of The Tallow Trade.

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.

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

We Are On A Perilous Margin When We Begin To Look Passively At Our Future Selves, And See Our Own Figures Led With Dull Consent Into Insipid Misdoing And Shabby Achievement.

Sane People Did What Their Neighbors Did, So That If Any Lunatics Were At Large, One Might Know And Avoid Them.

Confound You Handsome Young Fellows! You Think Of Having It All Your Own Way In The World. You Don't Understand Women. They Don't Admire You Half So Much As You Admire Yourselves.

People Who Can't Be Witty Exert Themselves To Be Devout And Affectionate.

It Belongs To Every Large Nature, When It Is Not Under The Immediate Power Of Some Strong Unquestioning Emotion, To Suspect Itself, And Doubt The Truth Of Its Own Impressions, Conscious Of Possibilities Beyond Its Own Horizon.

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.

We Are Rather Apt To Consider An Act Wrong Because It Is Unpleasant To Us.

In Rome It Seems As If There Were So Many Things Which Are More Wanted In The World Than Pictures.

Oh, Sir, The Loftiest Hopes On Earth Draw Lots With Meaner Hopes: Heroic Breasts, Breathing Bad Air, Run Risk Of Pestilence; Or, Lacking Lime-juice When They Cross The Line, May Languish With The Scurvy.

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.

Sympathetic People Often Don't Communicate Well, They Back Reflected Images Which Hide Their Own Depths.

Nature Has Her Language, And She Is Not Unveracious; But We Don't Know All The Intricacies Of Her Syntax Just Yet, And In A Hasty Reading We May Happen To Extract The Very Opposite Of Her Real Meaning.

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

Looking At Your Life As A Debt May Seem The Dreariest View Of Things At A Distance; But It Cannot Really Be So. What Makes Life Dreary Is The Want Of Motive; But Once Beginning To Act With The Penitential, Loving Purpose You Have In Your Mind, There Will Be Unexpected Satisfactions--there Will Be Newly-opening Needs--continually Coming To Carry You On From Day To Day. You Will Find Your Life Growing Like A Plant.

There Is No Despair So Absolute As That Which Comes With The First Moments Of Our First Great Sorrow, When We Have Not Yet Known What It Is To Have Suffered And Be Healed, To Have Despaired And Have Recovered Hope.

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

We Hand Folks Over To God's Mercy, And Show None Ourselves.

It Is Pleasant To Have A Kind Word Now And Then When One Is Not Near Enough To Have A Kind Glance Or A Hearty Shake By The Hand.

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.

There Is No Sorrow I Have Thought More About Than That-to Love What Is Great, And Try To Reach It, And Yet To Fail.

A Proud Woman Who Has Learned To Submit Carries All Her Pride To The Reinforcement Of Her Submission, And Looks Down With Severe Superiority On All Feminine Assumption As Unbecoming.

I Don't Feel Sure About Doing Good In Any Way Now; Everything Seems Like Going On A Mission To A People Whose Language I Don't Know.

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

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.

Resolve Will Melt No Rocks. But It Can Scale Them.

That's What A Man Wants In A Wife, Mostly; He Wants To Make Sure One Fool Tells Him He's Wise.

A Woman's Heart Must Be Of Such A Size And No Larger, Else It Must Be Pressed Small, Like Chinese Feet; Her Happiness Is To Be Made As Cakes Are, By A Fixed Recipe.

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

Friendship Is The Inexpressible Comfort Of Feeling Safe With A Person, Having Neither To Weigh Thoughts Nor Measure Words.

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.

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!

Speech Is Often Barren; But Silence Also Does Not Necessarily Brood Over A Full Nest.

The Most Powerful Movement Of Feeling With A Liturgy Is The Prayer Which Seeks For Nothing Special, But Is A Yearning To Escape From The Limitations Of Our Own Weakness And An Invocation Of All Good To Enter And Abide With Us.

I Carry My Unwritten Poems In Cipher On My Face!

Strange, That Some Of Us, With Quick Alternate Vision, See Beyond Our Infatuations, And Even While We Rave On The Heights, Behold The Wide Plain Where Our Persistent Self Pauses And Awaits Us.

Life's A Vast Sea That Does Its Mighty Errand Without Fail, Painting In Unchanged Strength Though Waves Are Changing.

We Are All Of Us Born In Moral Stupidity, Taking The World As An Udder To Feed Our Supreme Selves

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

I Can't Bear Fishing. I Think People Look Like Fools Sitting Watching A Line Hour After Hour-or Else Throwing And Throwing, And Catching Nothing.

Sir Joshua Would Have Been Glad To Take Her Portrait; And He Would Have Had An Easier Task Than The Historian At Least In This, That He Would Not Have Had To Represent The Truth Of Change - Only To Give Stability To One Beautiful Moment.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Anger And Jealousy Can No More Bear To Lose Sight Of Their Objects Than Love.

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

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

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

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

A Peasant Can No More Help Believing In A Traditional Superstition Than A Horse Can Help Trembling When Be Sees A Camel.

Will Not A Tiny Speck Very Close To Our Vision Blot Out The Glory Of The World, And Leave Only A Margin By Which We See The Blot? I Know No Speck So Troublesome As Self.

It Is A Wonderful Subduer-this Need Of Love, This Hunger Of The Heart.

In The Multitude Of Middle-aged Men Who Go About Their Vocations In A Daily Course Determined For Them Much In The Same Way As The Tie Of Their Cravats, There Is Always A Good Number Who Once Meant To Shape Their Own Deeds And Alter The World A Little.

Our Deeds Determine Us, As Much As We Determine Our Deeds.

For What Is Love Itself, For The One We Love Best? An Enfolding Of Immeasurable Cares Which Yet Are Better Than Any Joys Outside Our Love.

I Shall Do Everything It Becomes Me To Do.

My Childhood Was Full Of Deep Sorrows - Colic, Whooping-cough, Dread Of Ghosts, Hell, Satan, And A Deity In The Sky Who Was Angry When I Ate Too Much Plumcake.

Truth Has Rough Flavours If We Bite It Through.

No Man Can Be Wise On An Empty Stomach.

But Most Of Us Are Apt To Settle Within Ourselves That The Man Who Blocks Our Way Is Odious, And Not To Mind Causing Him A Little Of The Disgust Which His Personality Excites In Ourselves.

We Are Contented With Our Day When We Have Been Able To Bear Our Grief In Silence, And Act As If We Were Not Suffering.

The Strength Of The Donkey Mind Lies In Adopting A Course Inversely As The Arguments Urged, Which, Well Considered, Requires As Great A Mental Force As The Direct Sequence.

Genius Is The Capacity For Receiving And Improving By Discipline.

[it Is Easier] To Quell Emotion Than To Incur The Consequences Of Venting It.

There Is No Sense Of Ease Like The Ease We Felt In Those Scenes Where We Were Born.

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

Love Is Frightened At The Intervals Of Insensibility And Callousness That Encroach By Little And Little On The Domain Of Grief, And It Makes Efforts To Recall The Keenness Of The First Anguish.

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

But She Took Her Husband's Jokes And Joviality As Patiently As Everything Else, Considering That "men Would Be So", And Viewing The Stronger Sex In The Light Of Animals Whom It Had Pleased Heaven To Make Naturally Troublesome, Like Bulls And Turkey-cocks.

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

Nothing Is So Good As It Seems Beforehand.

I Would Not Creep Along The Coast But Steer Out In Mid-sea, By Guidance Of The Stars.

Whatever Be Thy Fate Today, Remember, This Will Pass Away!

What Believer Sees A Disturbing Omission Or Infelicity? The Text, Whether Of Prophet Or Of Poet, Expands For Whatever We Can Put Into It, And Even His Bad Grammar Is Sublime.

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

To Men Who Only Aim At Escaping Felony, Nothing Short Of The Prisoner's Dock Is Disgrace.

What Are A Handful Of Reasonable Men Against A Crowd With Stones In Their Hands?

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.

Consequences Are Unpitying. Our Deeds Carry Their Terrible Consequences, Quite Apart From Any Fluctuations That Went Before—consequences That Are Hardly Ever Confined To Ourselves. And It Is Best To Fix Our Minds On That Certainty, Instead Of Considering What May Be The Elements Of Excuse For Us.

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

No Compliment Can Be Eloquent, Except As An Expression Of Indifference.

There's Folks 'ud Hold A Sieve Under The Pump And Expect To Carry Away The Water.

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.

All The Learnin' My Father Ever Paid For Was A Bit O' Birch At One End And The Alphabet At Th ' Other.

Her Heart Went Out To Him With A Stronger Movement Than Ever, At The Thought That People Would Blame Him. Maggie Hated Blame; She Had Been Blamed Her Whole Life, And Nothing Had Come Of It But Evil Tempers.

Any Coward Can Fight A Battle When He's Sure Of Winning.

The Pride Of The Body Is A Barrier Against The Gifts That Purify The Soul.

You Should Read History And Look At Ostracism, Persecution, Martyrdom, And That Kind Of Thing. They Always Happen To The Best Men, You Know.

It Is Not True That Love Makes All Things Easy; It Makes Us Choose What Is Difficult.

The Great River-courses Which Have Shaped The Lives Of Men Have Hardly Changed; And Those Other Streams, The Life-currents That Ebb And Flow In Human Hearts, Pulsate To The Same Great Needs, The Same Great Loves And Terrors. As Our Thought Follows Close In The Slow Wake Of The Dawn, We Are Impressed With The Broad Sameness Of The Human Lot, Which Never Alters In The Main Headings Of Its History--hunger And Labour, Seed-time And Harvest, Love And Death.

News Is Often Dispersed As Thoughtlessly And Effectively As That Pollen Which The Bees Carry Off (having No Idea How Powdery They Are) When They Are Buzzing In Search Of Their Particular Nectar.

Adventure Is Not Outside Man; It Is Within.

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

A Fine Lady Is A Squirrel-headed Thing, With Small Airs And Small Notions; About As Applicable To The Business Of Life As A Pair Of Tweezers To The Clearing Of A Forest.

Are There Many Situations More Sublimely Tragic Than The Struggle Of The Soul With The Demand To Renounce A Work Which Has Been All The Significance Of Its Life--a Significance Which Is To Vanish As The Waters Which Come And Go Where No Man Has Need Of Them?

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

Love At Its Highest Flood Rushes Beyond Its Object, And Loses Itself In The Sense Of Divine Mystery.

Affection Is The Broadest Basis Of A Good Life.

It Is Hard To Believe Long Together That Anything Is "worth While," Unless There Is Some Eye To Kindle In Common With Our Own, Some Brief Word Uttered Now And Then To Imply That What Is Infinitely Precious To Us Is Precious Alike To Another Mind.

It Is In These Acts Called Trivialities That The Seeds Of Joy Are Forever Wasted, Until Men And Women Look Round With Haggard Faces At The Devastation Their Own Waste Has Made, And Say, The Earth Bears No Harvest Of Sweetness - Calling Their Denial Knowledge.

There Is A Mercy Which Is Weakness, And Even Treason Against The Common Good.

Does Any One Suppose That Private Prayer Is Necessarily Candid--necessarily Goes To The Roots Of Action! Private Prayer Is Inaudible Speech, And Speech Is Representative: Who Can Represent Himself Just As He Is, Even In His Own Reflections?

I Love Not To Be Choked With Other Men's Thoughts.

It Is Time The Clergy Are Told That Thinking Men, After A Close Examination Of That Doctrine, Pronounce It To Be Subversive Of True Moral Development And, Therefore, Positively Noxious.

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

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

Life Is Very Difficult. It Seems Right To Me Sometimes That We Should Follow Our Strongest Feelings; But Then Such Feelings Continually Come Across The Ties That All Our Former Life Has Made For Us,--the Ties That Have Made Others Dependent On Us,--and Would Cut Them In Two.

Perspective, As Its Inventor Remarked, Is A Beautiful Thing. What Horrors Of Damp Huts, Where Human Beings Languish, May Not Become Picturesque Through Aerial Distance! What Hymning Of Cancerous Vices May We Not Languish Over As Sublimest Art In The Safe Remoteness Of A Strange Language And Artificial Phrase! Yet We Keep A Repugnance To Rheumatism And Other Painful Effects When Presented In Our Personal Experience.

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

The Last Refuge Of Intolerance Is In Not Tolerating The Intolerant.

O May I Join The Choir Invisible Of Those Immortal Dead Who Live Again In Minds Made Better By Their Presence; Live In Pulses Stirred To Generosity, In Deeds Of Daring Rectitude, In Scorn For Miserable Aims That End With Self, In Thoughts Sublime That Pierce The Night Like Stars, And With Their Mild Persistence Urge Men's Search To Vaster Issues.

Correct English Is The Slang Of Prigs.

Better A False Belief Than No Belief At All.

Oh, The Comfort, The Inexpressible Comfort Of Feeling Safe With A Person; Having Neither To Weigh Thoughts Nor Measure Words, But To Pour Them All Out, Just As They Are, Chaff And Grain Together, Knowing That A Faithful Hand Will Take And Sift Them, Keep What Is Worth Keeping, And Then, With A Breath Of Kindness, Blow The Rest Away.

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

Blows Are Sarcasms Turned Stupid.

If A Man Goes A Little Too Far Along A New Road, It Is Usually Himself That He Harms More Than Any One Else.

I Will To Make Life Less Bitter For A Few Within My Reach.

Conscientious People Are Apt To See Their Duty In That Which Is The Most Painful Course.

The Worst Of All Hobbies Are Those That People Think They Can Get Money At. They Shoot Their Money Down Like Corn Out Of A Sack Then.

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

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

The Wrong That Rouses Our Angry Passions Finds Only A Medium In Us; It Passes Through Us Like A Vibration, And We Inflict What We Have Suffered.

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

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

I Think I Should Have No Other Mortal Wants, If I Could Always Have Plenty Of Music. It Seems To Infuse Strength Into My Limbs And Ideas Into My Brain. Life Seems To Go On Without Effort, When I Am Filled With Music.

Mighty Is The Force Of Motherhood! It Transforms All Things By Its Vital Heat; It Turns Timidity Into Fierce Courage, And Dreadless Defiance Into Tremulous Submission; It Turns Thoughtlessness Into Foresight, And Yet Stills All Anxiety Into Calm Content; It Makes Selfishness Become Self-denial, And Gives Even To Hard Vanity The Glance Of Admiring Love.

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.

Fear Was Stronger Than The Calculation Of Probabilities.

...though There's Reasons In Things As Nobody Knows On---- That's Pretty Much What I've Made Out; Yet Some Folks Are So Wise They'll Find You Fifty Reasons Straight Off, And All The While The Real Reason's Winking At 'em In The Corner, And They Niver See't.

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

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

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

The Best Augury Of A Man's Success In His Profession Is That He Thinks It The Finest In The World.

Congratulations

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

But Human Experience Is Usually Paradoxical, That Means Incongruous With The Phrases Of Current Talk Or Even Current Philosophy.

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

Our Sense Of Duty Must Often Wait For Some Work Which Shall Take The Place Of Dilettanteism [sic] And Make Us Feel That The Quality Of Our Action Is Not A Matter Of Indifference.

We Judge Other According To Results; How Else?--not Knowing The Process By Which Results Are Arrived At.

It Is Never Too Late, No Matter How Old You Get Because Anytime Or Any Point In Your Life You Can Always Have A Chance To Make A Difference. You Can Always Make A Change For The Better No Matter What Background You Derived From. You Can Always Do Your Best And Be All That You Can Be Because You Will Always Be Uniquely You. It Is Why It Is Always Wise To Listen To Your Eternal Heart, Your Eternal Instincts, And What It Had Always Strove For And/or To Do Because Really Anybody Can Make A Difference Not Only In Their Own Lives But In The Lives Of Others. It Is Never Too Late To Shine; Never.

Imagination Is A Licensed Trespasser: It Has No Fear Of Dogs, But May Climb Over Walls And Peep In At Windows With Impunity.

Can Anything Be More Disgusting Than To Hear People Called 'educated' Making Small Jokes About Eating Ham, And Showing Themselves Empty Of Any Real Knowledge As To The Relation Of Their Own Social And Religious Life To The History Of The People They Think Themselves Witty In Insulting? [...] The Best Thing That Can Be Said Of It Is, That It Is A Sign Of The Intellectual Narrowness—in Plain English, The Stupidity Which Is Still The Average Mark Of Our Culture.

If I Got Places, Sir, It Was Because I Made Myself Fit For 'em. If You Want To Slip Into A Round Hole, You Must First Make A Ball Of Yourself; That's Where It Is.

Of All Forms Of Human Error, Prophesy Is The Most Avoidable.

The Darkest Night That Ever Fell Upon The Earth Never Hid The Light, Never Put Out The Stars. It Only Made The Stars More Keenly, Kindly Glancing, As If In Protest Against The Darkness.

The Best Part Of A Woman's Love Is Worship; But It Is Hard To Her To Be Sent Away With Her Precious Spikenard Rejected, And Her Long Tresses, Too, That Were Let Fall, Ready To Soothe The Wearied Feet.

The Mother's Love Is At First An Absorbing Delight, Blunting All Other Sensibilities; It Is An Expansion Of The Animal Existence; It Enlarges The Imagined Range For Self To Move In: But In After Years It Can Only Continue To Be Joy On The Same Terms As Other Long-lived Love--that Is, By Much Suppression Of Self, And Power Of Living In The Experience Of Another.

What Quarrel, What Harshness, What Unbelief In Each Other Can Subsist In The Presence Of A Great Calamity, When All The Artificial Vesture Of Our Life Is Gone, And We Are All One With Each Other In Primitive Mortal Needs?

It Is Never Too Late To Become The Person You Always Thought You Could Be.

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

One Way Of Getting An Idea Of Our Fellow-countrymen's Miseries Is To Go And Look At Their Pleasures.

Family Likeness Has Often A Deep Sadness In It.

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

Some Discouragement, Some Faintness Of Heart At The New Real Future Which Replaces The Imaginary, Is Not Unusual, And We Do Not Expect People To Be Deeply Moved By What Is Not Unusual. That Element Of Tragedy Which Lies In The Very Fact Of Frequency Has Not Yet Wrought Itself Into The Coarse Emotion Of Mankind, And Perhaps Our Frames Could Hardly Bear Much Of It. If We Had A Keen Vision And Feeling Of All Ordinary Human Life, It Would Be Like Hearing The Grass Grow And The Squirrel's Heart Beat, And We Should Die Of That Roar Which Lies On The Other Side Of Silence.

I Had Some Ambition. I Meant Everything To Be Different With Me. I Thought I Had More Strength And Mastery. But The Most Terrible Obstacles Are Such As Nobody Can See Except Oneself.

Subtract From The New Testament The Miraculous And Highly Impossible, And What Will Be The Remainder?

My Own Experience And Development Deepen Every Day My Conviction That Our Moral Progress May Be Measured By The Degree In Which We Sympathize With Individual Suffering And Individual Joy.

The Beginning Of An Acquaintance Whether With Persons Or Things Is To Get A Definite Outline Of Our Ignorance.

What Is Opportunity To The Man Who Cant Use It?

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

All Our Ignorance Brings Us Closer To Death.

There Are Various Orders Of Beauty, Causing Men To Make Fools Of Themselves In Various Styles, From The Desperate To The Sheepish; But There Is One Order Of Beauty Which Seems Made To Turn The Heads Not Only Of Men, But Of All Intelligent Mammals, Even Of Women. It Is A Beauty Like That Of Kittens, Or Very Small Downy Ducks Making Gentle Rippling Noises With Their Soft Bills, Or Babies Just Beginning To Toddle And To Engage In Conscious Mischief — A Beauty With Which You Can Never Be Angry, But That You Feel Ready To Crush For Inability To Comprehend The State Of Mind Into Which It Throws You.

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. There Are Glances Of Hatred That Stab And Raise No Cry Of Murder; Robberies That Leave Man Or Woman For Ever Beggared Of Peace And Joy, Yet Kept Secret By The Sufferer --committed To No Sound Except That Of Low Moans In The Night, Seen In No Writing Except That Made On The Face By The Slow Months Of Suppressed Anguish And Early Morning Tears. Many An Inherited Sorrow That Has Marred A Life Has Been Breathed Into No Human Ear.

Nature Repairs Her Ravages,--repairs Them With Her Sunshine And With Human Labor.

Ah! But The Moods Lie In His Nature, My Boy, Just As Much As His Reflections Did, And More. A Man Can Never Do Anything At Variance With His Own Nature. He Carries Within Him The Germ Of His Most Exceptional Action; And If We Wise People Make Eminent Fools Of Ourselves On Any Particular Occasion, We Must Endure The Legitimate Conclusion That We Carry A Few Grains Of Folly To Our Ounce Of Wisdom.

I'm Not One Of Those That Can See The Cat In The Dairy And Wonder What She's There For.

A Toddling Little Girl Is A Centre Of Common Feeling Which Makes The Most Dissimilar People Understand Each Other.

The Bow Always Strung ... Will Not Do.

The Greatest Benefit We Owe To The Artist, Whether Painter, Poet, Or Novelist, Is The Extension Of Our Sympathies.

Blameless People Are Always The Most Exasperating.

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

Worldly Faces Never Look So Worldly As At A Funeral.

... The True Seeing Is Within; And Painting Stares At You With An Insistent Imperfection.

Trending Author

Jerome K. Jerome

Honore De Balzac

James L. Buckley

Category