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It Is Worth Repeating That Powerful Imagination Is Not False Outward Vision, But Intense Inward Representation, And A Creative Energy Constantly Fed By Susceptibility To The Veriest Minutiæ Of Experience, Which It Reproduces And Constructs In Fresh And Fresh Wholes; Not The Habitual Confusion Of Provable Fact With The Fictions Of Fancy And Transient Inclination, But A Breadth Of Ideal Association Which Informs Every Material Object, Every Incidental Fact With Far-reaching Memories And Storied Residues Of Passion, Bringing Into New Light The Less Obvious Relations To Human Existence.

-George Eliot

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It Is Worth Repeating

George Eliot

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It Is Worth Repeating That Powerful Imagination Is Not False Outward Vision, But Intense Inward Representation, And A Creative Energy Constantly Fed By Susceptibility To The Veriest Minutiæ Of Experience, Which It Reproduces And Constructs In Fresh And Fresh Wholes; Not The Habitual Confusion Of Provable Fact With The Fictions Of Fancy And Transient Inclination, But A Breadth Of Ideal Association Which Informs Every Material Object, Every Incidental Fact With Far-reaching Memories And Storied Residues Of Passion, Bringing Into New Light The Less Obvious Relations To Human Existence.

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

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.

Speech Is Often Barren; But Silence Also Does Not Necessarily Brood Over A Full Nest. Your Still Fowl, Blinking At You Without Remark, May All The While Be Sitting On One Addled Egg; And When It Takes To Cackling Will Have Nothing To Announce But That Addled Delusion.

When Death, The Great Reconciler, Has Come, It Is Never Our Tenderness That We Repent Of, But Our Severity.

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

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.

Would Not Love See Returning Penitence Afar Off, And Fall On Its Neck And Kiss It?

In The Schoolroom Her Quick Mind Had Taken Readily That Strong Starch Of Unexplained Rules And Disconnected Facts Which Saves Ignorance From Any Painful Sense Of Limpness.

A Good Horse Makes Short Miles.

I Am Not Imposed Upon By Fine Words; I Can See What Actions Mean.

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.

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

Our Dead Are Never Dead To Us Until We Have Forgotten Them: They Can Be Injured By Us, They Can Be Wounded; They Know All Our Penitence, All Our Aching Sense That Their Place Is Empty, All The Kisses We Bestow On The Smallest Relic Of Their Presence.

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

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

There's Truth In Wine, And There May Be Some In Gin And Muddy Beer; But Whether It's Truth Worth My Knowing, Is Another Question.

To Manage Men One Ought To Have A Sharp Mind In A Velvet Sheath.

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.

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.

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.

I'll Tell You What's The Greatest Power Under Heaven, And That Is Public Opinion-the Ruling Belief In Society About What Is Right And What Is Wrong, What Is Honourable And What Is Shameful. That's The Steam That Is To Work The Engines.

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?

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

It Is As Useless To Fight Against The Interpretations Of Ignorance As To Whip The Fog.

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

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.

Minds Fettered By This Doctrine No Longer Inquire Concerning A Proposition Whether It Is Attested By Sufficient Evidence, But Whether It Accords With Scripture; They Do Not Search For Facts As Such, But For Facts That Will Bear Out Their Doctrine. It Is Easy To See That This Mental Habit Blunts Not Only The Perception Of Truth, But The Sense Of Truthfulness, And That The Man Whose Faith Drives Him Into Fallacies Treads Close Upon The Precipice Of Falsehood.

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.

Let Thy Chief Terror Be Of Thine Own Soul: There, 'mid The Throng Of Hurrying Desires That Trample O'er The Dead To Seize Their Spoil, Lurks Vengeance, Footless, Irresistible As Exhaltations Laden With Slow Death, And O'er The Fairest Troop Of Captured Joys Breathes Pallid Pestilence.

Brothers Are So Unpleasant.

It Is Better - It Shall Be Better With Me Because I Have Known You.

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.

Human Longings Are Perversely Obstinate; And To The Man Whose Mouth Is Watering For A Peach, It Is Of No Use To Offer The Largest Vegetable Marrow.

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

Blessed Is The Man, Who Having Nothing To Say, Abstains From Giving Wordy Evidence Of The Fact.

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

One Has To Spend Many Years In Learning How To Be Happy.

How To Be Happy

Death Is The King Of This World: 'tis His Park Where He Breeds Life To Feed Him. Cries Of Pain Are Music For His Banquet.

It Is Not True That A Man's Intellectual Power Is, Like The Strength Of A Timber Beam, To Be Measured By Its Weakest Point.

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

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

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

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

Beautiful Women

We Are All Of Us Imaginative In Some Form Or Other, For Images Are The Brood Of Desire.

The Dew-bead Gem Of Earth And Sky Begotten.

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.

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

There Is Hardly Any Mental Misery Worse Than That Of Having Our Own Serious Phrases, Our Own Rooted Beliefs, Caricatured By A Charlatan Or A Hireling.

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.

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

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

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

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.

We All Remember Epochs In Our Experience When Some Dear Expectation Dies, Or Some New Motive Is Born.

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?

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

The Yoke A Man Creates For Himself By Wrong-doing Will Breed Hate In The Kindliest Nature.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Souls Live On In Perpetual Echoes.

I Think I Dislike What I Don't Like More Than I Like What I Like.

I Trust You As Holy Men Trust God; You Could Do Nought That Was Not Pure And Loving, Though The Deed Might Pierce Me Unto Death.

The Beauty Of A Lovely Woman Is Like Music ... The Rounded Neck, The Dimpled Arm, Move Us By Something More Than Their Prettiness--by Their Close Kinship With All We Have Known Of Tenderness And Peace.

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

Them As Ha' Never Had A Cushion Don't Miss It.

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

Better A Wrong Will Than A Wavering; Better A Steadfast Enemy Than An Uncertain Friend; Better A False Belief Than No Belief At All.

When God Makes His Presence Felt Through Us, We Are Like The Burning Bush: Moses Never Took Any Heed What Sort Of Bush It Was—he Only Saw The Brightness Of The Lord.

Boots And Shoes Are The Greatest Trouble Of My Life.

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.

When You Get Me A Good Man Made Out Of Arguments, I Will Get You A Good Dinner With Reading You The Cookery Book.

Mysterious Haunts Of Echoes Old And Far, The Voice Divine Of Human Loyalty.

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

To Superficial Observers His Chin Had Too Vanishing An Aspect, Looking As If It Were Being Gradually Reabsorbed. And It Did Indeed Cause Him Some Difficulty About The Fit Of His Satin Stocks, For Which Chins Were At That Time Useful.

Unwonted Circumstances May Make Us All Rather Unlike Ourselves: There Are Conditions Under Which The Most Majestic Person Is Obliged To Sneeze, And Our Emotions Are Liable To Be Acted On In The Same Incongruous Manner.

The Mother's Love Is At First An Absorbing Delight, Blunting All Other Sensibilities; It Is An Expansion Of The Animal Existence.

A Picture Of Human Life Such As A Great Artist Can Give, Surprises Even The Trivial And The Selfish Into That Attention To What Is Apart From Themselves, Which May Be Called The Raw Material Of Moral Sentiment.

It Is Surely Better To Pardon Too Much, Than To Condemn Too Much.

I Shall Do Everything It Becomes Me To Do.

What A Different Result One Gets By Changing The Metaphor!

The Golden Moments In The Stream Of Life Rush Past Us, And We See Nothing But Sand; The Angels Come To Visit Us, And We Only Know Them When They Are Gone.

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

Children Demand That Their Heroes Should Be Freckle Less, And Easily Believe Them So: Perhaps A First Discovery To The Contrary Is Less Revolutionary Shock To A Passionate Child Than The Threatened Downfall Of Habitual Beliefs Which Makes The World Seem To Totter For Us In Maturer Life.

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.

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

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.

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

Trouble's Made Us Kin.

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

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.

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

... 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.

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

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

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.

The Best Happiness Will Be To Escape The Worst Misery.

There Are Many Victories Worse Than A Defeat.

Anger Seek It Prey,-- Something To Tear With Sharp-edged Tooth And Claw, Like Not To Go Off Hungry, Leaving Love To Feast On Milk And Honeycomb At Will.

What Business Has An Old Bachelor Like That To Marry?' Said Sir James. 'he Has One Foot In The Grave.' 'he Means To Draw It Out Again, I Suppose.

I've Never Any Pity For Conceited People, Because I Think They Carry Their Comfort About With Them.

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.

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

Animals Are Such Agreeable Friends.

The First Sense Of Mutual Love Excludes Other Feelings; It Will Have The Soul All To Itself.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Fairy Folk A-listening Hear The Seed Sprout In The Spring, And For Music To Their Dance Hear The Hedgerows Wake From Trance, Sap That Trembles Into Buds Sending Little Rhythmic Floods Of Fairy Sound In Fairy Ears. Thus All Beauty That Appears Has Birth As Sound To Finer Sense And Lighter-clad Intelligence.

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.

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.

"abroad," That Large Home Of Ruined Reputations.

That Golden Sky, Which Was The Doubly Blessed Symbol Of Advancing Day And Of Approaching Rest.

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

Memory, When Duly Impregnated With Ascertained Facts, Is Sometimes Surprisingly Fertile.

Let My Body Dwell In Poverty, And My Hands Be As The Hands Of The Toiler; But Let My Soul Be As A Temple Of Remembrance Where The Treasures Of Knowledge Enter And The Inner Sanctuary Is Hope.

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.

A Bachelor's Children Are Always Young: They're Immortal Children - Always Lisping, Waddling, Helpless, And With A Chance Of Turning Out Good.

Starting A Long Way Off The True Point, And Proceeding By Loops And Zigzags , We Now And Then Arrive Just Where We Ought To Be.

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

Love Has A Way Of Cheating Itself Consciously, Like A Child Who Plays At Solitary Hide-and-seek; It Is Pleased With Assurances That It All The While Disbelieves.

And We Must Learn To Accommodate Ourselves To The Discovery That Some Of Those Cunningly-fashioned Instruments Called Human Souls Have Only A Very Limited Range Of Music, And Will Not Vibrate In The Least Under A Touch That Fills Others With Tremulous Rapture Or Quivering Agony.

We Look At The One Little Woman's Face We Love, As We Look At The Face Of Our Mother Earth, And See All Sorts Of Answers To Our Own Yearnings.

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

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

We Are Overhasty To Speak As If God Did Not Manifest Himself By Our Silent Feeling, And Make His Love Felt Through Ours.

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

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

There Are New Eras In One's Life That Are Equivalent To Youth-are Something Better Than Youth.

Something Better

Every Limit Is A Beginning As Well As An Ending.

With A Single Drop Of Ink For A Mirror, The Egyptian Sorcerer Undertakes To Reveal To Any Chance Comer Far-reaching Visions Of The Past. This Is What I Undertake To Do For You, Reader.

I Should Like To Know What Is The Proper Function Of Women, If It Is Not To Make Reasons For Husbands To Stay At Home, And Still Stronger Reasons For Bachelors To Go Out.

... One Always Believes One's Own Town To Be More Stupid Than Any Other.

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.

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.

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

Play Not With Paradoxes. That Caustic Which You Handle In Order To Scorch Others May Happen To Sear Your Own Fingers And Make Them Dead To The Quality Of Things.

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.

You Must Love Your Work, And Not Be Always Looking Over The Edge Of It, Wanting Your Play To Begin. And The Other Is, You Must Not Be Ashamed Of Your Work, And Think It Would Be More Honorable To You To Be Doing Something Else. You Must Have A Pride In Your Own Work And In Learning To Do It Well.

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.

Family Likeness Has Often A Deep Sadness In It.

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

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.

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.

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

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

There Are Answers Which, In Turning Away Wrath, Only Send It To The Other End Of The Room, And To Have A Discussion Coolly Waived When You Feel That Justice Is All On Your Own Side Is Even More Exasperating In Marriage Than In Philosophy.

Delicious Autumn! My Very Soul Is Wedded To It, And If I Were A Bird I Would Fly About The Earth Seeking The Successive Autumns.

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?

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.

Religious Ideas Have The Fate Of Melodies, Which, Once Set Afloat In The World, Are Taken Up By All Sorts Of Instruments, Some Of Them Woefully Coarse, Feeble, Or Out Of Tune, Until People Are In Danger Of Crying Out That The Melody Itself Is Detestable.

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.

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.

Plain Women He Regarded As He Did The Other Severe Facts Of Life, To Be Faced With Philosophy And Investigated By Science.

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.

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

Effective Magic Is Transcendent Nature.

The Mind That Is Too Ready At Contempt And Reprobation Is, I May Say, As A Clenched Fist That Can Give Blows, But Is Shut Up From Receiving And Holding Ought That Is Precious.

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

Congratulations

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.

And Certainly, The Mistakes That We Male And Female Mortals Make When We Have Our Own Way Might Fairly Raise Some Wonder That We Are So Fond Of It.

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.

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

Vague Memories Hang About The Mind Like Cobwebs.

I Don't Want The World To Give Me Anything For My Books Except Money Enough To Save Me From The Temptation To Write Only For Money.

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

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.

Shepperton Church Was A Very Different Looking Building Five-and-twenty Years Ago. To Be Sure, Its Substantial Stone Tower Looks At You Through Its Intelligent Eye, The Clock, With The Friendly Expression Of Former Days; But In Everything Else What Changes!

Many An Irritating Fault, Many An Unlovely Oddity, Has Come Of A Hard Sorrow.

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

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.

There Are But Two Sorts Of Government: One Where Men Show Their Teeth At Each Other, And One Where Men Show Their Tongues And Lick The Feet Of The Strongest.

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

... It Is Seldom A Medical Man Has True Religious Views--there Is Too Much Pride Of Intellect.

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

Fine Old Christmas, With The Snowy Hair And Ruddy Face, Had Done His Duty That Year In The Noblest Fashion, And Had Set Off His Rich Gifts Of Warmth And Color With All The Heightening Contrast Of Frost And Snow.

The Vainest Woman Is Never Thoroughly Conscious Of Her Beauty Till She Is Loved By The Man Who Sets Her Own Passion Vibrating In Return.

There's Nothing But What's Bearable As Long As A Man Can Work.... The Square O' Four Is Sixteen, And You Must Lengthen Your Lever In Proportion To Your Weight, Is As True When A Man's Miserable As When He's Happy; And The Best O' Working Is, It Gives You A Grip Hold O' Things Outside Your Own Lot.

It Is Always Fatal To Have Music Or Poetry Interrupted.

How Lovely The Little River Is, With Its Dark Changing Wavelets! It Seems To Me Like A Living Companion While I Wander Along The Bank, And Listen To Its Low, Placid Voice.

Poetry And Art And Knowledge Are Sacred And Pure.

I'd Sooner Have One Real Grief On My Mind Than Twenty False. It's Better To Know One's Robbed Than To Think One's Going To Be Murdered.

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.

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. . . .

Knowledge Is Power

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.

A Medical Man Likes To Make Psychological Observations, And Sometimes In The Pursuit Of Such Studies Is Too Easily Tempted Into Momentous Prophecy Which Life And Death Easily Set At Nought.

There Are Two Ways Of Speaking An Audience Will Always Like: One Is, To Tell Them What They Don't Understand; And The Other Is, To Tell Them What They're Used To.

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.

Joy Is The Best Of Wine.

A Good Solid Bit Of Work Lasts.

Education Was Almost Entirely A Matter Of Luck — Usually Of Ill-luck — In Those Distant Days.

Jews Are Not Fit For Heaven, But On Earth They Are Most Useful.

Signs Are Small Measurable Things, But Interpretations Are Illimitable, And In Girls Of Sweet, Ardent Nature, Every Sign Is Apt To Conjure Up Wonder, Hope, Belief, Vast As A Sky, And Colored By A Thimbleful Of Matter In The Shape Of Knowledge....wrong Reasoning Sometimes Lands Poor Mortals In Right Conclusions: Starting A Long Way Off The True Point, And Proceeding By Loops And Zigzags, We Now And Then Arrive Just Where We Ought To Be. Just Because Miss Brooke Was Hasty In Her Trust, It Is Not Therefore Clear That Mr. Casaubon Was Unworthy Of It.

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.

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