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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.

-George Eliot

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Minds Fettered By This

George Eliot

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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.

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We Learn Words By Rote, But Not Their Meaning; That Must Be Paid For With Our Life-blood, And Printed In The Subtle Fibres Of Our Nerves.

So Shall I Join The Choir Invisible Whose Music Is The Gladness Of The World.

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.

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.

It's A Father's Duty To Give His Sons A Fine Chance.

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.

The First Condition Of Human Goodness Is Something To Love; The Second, Something To Reverence.

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

The Prevarication And White Lies Which A Mind That Keeps Itself Ambitiously Pure Is As Uneasy Under As A Great Artist Under The False Touches That No Eye Detects But His Own, Are Worn As Lightly As Mere Trimmings When Once The Actions Have Become A Lie.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Things Don't Happen Because They're Bad Or Good, Else All Eggs Would Be Addled Or None At All, And At The Most It Is But Six To The Dozen. There's Good Chances And Bad Chances, And Nobody's Luck Is Pulled Only By One String.

When Our Life Is A Continuous Trial, The Moments Of Respite Seem Only To Substitute The Heaviness Of Dread For The Heaviness Of Actual Suffering; The Curtain Of Cloud Seems Parted An Instant Only That We May Measure All Its Horror As It Hangs Low, Black, And Imminent, In Contrast With The Transient Brightness; The Waterdrops That Visit The Parched Lips In The Desert Bear With Them Only The Keen Imagination Of Thirst.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

But Faithfulness Can Feed On Suffering, And Knows No Disappointment.

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

Mankind Is Not Disposed To Look Narrowly Into The Conduct Of Great Victors When Their Victory Is On The Right Side.

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.

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.

Tis A Petty Kind Of Fame At Best, That Comes Of Making Violins; And Saves No Masses, Either. Thou Wilt Go To Purgatory None The Less.

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

She Was No Longer Struggling Against The Perception Of Facts, But Adjusting Herself To Their Clearest Perception.

Upon My Word, I Think The Truth Is The Hardest Missile One Can Be Pelted With.

Some Folks' Tongues Are Like The Clocks As Run On Strikin', Not To Tell You The Time O' The Day, But Because There's Summat Wrong I' Their Own Inside.

The Beauty Of A Lovely Woman Is Like Music.

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

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

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

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

Receptiveness Is A Rare And Massive Power, Like Fortitude.

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

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

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

Power Of Generalizing Gives Men So Much The Superiority In Mistake Over The Dumb Animals.

I Would Rather Not Be Engaged. When People Are Engaged, They Begin To Think Of Being Married Soon, And I Should Like Everything To Go On For A Long While Just As It Is.

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

Love Is Such A Simple Thing When We Have Only One-and-twenty Summers And A Sweet Girl Of Seventeen Trembles Under Our Glance, As If She Were A Bud First Opening Her Heart With Wondering Rapture To The Morning. Such Young Unfurrowed Souls Roll To Meet Each Other Like Two Velvet Peaches That Touch Softly And Are At Rest; They Mingle As Easily As Two Brooklets That Ask For Nothing But To Entwine Themselves And Ripple With Ever-interlacing Curves In The Leafiest Hiding-places.

The Best Happiness Will Be To Escape The Worst Misery.

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.

Joy And Sorrow Are Both My Perpetual Companions, But The Joy Is Called Past And The Sorrow Present.

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

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.

I Beg Your Pardon: Correct English Is The Slang Of Prigs Who Write History And Essays. And The Strongest Slang Of All Is The Slang Of Poets.

Death Is The Only Physician, The Shadow Of His Valley The Only Journeying That Will Cure Us Of Age And The Gathering Fatigue Of Years.

We Reap What We Sow, But Nature Has Love Over And Above That Justice, And Gives Us Shadow And Blossom And Fruit, That Spring From No Planting Of Ours.

Your Trouble's Easy Borne When Everybody Gives It A Lift For You.

The Wit Of A Family Is Usually Best Received Among Strangers.

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.

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

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

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.

The Important Work Of Moving The World Forward Does Not Wait To Be Done By Perfect Men.

Animals Are Such Agreeable Friends.

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

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.

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.

Conscience Is Harder Than Our Enemies, Knows More, Accuses With More Nicety.

Dark The Night, With Breath All Flowers, And Tender Broken Voice That Fills With Ravishment The Listening Hours,-- Whisperings, Wooings, Liquid Ripples, And Soft Ring-dove Cooings In Low-toned Rhythm That Love's Aching Stills! Dark The Night Yet Is She Bright, For In Her Dark She Brings The Mystic Star, Trembling Yet Strong, As Is The Voice Of Love, From Some Unknown Afar.

You Youngsters Nowadays Think You're To Begin With Living Well And Working Easy; You've No Notion Of Running Afoot Before You Get On Horseback.

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

Selfish— A Judgment Readily Passed By Those Who Have Never Tested Their Own Power Of Sacrifice.

The Most Solid Comfort One Can Fall Back Upon Is The Thought That The Business Of One's Life Is To Help In Some Small Way To Reduce The Sum Of Ignorance, Degradation And Misery On The Face Of This Beautiful Earth.

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.

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.

Though I Am Not Endowed With An Ear To Seize Those Earthly Harmonies, Which To Some Devout Souls Have Seemed, As It Were, The Broken Echoes Of The Heavenly Choir--i Apprehend That There Is A Law In Music, Disobedience Whereunto Would Bring Us In Our Singing To The Level Of Shrieking Maniacs Or Howling Beasts.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Duty Has A Trick Of Behaving Unexpectedly -- Something Like A Heavy Friend Whom We Have Amiably Asked To Visit Us, And Who Breaks His Leg Within Our Gates.

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

When One Is Grateful For Something Too Good For Common Thanks, Writing Is Less Unsatisfactory Than Speech-one Does Not, At Least, Hear How Inadequate The Words Are.

What Sunshine Is To Flowers, Smiles Are To Humanity.

In All Failures, The Beginning Is Certainly The Half Of The Whole.

Things Are Achieved When They Are Well Begun.

Man Cannot Choose His Duties.

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

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 Act With Doubleness Towards A Man Whose Own Conduct Was Double, Was So Near An Approach To Virtue That It Deserved To Be Called By No Meaner Name Than Diplomacy.

The Men Are Mostly So Slow, Their Thoughts Overrun 'em, An' They Can Only Catch 'em By The Tail. I Can Count A Stocking-top While A Man's Getting's Tongue Ready; An' When He Outs Wi' His Speech At Last, There's Little Broth To Be Made On't. It's Your Dead Chicks Take The Longest Hatchin'.

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

Alas! The Scientific Conscience Had Got Into The Debasing Company Of Money Obligation And Selfish Respects.

I Can't Abide To See Men Throw Away Their Tools I' That Way, The Minute The Clock Begins To Strike, As If They Took No Pleasure I' Their Work, And Was Afraid O' Doing A Stroke Too Much.... I Hate To See A Man's Arms Drop Down As If He Was Shot, Before The Clock's Fairly Struck, Just As If He'd Never A Bit O' Pride And Delight In's Work. The Very Grindstone 'ull Go On Turning A Bit After You Loose It.

Effective Magic Is Transcendent Nature.

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

I Have A Knack Of Hoping, Which Is As Good As An Estate.

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?

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. No Man Can Begin To Mould Himself On A Faith Or An Idea Without Rising To A Higher Order Of Experience: A Principle Of Subordination, Of Self-mastery, Has Been Introduced Into His Nature; He Is No Longer A Mere Bundle Of Impressions, Desires, And Impulses.

For Years After Lydgate Remembered The Impression Produced In Him By This Involuntary Appeal-this Cry From Soul To Soul, Without Other Consciousness Than Their Moving With Kindred Natures In The Same Embroiled Medium, The Same Troublous Fitfully-illuminated Life.

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You May Try — But You Can Never Imagine What It Is To Have A Man's Force Of Genius In You, And Yet To Suffer The Slavery Of Being A Girl.

A Supreme Love, A Motive That Gives A Sublime Rhythm To A Woman's Life, And Exalts Habit Into Partnership With The Soul's Highest Needs, Is Not To Be Had Where And How She Wills.

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

To Have In General But Little Feeling, Seems To Be The Only Security Against Feeling Too Much On Any Particular Occasion.

Surely There Was Something Taught Her By This Experience Of Great Need; And She Must Be Learning A Secret Of Human Tenderness And Long-suffering, That The Less Erring Could Hardly Know?

They The Royal-hearted Women Are Who Nobly Love The Noblest, Yet Have Grace For Needy Suffering Lives In Lowliest Place, Carrying A Choicer Sunlight In Their Smile, The Heavenliest Ray That Pitieth The Vile.

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.

Loquacity With Tongue Or Pen Is Its Own Reward -- Or, Punishment.

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

Folks As Have No Mind To Be O' Use Have Allays The Luck To Be Out O' The Road When There's Anything To Be Done.

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 Usual Attitude Of Christians Towards Jews Is - I Hardly Know Whether To Say More Impious Or More Stupid, When Viewed In The Light Of Their Professed Principles. ... They Hardly Know Christ Was A Jew. And I Find Men, Educated, Supposing That Christ Spoke Greek. To My Feeling, This Deadness To The History Which Has Prepared Half Our World For Us, This Inability To Find Interest In Any Form Of Life That Is Not Clad In The Same Coat-tails And Flounces As Our Own, Lies Very Close To The Worst Kind Of Irreligion.

I Shall Do Everything It Becomes Me To Do.

Opposition May Become Sweet To A Man When He Has Christened It Persecution.

... Goodness Is Of A Modest Nature, Easily Discouraged, And When Much Elbowed In Early Life By Unabashed Vices, Is Apt To Retire Into Extreme Privacy, So That It Is More Easily Believed In By Those Who Construct A Selfish Old Gentleman Theoretically, Than By Those Who Form The Narrower Judgments Based On His Personal Acquaintance.

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.

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.

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.

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

Is Not This A True Autumn Day? Just The Still Melancholy That I Love - That Makes Life And Nature Harmonise. The Birds Are Consulting About Their Migrations, The Trees Are Putting On The Hectic Or The Pallid Hues Of Decay, And Begin To Strew The Ground, That One's Very Footsteps May Not Disturb The Repose Of Earth And Air, While They Give Us A Scent That Is A Perfect Anodyne To The Restless Spirit. 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.

There Is No Killing The Suspicion That Deceit Has Once Begotten.

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

It Is Very Hard To Say The Exact Truth, Even About Your Own Immediate Feelings – Much Harder Than To Say Something Fine About Them Which Is Not The Exact Truth.

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.

There Is Hardly Any Contact More Depressing To A Young Ardent Creature Than That Of A Mind In Which Years Full Of Knowledge Seem To Have Issued In A Blank Absence Of Interest Or Sympathy.

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

But That Intimacy Of Mutual Embarrassment, In Which Each Feels That The Other Is Feeling Something, Having Once Existed, Its Effect Is Not To Be Done Away With.

A Perverted Moral Judgment Belongs To The Dogmatic System.

The Purifying Influence Of Public Confession Springs From The Fact, That By It The Hope In Lies Is Forever Swept Away, And The Soul Recovers The Noble Attitude Of Simplicity.

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.

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

A Fool Or Idiot Is One Who Expects Things To Happen That Never Can Happen.

Nothing Is So Good As It Seems Beforehand.

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.

Jealousy Is Never Satisfied With Anything Short Of An Omniscience That Would Detect The Subtlest Fold Of The Heart.

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

A Prig Is A Fellow Who Is Always Making You A Present Of His Opinions.

... It Is One Of The Gains Of Advancing Age That The Good Of Young Creatures Becomes A More Definite Intense Joy To Us. With That Renunciation For Ourselves Which Age Inevitably Brings, We Get More Freedom Of Soul To Enter Into The Life Of Others; What We Can Never Learn They Will Know, And The Gladness Which Is A Departed Sunlight To Us Is Rising With The Strength Of Morning To Them.

There's No Disappointment In Memory, And One's Exaggerations Are Always On The Good Side.

Exaggeration Is

Those Old Stories Of Visions And Dreams Guiding Men Have Their Truth; We Are Saved By Making The Future Present To Ourselves.

Bad Literature Of The Sort Called Amusing Is Spiritual Gin.

Obligation May Be Stretched Till It Is No Better Than A Brand Of Slavery Stamped On Us When We Were Too Young To Know Its Meaning.

All Who Remember Their Childhood Remember The Strange Vague Sense, When Some New Experience Came, That Everything Else Was Going To Be Changed, And That There Would Be No Lapse Into The Old Monotony.

New Experiences

'tis God Gives Skill, But Not Without Men's Hand: He Could Not Make Antonio Stradivarius's Violins Without Antonio.

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

Life Began With Waking Up And Loving My Mother's Face.

Men And Women Make Sad Mistakes About Their Own Symptoms, Taking Their Vague Uneasy Longings, Sometimes For Genius, Sometimes For Religion, And Oftener Still For A Mighty Love.

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.

It's Easy Finding Reasons Why Other Folks Should Be Patient.

A Foreman, If He's Got A Conscience, And Delights In His Work, Will Do His Business As Well As If He Was A Partner. I Wouldn't Give A Penny For A Man As 'ud Drive A Nail In Slack Because He Didn't Get Extra Pay For It.

Grant Folly's Prayers That Hinder Folly's Wish, And Serve The Ends Of Wisdom.

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.

He Was Of An Impressible Nature, And Lived A Great Deal In Other People's Opinions And Feelings Concerning Himself.

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

The Stars Are Golden Fruit Upon A Tree All Out Of Reach.

Poor Fellow! I Think He Is In Love With You.' I Am Not Aware Of It. And To Me It Is One Of The Most Odious Things In A Girl's Life, That There Must Always Be Some Supposition Of Falling In Love Coming Between Her And Any Man Who Is Kind To Her... I Have No Ground For The Nonsensical Vanity Of Fancying Everybody Who Comes Near Me Is In Love With Me.

Falling In Love

The Dew-bead Gem Of Earth And Sky Begotten.

History, We Know, Is Apt To Repeat Itself.

One Couldn't Carry On Life Comfortably Without A Little Blindness To The Fact That Everything Has Been Said Better Than We Can Put It Ourselves.

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

Finding Yourself

The Best Travel Is That Which One Can Take By One's Own Fireside. In Memory Or Imagination.

It Is A Vain Thought To Flee From The Work That God Appoints Us, For The Sake Of Finding A Greater Blessing, Instead Of Seeking It Where Alone It Is To Be Found - In Loving Obedience.

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.

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

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?

When Gratitude Has Become A Matter Of Reasoning There Are Many Ways Of Escaping From Its Bonds.

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

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.

God, Immortality, Duty - How Inconceivable The First, How Unbelievable The Second, How Peremptory And Absolute The Third.

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

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

How To Be Happy

... When One's Outward Lot Is Perfect, The Sense Of Inward Imperfection Is The More Pressing.

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.

Life Is Too Precious To Be Spent In This Weaving And Unweaving Of False Impressions, And It Is Better To Live Quietly Under Some Degree Of Misrepresentation Than To Attempt To Remove It By The Uncertain Process Of Letter-writing.

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

We Have Had An Unspeakably Delightful Journey, One Of Those Journeys Which Seem To Divide One's Life In Two, By The New Ideas They Suggest And The New Views Of Interest They Open.

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

Your Dunce Who Can't Do His Sums Always Has A Taste For The Infinite.

What Is Your Religion? I Mean-not What You Know About Religion But The Belief That Helps You Most?

What Is Opportunity To The Man Who Cant Use It?

Decide On What You Think Is Right, And Stick To It.

In Poor Rosamond's Mind There Was Not Room Enough For Luxuries To Look Small In.

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

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

Surely, Surely The Only One True Knowledge Of Our Fellow Man Is That Which Enables Us To Feel With Him--which Gives Us A Fine Ear For The Heart-pulses That Are Beating Under The Mere Clothes Of Circumstance And Opinion.

Truth Has Rough Flavours If We Bite It Through.

We Mortals, Men And Women, Devour Many A Disappointment Between Breakfast And Dinnertime.

All Things Except Reason And Order Are Possible With A Mob.

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

Genius Is The Capacity For Receiving And Improving By Discipline.

As To Memory, It Is Known That This Frail Faculty Naturally Lets Drop The Facts Which Are Less Flattering To Our Self-love - When It Does Not Retain Them Carefully As Subjects Not To Be Approached, Marshy Spots With A Warning Flag Over Them.

Souls Live On In Perpetual Echoes.

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

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Charles Caleb Colton

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