We laugh at him who steps out of his room at the very moment when the sun steps out, and says: "I will the sun to rise"; and at hi...m who cannot stop the wheel, and says: "I will it to roll"; and at him who is taken down in a wrestling match, and says: "I lie here, but I will that I lie here!" And yet, all laughter aside, do we ever do anything other than one of these three things when we use the expression, "I will"?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes...then...Israel will be...come a proverb and a taunt among all peoples.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What one really wants is youth, and what one really loses is years. Life becomes at last a mere piece of acting. One goes on by ha...bit, playing more or less clumsily that one is still alive. It is ludicrous and at times humiliating, but there is a certain style in it which youth has not. We become all, more or less, gentlemen; we are ancien régime; we learn to smile while gout racks us.... We get out of bed in the morning all broken up, without nerves, color or temper, and by noon we are joking with young women about the play. One lives in constant company with diseased hearts, livers, kidneys and lungs; one shakes hands with certain death at closer embrace every day; one sees paralysis in every feature and feels it in every muscle; all one's functions relax their action day by day; and, what is worse, one's grasp on the interests of life relaxes with the physical relaxation; and, through it all, we improve; our manners acquire refinement; our sympathies grow wider; our youthful self-consciousness disappears; very ordinary men and women are found to have charm; our appreciations have weight; we should almost get to respect ourselves if we knew of anything human to respect.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I had a strong curiosity to be satisfied if he persisted in disbelieving a future state even when he had death before his eyes....... I asked him if the thought of annihilation never gave him any uneasiness. He said not the least.... "Well," said I, "Mr. Hume, I hope to triumph over you when I meet you in a future state; and remember you are not to pretend that you was joking with all this infidelity." "No, no," said he. "But I shall have been so long there before you come that it will be nothing new."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Whoever is admitted or sought for, in company, upon any other account than that of his merit and manners, is never respected there..., but only made use of. We will have such-a-one, for he sings prettily; we will invite such-a-one to a ball, for he dances well; we will have such-a-one at supper, for he is always joking and laughing; we will ask another because he plays deep at all games, or because he can drink a great deal. These are all vilifying distinctions, mortifying preferences, and exclude all ideas of esteem and regard. Whoever is had (as it is called) in company for the sake of any one thing singly, is singly that thing, and will never be considered in any other light; consequently never respected, let his merits be what they will.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If ever a man and his wife, or a man and his mistress, who pass nights as well as days together, absolutely lay aside all good bre...eding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This one fact the world hates; that the soul becomes; for that forever degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all reputat...ion to a shame, confounds the saint with the rogue, shoves Jesus and Judas equally aside.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Although there have been witty big men--Oscar Wilde comes first to mind--wit and humor seem more in the province of the smaller ma...n. Chaplin, Keaton, the Marx Brothers were all small men. We expect a comedian to be small. He may also be fat. W.C. Fields was fat; so was Oliver Hardy. Fat is funny, small is funny. Lou Costello, of Abbot & Costello, was small and fat--a winning comic combination. Tall isn't funny, perhaps owing to its being too imposing, even slightly menacing. Tall and handsome conjoined are especially unfunny. One can always fall back on being the tall and silent type, of whom, in the movies, Gary Cooper was the apotheosis. But if one is small and silent, one is likely merely to be counted shy. Small men are under an obligation to do more talking; perhaps this is why so many of them are always joking.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
People who use their erudition to write for a learned minority ... don't seem to me favored by fortune but rather to be pitied for... their continuous self-torture. They add, change, remove, lay aside, take up, rephrase, show to their friends, keep for nine years and are never satisfied. And their futile reward, a word of praise from a handful of people, they win at such a cost--so many late nights, such loss of sleep, sweetest of all things, and so much sweat and anguish ... their health deteriorates, their looks are destroyed, they suffer partial or total blindness, poverty, ill-will, denial of pleasure, premature old age and early death.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When the white frock is laid aside, the bigger miss seats herself in public at a ball, expecting every moment to be chosen by some... man for a partner for that evening. If she is balked, what galling disappointment doth she feel within! Her heart is ready to burst with envy at all those who are so happy as to be taken out.... The same expectation of being chosen out as a partner for life continues from miss of fifteen to miss of _____ ... but the woman who is continually expecting great offers of marriage, which may never happen, knows not when to give up her expectations.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »