One of the saddest sights of the slums is to see the thrifty wife of the working man, with her rosy brood of children, used to cou...ntry air and sunshine, used to space, privacy, good surroundings, cleanliness, quiet, shut up amid the noise and dirt and confusion, in the gloom of the slum.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Vain are the thousand creeds That move men's hearts, unutterably vain;... Worthless as withered weeds, Or idlest froth amid the boundless main.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In sorrow by thy bier we stand, Amid the awe that hushes all,... And speak the anguish of a land That shook with horror at thy fall.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Ordinary people think that talent must be always on its own level and that it arises every morning like the sun, rested and refres...hed, ready to draw from the same storehouse--always open, always full, always abundant--new treasures that it will heap up on those of the day before; such people are unaware that, as in the case of all mortal things, talent has its increase and decrease, and that independently of the career it takes, like everything that breathes ... it undergoes all the accidents of health, of sickness, and of the dispositions of the soul--its gaiety or its sadness.... As with our perishable flesh ... talent is obliged constantly to keep guard over itself, to combat, and to keep perpetually on the alert amid the obstacles that witness the exercise of its singular power.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The lonely Earth amid the balls That hurry through the eternal halls,... A makeweight flying to the void, Supplemental asteroid, Or compensatory spark, Shoots across the neutral Dark.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I think that the heroism which at this day would make on us the impression of Epaminondas and Phocion must be that of a domestic c...onqueror. He who shall bravely and gracefully subdue this Gorgon of Convention and Fashion, and show men how to lead a clean, handsome and heroic life amid the beggarly elements of our cities and villages; whoso shall teach me how to eat my meat and take my repose and deal with men, without any shame following, will restore the life of man to splendor, and make his own name dear to all history.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To fill the hour,--that is happiness; to fill the hour, and leave no crevice for a repentance or an approval. We live amid surface...s, and the true art of life is to skate well on them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We are not very much to blame for our bad marriages. We live amid hallucinations; and this especial trap is laid to trip our feet ...with, and all are tripped up first and last. But the mighty Mother who had been so sly with us, as if she felt that she owed us some indemnity, insinuates into the Pandora-box of marriage some deep and serious benefits, and some great joys.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »