Cat-lovers will no doubt point out that the elegance and dignity of cats are the consequence of their sojourn in the temples of th...e gods, where their attitudes and movements were regarded as divine prognostications. Be that as it may, it is obvious that the cat's wealth of expressions make it an ideal candidate for such a role. Unlike the dog, which either wags its tail or does not wag its tail, the cat possesses a wide range of means to convey its emotions: It arches its back, makes its fur stand on end, meows, rubs itself against furniture and against humans, purrs, lashes its tail, spits, and hisses. The priests of Bacht, therefore, had ample material for interpretation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Certainly (said Hippothadee) some of our doctors say that the first woman in the world, whom the Hebrews name Eve, would hardly ha...ve been tempted to eat the fruit of knowledge if doing so had not been forbidden her. Be that as it may, consider how the crafty Temptor reminded her with his first words of this prohibition, as if meaning to infer: "it is forbidden to you, therefore you must eat: otherwise you would not be a woman."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I sometimes wonder if the hand is not more sensitive to the beauties of sculpture than the eye. I should think the wonderful rhyth...mical flow of lines and curves could be more subtly felt than seen. Be this as it may, I know that I can feel the heart- throbs of the ancient Greeks in their marble gods and goddesses.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Then let us pray that come it may,-- As come it will for a' that,--... That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, May bear the gree, an' a' that. For a' that, and a' that, It's comin' yet, for a' that-- That man to man, the warld o'er, Shall brithers be for a' that.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When a writer calls his work a Romance, it need hardly be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fash...ion and material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume had he professed to be writing a Novel. The latter form of composition is presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity, not merely to the probable and ordinary course of man's experience. The former--while, as a work of art, it must rigidly subject itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart--has fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of the writer's own choosing or creation. If he thinks fit, also, he may so manage his atmospherical medium as to bring out or mellow the lights and deepen and enrich the shadows of the picture.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[Necessity is] the sum of all things, which being now existent, conduce and concur to the production of that action hereafter, whe...reof if any one thing now were wanting, the effect could not be produced. This concourse of causes, whereof every one is determined to be such as it is by a like concourse of former causes, may well be called (in respect they were all set and ordered by the eternal causes of all things, God Almighty) the decree of God.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The dignity and stability of government in all its branches, the morals of the people, and every blessing of society, depend so mu...ch upon an upright and skilful administration of justice, that the judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checks upon that.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I consider it a singular plan of the fates that human cultivation and refinement should today be concentrated, as it were, in the ...two extremes of our continent, in Europe and in Tschina (as they call it), which adorns the Orient as Europe does the opposite edge of the earth. Perhaps supreme Providence has ordained such an arrangement, so that, as the most cultivated and distant peoples stretch out their arms to each other, those in between may gradually be brought to a better way of life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Whatever difference, involving inferiority, there exists between him and Dante, in his conceptions of the relations between this w...orld and the next, we may partly trace ... to the less noble character of the scenes around him in his youth; and admit that, though it was necessary for his special work that he should be put, as it were, on a level with his race, on those plains of Stratford, we should see in this a proof, instead of a negation, of the mountain power over human intellect. For breadth and perfectness of condescending sight, the Shakespearian mind stands alone; but in ascending sight it is limited. The breadth of grasp was innate; the stoop and slightness of it were given by the circumstances of scene; and the difference between those careless masques of heathen gods, or unbelieved, though mightily conceived visions of fairy, witch, or risen spirit, and the earnest faith of Dante's vision of Paradise, is the true measure of the difference in influence between the willowy banks of Avon, and the purple hills of Arno.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
That the world can be improved and yet must be celebrated as it is are contradictions. The beginning of maturity may be the recogn...ition that both are true.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »