A man's wits are better employed in bearing up under the misfortunes that lie upon him at present than in foreseeing those that ma...y come upon him hereafter.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If writers were too wise, perhaps no books would get written at all. It might be better to ask yourself "Why?" afterwards than bef...ore. Anyway, the force from somewhere in Space which commands you to write in the first place, gives you no choice. You take up the pen when you are told, and write what is commanded. There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Failing to divide its social chromosomes and split up into new cells, each bearing some portion of the original inheritance, the c...ity continues to grow inorganically, indeed cancerously, by a continuous breaking down of old tissues, and an overgrowth of formless new tissue. Here the city has absorbed villages and little towns, reducing them to place names, like Manhattanville and Harlem in New York; there it has, more happily, left the organs of local government and the vestiges of an independent life, even assisted their revival, as in Chelsea and Kensington in London; but it has nevertheless enveloped those areas in its physical organization and built up the open land that once served to ensure their identity and integrity.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The doctrines of Christians and Jews are the closest of all the world's religions. Particularly in the bearing of religious faith ...upon social, political, economic, and cultural concerns in this world, the vocations of Jews and Christians are remarkably analogous. Both are narrative religions. Both are religions of The Book. Both religions teach respect for this world, for the flesh, for the concrete. Both religions instruct their members in a vocation not merely to escape from this world but to change this world. Both find the historical task of modernization a challenge, yet a challenge to be taken up in faith and in hope. More easily than any other of the major religions both seem to adjust--although not without enormous struggle--to modern urban life. Both have a commitment to intellect in its rational and scientific parts as well as its mystical, poetic, and intuitive parts.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Whenever a man acts purposively, he acts under a belief in some experimental phenomenon. Consequently, the sum of the experimental... phenomena that a proposition implies makes up its entire bearing upon human conduct.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Rosenbloom is dead. The tread of the carriers does not halt... On the hill, but turns Up the sky. They are bearing his body into the sky.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Far up in the country,--for we would be faithful to our experience,--in Thornton, perhaps, we met a soldier lad in the woods, goin...g to muster in full regimentals, and holding the middle of the road; deep in the forest, with shouldered musket and military step, and thoughts of war and glory all to himself. It was a sore trial to the youth, tougher than many a battle, to get by us creditably and with soldier-like bearing. Poor man! He actually shivered like a reed in his thin military pants, and by the time we had got up with him, all the sternness that becomes the soldier had forsaken his face, and he skulked past as if he were driving his father's sheep under a sword-proof helmet. It was too much for him to carry any extra armor then, who could not easily dispose of his natural arms. And for his legs, they were like heavy artillery in boggy places; better to cut the traces and forsake them. His greaves chafed and wrestled one with another for want of other foes. But he did get by and get off with all his munitions, and lived to fight another day; and I do not record this as casting any suspicion on his honor and real bravery in the field.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When I first took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to spend my nights as well as days there, which, by accident, was on In...dependence Day, or the Fourth of July, 1845, my house was not finished for winter, but was merely a defence against the rain, without plastering or chimney, the walls being of rough, weather-stained boards, with wide chinks, which made it cool at night. The upright white hewn studs and freshly planed door and window casings gave it a clean and airy look, especially in the morning, when its timbers were saturated with dew, so that I fancied that by noon some sweet gum would exude from them. To my imagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited a year before. This was an airy and unplastered cabin, fit to entertain a travelling god, and where a goddess might trail her garments. The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music. The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth everywhere.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Bearing the bandages, water and sponge, Straight and swift to my wounded I go,... Where they lie on the ground after the battle brought in, Where their priceless blood reddens the grass the ground, Or to the rows of the hospital tent, or under the roof'd hospital, To the long rows of cots up and down each side I return, To each and all one after another I draw near, not one do I miss, An attendant follows holding a tray, he carries a refuse pail, Soon to be fill'd with clotted rags and blood, emptied, and fill'd again.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
the whole sea become an entanglement of watery bodies lost to the world bearing what they cannot hold. Broken,...
beaten, desolate, reaching from the dead to be taken up they cry out, failing, failing! their cries rising in waves still as the skillful yachts pass over.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »