In general a thing is romantic when, as Aristotle would say, it is wonderful rather than probable; in other words, when it violate...s the normal sequence of cause and effect in favor of adventure. Here is the fundamental contrast between the words classic and romantic which meets us at the outset and in some form or other persists in all uses of the word down to the present day. A thing is romantic when it is strange, unexpected, intense, superlative, extreme, unique, etc. A thing is classical, on the other hand, when it is not unique, but representative of a class. In this sense, medical men may speak correctly of a classic case of typhoid fever, or a classic case of hysteria. One is even justified in speaking of a classic example of romanticism. By an easy extension of meaning a thing is classical when it belongs to a high class or to the best class.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
An identity is questioned only when it is menaced, as when the mighty begin to fall, or when the wretched begin to rise, or when t...he stranger enters the gates, never, thereafter, to be a stranger.... Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self: in which case, it is best that the garment be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one's nakedness can always be felt, and, sometimes, discerned. This trust in one's nakedness is all that gives one the power to change one's robes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
While there are practical and sometimes moral reasons for the decomposition of the family, it coincides neither with what most peo...ple in society say they desire nor, especially in the case of children, with their best interests.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Instructing in cures, therapists always recommend that "each case be individualized." If this advice is followed, one becomes pers...uaded that those means recommended in textbooks as the best, means perfectly appropriate for the template case, turn out to be completely unsuitable in individual cases.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Sceptic being a lover of his kind, desires to cure by speech, as best he can, the self-conceit and rashness of the Dogmatists.... So, just as the physicians who cure bodity ailments have remedies which differ in strength, and apply the severe ones to those whose ailments are severe and the milder to those mildly affected--so too the Sceptic propounds arguments which differ in strength, and employs those which are weighty and capable by their stringency of disposing of the Dogmatists' ailment, self-conceit, in cases where the mischief is due to a severe attack of rashness, which he employs the milder arguments in the case of those whose ailment is superficial and easy to cure, and whom it is possible to restore to health by milder methods of persuasion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Some punishment seems preparing for a people who are ungratefully abusing the best constitution and the best King any nation was e...ver blessed with, intent on nothing but luxury, licentiousness, power, places, pensions, and plunder; while the ministry, divided in their counsels, with little regard for each other, worried by perpetual oppositions, in continual apprehension of changes, intent on securing popularity in case they should lose favor, have for some years past had little time or inclination to attend to our small affairs, whose remoteness makes them appear even smaller.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You have for company the best companion you will ever have--the modest, defeated, plodding workaday self which has a name and can ...be identified in public registers in case of accident or death. But the real self, the one who has taken over the reins, is almost a stranger. He is the one who is filled with ideas; he is the one who is writing in the air; he is the one who, if you become too fascinated with his exploits, will finally expropriate the old, worn-out self, taking over your name, your address, your wife, your past, your future.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I ever will profess myself the greatest friend to those whose actions best correspond with their doctrine; which, I am sorry to sa...y, is too seldom the case amongst those nations who pretend most to civilization.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
So universal and widely related is any transcendent moral greatness, and so nearly identical with greatness everywhere and in ever...y age,--as a pyramid contracts the nearer you approach its apex,--that, when I look over my commonplace-book of poetry, I find that the best of it is oftenest applicable, in part or wholly, to the case of Captain Brown.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Absolutely speaking, Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you is by no means a golden rule, but the best of curren...t silver. An honest man would have but little occasion for it. It is golden not to have any rule at all in such a case.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »