Firm, faithful, and devoted, full of energy and zeal, and truth, he labours for his race; he clears their painful way to improveme...nt; he hews down like a giant the prejudices of creed and caste that encumber it. He may be stern; he may be exacting; he may be ambitious yet; but his is the sternness of the warrior Greatheart, who guards his pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of Apollyon. His is the exaction of the apostle, who speaks but for Christ, when he says, "Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me." His is the ambition of the high master-spirit, which aims to fill a place in the first rank of those who are redeemed from the earth--who stand without fault before the throne of God, who share the last mighty victories of the Lamb, who are called, and chosen, and faithful.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For which he wex a litel red for shame, Whan he the peple upon him herde cryen,... That to beholde it was a noble game, How sobreliche he caste doun his yen. Criseyda gan al his chere aspyen, And let so softe it in her herte sinke That to herself she seyde, "Who yaf me drinke?"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mediocrity cherishes rules; as for me, I hate them; I feel for them and for every restriction, corporation, caste, hierarchy, leve...l, herd, a loathing which fills my soul, and it is in this respect perhaps that I understand martyrdom.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As the only class distinction available in a democracy, the college degree has created a caste society as rigid as ancient India's.... Condemning elitism and simultaneously quaking in fear that our children won't become members of the elite, we send them to college, not to learn, but to "be" college graduates, rationalizing our snobbery with the cliché that high technology has eliminated the need for the manual labor that we secretly hold in contempt.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Call a truce, then, to our labours--let us feast with friends and neighbours, And be merry as the custom of our caste;... For if "faint and forced the laughter," and if sadness follow after, We are richer by one mocking Christmas past.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Whyle I was abowte to chaunge myn olde lyff-- What sorowe I suffred, dyseese, angre and stryff,... Cracchynge myn here, my chekys all totare, Wrythynge my fyngres for angwysshe and care, Watrynge the erthe with my byttre salte teres That the crye of my syghes ascended to Goddys eres, My knees with myn handys grasped togedyre soore, And yitt I stode the same man I was afore Tyl a depe profounde remembraunce att the laste Hadd all my wrecchednesse afore myn eyn casteLESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The life of the artist should be distinguished from that of all other people, even in external habits. They are Brahmins, a higher... caste, not ennobled by birth, however, but by deliberate self-initiation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We recognize caste in dogs because we rank ourselves by the familiar dog system, a ladderlike social arrangement wherein one indiv...idual outranks all others, the next outranks all but the first, and so on down the hierarchy. But the cat system is more like a wheel, with a high-ranking cat at the hub and the others arranged around the rim, all reluctantly acknowledging the superiority of the despot but not necessarily measuring themselves against one another.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Every sacred book, successively, has been accepted in the faith that it was to be the final resting-place of the sojourning soul; ...but after all, it was but a caravansary which supplied refreshment to the traveler, and directed him farther on his way to Isphahan or Bagdat. Thank God, no Hindoo tyranny prevailed at the framing of the world, but we are freemen of the universe, and not sentenced to any caste.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »