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 »
For anyone addicted to reading commonplace books ... finding a good new one is much like enduring a familiar recurrence of malaria..., with fever, fits of shaking, strange dreams. Unlike a truly paludismic ordeal, however, the symptoms felt while savoring a collection of one man's pet quotations are voluptuously enjoyable ...LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Between labor and play stands work. A man is a worker if he is personally interested in the job which society pays him to do; what... from the point of view of society is necessary labor is from his point of view voluntary play. Whether a job is to be classified as labor or work depends, not on the job itself, but on the tastes of the individual who undertakes it. The difference does not, for example, coincide with the difference between a manual and a mental job; a gardener or a cobbler may be a worker, a bank clerk a laborer.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Renaissance was, as much as anything, a revolt from the logic of the Middle Ages. We speak of the Renaissance as the birth of ...rationalism; it was in many ways the birth of irrationalism. It is true that the medieval Schoolmen, who had produced the finest logic that the world has ever seen, had in later years produced more logic than the world can ever be expected to stand. They had loaded and lumbered up the world with libraries of mere logic; and some effort was bound to be made to free it from such endless chains of deduction. Therefore, there was in the Renaissance a wild touch of revolt, not against religion but against reason.... When all is said, there is something a little sinister in the number of mad people in Shakespeare. We say that he uses his fools to brighten the dark background of tragedy; I think he sometimes uses them to darken it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
His misfortune was that he loved youth--he was weak to it, it kindled him. If there was one eager eye, one doubting, critical mind..., one lively curiosity in a whole lecture-room full of commonplace boys and girls, he was its servant. That ardour could command him. It hadn't worn out with years, this responsiveness, any more than the magnetic currents wear out; it had nothing to do with Time.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And for the citation of so many authors, 'tis the easiest thing in nature. Find out one of these books with an alphabetical index,... and without any farther ceremony, remove it verbatim into your own ... there are fools enough to be thus drawn into an opinion of the work; at least, such a flourishing train of attendants will give your book a fashionable air, and recommend it for sale.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am told that Duclos' book is not in vogue in Paris, and that it is being violently criticized, apparently because readers unders...tand it; and being intelligible is no longer the fashion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is a Book By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,... On which the eyes of God not rarely look,
A chronicle of actions just and bright-- There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine; And since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »