Mutual repect implies discretion and reserve even in love itself; it means preserving as much liberty as possible to those whose l...ife we share. We must distrust our instinct of intervention, for the desire to make one's own will prevail is often disguised under the mask of solicitude.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
My wife, who does not like journalizing, said it was leaving myself embowelled to posterity--a good strong figure. But I think it ...is rather leaving myself embalmed. It is certainly preserving myself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Among the best traitors Ireland has ever had, Mother Church ranks at the very top, a massive obstacle in the path to equality and ...freedom. She has been a force for conservatism, not on the basis of preserving Catholic doctrine or preventing the corruption of her children, but simply to ward off threats to her own security and influence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
How frail and ephemeral ... is the material substance of letters, which makes their very survival so hazardous. Print has a perman...ence of its own, though it may not be much worth preserving, but a letter! Conveyed by uncertain transportation, over which the sender has no control; committed to a single individual who may be careless or inappreciative; left to the mercy of future generations, of families maybe anxious to suppress the past, of the accidents of removals and house-cleanings, or of mere ignorance. How often it has been by the veriest chance that they have survived at all.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A beautiful sentence is beautiful, and a beautiful flower is beautiful, but their duration is nearly the same--a day, a century. N...othing dies more quickly than a style that is not supported by the solidity of strong thought. It shrivels up like a slackened hide; it falls in a heap like a rotten vine deprived of the tree it entwines. And if someone says that the vine keeps a tree with withered roots from falling down, I would agree. Style is also a force, but its value is that much more quickly diminished when it exhausts itself in preserving from annihilation the fragility which it embraces and sustains.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A Law of Nature, (Lex Naturalis) is a Precept, or general Rule, found out by Reason, by which a man is forbidden to do, that, whic...h is destructive of his life, or taketh away the means of preserving the same; and to omit, that, by which he thinketh it may be best preserved.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »