Most people with whom I talk, men and women even of some originality and genius, have their scheme of the universe all cut and dri...ed,--very dry, I assure you, to hear, dry enough to burn, dry-rotted and powder-post, methinks,--which they set up between you and them in the shortest intercourse; an ancient and tottering frame with all its boards blown off. They do not walk without their bed. Some, to me, seemingly very unimportant and unsubstantial things and relations are for them everlastingly settled,--as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the like. These are like the everlasting hills to them. But in all my wanderings I never came across the least vestige of authority for these things. They have not left so distinct a trace as the delicate flower of a remote geological period on the coal in my grate.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Under the spell of moonlight, music, flowers or the cut and smell of good tweeds, I sometimes feel the divine urge for an hour, a ...day or maybe a week. Then it is gone an my interest returns to corn pone and mustard greens, or rubbing a paragraph with a soft cloth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Here is the mistake of the cut-and-dried man of culture. He goes about with the secret of having learned to appreciate the "grand ...style." He has lived in Homer till he can recall the roll of that many-sounding sea. He has pored over the lofty and pictorial thought of Plato till he begins to pique himself upon its grandeur. His fancy has been fed on the quaint old-world genius of Herodotus, his judgment on the melancholy wisdom of Tacitus and the complacent cynicism of Gibbon--and of all this he is conscious and proud.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Scholarship has the same relationship to wisdom as righteousness has to holiness: it is cold and dry, it is loveless and knows no ...deep feelings of inadequacy or longing.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
On thy wither'd lips and dry, Which like barren furrows lie,... Brooding kisses I will pour, Shall thy youthful heart restore. (Such kind showers in autumn fall, And a second spring recall); Nor from thee will ever part, Ancient Person of my Heart.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A gathering of Democrats is more sweaty, disorderly, offhand, and rowdy than a gathering of Republicans; it is also likely to be m...ore cheerful, imaginative, tolerant of dissent, and skillful at the game of give-and-take. A gathering of Republicans is more respectable, sober, purposeful, and businesslike than a gathering of Democrats; it is also likely to be more self-righteous, pompous, cut-and-dried, and just plain boring.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Across the lonely beach we flit, One little sandpiper and I;... And fast I gather, bit by bit, The scattered driftwood, bleached and dry. The wild waves reach their hands for it, The wild wind raves, the tide runs high, As up and down the beach we flit-- One little sandpiper and I.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »