What we call little things are merely the causes of great things; they are the beginning, the embryo, and it is the point of depar...ture which, generally speaking, decides the whole future of an existence. One single black speck may be the beginning of a gangrene, of a storm, of a revolution.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For most visitors to Manhattan, both foreign and domestic, New York is the Shrine of the Good Time. "I don't see how you stand it,..." they often say to the native New Yorker who has been sitting up past his bedtime for a week in an attempt to tire his guest out. "It's all right for a week or so, but give me the little old home town when it comes to living." And, under his breath, the New Yorker endorses the transfer and wonders himself how he stands it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... one of the blind spots of most Negroes is their failure to realize that small overtures from whites have a large significance ...... I now realize that this feeling inevitably takes possession of one in the bitter struggle for equality. Indeed, I share it. Yet I wonder how we can expect total acceptance to step full grown from the womb of prejudice, with no embryo or infancy or childhood stages.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object, those qualit...ies, with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious. We find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds; and by a natural propensity, if not corrected by experience and reflection, ascribe malice or good-will to every thing, that hurts or pleases us.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The student of Nature wonders the more and is astonished the less, the more conversant he becomes with her operations; but of all ...the perennial miracles she offers to his inspection, perhaps the most worthy of admiration is the development of a plant or of an animal from its embryo.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If people can be educated to see the lowly side of their own natures, it may be hoped that they will also learn to understand and ...to love their fellow men better. A little less hypocrisy and a little more tolerance towards oneself can only have good results in respect for our neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life and just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the great th...inker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes, which are nothing else than grandiose thoughts in embryo.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Prophetic utterance, like poetic utterance, transforms experience and moves the receiver to new attitudes. The kinds of experience...--the recognitions or revelations--out of which both prophecy and poetry emerge, are such as to stir the prophet or poet to speech that may exceed their own known capacities; they are "inspired," they breathe in revelation and breathe out new words; and by so doing they transfer over to the listener or reader a parallel experience, a parallel intensity, which impels that person into new attitudes and new actions.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As I take up my pen I feel myself so full, so equal to my subject, and see my book so clearly before me in embryo, I would almost ...like to try to say it all in a single word.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »