There will be a new church founded on moral science, at first cold and naked, a babe in a manger again, the algebra and mathematic...s of ethical law, the church of men to come, without shams, or psaltery, or sackbut; but it will have heaven and earth for its beams and rafters; science for symbol and illustration; it will fast enough gather beauty, music, picture, poetry. Was never stoicism so stern and exigent as this shall be. It shall send man home to his central solitude, shame these social, supplicating manners, and make him know that much of the time he must have himself to his friend. He shall expect no cooperation, he shall walk with no companion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And there were present the Picninnies,... and the Jobillies, and the Garyulies, and the great Panjandrum himself, with the little round button at top; and they all fell to playing the game of catch-as-catch-can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"Well, well," he said to himself, "you are not in Belgium; let us begin our apprenticeship in earnest, and so long as we are in th...e woods, howl heartily with the wolves."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is... his own personality.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
John Robie: And jewelry--you never wear any. Frances Stevens: I don't like cold things touching my skin.... John Robie: Why don't you invent some hot diamonds? Frances Stevens: I'd rather spend my money on more tangible excitement. John Robie: Tell me, what do you get a thrill out of most? Frances Stevens: I'm still looking for that one. He has ... a very good opinion of himself, which can by no means be considered a failing, for if a man does not esteem himself, he would certainly be very silly to expect the esteem of others. And although he is also well convinced of the importance of self-esteem, there is, perhaps, no one who more heartily detests open flattery than he does, and yet, strange to say, it sometimes sounds very pleasant to his ears; it puts him in such good humor with himself, and of course, with all about him, that he seems like quite another being while under its agreeable influence.... Now, I do not mean that he entertains an exalted opinion of his talents or acquirements, but merely that he thinks himself possessed of a good share of common sense, by which is meant a sound practical judgment of what is correct in the common affairs of life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I suppose I now have the reputation of being an inscrutable dipsomaniac. One woman here originated the rumour that I am extremely ...lazy and will never do or finish anything. (I calculate that I must have spent nearly 20,000 hours in writing Ulysses.) A batch of people in Zurich persuaded themselves that I was gradually going mad and actually endeavoured to induce me to enter a sanatorium where a certain Doctor Jung (the Swiss Tweedledum who is not to be confused with the Viennese Tweedledee, Dr. Freud) amuses himself at the expense (in every sense of the word) of ladies and gentlemen who are troubled with bees in their bonnets.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Man is exceedingly well defended against himself, against being scouted out and besieged by himself, and he is usually able to mak...e out no more of himself than his outer fortifications. The actual fortress is inaccessible to him, even invisible, unless his friends and enemies turn traitor to him and lead him there by secret paths.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The vain man does not wish so much to be prominent as to feel himself prominent; he therefore disdains none of the expedients for ...self-deception and self-outwitting. It is not the opinion of others that he sets his heart on, but his opinion of their opinion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One sticks to an opinion because he prides himself on having come to it on his own, and another because he has taken great pains t...o learn it and is proud to have grasped it: and so both do so out of vanity.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »