Yet some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise, and wherever the vein of thought reaches down into the profound, there is n...o danger from vanity. Solemn friends will warn them of the danger of the head's being turned by the flourish of trumpets, but they can afford to smile.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No man is quite sane; each has a vein of folly in his composition, a slight determination of blood to the head, to make sure of ho...lding him hard to some one point which nature has taken to heart.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I always looked to about thirty as the barrier of any real or fierce delight in the passions, and determined to work them out in t...he younger ore and better veins of the mine--and I flatter myself (perhaps) that I have pretty well done so--and now the dross is coming.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sanders: Oh Brown, I implore you to listen. Has your whole life been so filled with filthy, treacherous brawling and lust. And her...e and now, perhaps close to your death, the only thing for you to do is live it all over again in your mind.... But Brown, Brown, you're a gentleman, you've got breeding. You must have faith. Brown: Why? Sanders: Why? Why in heaven's name man, what do you believe in? Brown: What do I believe in? Would it really interest you? Oh, a lot of things. A good horse. Steak and kidney pudding. A fellow named George Brown. The asinine futility of this war. Being frightened. Being drunk enough to be brave and brave enough to be drunk. The feel of the sea when you swim. The taste and strength of wine. The love of innocent woman. [angrily] The splendid and unspeakable joy of killing Arabs. The smell of incense and bacon. The weight of a fist. An old pair of shoes. A toothache. Triumph.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As with a moral view designed To cure the vices of mankind;... His vein, ironically grave, Exposed the fool, and lashed the knave;LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Passing over the earlier Continental poets, since we are bound to the pleasant archipelago of English poetry, Chaucer's is the fir...st name after that misty weather in which Ossian lived, which can detain us long. Indeed, though he represents so different a culture and society, he may be regarded as in many respects the Homer of the English poets. Perhaps he is the youthfulest of them all. We return to him as to the purest well, the fountain farthest removed from the highway of desultory life. He is so natural and cheerful, compared with later poets, that we might almost regard him as the personification of spring.... It is still the poetry of youth and life, rather than of thought; and though the moral vein is obvious and constant, it has not yet banished the sun and daylight from his verse.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As polishing expresses the vein in marble, and grain in wood, so music brings out what of heroic lurks anywhere. The hero is the s...ole patron of music.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Carlyle must undoubtedly plead guilty to the charge of mannerism. He not only has his vein, but his peculiar manner of working it.... He has a style which can be imitated, and sometimes is an imitator of himself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Upon entering my vein, the drug would start a warm edge that would surge along until the brain consumed it in a gentle explosion. ...It began in the back of the neck and rose rapidly until I felt such pleasure that the world sympathizing took on a soft, lofty appeal.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »