Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will, childhood equipped now with man's physical means to express itself, and with ...the analytical mind that enables it to bring order into the sum of experience, involuntarily amassed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
By his machines man can dive and remain under water like a shark; can fly like a hawk in the air; can see atoms like a gnat; can s...ee the system of the universe of Uriel, the angel of the sun; can carry whatever loads a ton of coal can lift; can knock down cities with his fist of gunpowder; can recover the history of his race by the medals which the deluge, and every creature, civil or savage or brute, has involuntarily dropped of its existence; and divine the future possibility of the planet and its inhabitants by his perception of laws of nature.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals ha...ve been victimized--the question involuntarily arises--to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself in...voluntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sneezing absorbs all the functions of the soul just as much as the [sexual] act, but we do not draw from it the same conclusions a...gainst the greatness of man, because it is involuntary; although we bring it about, we do so involuntarily. It is not for the sake of the thing in itself but for another end, and is therefore not a sign of man's weakness, or his subjection to this act.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If there be no nobility of descent in a nation, all the more indispensable is it that there should be nobility of ascent--a charac...ter in them that bear rule, so fine and high and pure, that as men come within the circle of its influence, they involuntarily pay homage to that which is the one pre-eminent distinction, the Royalty of Virtue.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The sound of the Sabbath bell far away, now breaking on these shores, does not awaken pleasing associations, but melancholy and so...mbre ones rather. One involuntarily rests on his oar, to humor his unusually meditative mood. It is as the sound of many catechisms and religious books twanging a canting peal round the earth, seeming to issue from some Egyptian temple and echo along the shore of the Nile, right opposite to Pharoah's palace and Moses in the bulrushes, startling a multitude of storks and alligators basking in the sun.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I walk toward one of our ponds; but what signifies the beauty of nature when men are base? We walk to lakes to see our serenity re...flected in them; when we are not serene, we go not to them. Who can be serene in a country where both the rulers and the ruled are without principle? The remembrance of my country spoils my walk. My thoughts are murder to the State, and involuntarily go plotting against her.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »