The great leading distinction between writing and speaking is, that more time is allowed for the one than the other, and hence dif...ferent faculties are required for, and different objects attained by each. He is properly the best speaker who can collect together the greatest number of apposite ideas at a moment's warning; he is properly the best writer who can give utterance to the greatest quantity of valuable knowledge in the course of his whole life. The chief requisite for the one, then, appears to be quickness and facility of perception--for the other, patience of soul and a power increasing with the difficulties it has to master. He cannot be denied to be an expert speaker, a lively companion, who is never at a loss for something to say on every occasion or subject that offers. He, by the same rule, will make a respectable writer who, by dint of study, can find out anything good to say upon any one point that has not yet been touched upon before, or who by asking for time, can give the most complete and comprehensive view of any question. The one must be done off-hand, at a single blow; the other can only be done by a repetition of blows, by having time to think and do better.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss becau...se of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is nothing like the fun of having brothers, if there is no rivalry.... There is nothing like the fun of summer rains, if there is no mud. There is nothing like the fun of gambling, if there is no loss.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The ideal of brotherhood of man, the building of the Just City, is one that cannot be discarded without lifelong feelings of disap...pointment and loss. But, if we are to live in the real world, discard it we must. Its very nobility makes the results of its breakdown doubly horrifying, and it breaks down, as it always will, not by some external agency but because it cannot work.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have always rebelled against the unadorned, the unbefitting, the unawakened, the unresisting, the undesirable, the unplanned, th...e unshapely, the uncommitted, the unattempted--all leading to the unintended. I believe in the unsubmissive, the unfaltering, the unassailable, the irresistible, the unbelievable--in other words, in an art of life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In ancient times--'twas no great loss-- They hung the thief upon the cross:... But now, alas!--I say't with grief-- They hang the cross upon the thief.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... the loss of belief in future states is politically, though certainly not spiritually, the most significant distinction between... our present period and the centuries before. And this loss is definite. For no matter how religious our world may turn again, or how much authentic faith still exists in it, or how deeply our moral values may be rooted in our religious systems, the fear of hell is no longer among the motives which would prevent or stimulate the actions of a majority.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The general feeling was, and for a long time remained, that one had several children in order to keep just a few. As late as the s...eventeenth century . . . people could not allow themselves to become too attached to something that was regarded as a probable loss. This is the reason for certain remarks which shock our present-day sensibility, such as Montaigne's observation, "I have lost two or three children in their infancy, not without regret, but without great sorrow."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »