Anyone who tries to keep track of what is happening in China is going to end up by wearing all the skin of his left ear from twirl...ing around on it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Others apart sat on a Hill retir'd, In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high... Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate, Fixt Fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end, in wandring mazes lost. Of good and evil much they argu'd then, Of happiness and final misery, Passion and Apathie, and glory and shame, Vain wisdom all, and false Philosophie:LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost a...nd is found!' And they began to celebrate.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
O Adolescence, O Adolescence I wince before thine incandescence . . .... When anxious elders swarm about Crying "Where are you going?", thou answerest "Out," . . . Strewn! All is lost and nothing found Lord, how thou leavest things around! . . . Ah well, I must not carp and cavil I'll chew the spinach, spit out the gravel, Remembering how my heart has leapt At times when me thou didst accept Still, I'd like to be present, I must confess, When thine own adolescents adolesce.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This "charity-house," as the wrecker called it, this "Humane house," as some call it, that is, the one to which we first came, had... neither window nor sliding shutter, nor clapboards, nor paint. As we have said, there was a rusty nail put through the staple. However, as we wished to get an idea of a Humane house, and we hoped that we should never have a better opportunity, we put our eyes, by turns, to a knot-hole in the door, and, after long looking, without seeing, into the dark,--not knowing how many shipwrecked men's bones we might see at last, looking with the eye of faith, knowing that, though to him that knocketh it may not always be opened, yet to him that looketh long enough through a knot-hole the inside shall be visible,--for we had had some practice at looking inward,--by steadily keeping our other ball covered from the light meanwhile, putting the outward world behind us, ocean and land, and the beach,--till the pupil became enlarged and collected the rays of light that were wandering in that dark (for the pupil shall be enlarged by looking; there was never so dark a night but a faithful and patient eye, however small, might at last prevail over it),--after all this, I say, things began to take shape to our vision,--if we may use this expression where there was nothing but emptiness,--and we obtained the long-wished-for insight. Though we thought at first that it was a hopeless case, after several minutes' steady exercise of the divine faculty, our prospects began steadily to brighten, and we were ready to exclaim with the blind bard of "Paradise Lost and Regained,"-- "Hail, holy Light! offspring of Heaven first-born, Or of the Eternal coeternal beam May I express thee unblamed?" A little longer, and a chimney rushed red on our sight. In short, when our vision had grown familiar with the darkness, we discovered that there were some stones and some loose wads of wool on the floor, and an empty fireplace at the further end; but it was not supplied with matches, or straw, or hay, that we could see, nor "accommodated with a bench." Indeed, it was the wreck of all cosmical beauty there within. Turning our backs on the outward world, we thus looked through the knot-hole into the Humane house, into the very bowels of mercy; and for bread we found a stone. It was literally a great cry (of sea-mews outside), and a little wool. However, we were glad to sit outside, under the lee of the Humane house, to escape the piercing wind; and there we thought how cold is charity! how inhumane humanity! This, then, is what charity hides! Virtues antique and far away, with ever a rusty nail over the latch; and very difficult to keep in repair, withal, it is so uncertain whether any will ever gain the beach near you. So we shivered round about, not being able to get into it, ever and anon looking through the knot-hole into that night without a star, until we concluded that it was not a humane house at all, but a seaside box, now shut up, belonging to some of the family of Night or Chaos, where they spent their summers by the sea, for the sake of the sea-breeze, and that it was not proper for us to be prying into their concerns.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have thoroughly tried school-keeping, and found that my expenses were in proportion, or rather out of proportion, to my income, ...for I was obliged to dress and train, not to say think and believe, accordingly, and I lost my time into the bargain. As I did not teach for the good of my fellow-men, but simply for a livelihood, this was a failure. I have tried trade; but I found that it would take ten years to get under way in that, and that then I should probably be on my way to the devil. I was actually afraid that I might by that time be doing what is called a good business.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have always laid it down as a maxim--and found it justified by experience--that a man and a woman make far better friendships th...an can exist between two of the same sex--but then with the condition that they never have made or are to make love to each other.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He thought he saw an Elephant, That practiced on a fife:... He looked again, and found it was A letter from his wife. "At length I realize," he said, "The bitterness of Life!"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »