I am not engaged to Christianity by decent forms, or saving ordinances; it is not usage, it is not what I do not understand, that ...binds me to it--let these be the sandy foundations of falsehoods. What I revere and obey in it is its reality, its boundless charity, its deep interior life, the rest it gives to my mind, the echo it returns to my thoughts, the perfect accord it makes with my reason through all its representation of God and His Providence; and the persuasion and courage that come out thence to lead me upward and onward.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Cry joy that this witchlike midwife second Bullies into rough seas you so gentle... And makes with a flick of the thumb and sun A thundering bullring of your silent and girl-circled island.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This is just a job like any other job. I do it the best I can. It's never enough but I do it. When I go home, I don't take this st...uff with me, I leave it outside. But you, the way you carry it around inside, you must like it! Maybe you think that makes you a good cop. The way you're going you won't be good to anybody! Not even yourself! Somebody had to tell you. To get anything out of this life, you got to put something in it. From the heart!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument, that makes a poem,--a thought so passionate and alive, that, like the spirit of... a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
MR. BLAKE,--I received your letter just as I was rushing to Fire Island beach to recover what remained of Margaret Fuller, and rea...d it on the way. That event and its train, as much as anything, have prevented my answering it before. It is wisest to speak when you are spoken to. I will now endeavor to reply, at the risk of having nothing to say. I find that actual events, notwithstanding the singular prominence which we all allow them, are far less real than the creations of my imagination. They are truly visionary and insignificant,--all that we commonly call life and death,--and affect me less than my dreams. This petty stream which from time to time swells and carries away the mills and bridges of our habitual life, and that mightier stream or ocean on which we securely float,--what makes the difference between them? I have in my pocket a button which I ripped off the coat of the Marquis of Ossoli, on the seashore, the other day. Held up, it intercepts the light,--an actual button,--and yet all the life that it is connected with is less substantial to me, and interests me less, than my faintest dream. Our thoughts are the epochs in our lives: all else is but as a journal of the winds that blew while we were here.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What makes this Generation of Vermin so very Prolifick, is the indefatigable Diligence with which they apply themselves to their B...usiness. A Man does not undergo more watchings and fatigues in a Campaign, than in the Course of a vicious Amour. As it is said of some Men, that they make their Business their Pleasure, these Sons of Darkness may be said to make their Pleasure their Business. They might conquer their corrupt Inclinations with half the Pains they are at in gratifying them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Religious fervor makes the devil a very real personage, and anything awe-inspiring or not easily understood is usually connected w...ith him. Perhaps this explains why, not only in the Ozarks but all over the State, his name crops up so frequently.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When her husband clutches at her dress, she lowers her face,... her modesty aroused. When he wants a wild embrace, she shyly secrets away her limbs. She can't say a word and bestows her gaze on her beaming friends. A new wife suffers with shame the first time she makes love.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I'm bored to extinction with Harrison. His limericks and puns are embarrassing.... But I'm fond of the bum, For, though dull as they come, He makes me feel bright by comparison.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »