Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commande...d must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
All the scientists hope to do is describe the universe mathematically, predict it, and maybe control it. The philosopher, by contr...ast, seems unbecomingly ambitious. He wants to understand the universe; to get behind phenomena and operation and solve the logically prior riddles of being, knowledge, and value. But the artist, and in particular the novelist, in his essence wishes neither to explain nor to control nor to understand the universe. He wants to make one of his own, and may even aspire to make it more orderly, meaningful, beautiful, and interesting than the one God turned out. What's more, in the opinion of many readers of literature, he sometimes succeeds.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
An absolute can only be given in an intuition, while all the rest has to do with analysis. We call intuition here the sympathy by ...which one is transported into the interior of an object in order to coincide with what there is unique and consequently inexpressible in it. Analysis, on the contrary, is the operation which reduces the object to elements already known.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
His whole works are a heap of mis-shapen errors, and absurd paradoxes, vented with the confidence of a juggler, the brags of a mou...ntebank, and the authority of some Pythagoras, or third Cato, lately dropped down from heaven. Thus we have seen how the obbian principles do destroy the existence, the simplicity, the ubiquity, the eternity, and infiniteness of God, the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, the hypostatical union, the kingly, sacerdotal, and prophetical office of Christ, the being and operation of the Holy Ghost, heaven, hell, angels, devils, the immortality of the soul, the Catholic and all national churches; the holy Scriptures, holy orders, the holy sacrament, the whole frame of religion, and the worship of God; the laws of nature, the reality of goodness, justice, piety, honesty, conscience, and all that is sacred.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In the works of the better poets you get the sensation that they're not talking to people any more, or to some seraphical creature.... What they're doing is simply talking back to the language itself--as beauty, sensuality, wisdom, irony--those aspects of language of which the poet is a clear mirror. Poetry is not an art or a branch of art, it's something more. If what distinguishes us from other species is speech, then poetry, which is the supreme linguistic operation, is our anthropological, indeed genetic, goal. Anyone who regards poetry as an entertainment, as a "read," commits an anthropological crime, in the first place, against himself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Children, confine your lights in jellied rules; Resemble graves; be metaphysical mules;... Learn Lord will not distort nor leave the fray.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Manners are of more importance than laws.... Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refi...ne us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The nearer society approaches to divine order, the less separation will there be in the characters, duties, and pursuits of men an...d women. Women will not become less gentle and graceful, but men will become more so. Women will not neglect the care and education of their children, but men will find themselves ennobled and refined by sharing those duties with them; and will receive, in return, co-operation and sympathy in the discharge of various other duties, now deemed inappropriate to women. The more women become rational companions, partners in business and in thought, as well as in affection and amusement, the more highly will men appreciate home.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Mining today is an affair of mathematics, of finance, of the latest in engineering skill. Cautious men behind polished desks in Sa...n Francisco figure out in advance the amount of metal to a cubic yard, the number of yards washed a day, the cost of each operation. They have no need of grubstakes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The general fact is that the most effective way of utilizing human energy is through an organized rivalry, which by specialization... and social control is, at the same time, organized co-operation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »