It takes little talent to see clearly what lies under one's nose, a good deal of it to know in which direction to point that organ....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Many young people adopt pleasures for which they have not the least taste, only because they are called by that name.... You must ...allow that drunkenness, which is equally destructive to body and mind, is a fine pleasure. Gaming, that draws you into a thousand scraps, leaves you penniless, and gives you the air and manners of an outrageous madman, is another most exquisite pleasure, is it not? As to running after women, the consequences of that vice are only the loss of one's nose, the total destruction of health, and, not unfrequently, the being run through the body.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You did not sense the wings beyond the gate; you could not see,... you could not touch and feel, actually the sea-sand and the sea-shell.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If Shakespeare has a singularity, it is because he has become a black hole. Light, insight, intelligence, matter--all pour ceasele...ssly into him, as critics are drawn into the densening vortex of his reputation; they add their own weight to his increasing mass. The light from other stars--other poets, other dramatists--is wrenched and bent as it passes by him on its way to us. He warps cultural space-time; he distorts our view of the universe around him. As Emerson said, "Now, literature, philosophy, and thought are Shakespearized. His mind is the horizon beyond which at present we do not see." But Shakespeare himself no longer transmits visible light; his stellar energies have been trapped within the gravity well of his own reputation. We find in Shakespeare only what we bring to him or what others have left behind; he gives us back our own values.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The nearest beach to us on the other side, whither we looked, due east, was on the coast of Galicia, in Spain, whose capital is Sa...ntiago, though by old poets' reckoning it should have been Atlantis or the Hesperides; but heaven is found to be farther west now.... A little south of east was Palos, where Columbus weighed anchor, and farther yet the pillars which Hercules set up; concerning which when we inquired at the top of our voices what was written on them,--for we had the morning sun in our faces, and could not see distinctly,--the inhabitants shouted Ne plus ultra (no more beyond), but the wind bore to us the truth only, plus ultra (more beyond), and over the Bay westward was echoed ultra (beyond). We spoke to them through the surf about the Far West, the true Hesperia, heos peras or end of the day, the This Side Sundown, where the sun was extinguished in the Pacific, and we advised them to pull up stakes and plant those pillars of theirs on the shore of California, whither all our folks were gone,--the only ne plus ultra now. Whereat they looked crestfallen on their cliffs, for we had taken the wind out of all their sails.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Whatever we do we must do confidently (if we are timid, let us, then, act timidly), not expecting more light, but having light eno...ugh. It we confidently expect more, then let us wait for it. But what is this which we have? Have we not already waited? Is this the beginning of time? Is there a man who does not see clearly beyond, though only a hair's breadth beyond where he at any time stands?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Do you not see that so long as society says woman has not brains enough to be a doctor, lawyer or minister, but has plenty to be a... teacher, every man of you who condescends to teach, tacitly admits before all Israel and the sun that he has no more brains than a woman?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
America is hard to see. Less partial witnesses than he... In book on book have testified They could not see it from outside....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD does not see as mortals s...ee; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »