Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of... the Law. The people assembled; Mahomet called the hill to come to him again and again; and when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said, If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I nightly offer up my prayers to the throne of grace for the health and safety of you all, and that we ought all to rely with conf...idence on the promises of our dear redeemer, and give him our hearts. This is all he requires and all that we can do, and if we sincerely do this, we are sure of salvation through his atonement.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As a philanthropist in general, and a friend to the Polynesians in particular, I hope that these Edens of the South Seas, blessed ...with fertile soils and peopled with happy natives, many being yet uncontaminated by the contact of civilization, will long remain unspoiled in their simplicity, beauty, and purity. And as for annexation, I beg to offer up an earnest prayer--and I entreat all present and all Christians to join me in it--that the banns of that union should be forbidden until we have found for ourselves a civilization morally, mentally, and physically higher than one which has culminated in almshouses, prisons, and hospitals.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It would be worth the while to select our reading, for books are the society we keep; to read only the serenely true; never statis...tics, nor fiction, nor news, nor reports, nor periodicals, but only great poems, and when they failed, read them again, or perchance write more. Instead of other sacrifice, we might offer up our perfect (teleia) thoughts to the gods daily, in hymns or psalms. For we should be at the helm at least once a day.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I had been curiously depressed all day. In the night I wakened. First precise thought: I know why I'm depressed--nothing inspired ...is going on. Second: I demand that life be inspired every moment. Third: the only way to guarantee this is to have inspired conversation every moment. Fourth: most people never get so far as conversation; they haven't the stamina, and there is no time. Fifth: if I had a magazine I could spend my time filling it up with the best conversation the world has to offer. Sixth: marvelous idea--salvation. Seventh: decision to do it. Deep sleep.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sometimes my wife complains that she's overwhelmed with work and just can't take one of the kids, for example, to a piano lesson. ...I'll offer to do it for her, and then she'll say, "No, I'll do it." We have to negotiate how much I trespass into that mother role--it's not given up easily.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There are men so incorrigibly lazy that no inducement that you can offer will tempt them to work; so eaten up by vice that virtue ...is abhorrent to them, and so inveterably dishonest that theft is to them a master passion. When a human being has reached that stage, there is only one course that can be rationally pursued. Sorrowfully, but remorselessly, it must be recognised that he has become lunatic, morally demented, incapable of self- government, and that upon him, therefore, must be passed the sentence of permanent seclusion from a world in which he is not fit to be at large.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If I have renounced the search of truth, if I have come into the port of some pretending dogmatism, some new church, some Schellin...g or Cousin, I have died to all use of these new events that are born out of prolific time into multitude of life every hour. I am as bankrupt to whom brilliant opportunities offer in vain. He has just foreclosed his freedom, tied his hands, locked himself up and given the key to another to keep.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Give a scientist a problem and he will probably provide a solution; historians and sociologists, by contrast, can offer only opini...ons. Ask a dozen chemists the composition of an organic compound such as methane, and within a short time all twelve will have come up with the same solution of CH4. Ask, however, a dozen economists or sociologists to provide policies to reduce unemployment or the level of crime and twelve widely differing opinions are likely to be offered.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Life, from beginning to end, is fear. Yes, it is pain, yes, it is desire, but more than anything it is fear; a certain amount rati...onal, an enormous amount irrational. All political cruelties stem from that overwhelming fear. To push back the threatening forces, to offer primitive sacrifices, to give up some in the hope that others will be saved ... that is the power struggle. That is the outsidedness of the poor, the feeble, the infantile. That is the outsidedness of Jews. That is the outsidedness of blacks. That is the outsidedness of women.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »