What strikes one about the Autobiography is its complete lack of sentimentality. Franklin had a pronounced character which he pres...ented very acutely, but he did not think of himself as primarily a unique inner self. He was all his many roles, although he put the first above all others, as he wrote in his testament: "I, Benjamin Franklin, of Philadelphia, printer, late Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the court of France, now President of Pennsylvania." There is much pride of achievement in this, but no vanity at all. It is also a wholly social ego.... The distance between Franklin and Hawthorne is immense. Franklin was the sum of his actions, while Hawthorne and we have romantic egos that cannot bear the notion that one's manner of acting one's roles measures true character. For Hawthorne there was a private self that was one's true, supreme, and most honest part. That is why he thought it important to take the "private and domestic view of public men," and why the discrepancy between the two made him so bitter. For Franklin the domestic self was one among several. No remnants of an immortal soul bothered him, and he needed no replacement for it. His private affections were not politically relevant.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I am looking over Self Control again, & my opinion is confirmed of its being an excellently-meant, elegantly-written... Work, without anything of Nature or Probability in it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"I wonder what life means," said my friend when he had apparently just been thinking. "I have no idea," I volunteered in my cheerf...ul manner, helpful and yet lighthearted at the same time; for philosophy was to me both an agreeable and an instructive science and presented many worthwhile topics of significance and entertainment to the whole world, and would be a useful ornament rather than a disgrace in any adult conversation that claims to be mature and reflect these enlightened modern times, when so many human beings have received a college education that illiterate democracy is simply packed solid with an unprecedented quantity of well-rounded cultural ingredients, much to the united pride of this abounding twentieth century intellect.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To have that sense of one's intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discr...iminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The tricks that work on others count ...for nothing in that very well-lit back alley where one keeps assignations with oneself: no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The glance is natural magic. The mysterious communication established across a house between two entire strangers, moves all the s...prings of wonder. The communication by the glance is in the greatest part not subject to the control of the will. It is the bodily symbol of identity with nature. We look into the eyes to know if this other form is another self, and the eyes will not lie, but make a faithful confession what inhabitant is there.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
So all that is said of the wise man by Stoic or Oriental or modern essayist, describes to each reader his own idea, describes his ...unattained but attainable self.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide: him all tongues greet, all honors crow...n, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him, because he did not need it. We solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him, because he held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods loved him because men hated him.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Traveling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at R...ome, I can be intoxicated with beauty and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »