As a perfect Tragedy is the noblest Production of human Nature, so it is capable of giving the Mind one of the most delightful and... most improving Entertainments. A virtuous Man (says Seneca) strugling [sic] with Misfortunes, is such a Spectacle as Gods might look upon with Pleasure: And such a Pleasure it is which one meets with in the Representation of a well-written Tragedy. Diversions of this kind wear out of our Thoughts every thing that is mean and little. They cherish and cultivate that Humanity which is the Ornament of our Nature. They soften Insolence, sooth [sic] Affliction, and subdue the Mind to the Dispensations of Providence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We must soften into a credulity below the milkiness of infancy to think all men virtuous. We must be tainted with a malignity trul...y diabolical, to believe all the world to be equally wicked and corrupt.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As long as I retain my feeling and my passion for Nature, I can partly soften or subdue my other passions and resist or endure tho...se of others.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
An acquaintance with the muses, in the education of youth, contributes not a little to soften the manners. It gives a delicate tur...n to the imagination, and a kind of polish to the mind in severer studies.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Nietzsche said that the earth has been a madhouse long enough. Without contradicting him we might perhaps soften the expression, a...nd say that philosophy has been long enough an asylum for enthusiasts.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One is not the same parent at forty-five that one was at twenty-five. Personalities and emotional rhythms are buffeted not simply ...by internal forces but by external pressures as well: an economic slump, the death of a spouse, sudden illness--all sharpen or soften the contours of our lives.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »