Death cancels everything but truth; and strips a man of everything but genius and virtue. It is a sort of natural canonization. It... makes the meanest of us sacred--it installs the poet in his immortality, and lifts him to the skies. Death is the greatest assayer of the sterling ore of talent. At his touch the drossy particles fall off, the irritable, the personal, the gross, and mingle with the dust--the finer and more ethereal part mounts with winged spirit to watch over our latest memory, and protect our bones from insult. We consign the least worthy qualities to oblivion, and cherish the nobler and imperishable nature with double pride and fondness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The chief problem is, of course, whether the marching of the general spirit of things is heading consciously or sub- consciously t...oward an idea of extension of boundaries.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access i...n one Spirit to the Father.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The function of the hero in art is to inspire the reader or spectator to continue in the same spirit from where he, the hero, leav...es off. He must release the spectator's potentiality, for potentiality is the historic force behind nobility. And to do this the hero must be typical of the characters and class who at that time only need to be made aware of their heroic potentiality in order to be able to make their society juster and nobler. Bourgeois culture is no longer capable of producing heroes. On the highbrow level it only produces characters who are embodied consolations for defeat, and on the lowbrow level it produces idols--stars, TV "personalities," pin-ups. The function of the idol is the exact opposite to that of the hero. The idol is self-sufficient; the hero never is. The idol is so superficially desirable, spectacular, witty, happy that he or she merely supplies a context for fantasy and therefore, instead of inspiring, lulls. The idol is based on the appearance of perfection; but never on the striving towards it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Calm fell. From Heaven distilled a clemency; There was peace on earth, and silence in the sky;... Some could, some could not, shake off misery: The Sinister Spirit sneered: 'It had to be!' And again the Spirit of Pity whispered, 'Why?'LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The present war having so long cut off all communication with Great-Britain, we are not able to make a fair estimate of the state ...of science in that country. The spirit in which she wages war is the only sample before our eyes, and that does not seem the legitimate offspring either of science or of civilization.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I believe that there was a great age, a great epoch when man did not make war: previous to 2000 B.C. Then the self had not really ...become aware of itself, it had not separated itself off, the spirit was not yet born, so there was no internal conflict, and hence no permanent external conflict.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The gap between ideals and actualities, between dreams and achievements, the gap that can spur strong men to increased exertions, ...but can break the spirit of others--this gap is the most conspicuous, continuous land mark in American history. It is conspicuous and continuous not because Americans achieve little, but because they dream grandly. The gap is a standing reproach to Americans; but it marks them off as a special and singularly admirable community among the world's peoples.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If young gentlemen get from their years in college only manliness, esprit de corps, a release of their social gifts, a training in... give and take, a catholic taste in men and the standards of true sportsmen, they have gained much but they have not gained what a college should give them. It should give them insight into the things of the mind and the spirit ... the consciousness of having taken on them the vows of true enlightenment and of having undergone the discipline, never to be shaken off, of those who seek wisdom in candor, with faithful labor and travail of spirit.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »