Is it the breath, merely, of the performer on a wind- instrument, or the skillful, supple fingers of the performer on a stringed i...nstrument which evoke those tones which lay upon us a spell of such power, and awaken that inexpressible feeling, akin to nothing else on earth--the sense of a distant spirit world, and of our own higher life in it? Is it not, rather, the mind, the soul, the heart, which merely employ those bodily organs to give forth into our external life what we feel in our inner depths?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If for Americans, at least, the Great War could sometimes be imagined as a brief, quasi-athletic lark, the Second War permitted no... such melioration by the spirit of adolescent optimism. In North Africa alone, the 1st Infantry Division spent more time in mortal contact with the enemy than all the time it spent--forming up, marching, drawing equipment, lining up at the mess hall, training, bitching--in all of the First World War. And on December 7, 1941, the American navy lost in one day more men killed--2008, to be exact--than in all the days of the earlier war. The Second World War, total and global as it was, killed worldwide, more civilian men, women, and children than soldiers, sailors, and airmen. And compared with the idiocies of Verdun, Gallipoli, or Tannenberg, it was indescribably cruel and insane. It was not until the Second World War had enacted all its madness that one could realize how near Victorian social and ethical norms the First World War really was.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Formerly they had a heaven adorned with a vast wealth of thoughts and imagery. The meaning of all that is, hung on the thread of l...ight by which it was linked to that heaven. Instead of dwelling in this world's presence, men looked beyond it, following this thread to an other-worldly presence, so to speak. The eye of the Spirit had to be forcibly turned and held fast to the things of this world; and it has taken a long time before the lucidity which only heavenly things used to have could penetrate the dullness and confusion in which the sense of worldly things was enveloped, and so make attention to the here and now as such, attention to what has been called 'experience', an interesting and valid enterprise. Now we seem to need just the opposite; sense is so fast rooted in earthly things that it requires just as much force to raise it. The Spirit shows itself as so impoverished that, like a wanderer in the desert craving for a mere mouthful of water, it seems to crave for its refreshment only the bare feeling of the divine in general. By the little which now satisfies Spirit, we can measure the extent of its loss.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action; and, till action, lust... Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel not to trust; Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight; Past reason hunted, and no sooner had, Past reason hated as a swallowed bait On purpose laid to make the taker mad; Mad in pursuit, and in possession so; Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe, Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream. All this the world well knows, yet none knows well To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The most important American addition to the World Experience was the simple surprising fact of America. We have helped prepare man...kind for all its later surprises.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human... spirit.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There are such beings in the World perhaps, one in a Thousand, as the Creature You and I should think perfection, Where Grace... & Spirit are united to Worth, where the Manners are equal to the Heart & Understanding, but such a person may not come in your way, or if he does, he may not be the eldest son of a Man of Fortune, the Brother of your particular friend & belonging to your own Country.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Science is the language of the temporal world; love is that of the spiritual world. Man, indeed, describes more than he explains; ...while the angelic spirit sees and understands. Science saddens man; love enraptures the angel; science is still seeking, love has found. Man judges of nature in relation to itself; the angelic spirit judges of it in relation to heaven. In short to the spirits everything speaks.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
My responsibility to myself, my neighbors, my family and the human family is to try to tell the truth. That ain't easy. There are ...so few truth-speaking traditions in this society in which the myth of "Western civilization" has claimed the allegiance of so many. We have rarely been encouraged and equipped to appreciate the fact that the truth works, that it releases the Spirit and that it is a joyous thing. We live in a part of the world, for example, that equates criticism with assault, that equates social responsibility with naive idealism, that defines the unrelenting pursuit of knowledge and wisdom as fanaticism.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I ask myself: what are my views on death, the next world, God? I look into my mind and discover I am too much of a mannikin to hav...e any. As for death, I am a little bit of trembling jelly of anticipation. I am prepared for anything, but I am the complete agnostic; I simply don't know. To have views, faith, beliefs, one needs a backbone. This great bully of a universe overwhelms me. The stars make me cower. I am intimidated by the immensity surrounding my own littleness. It is futile and presumptuous for me to opine anything about the next world. But I hope for something much freer and more satisfying after death, for emancipation of the spirit and above all for the obliteration of this puny self, this little, skulking, sharp-witted ferret.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »