The terrible tabulation of the French statists brings every piece of whim and humor to be reducible also to exact numerical ratios.... If one man in twenty thousand, or in thirty thousand, eats shoes, or marries his grandmother, then, in every twenty thousand, or thirty thousand, is found one man who eats shoes, or marries his grandmother.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I ... walked to the Abbey of Holyroodhouse once to the Palace itself, once to the crown of Scotland above the gate in front, and o...nce to the venerable old Chapel. I next stood in the court before the Palace, and bowed thrice to Arthur Seat, that lofty romantic mountain on which I have so often strayed in my days of youth and felt the raptures of a soul filled with ideas of the magnificence of God and his creation. Having thus gratified my agreeable whim and superstitious humour, I felt a warm glow of satisfaction.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Just as every conviction begins as a whim so does every emancipator serve his apprenticeship as a crank. A fanatic is a great lead...er who is just entering the room.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
But the whim we have of happiness is somewhat thus. By certain valuations, and averages, of our own striking, we come upon some so...rt of average terrestrial lot; this we fancy belongs to us by nature, and of indefeasible rights. It is simple payment of our wages, of our deserts; requires neither thanks nor complaint.... Foolish soul! What act of legislature was there that thou shouldst be happy? A little while ago thou hadst no right to be at all.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
People named John and Mary never divorce. For better or for worse, in madness and in saneness, they seem bound together for eterni...ty by their rudimentary nomenclature. They may loathe and despise one another, quarrel, weep, and commit mayhem, but they are not free to divorce. Tom, Dick, and Harry can go to Reno on a whim, but nothing short of death can separate John and Mary.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A sche...dule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order--willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Slavery is no scholar, no improver; it does not love the whistle of the railroad; it does not love the newspaper, the mail-bag, a ...college, a book or a preacher who has the absurd whim of saying what he thinks; it does not increase the white population; it does not improve the soil; everything goes to decay.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »