more quotes from scrapped project
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Argument
The Litigator.
To whom is it now permitted to do good? It is necessary to seek the forum.
If I wish to hand over my possessions to the bad, which I have acquired.
Slaves must be seized for me, and household slaves must be bought.
Forsooth some Hero of ours whispers to us incessantly.
Libations must be offered to Libo, the well curb, the couch, the pot,
By the burning thunderbolt, the partridge, the saperda.
Nevertheless the cross, the nurturing support of Ireland, is worth more.
Silken offerings must be sent, a ladle, a puppy:
And he himself must be warned: that he wishes to be a good man:
And that he wants to favor me with my silk sack.
Which now the dear wife will do with her gentle urging.
Otherwise, leaving and returning, I will beat the dust.
“Julius Caesar Scaliger: Epidorpides.” Epidorpidum. Book 5.
We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings, and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.
Charles Darwin, In: Francis Darwin (ed.), The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (Volume 1).
Never from Obstinacy take the Wrong Side because your Opponent has anticipated you in taking the Right One. You begin the fight already beaten and must soon take to flight in disgrace. With bad weapons one can never win. It was astute in the opponent to seize the better side first: it would be folly to come lagging after with the worst. Such obstinacy is more dangerous in actions than in words, for action encounters more risk than talk. ’Tis the common failing of the obstinate that they lose the true by contradicting it, and the useful by quarrelling with it. The sage never places himself on the side of passion, but espouses the cause of right, either discovering it first or improving it later. If the enemy is a fool, he will in such a case turn round to follow the opposite and worse way. Thus the only way to drive him from the better course is to take it yourself, for his folly will cause him to desert it, and his obstinacy be punished for so doing.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
But this art hath two several methods of doctrine, the one by way of direction, the other by way of caution: the former frameth and setteth down a true form of consequence, by the variations and deflections from which errors and inconsequences may be exactly judged. Toward the composition and structure of which form it is incident to handle the parts thereof, which are propositions, and the parts of propositions, which are simple words. And this is that part of logic which is com-prehended in the Analytics.
The second method of doctrine was introduced for expedite use and assurance sake, discovering the more subtle forms of sophisms and illaqueations with their re-dargutions, which is that which is termed elenches. For although in the more gross sorts of fallacies it happeneth (as Seneca maketh the comparison well) as in juggling feats, which, though we know not how they are done, yet we know well it is not as it seemeth to be; yet the more subtle sort of them doth not only put a man besides his answer, but doth many times abuse his judgment.
Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning.
All those who were seated to the right and to the left of the abbé and whom he had moved down one notch began to laugh. So everyone was laughing except Monsieur who was irritated and went at me with things which wouldn’t have mattered at all if we’d been alone: “Rameau you’re an impudent man.” “I know that – that’s why you receive me here.” “A scoundrel.” “Just like the others.” “A beggar.” “Would I be here if I weren’t?” “I’ll see to it that you’re thrown out.” “After dinner, I’ll leave on my own.” “I’d advise you to do that.” So we ate, and I didn’t miss a bite. After we’d eaten well and drank a good deal, because, after all, it wouldn’t have mattered one way or the other – Mr. Guts is someone whom I’ve never avoided – I made my decision and was preparing to leave. I’d given my word in the presence of so many people that I had to keep it. I was prowling around the apartment for a long time, looking for my walking stick and my hat in places where they wouldn’t be, all the time counting on the fact that my patron would let out a new torrent of abuse, that someone would intervene, and that we’d finish up by being reconciled because we’d lost our tempers. I wandered round, I kept wandering around, for I wasn’t feeling anything inside, but my patron, well, he was blacker and grimmer than Homer’s Apollo when he fired his arrows down on the Greek army.
Denis Diderot, “Rameau’s Nephew.”
The easiest and most popular way of practically refuting... any Fallacy is, by bringing forward a parallel case, where it leads to a manifest absurdity. A metaphysical objection may still be urged against many cases in which we thus reason from calculation of chances; an objection not likely indeed practically to influence any one, but which may afford the Sophist a triumph over those who are unable to find a solution.
Richard Whately, p. 52-53 - Elements of Rhetoric (1828).
Secondly, if an accident is destroyed, it can only be destroyed in one of the following ways—either by the introduction of a contrary, or by cessation of its term, or by the absence of some other conserving cause, or, lastly, by the defect of the proper subject in which it inheres. Quantity cannot be destroyed in the first way, since it has no contrary; the second way does not apply, since it is proper to relatives; nor by the absence of a conserving cause, for that which my opponents assign is form. Now accidents are conceived to depend upon form in two ways—in the genus of formal cause, or in that of efficient cause; the first kind of dependence is not immediate, for substantial form does not inform accidents, nor is it conceivable that a cause can have any other function in regard to them in this genus. Therefore it is only mediate, that is to say in so far as matter is dependent upon form, and quantity in turn on matter.
John Milton, “Prolusions: Prolusion 4.”
Art
In art and knowledge, as also in deed and action, everything depends on a pure apprehension of the object and a treatment of it according to its nature.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
WHAT REMAINS OF ART. It is true that art has a much greater value in the case of certain metaphysical hypotheses, for instance when the belief obtains that the character is unchangeable and that the essence of the world manifests itself continually in all character and action ; thus the artist's work becomes the symbol of the eternally constant, while according to our views the artist can only endow his picture with temporary value, because man on the whole has developed and is mutable, and even the individual man has nothing fixed and constant. The same thing holds good with another metaphysical hypothesis : assuming that our visible world were only a delusion, as metaphysicians declare, then art would come very close to the real world; for there would be much similarity between the world of appearance and the artist’s world of dream images; the remaining difference would actually enhance the meaning of art rather than the meaning of nature, because art would portray the symmetry, the types and models of nature.— But such assumptions are wrong: what place remains for art, then, after this knowledge? Above all, for thousands of years, it has taught us to see every form of life with interest and joy, and to develop our sensibility so that we finally call out, “However it may be, life is good." This teaching of art-to have joy in existence and to regard human life as a part of nature, without being moved too violently, as something that developed through laws—this teaching has taken root in us; it now comes to light again as an all-powerful need for knowledge.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Human All-Too-Human."
That beauty which is meant by art is no mere accident of human life which people can take or leave, but a positive necessity of life if we are to live as nature meant us to, that is to say unless we are content to be less than men.
Oscar Wilde, Art and the Handicraftsman.
Their instinct tells them that art can be slain by art: the monumental will never be reproduced, and the weight of its authority is invoked from the past to make it sure. They are connoisseurs of art, primarily because they wish to kill art; they pretend to be physicians, when their real idea is to dabble in poisons. They develop their tastes to a point of perversion, that they may be able to show a reason for continually rejecting all the nourishing artistic fare that is offered them. For they do not want greatness, to arise: their method is to say, "See, the great thing is already here!" In reality they care as little about the great thing that is already here, as that which is about to arise: their lives are evidence of that. Monumental history is the cloak under which their hatred of present power and greatness masquerades as an extreme admiration of the past: the real meaning of this way of viewing history is disguised as its opposite; whether they wish it or no, they are acting as though their motto were, "let the dead bury the—living."
Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life."
Better people.—They tell me that our art appeals to the greedy, insatiable, uncurbed, loathsome, harassed spirits of the present age, exhibiting to them a picture of bliss, loftiness and unworldliness alongside with that of their own crudeness that for once they may forget and breathe again, nay, perhaps even derive from that oblivion encouragement towards flight and conversion. Poor artists, with such a public as this, with bythoughts half of a priestly, half of the mad doctor's type! How much happier was Corneille—"our great Corneille," as Madame de Sevigné exclaims with the accent of a woman in the presence of the man—how much nobler was his audience, whom he could please with the pictures of chivalrous virtues, strict duty, magnanimous devotion, heroic self-denial! How differently did both he and they love their existence, not issuing from a blind, indomitable will," which we curse, because we cannot destroy it, but is a state where greatness conjointly with humanity is possible, and where even the severest rigour of form, the submission under a princely or clerical tyranny can neither suppress the pride, chivalry, grace, nor the intellect of all individuals, but, on the contrary, are looked upon as stimuli and incentives for that which contrasts with the inborn self-glorification and distinction, with the inherited power of volition and passion.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Dawn of the Day/Book 3."
Donne, for not keeping of accent, deserved hanging…Shakespeare wanted art.
Ben Jonson, in Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden (written 1619) no. 3.
THE ANIMATION OF ART.—Art raises its head where creeds relax. It takes over many feelings and moods engendered by religion, lays them to its heart, and itself becomes deeper, more full of soul, so that it is capable of transmitting exultation and enthusiasm, which it previously was not able to do. The abundance of religious feelings which have grown into a stream are always breaking forth again and desire to conquer new kingdoms, but the growth of the Enlightenment undermined the dogmas of religion and inspired a fundamental mistrust of them—so that the feelings, thrust by the Enlightenment out of the religious sphere, throw themselves into art, in a few cases into political life, even straight into science. Everywhere where human endeavour wears a loftier, gloomier aspect, it may be assumed that the fear of spirits, incense, and church-shadows have remained attached to it.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Human All-Too-Human."
The importance so long affixed, in Greece and in Rome, to the tribune and the bar, increased in those countries the class of rhetoricians. Their labours have contributed to the progress of the art, of which they have developed the principles and subtleties. But they taught another art too much neglected by the moderns, and which at present it has been thought proper to transfer from speeches for the tribune, to compositions for the press: I mean that of preparing with facility, and in a short space of time, discourses, which, from the arrangement of their parts, from the method conspicuous in them, from the graces with which they may be embellished, shall at least become supportable: I mean the art of being able to speak almost instantaneously, without fatiguing the auditors with a medley of ideas, or a diffuse style; without disgusting them with idle declamation, quaint conceits, nonsense and sopperies. How useful would be this art in every country where the functions of office, public duty, or private interest may oblige men to speak and write, without having time to study their speeches or their compositions? its history is the more deserying our attention, as the moderns, to whom in the mean time it must often be necessary, appear only to have known it on the side of absurdity.
Marquis de Condorcet, Outlines of an historical view of the progress of the human mind. M. Carey, 1795, p. 111.
Art approaches as a saving sorceress, expert at healing. She alone knows how to turn these nauseous thoughts about the horror or absurdity of existence into notions with which one can live.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy.
Author
That author, however, who has thought more than he has read, read more than he has written, and written more than he has published, if he does not command success, has at least deserved it. In the article of rejection and abridgment we must be severe to ourselves, if we wish for mercy from others; since for one great genius who has written a little book we have a thousand little geniuses who have written great books. A volume, therefore, that contains more words than ideas, like a tree that has more foliage than fruit, may suit those to resort to who want not to feast, but to dream and to slumber; but the misfortune is, that in this particular instance nothing can equal the ingratitude of the public; who were never yet known to have the slightest compassion for those authors who have deprived themselves of sleep in order to procure it for their readers.
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
Again, it may be said that there are three kinds of authors. First come those who write without thinking. They write from a full memory, from reminiscences; it may be, even straight out of other people's books. This class is the most numerous. Then come those who do their thinking whilst they are writing. They think in order to write; and there is no lack of them. Last of all come those authors who think before they begin to write. They are rare.
Authors of the second class, who put off their thinking until they come to write, are like a sportsman who goes forth at random and is not likely to bring very much home. On the other hand, when an author of the third or rare class writes, it is like a battue. Here the game has been previously captured and shut up within a very small space; from which it is afterwards let out, so many at a time, into another space, also confined. The game cannot possibly escape the sportsman; he has nothing to do but aim and fire—in other words, write down his thoughts. This is a kind of sport from which a man has something to show.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "The Art of Literature/On Authorship."
In corroboration of this, we find that the history of literature generally shows all those who made knowledge and insight their goal to have remained unrecognized and neglected, whilst those who paraded with the vain show of it received the admiration of their contemporaries, together with the emoluments.
The effectiveness of an author turns chiefly upon his getting the reputation that he should be read. But by practicing various arts, by the operation of chance, and by certain natural affinities, this reputation is quickly won by a hundred worthless people: while a worthy writer may come by it very slowly and tardily. The former possess friends to help them; for the rabble is always a numerous body which holds well together. The latter has nothing but enemies; because intellectual superiority is everywhere and under all circumstances the most hateful thing in the world, and especially to bunglers in the same line of work, who want to pass for something themselves.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "The Art of Literature/On Reputation."
Authors have a greater right than any copyright, though it is generally unacknowledged or disregarded, They have a right to the reader’s civility. There are favorable hours for reading a book, as for writing it, and to these the author has a claim. Yet many people think that when they buy a book they buy with it the right to abuse the author.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
To make a book is as much a trade as to make a clock; something more than intelligence is required to become an author. A certain magistrate was going to be raised by his merit to the highest legal dignity; he was a man of subtle mind and of experience, but must needs print a treatise of morality, which was quickly bought up on account of its absurdity.
Jean de La Bruyere, The Characters of Jean de La Bruyère. New York: Scribner & Welford, 1885; Bartleby.com, 2011.
If, however, the empire of words and general knowledge is more durable in proportion as it is abstracted and attenuated, it is less immediate and dazzling: if authors are as good after they are dead as when they were living, while living they might as well be dead: and moreover with respect to actual ability, to write a book is not the only proof of taste, sense, or spirit, as pedants would have us suppose. To do anything well, to paint a picture, to fight a battle, to make a plough or a threshing-machine, requires, one would think, as much skill and judgment as to talk about or write a description of it when done. Words are universal, intelligible signs, but they are not the only real, existing things. Did not Julius Cæsar show himself as much of a man in conducting his campaigns as in composing his Commentaries? Or was the Retreat of the Ten Thousand under Xenophon, or his work of that name, the most consummate performance? Or would not Lovelace, supposing him to have existed and to have conceived and executed all his fine stratagems on the spur of the occasion, have been as clever a fellow as Richardson, who invented them in cold blood? If to conceive and describe an heroic character is the height of a literary ambition, we can hardly make it out that to be and to do all that the wit of man can feign is nothing.
William Hazlitt, "Table-Talk/Volume 1/Essay 11." ON THOUGHT AND ACTION.
Beauty
May I find a woman fair,
And her mind as clear as air,
If her beauty go alone,
'Tis to me as if't were none.
May I find a woman rich,
And not of too high a pitch;
If that pride should cause disdain,
Tell me, lover, where's thy gain?
May I find a woman wise,
And her falsehood not disguise;
Hath she wit as she hath will,
Double arm'd she is to ill.
May I find a woman kind,
And not wavering like the wind:
How should I call that love mine,
When 'tis his, and his, and thine?
May I find a woman true,
There is Beauty's fairest hue,
There is Beauty, Love, and Wit:
Happy he can compass it.
“True Beauty by Francis Beaumont.”
The more natural a handsome woman is, the more amiable she appears; she loses nothing by being not in full dress, and without any other ornaments than her beauty and her youth. An artless charm beams on her countenance and animates every little action, so that there would be less danger in seeing her adorned in splendid and fashionable apparel. Thus an honest man is respected for his own sake, independent of any outward deportment by which he endeavours to give himself a graver appearance and to make his virtue more apparent. An austere look, an exaggerated modesty, eccentricity in dress, and a large skull-cap, add nothing to his probity nor heighten his merit; they conceal it, and perhaps make it appear less pure and ingenuous than it is.
The Characters of Jean de La Bruyère. New York: Scribner & Welford, 1885; Bartleby.com, 2011.
Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy?
Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend,
And being frank she lends to those are free.
Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse
The bounteous largess given thee to give?
Profitless usurer, why dost thou use
So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?
For having traffic with thyself alone,
Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.
Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,
What acceptable audit canst thou leave?
Thy unus'd beauty must be tomb'd with thee,
Which, used, lives th' executor to be.
"Shakespeare's Sonnets (1883)/Sonnet 4."
Yet oft it falls that many a gentle mind
Dwells in deformed tabernacle drown'd,
Either by chance, against the course of kind,
Or through unaptness in the substance found,
Which it assumed of some stubborn ground,
That will not yield unto her form's direction,
But is deform'd with some foul imperfection.
And oft it falls, (ay me, the more to rue)
That goodly beauty, albe heavenly born,
Is foul abus'd, and that celestial hue,
Which doth the world with her delight adorn,
Made but the bait of sin, and sinners' scorn,
Whilst every one doth seek and sue to have it,
But every one doth seek but to deprave it.
Yet nathëmore is that fair beauty's blame,
But theirs that do abuse it unto ill:
Nothing so good, but that through guilty shame
May be corrupt, and wrested unto will:
Natheless the soul is fair and beauteous still,
However flesh{"e}s fault it filthy make;
For things immortal no corruption take.
“An Hymn in Honour of Beauty by Edmund Spenser | Poetry Foundation.”
The idea of civil beauty was conceived by the theological poets when they saw that the impious refugees had a human appearance, but the ugly customs of brute beasts. (In this regard, the poetic history of Greek myth records as two of Hercules’ many labours that he travelled the world slaying monsters, who were human in appearance and bestial in their behaviour, and that he cleaned the filthy Augean stables.) Because they cherished this beauty alone, the Spartans, who were the most heroic of the Greeks, cast down from Mt Taygetus ugly and deformed babies, that is, the offspring of noble women conceived without nuptial solemnities.
It was clearly such offspring which the Law of the Twelve Tables called monsters and ordered thrown into the Tiber. For since early commonwealths pass laws sparingly, it is highly unlikely that the Roman decemvirs would have given any thought to natural monsters, which occur so rarely that the term refers to anything rare in nature. Even today, amid an overwhelming abundance of laws, legislators leave such rare cases to the discretion of judges. Hence, the Twelve Tables must refer to those monsters which were originally and properly called civil.
New Science. Penguin Classics, 2000, pg. 245.
Ask any of the husbands of your great beauties, and they will tell you that they hate their wives nine hours of every day they pass together. There is such a particularity ever affected by them that they are encumbered with their charms in all they say or do. They pray at public devotions as they are beauties. They converse on ordinary occasions as they are beauties…. Good nature will always supply the absence of beauty, but beauty cannot long supply the absence of good nature.
Joseph Addison, Spectator, No. 306.
Therefore, to escape the torment caused by absence and to enjoy beauty without suffering, with the help of reason the courtier should turn his desire completely away from the body to beauty alone. He should contemplate beauty as far as he is able in its own simplicity and purity, create it in his imagination as an abstraction distinct from any material form, and thus make it lovely and dear to his soul, and enjoy it there always, day and night and in every time and place, without fear of ever losing it; and he will always remember that the body is something altogether distinct from beauty, whose perfection it diminishes rather than enhances. In this way the courtier of ours who is no longer young will put himself out of reach of the anguish and distress invariably experienced by the young in the form of jealousy, suspicion, disdain, anger, despair and a certain tempestuous fury that occasionally leads them so much astray that some not only beat the women they love but take their own lives. He will do no injury to the husband, father, brothers or family of the lady he loves; he will cause her no shame; he will not be forced sometimes to drag his eyes away and curb his tongue for fear of revealing his desires to others; or to endure suffering when they part or during her absence. For he will always carry the treasure that is so precious to him safe in his heart; and by the power of his imagination he will also make her beauty far more lovely than it is in reality.
Baldesar Castiglione, How to Achieve True Greatness, Bk 1, pg. 84.
Belief
Do not Believe, or Like, lightly. Maturity of mind is best shown in slow belief. Lying is the usual thing; then let belief be unusual. He that is lightly led away, soon falls into contempt. At the same time there is no necessity to betray your doubts in the good faith of others, for this adds insult to discourtesy, since you make out your informant to be either deceiver or deceived. Nor is this the only evil: want of belief is the mark of the liar, who suffers from two failings: he neither believes nor is believed. Suspension of judgment is prudent in a hearer: the speaker can appeal to his original source of in-formation. There is a similar kind of imprudence in liking too easily, for lies may be told by deeds as well as in words, and this deceit is more dangerous for practical life.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
He fell into the belief, that he perceived within himself a substance distinguished from that self, endowed with a secret force; in which he supposed existed qualities distinctly differing from those, of either the visible causes that acted on his organs, or those organs themselves. He did not sufficiently understand, that the primitive cause which makes a stone fall, or his arm move, are perhaps as difficult of comprehension, as arduous to be explained, as those internal impulses, of which his thought or his will are the effects. Thus, for want of meditating Nature--of considering her under her true point of view--of remarking the conformity--of noticing the simultaneity, the unity of the motion of this fancied motive-power with that of his body--of his material organs--he conjectured he was not only a distinct being, but that he was set apart, with different energies, from all the other beings in Nature; that he was of a more simple essence having nothing in common with any thing by which he was surrounded; nothing that connected him with all that he beheld.
Baron d’Holbach, “System of Nature - Part 1, Chapter 6.”
But it will, perhaps, be enquired, how could man reconcile himself to the belief of an existence accompanied with eternal torments; above all, as many according to their own superstitions had reason to fear it for themselves? Many causes have concurred to make him adopt so revolting an opinion: in the first place, very few thinking men have ever believed such an absurdity, when they have deigned to make use of their reason; or, when they have accredited it, this notion was always counterbalanced by the idea of the goodness, by a reliance on the mercy, which they attributed to their respective divinities: in the second place, those who were blinded by their fears, never rendered to themselves any account of these strange doctrines, which they either received with awe from their legislators, or which were transmitted to them by their fathers: in the third place, each sees the object of his terrors only at a favourable distance: moreover, superstition promises him the means of escaping the tortures he believes he has merited.
Baron d’Holbach, “System of Nature - Part 1, Chapter 13.”
The will is one of the chief factors in belief, not that it creates belief, but because things are true or false according to the aspect in which we look at them. The will, which prefers one aspect to another, turns away the mind from considering the qualities of all that it does not like to see; and thus the mind, moving in accord with the will, stops to consider the aspect which it likes, and so judges by what it sees.
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 2."
Who then will blame Christians for not being able to give a reason for their belief, since they profess a religion for which they cannot give a reason? They declare, in expounding it to the world, that it is a foolishness, stultitiam; and then you complain that they do not prove it! If they proved it, they would not keep their word; it is in lacking proofs, that they are not lacking in sense. "Yes, but although this excuses those who offer it as such, and takes away from them the blame of putting it forward without reason, it does not excuse those who receive it." Let us then examine this point, and say, "God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 3."
Belief is so important! A hundred contradictions might be true. If antiquity were the rule of belief, men of ancient time would then be without rule. If general consent, if men had perished?
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 4."
I do not mean that you should submit your belief to me without reason, and I do not aspire to overcome you by tyranny. In fact, I do not claim to give you a reason for everything. And to reconcile these contradictions, I intend to make you see clearly, by convincing proofs, those divine signs in me, which may convince you of what I am, and may gain authority for me by wonders and proofs which you cannot reject; so that you may then believe without…the things which I teach you, since you will find no other ground for rejecting them, except that you cannot know of yourselves if they are true or not.
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 7."
Take the fear of hell from a Christian and you take from him his belief.
Denis Diderot, “Thoughts on Religion.”
In order to attack it, they should have protested that they had made every effort to seek Him everywhere, and even in that which the Church proposes for their instruction, but without satisfaction. If they talked in this manner, they would in truth be attacking one of her pretensions. But I hope here to show that no reasonable person can speak thus, and I venture even to say that no one has ever done so. We know well enough how those who are of this mind behave. They believe they have made great efforts for their instruction, when they have spent a few hours in reading some book of Scripture, and have questioned some priest on the truths of the faith. After that, they boast of having made vain search in books and among men. But, verily, I will tell them what I have often said, that this negligence is insufferable. We are not here concerned with the trifling interests of some stranger, that we should treat it in this fashion; the matter concerns ourselves and our all.
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 3."
The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit; and different beliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action to which they give rise.
Charles Sanders Peirce, Philosophical Writings of Peirce (ed. Courier Corporation, 1940).
That many good men have believed this strange fable, and lived very good lives under that belief (for credulity is not a crime) is what I have no doubt of. In the first place, they were educated to believe it, and they would have believed anything else in the same manner. There are also many who have been so enthusiastically enraptured by what they conceived to be the infinite love of God to man, in making a sacrifice of himself, that the vehemence of the idea has forbidden and deterred them from examining into the absurdity and profaneness of the story. The more unnatural anything is, the more is it capable of becoming the object of dismal admiration.
BUT if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes? Do we not see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born – a world furnished to our hands, that cost us nothing? Is it we that light up the sun; that pour down the rain; and fill the earth with abundance? Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still goes on. Are these things, and the blessings they indicate in future, nothing to, us? Can our gross feelings be excited by no other subjects than tragedy and suicide? Or is the gloomy pride of man become so intolerable, that nothing can flatter it but a sacrifice of the Creator?
Thomas Paine, “The Age of Reason - Part I, 1793.” CHAPTER V - EXAMINATION IN DETAIL OF THE PRECEDING BASES.
In the year 1884 I wrote a book under the title "What I Believe," in which I did in fact make a sincere statement of my beliefs. In affirming my belief in Christ's teaching, I could not help explaining why I do not believe, and consider as mistaken, the Church's doctrine... Among the many points in which this doctrine falls short of the doctrine of Christ I pointed out as the principal one the absence of any commandment of non-resistance to evil by force. The perversion of Christ's teaching by the teaching of the Church is more clearly apparent in this than in any other point of difference.
Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You - Preface.
Blessing
Truly, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy when I teach that "above all things there stands the heaven of chance, the heaven of innocence, the heaven of accident, the heaven of wantonness".
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (ed. Penguin UK, 1974).
Allah! Set right for me my religion which is the safeguard of my affairs, set right for me my life in this world where I earn my livelihood, set right for me my life in the Hereafter where I have to return ultimately, make life for me a source of abundance for every virtue and make my death a source of comfort against all evils. (Related by Muslim according to Abu Huraira).
Prophet Muhammad.
For when blessings are promised in abundance, what was to prevent them from understanding the true blessings, but their covetousness, which limited the meaning to worldly goods? But those whose only good was in God referred them to God alone. For there are two principles, which divide the wills of men, covetousness and charity. Not that covetousness cannot exist along with faith in God, nor charity with worldly riches; but covetousness uses God, and enjoys the world, and charity is the opposite.
Now the ultimate end gives names to things. All which prevents us from attaining it, is called an enemy to us. Thus the creatures, however good, are the enemies of the righteous, when they turn them away from God, and God Himself is the enemy of those whose covetousness He confounds.
Thus as the significance of the word "enemy" is dependent on the ultimate end, the righteous understood by it their passions, and the carnal the Babylonians; and so these terms were obscure only for the unrighteous. And this is what Isaiah says: Signa legem in electis meis,[2] and that Jesus Christ shall be a stone of stumbling. But, "Blessed are they who shall not be offended in him." Hosea, ult., says excellently, "Where is the wise? and he shall understand what I say. The righteous shall know them, for the ways of God are right; but the transgressors shall fall therein."
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 8." Note: [2] Isaiah, viii. 16.
The supplication of a Muslim for his brother in his absence is granted. There is a certain angel who remains present with him, such that whenever he supplicates for something good for his brother, the attendant angel says Amen and the same for you. (Related by Ahmad according to Abu ad-Darda’a).
Prophet Muhammad.
Books
If now the relations of England to European affairs bring him to British ground, he is arrived at the very moment when modern history takes new proportions. He can look back for the legends and mythology to the "Younger Edda" and the "Heimrskringla" of Snorro Sturleson, to Mallet's "Northern Antiquities," to Ellis's "Metrical Romances," to Asser's "Life of Alfred," and Venerable Bede, and to the researches of Sharon Turner and Palgrave. Hume will serve him for an intelligent guide, and in the Elizabethan era he is at the richest period of the English mind, with the chief men of action and of thought which that nation has produced, and with a pregnant future before him. Here he has Shakspeare, Spenser, Sidney, Raleigh, Bacon, Chapman, Jonson, Ford, Beaumont and Fletcher, Herbert, Donne, Herrick; and Milton, Marvell, and Dryden, not long after.
In reading history, he is to prefer the history of individuals. He will not repent the time he gives to Bacon,—not if he read the "Advancement of Learning," the "Essays," the "Novum Organon," the "History of Henry VII.," and then all the "Letters," (especially those to the Earl of Devonshire, explaining the Essex business,) and all but his "Apophthegms."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Atlantic Monthly/Volume 1/Number 3/Books."
All books grow homilies by time; they are
Temples, at once, and Landmarks.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
Apollodorus says, "If any one were to take away from the books of Chrysippus all the passages which he quotes from other authors, his paper would be left empty."
Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. Bk 7, The Stoics, Chrysippus.
When one compares the talents one has with those of a Leibniz, one is tempted to throw away one's books and go die quietly in the dark of some forgotten corner.
Denis Diderot, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 7, p. 678.
Having now Time & Leizure to cool my inflam'd Imaginations, I began to consider seriously, how I shou'd proceed in my Philosophical Enquiries. I found that the moral Philosophy transmitted to us by Antiquity, labor'd under the same Inconvenience that has been found in their natural Philosophy, of being entirely Hypothetical, &. depending more upon Invention than Experience. Every one consulted his Fancy in erecting Schemes of Virtue & of Happiness, without regarding human Nature, upon which every moral Conclusion must depend. This therefore I resolved to make my principal Study, & the Source from which I wou'd derive every Truth in Criticism as well as Morality. I believe 'tis a certain Fact that most of the Philosophers who have gone before us, have been overthrown by the Greatness of their Genius, & that little more is requir'd to make a man succeed in this Study than to throw off all Prejudices either for his own Opinions or for th[ose] of others. At least this is all I have to depend on for the Truth of my Reasonings, which I have multiply'd to such a degree, that within these three Years, I find I have scribled many a Quire of Paper, in which there is nothing contain'd but my own Inventions. This with the Reading most of the celebrated Books in Latin, French &. English, & acquiring the Italian, you may think a sufficient Business for one in perfect Health; & so it wou'd, had it been done to any Purpose: But my Disease was a cruel Incumbrance on me.
David Hume, "A kind of history of my life."
There was another particular, which contributed more than any thing, to waste my Spirits & bring on me this Distemper, which was, that having read many Books of Morality, such as Cicero, Seneca & Plutarch, & being smit with their beautiful Representations of Virtue & Philosophy, I undertook the Improvement of my Temper & Will, along with my Reason & Understanding. I was continually fortifying myself with Reflections against Death, & Poverty, & Shame, & Pain, & all the other Calamities of Life. These no doubt are exceeding useful, when join'd with an active Life; because the Occasion being presented along with the Reflection, works it into the Soul, & makes it take a deep Impression, but in Solitude they serve to little other Purpose, than to waste the Spirits, the Force of the Mind meeting with no Resistance, but wasting itself in the Air, like our Arm when it misses its Aim. This however I did not learn but by Experience, & till I had already ruin'd my Health, tho' I was not sensible of it.
David Hume, "A kind of history of my life."
You must know then that from my earliest Infancy, I found alwise a strong Inclination to Books & Letters. As our College Education in Scotland, extending little further than the Languages, ends commonly when we are about 14 or 15 Years of Age, I was after that left to my own Choice in my Reading, & found it encline me almost equally to Books of Reasoning & Philosophy, & to Poetry & the polite Authors. Every one, who is acquainted either with the Philosophers or Critics, knows that there is nothing yet establisht in either of these two Sciences, & that they contain little more than endless Disputes, even in the most fundamental Articles. Upon Examination of these, I found a certain Boldness of Temper, growing in me, which was not enclin'd to submit to any Authority in these Subjects, but led me to seek out some new Medium, by which Truth might be establisht. After much Study, & Reflection on this, at last, when I was about 18 Years of Age, there seem'd to be open'd up to me a new Scene of Thought, which transported me beyond Measure, & made me, with an Ardor natural to young men, throw up every other Pleasure or Business to apply entirely to it. The Law which was the Business I design'd to follow, appear'd nauseous to me, & I cou'd think of no other way of pushing my Fortune in the World, but that of a Scholar & Philosopher. I was infinitely happy in this Course of Life for some Months; till at last, about the beginning of Septr 1729, all my Ardor seem'd in a moment to be extinguisht, & I cou'd no longer raise my Mind to that pitch, which formerly gave me such excessive Pleasure.
David Hume, "A kind of history of my life."
So it may well be believed that when I found him taking a complete holiday, with a vast supply of books at command, he had the air of indulging in a literary debauch, if the term may be applied to so honorable an occupation.
Cicero.
… (Plato) strove to discover and defend (justice), the other (Aristotle) filled four pretty hefty books on that very subject. I never expected anything important or impressive from Chrysippus, who argues in his usual style, investigating every problem through the function of words rather than the weight of things. It was the aim of those heroic souls to raise up that virtue from the ground—that virtue which, when it occurs, is the most generous and open-handed of all, which loves everyone better than itself, and whose raison d’etre is to secure other people’s welfare rather than its own—and to set it close to wisdom on that heavenly throne. Certainly they did not lack such good intentions; what other motive or what possible purpose did they have for writing? Nor did they lack intellectual ability (in that respect they were supreme). But the weakness of their case was too much for their good intentions and their powers of expression. For the justice which we are considering is a political phenomenon, not an element in nature. If it were part of nature, like hot and cold or bitter and sweet, then just and unjust would be the same for everyone.
Cicero, The Republic, bk 3. Said by Philus.
For I bless God in the libraries of the learned and for all the booksellers in the world.
Christopher Smart, Jubilate Agno, frag. B1, l. 79
You shall find books and sermons everywhere, in the land and in the sea, in the earth and in the skies, and you shall learn from every living beast, and bird, and fish, and insect, and from every useful or useless plant that springs from the ground.
Charles Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit (ed. 1888).
Shakespeare is one of the last books one should like to give up, perhaps the one just before the Dying Service in a large Prayer book.
Charles Lamb, The Letters of Charles Lamb (ed. 1905).
Books of quick interest, that hurry on for incidents are for the eye to glide over only. It will not do to read them out. I could never listen to even the better kind of modern novels without extreme irksomeness.
Charles Lamb, Elia: Essays which Have Appeared Under that Signature in the London Magazine. Second Series (ed. 1828)
I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occasions in the course of the day besides my dinner. I want a form for setting out upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, or a solved problem. Why have we none for books, these spiritual repasts-a grace before Milton-a grace before Shakespeare-a devotional exercise proper to be said before reading The Fairie Queene?
Charles Lamb, Elia: Essays which Have Appeared Under that Signature in the London Magazine (ed. 1823)
Your borrowers of books—those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes.
Charles Lamb, The Two Races of Men. - Essays of Elia (1823).
When they took a young man into Tellson's London house, they hid him somewhere till he was old. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had the full Tellson flavour and blue-mould upon him. Then only was he permitted to be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and casting his breeches and gaiters into the general weight of the establishment.
Charles Dickens, All the Year Round (ed. 1859).
Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
Novels may teach us as wholesome a moral as the pulpit. There are “sermons in stones,” in healthy books, and “good in everything.”
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
He that will have no books but those that are scarce evinces about as correct a taste in literature as he would do in friendship who would have no friends but those whom all the rest of the world have sent to Coventry.
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
“Books,” says my lord Bacon, “should have no patrons but truth and reason.”
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
Some read to think—these are rare; some to write—these are common; and some read to talk—and these form the great majority. The first page of an author not unfrequently suffices all the purposes of this latter class, of whom it has been said that they treat books as some do lords: they inform themselves of their titles, and then boast of an intimate acquaintance.
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
He that studies books alone will know how things ought to be; and he that studies men will know how things are.
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
With books, as with companions, it is of more consequence to know which to avoid than which to choose: for good books are as scarce as good companions, and, in both instances, all that we can learn from bad ones is, that so much time has been worse than thrown away. That writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time. That short period of a short existence which is rationally employed is that which alone deserves the name of life; and that portion of our life is most rationally employed which is occupied in enlarging our stock of truth and of wisdom.
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
Old friends, the best acquisition is that of good books.
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
They are visibly a people expressly created to serve as a witness to the Messiah (Isaiah, xliii. 9; xliv. 8). They keep the books, and love them, and do not understand them. And all this was foretold; that God's judgments are entrusted to them, but as a sealed book.
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 9."
Canonical.—The heretical books in the beginning of the Church serve to prove the canonical.
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 8."
Paucis opus est litteris ad bonam mentem.[For the good mind few books are necessary.]
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 6."
We cannot even see an advocate in his robe and with his cap on his head, without a favourable opinion of his ability. The imagination disposes of everything; it makes beauty, justice, and happiness, which is everything in the world. I should much like to see an Italian work, of which I only know the title, which alone is worth many books, Della opinione regina del mondo["On opinion, queen of the world"]. I approve of the book without knowing it, save the evil in it, if any. These are pretty much the effects of that deceptive faculty, which seems to have been expressly given us to lead us into necessary error. We have, however, many other sources of error.
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 2."
Who confers reputation? who gives respect and veneration to persons, to books, to great men? Who but Opinion? How utterly insufficient are all the riches of the world without her approbation!
Blaise Pascal.
Unmov’d alone the Virtuous now appear,
And in their Looks a calm Assurance wear.
From East, from West, from North and South they come,
To take from the most righteous Judge their Doom;
Who thus, to them, with a serene Regard;
(The Books of Life before him laid,
And all the secret Records wide display’d)
“According to your Works be your Reward:
Possess immortal Kingdoms as your Due,
Prepar’d from an eternal Date for you.”
Benjamin Franklin, “Poor Richard Improved, 1757,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-07-02-0030.
Knowledge of Books and Men exalts their Thought,
In Wit accomplish’d tho’ in Wiles untaught,
Careless of Whispers meant to wound their Name,
Nor sneer’d nor brib’d from Virtue into Shame;
In Letters elegant, in Honour bright,
Form’d to give Happiness, their sole Delight.
Benjamin Franklin, “Poor Richard Improved, 1752,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-04-02-0082.
Some sweet Employ for leisure Minutes chuse,
And let your very Pleasures have their Use.
But if you read, your Books with Prudence chuse.
Or Time mis-spent is worse than what you lose.
Be fully e’er you speak your Subject known,
And let e’en then some Diffidence be shown.
Keep something silent, and we think you wise,
But when we see the Bottom, we despise.
Benjamin Franklin, “Poor Richard Improved, 1751,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-04-02-0029.
Some Books we read, tho’ few there are that hit
The happy Point where Wisdom joins with Wit;
That set fair Virtue naked to our View,
And teach us what is decent, what is true.
Benjamin Franklin, “Poor Richard, 1746,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-03-02-0025.
O blessed Season! lov’d by Saints and Sinners,
For long Devotions, or for longer Dinners;
More grateful still to those who deal in Books,
Now not with Readers, but with Pastry-Cooks:
Learn’d Works, despis’d by those to Merit blind,
By these well weigh’d, their certain Value find.
Bless’d Lot of Paper, falsely called Waste,
To bear those Cates, which Authors seldom taste.
Benjamin Franklin, “Poor Richard, 1740,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-02-02-0053.
Buys Books as men hunt Beavers,—for their Skin.
Benjamin Franklin, “Poor Richard, 1739,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-02-02-0046.
Read much, but not many Books.
Benjamin Franklin, “Poor Richard, 1738,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-02-02-0035.
Women are Books, and Men the Readers be,
Who sometimes in those Books Erratas see;
Yet oft the Reader’s raptur’d with each Line,
Fair Print and Paper fraught with Sense divine;
Tho’ some neglectful seldom care to read,
And faithful Wives no more than Bibles heed.
Are Women Books? says Hodge, then would mine were
An Almanack, to change her every Year.
Benjamin Franklin, “Poor Richard, 1737,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-02-02-0028.
He that can compose himself, is wiser than he that composes books.
Poor Dick, eats like a well man, and drinks like a sick.
After crosses and losses men grow humbler and wiser.
Love, Cough, and a Smoke, can’t well be hid.
Benjamin Franklin, “Poor Richard, 1737,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-02-02-0028.
Look before, or you’ll find yourself behind.
Bad Commentators spoil the best of books,
So God sends meat (they say) the devil Cooks.
Approve not of him who commends all you say.
By diligence and patience, the mouse bit in two the cable.
Full of courtesie, full of craft.
Benjamin Franklin, “Poor Richard, 1735,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-02-02-0001.
I think the author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.
Benjamin Disraeli, Wit and Wisdom of Benjamin Disraeli, Collected from his Writings and Speeches (1881), p. 16.
We are now in want of an art to teach how books are to be read rather than to read them. Such an art is practicable.
Benjamin Disraeli, Curiosities of literature (ed. 1861).
When I would know thee my thought looks
Upon thy well-made choice of friends and books;
Then do I love thee, and behold thy ends
In making thy friends books, and thy books friends.
Ben Jonson.
In these books we shall follow no fixed order or rule of distinct precepts, such as are usually employed in teaching anything whatever; but after the fashion of many ancient writers, we shall revive a pleasant memory and rehearse certain discussions that were held between men singularly competent in such matters; and although I had no part in them personally, being in England at the time they took place, yet having received them soon after my return, from one who faithfully reported them to me, I will try to recall them as accurately as my memory will permit, so that you may know what was thought and believed on this subject by men who are worthy of highest praise, and to whose judgment implicit faith may be given in all things. Nor will it be amiss to tell the cause of these discussions, so that we may reach in orderly manner the end to which our discourse tends.
Baldesar Castiglione, How to Achieve True Greatness, Bk 1, pg. 2.
The matter of books is most various; and various also are the several excellences attaching to books on the score of their matter. By matter I mean everything that comes within the domain of actual experience; that is to say, the facts of history and the facts of nature, taken in and by themselves and in their widest sense. Here it is the thing treated of, which gives its peculiar character to the book; so that a book can be important, whoever it was that wrote it.
But in regard to the form, the peculiar character of a book depends upon the person who wrote it. It may treat of matters which are accessible to everyone and well known; but it is the way in which they are treated, what it is that is thought about them, that gives the book its value; and this comes from its author. If, then, from this point of view a book is excellent and beyond comparison, so is its author. It follows that if a writer is worth reading, his merit rises just in proportion as he owes little to his matter; therefore, the better known and the more hackneyed this is, the greater he will be. The three great tragedians of Greece, for example, all worked at the same subject-matter.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "The Art of Literature/On Authorship."
Books of great importance on account of their matter may proceed from very ordinary and shallow people, by the fact that they alone have had access to this matter; books, for instance, which describe journeys in distant lands, rare natural phenomena, or experiments; or historical occurrences of which the writers were witnesses, or in connection with which they have spent much time and trouble in the research and special study of original documents.
On the other hand, where the matter is accessible to everyone or very well known, everything will depend upon the form; and what it is that is thought about the matter will give the book all the value it possesses. Here only a really distinguished man will be able to produce anything worth reading; for the others will think nothing but what anyone else can think. They will just produce an impress of their own minds; but this is a print of which everyone possesses the original.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "The Art of Literature/On Authorship."
Works of the ordinary type meet with a better fate. Arising as they do in the course of, and in connection with, the general advance in contemporary culture, they are in close alliance with the spirit of their age—in other words, just those opinions which happen to be prevalent at the time. They aim at suiting the needs of the moment. If they have any merit, it is soon recognized; and they gain currency as books which reflect the latest ideas. Justice, nay, more than justice, is done to them. They afford little scope for envy; since, as was said above, a man will praise a thing only so far as he hopes to be able to imitate it himself.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "The Art of Literature/On Reputation."
But those rare works which are destined to become the property of all mankind and to live for centuries, are, at their origin, too far in advance of the point at which culture happens to stand, and on that very account foreign to it and the spirit of their own time. They neither belong to it nor are they in any connection with it, and hence they excite no interest in those who are dominated by it. They belong to another, a higher stage of culture, and a time that is still far off. Their course is related to that of ordinary works as the orbit of Uranus to the orbit of Mercury. For the moment they get no justice done to them. People are at a loss how to treat them; so they leave them alone, and go their own snail's pace for themselves. Does the worm see the eagle as it soars aloft?
Of the number of books written in any language about one in 100,000 forms a part of its real and permanent literature. What a fate this one book has to endure before it outstrips those 100,000 and gains its due place of honor! Such a book is the work of an extraordinary and eminent mind, and therefore it is specifically different from the others; a fact which sooner or later becomes manifest.
Let no one fancy that things will ever improve in this respect. No! the miserable constitution of humanity never changes, though it may, to be sure, take somewhat varying forms with every generation. A distinguished mind seldom has its full effect in the life-time of its possessor; because, at bottom, it is completely and properly understood only by minds already akin to it.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "The Art of Literature/On Reputation."
The strata of the earth preserve in rows the creatures which lived in former ages; and the array of books on the shelves of a library stores up in like manner the errors of the past and the way in which they have been exposed. Like those creatures, they too were full of life in their time, and made a great deal of noise; but now they are stiff and fossilized, and an object of curiosity to the literary palaeontologist alone.
Herodotus relates that Xerxes wept at the sight of his army, which stretched further than the eye could reach, in the thought that of all these, after a hundred years, not one would be alive. And in looking over a huge catalogue of new books, one might weep at thinking that, when ten years have passed, not one of them will be heard of.
It is in literature as in life: wherever you turn, you stumble at once upon the incorrigible mob of humanity, swarming in all directions, crowding and soiling everything, like flies in summer. Hence the number, which no man can count, of bad books, those rank weeds of literature, which draw nourishment from the corn and choke it. The time, money and attention of the public, which rightfully belong to good books and their noble aims, they take for themselves: they are written for the mere purpose of making money or procuring places. So they are not only useless; they do positive mischief. Nine-tenths of the whole of our present literature has no other aim than to get a few shillings out of the pockets of the public; and to this end author, publisher and reviewer are in league.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "On Books and Reading."
Books are the gardens of scholars.
Ali ibn Abi Talib, Abdul Vahed Tamimi, Ghurar al-Hikam wa Durar al-Kalim, p. 245
There yet remains but one concluding tale,
And then this chronicle of mine is ended—
Fulfilled, the duty God ordained to me,
A sinner. Not without purpose did the Lord
Put me to witness much for many years
And educate me in the love of books.
Alexander Pushkin, Prologue, sec. 5, l. 18-28. - Eugene Onegin (1823)
We keep the day. With festal cheer,
With books and music, surely we
Will drink to him, whate’er he be,
And sing the songs he loved to hear.
Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam Section CIX.
Next, o’er his books his eyes began to roll,
In pleasing memory of all he stole,
How here he sipp’d, how there he plunder’d snug,
And suck’d all o’er, like an industrious bug.
Alexander Pope, The Dunciad, I, l. 127.
To buy books only because they were published by an eminent printer, is much as if a man should buy clothes that did not fit him, only because made by some famous tailor.
Alexander Pope, The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq: Imitations of Horace (ed. 1797).
YE lords and commons, men of wit
And pleasure about town,
Read this, ere you translate one bit
Of books of high renown.
Alexander Pope, "The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 17/Sandys's Ghost."
Now, Tonson, list thy forces all,
Review them and tell noses:
For to poor Ovid shall befal
A strange metamorphosis;
A metamorphosis more strange
Than all his books can vapour —
"To what (quoth 'squire) shall Ovid change?"
Quoth Sandys, "To waste paper."
Alexander Pope, "The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 17/Sandys's Ghost."
Tho' Learn'd well-bred; and tho' well-bred, sincere;
Modestly bold, and Humanly severe?
Who to a Friend his Faults can freely show,
And gladly praise the Merit of a Foe?
Blest with a Taste exact, yet unconfin'd;
A Knowledge both of Books and Humankind;
Gen'rous Converse; a Soul exempt from Pride;
And Love to Praise, with Reason on his Side?
Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Criticism."
Manners with Fortunes, Humours change with Climes,
Tenets with Books, and Principles with Times.
Alexander Pope, "An Epistle to the Right Honourable Richard, Lord Viscount Cobham."
All Books he reads, and all he reads assails,
From Dryden's Fables down to D———y's Tales.
Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Criticism."
The fairest garden in her looks,
And in her mind the wisest books.
Abraham Cowley.
Ah yet, ere I descend to the grave
May I a small house and large garden have;
And a few friends, and many books, both true,
Both wise, and both delightful too!
Abraham Cowley.
Ah, yet, e'er I descend to th' grave, May I a small House and a large Garden have. And a few Friends, and many Books both true, Both wise, and both delightful too. And since Love ne'er will from me flee, A mistress moderately fair, And good as Guardian angels are, Only belov'd and loving me.
Abraham Cowley.
Books should, not Business, entertain the Light;
And Sleep, as undisturb'd as Death, the Night.
Abraham Cowley.
Your second-hand bookseller is second to none in the worth of the treasures he dispenses.
Leigh Hunt, Men, Women, and Books: A Selection of Sketches, Essays, and Critical Memoirs (ed. 1873).
Beware you be not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.
John Wesley, Letter to Joseph Benson (7 November 1768); published in The Letters of John Wesley (1915).
No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable until it has been read, and re-read, and loved, and loved again.
John Ruskin.
Never read borrowed books. To be without books of your own is the abyss of penury. Don’t endure it. And when you have to buy them, you’ll think whether they’re worth reading; which you had better, on all accounts.To a young lady.
John Ruskin.
If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying.
John Ruskin.
Interlocution.—A book like this is not for perusal and reading out, but for reference, especially on our walks and travels; we have to go deeply into it, and must always be able to find our way out of it again, without finding anything familiar around ourselves.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Dawn of the Day/Book 5."
THE BOOK BECOME ALMOST HUMAN.— Every writer is surprised anew when a book, as soon as it has separated from him, begins to take on a life of its own. He feels as if one part of an insect had been severed and were going its own way. Perhaps he almost forgets the book; perhaps he rises above the views set down in it; perhaps he no longer understands it and has lost those wings on which he soared when he devised that book. Meanwhile, it goes about finding its readers, kindles life, pleases, horrifies, fathers new works, becomes the soul of others’ resolutions and behavior—in short, it lives like a being fitted out with mind and soul and yet it is nevertheless not human.— The most fortunate author is one who is able to say as an old man that all he had of life-giving, invigorating, uplifting, enlightening thoughts and feelings still lives on in his writings, and that he himself is only the gray ash, while the fire has been rescued and carried forth everywhere.— If one considers, then, that a man’s every action, not only his books, in some way becomes the occasion for other actions, decisions, and thoughts; that everything which is happening is inextricably tied to everything which will happen; then one understands the real immortality, that of movement: what once has moved others is like an insect in amber, enclosed and immortalized in the general intertwining of all that exists.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Human All-Too-Human."
Books, like conversation, rarely give us any precise ideas: nothing is so common as to read and converse unprofitably. We must here repeat what Locke has so strongly urged—Define your terms.
Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique (1764), “Abuse of Words” (1764)
The abuse of books kills science. Believing that we know what we have read, we believe that we can dispense with learning it.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile: Or, On Education (1762).
A book may be very amusing with numerous errors, or it may be very dull without a single absurdity.
Oliver Goldsmith, Preface. - The Vicar of Wakefield (1766).
Bravery
Since desert life no doubt is the source of bravery, savage groups are braver than others. They are, therefore, better able to achieve superiority and to take away the things that are in the hands of other nations. The situation of one and the same group changes, in this respect, with the change of time. Whenever people settle in fertile plains and amass luxuries and become accustomed to a life of abundance and refinement, their bravery decreases to the degree that their wildness and desert habits decrease.
Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, Book One, Chapter 2.
All the world's bravery that delights our eyes is but thy several liveries.
Abraham Cowley.
It may also be said in this connection that no one doubts the courage of a man in whom he sees the marks of bravery; nor the swiftness of a man who obviously can run fast. Similarly, music makes musicians, medical skill makes doctors, rhetoric makes rhetoricians; for each thing does what is proper to its nature.
Boethius, On the Consolation of Philosophy.
My daughter, there are times of moral danger when the hardest virtuous resolution to form is flight, and when the most heroic bravery is flight.
Charles Dickens.
[Loeb, section 9] That virtue is called bravery which contains greatheartedness and a lofty contempt of pain and death (Nonius 1. 297).
Cicero.
Even though it was nowhere laid down that one man should stand on the bridge against the whole of the enemy’s army and should order the bridge to be cut down behind him, we will continue to think that the famous Codes performed that great deed according to the commands and dictates of bravery.
Cicero, The Laws, bk 2.
Players leave their finery at the stage-door, or they would be hooted; poets come out into the world with all their bravery on, and yet they would pass for bona fide persons. They lend the colours of fancy to whatever they see: whatever they touch becomes gold, though it were lead. With them every Joan is a lady; and kings and queens are human. Matters of fact they embellish at their will, and reason is the plaything of their passions, their caprice, or their interest. There is no practice so base of which they will not become the panders: no sophistry of which their understanding may not be made the voluntary dupe. Their only object is to please their fancy. Their souls are effeminate, half man and half woman:—they want fortitude, and are without principle.
Collected Works of William Hazlitt.
The moment before he was ignorant of the fact, for his long and habitual aping of bravery had impressed on him that he was. He’d gone through the pretence so many times he believed that’s what he was.
Denis Diderot, “Rameau’s Nephew.”
At the bottom of a good deal of the bravery that appears in the world there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion.
Edwin Hubbell Chapin.
The man who knows when not to act is wise. To my mind bravery if forethought.
Euripides.
To seek to extinguish anger utterly is but a bravery of the Stoics. We have better oracles: "Be angry, but sin not: let not the sun go down upon your anger." Anger must be limited and confined both in race and in time. We will first speak how the natural inclination and habit "to be angry," may be attempted and calmed; secondly, how the particular motions of anger may be repressed, or, at least, refrained from doing mischief; thirdly, how to raise anger, or appease anger in another.
The Essays of Francis Bacon: The Fifty-Nine Essays, Complete. Adansonia Press, 2018. Of Anger, pg. 97.
If thou hadst bravery in thee, thou wouldst choose
(Since thou art absolute, and canst controul
All things beneath a reasonable soul)
Some looked for way of killing; if her day
Had ended in a fire, a sword, or sea,
Or hadst thou come hid in a hundred years
To make an end of all her hopes and fears,
Or any other way direct to thee
Which Nature might esteem an enemy,
Who would have chid thee? now it shews thy hand
Desires to cozen where it might command:
Thou art not prone to kill, but where th' intent
Of those that suffer is their nourishment;
If thou canst steal into a dish, and creep
When all is still as though into a sleep,
And cover thy dry body with a draught,
Whereby some innocent lady may be caught,
And cheated of her life, then thou wilt come
And stretch thyself upon her early tomb,
And laugh as pleased, to show thou canst devour
Mortality as well by wit as pow'r.
“A Funeral Elegy on the Death of the Lady Penelope Clifton by Francis Beaumont.”
We often see Malefactors, when they are led to Execution, put on Resolution and a Contempt of Death, which, in Truth, is nothing else, but fearing to look it in the Face: So that this pretended Bravery may very truly be said, to do the same good Office to their Mind, that the Handkerchief, or Night-Cap does to their Eyes.
The Moral Maxims and Reflections of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld.
After having exposed the Falsity of so many seeming Vertues, it is but reasonable I should add somewhat of that Deceit there is in the Contempt of Death; that Contempt of it I mean, which the Heathens pretended to derive from the Strength of Nature and Reason, without any Hope of a better Life to animate them. There is a great deal of Difference between suffering Death with Bravery and Resolution, and slighting it. The former is very usual, but I very much suspect, that the other is never real and sincere. There hath been a great deal written, ’tis confess’d, and as much as the Subject will bear, to prove, that Death is no Evil; and men of very inferior Characters, as well as Heroes, have furnish’d us with a great many eminent Examples in confirmation of this Opinion.
The Moral Maxims and Reflections of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld.
Burden
0631 - 1.7.31 Telluris onus [The burden of the earth].
0680 - 1.7.80 Salis onus unde venerat, illuc abiit [The burden of salt returns whence it came].
1295 - 2.3.95 Multae manus onus levius reddunt [Many hands make the burden lighter].
1884 - 2.9.84 Non nostrum onus, bos clitellas? [Is it not a burden that belongs to us? O ox].
“Erasmus Adagia.” Www.let.leidenuniv.nl, 1703, www.let.leidenuniv.nl/Dutch/Latijn/ErasmusAdagia.html.
On a mellow evening in September, I was coming from the garden with a heavy basket of apples which I had been gathering. It had got dusk, and the moon looked over the high wall of the court, causing undefined shadows to lurk in the corners of the numerous projecting portions of the building. I set my burden on the house steps by the kitchen door, and lingered to rest, and draw in a few more breaths of the soft, sweet air; my eyes were on the moon, and my back to the entrance...
Emily Brontë.
In an active life is sown the seed of wisdom; but he who reflects not, never reaps; has no harvest from it, but carries the burden of age without the wages of experience; nor knows himself old, but from his infirmities, the parish register, and the contempt of mankind. And age, if it has not esteem, has nothing.
Edward Young.
Gratitude is a burden, and all burdens are made to be cast off.
Denis Diderot.
The Burden lifts them higher. Well did he know,
How a tame stream does wild and dangerous grow
By unjust force; he now with wanton play,
Kisses the smiling Banks, and glides
But his known Channel stopt, begins to roare,
And swell with rage, and buffet the dull shore.
Abraham Cowley.
A prosperous fool is a grievous burden.
Aeshylus, Frag. 383.
During civil disturbance adopt such an attitude that people do not attach any importance to you — they neither burden you with complicated affairs, nor try to derive any advantage out of you.
Ali ibn Abi Talib, Nahj al-Balagha, Translations by Askari Jafri
I wanted no confidante in my distress. I deserved none, and I wanted none. I had taken the burden upon myself; let me bear it alone.
Anne Brontë.
Mamma does all she can,' said she, 'to make me feel myself a burden and incumbrance to the family, and the most ungrateful, selfish, and undutiful daughter that ever was born.
Anne Brontë.
For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.
Isaiah 10:5 KJV.
And the burden of the LORD shall ye mention no more: for every man's word shall be his burden; for ye have perverted the words of the living God, of the LORD of hosts our God.
Jeremiah 23:36 KJV.
How could I desert my child, and not share with you the burden of sorrow you carry, a burden caused by hatred of my name? Philosophy has never thought it right to leave the innocent man alone on his journey. Should I fear to face my accusers, as though their enmity were something new? Do you suppose that this is the first time wisdom has been attacked and endangered by wicked men? We fought against such rashness and folly long ago, even before the time of our disciple Plato. And in Plato's own time, his master Socrates, with my help, merited the victory of an unjust death.
Boethius, On the Consolation of Philosophy.
Be always drunken. Nothing else matters: that is the only question. If you would not feel the horrible burden of time weighing on your shoulders and crushing you to the earth, be drunken continually.
Charles Baudelaire.
There lives at least one being who can never change-one being who would be content to devote his whole existence to your happiness-who lives but in your eyes-who breathes but in your smiles-who bears the heavy burden of life itself only for you.
Charles Dickens.
Take Up Your Bed
Say: take up your bed and walk, and say at the same time
Say: follow me: O you who are the way, the truth, and the life,
O Jesus, offspring of the omnipotent Father.
Then worthless stupor will depart from the empty soul:
Then I will follow you. If you do not lend me a hand here:
Who will show the way? Who will lighten the burdened side?
If help comes: who will lift the falling wretch?
From nets, from usury, from public toll,
From the dark stain of the dark brothel, from the blood of Saul,
From atrocious murders, and from the blood, there are so many.
How many, whom it did not please to recall, nor willing ones?
No one was far away. Every time, every place
Sadly warns me: and the underworld threatens.
It is great to set rewards, but it is greater to give.
But to turn the punishment into rewards, the greatest, to your own.
“Julius Caesar Scaliger: Epidorpides.” Epidorpidum. Book 6.
Hyginus, fab. 220, to this purpose hath a pleasant tale. Dame Cura by chance went over a brook, and taking up some of the dirty slime, made an image of it; Jupiter eftsoons coming by, put life to it, but Cura and Jupiter could not agree what name to give him, or who should own him; the matter was referred to Saturn as judge; he gave this arbitrement: his name shall be Homo ab humo, Cura eum possideat quamdiu vivat, Care shall have him whilst he lives, Jupiter his soul, and Tellus his body when he dies. But to leave tales. A general cause, a continuate cause, an inseparable accident, to all men, is discontent, care, misery; were there no other particular affliction (which who is free from?) to molest a man in this life, the very cogitation of that common misery were enough to macerate, and make him weary of his life; to think that he can never be secure, but still in danger, sorrow, grief, and persecution. For to begin at the hour of his birth, as Pliny doth elegantly describe it, “he is born naked, and falls a whining at the very first: he is swaddled, and bound up like a prisoner, cannot help himself, and so he continues to his life's end.” Cujusque ferae pabulum, saith Seneca, impatient of heat and cold, impatient of labour, impatient of idleness, exposed to fortune's contumelies.
Robert Burton, “The Anatomy of Melancholy.”
Change
Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet!
Nothing comes to thee new or strange.
Sleep full of rest from head to feet;
Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.
Alfred Tennyson, To J. S.
Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change.
Alfred Tennyson, Locksley Hall. Line 182.
A good woman is a wondrous creature, cleaving to the right and to the good under all change: lovely in youthful comeliness, lovely all her life long in comeliness of heart.
Alfred Tennyson, Life of Tennyson. Vol. i.
Forward, forward let us range, / Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.
Alfred Tennyson.
Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change.
Alfred Tennyson.
Then came your new friend: you began to change—
I saw it and grieved.
Alfred Tennyson.
All things human change.
Alfred Tennyson.
Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change.
Alfred Tennyson.
The great world spins forever down the ringing grooves of change.
Alfred Tennyson.
Some sense of duty, something of a faith,
Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made, Some patient force to change them when we will, Some civic manhood firm against the crowd.
Alfred Tennyson.
A brave world, sir, full of religion, knavery, and change: we shall shortly see better days.
Aphra Behn, The Roundheads (1682).
Gut eats all day and lechers all the night;
So all his meat he tasteth over twice;
And, striving so to double his delight,
He makes himself a thoroughfare of vice.
Thus in his belly can he change a sin:
Lust it comes out, that gluttony went in.
“On Gut by Ben Jonson | Poetry Foundation.”
In a progressive country change is constant; and the great question is not whether you should resist change which is inevitable, but whether that change should be carried out in deference to the manners, the customs, the laws and the traditions of a people, or whether it should be carried out in deference to abstract principles, and arbitrary and general doctrines.
Benjamin Disraeli.
You are young, and your bitter recollections have time to change themselves into sweet remembrances.
Alexandre Dumas.
Beauty, thou wild fantastic ape
Who dost in every country change thy shape!
Abraham Cowley.
Hear how Timotheus' various Lays surprize,
And bid Alternate Passions fall and rise!
While, at each Change, the Son of Lybian Jove
Now burns with Glory, and then melts with Love;
Now his fierce Eyes with sparkling Fury glow;
Now Sighs steal out, and Tears begin to flow:
Persians and Greeks like Turns of Nature found,
And the World's Victor stood subdu'd by Sound!
The Pow'r of Musick all our Hearts allow;
And what Timotheus was, is Dryden now.
Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Criticism."
Manners with Fortunes, Humours change with Climes,
Tenets with Books, and Principles with Times.
Alexander Pope, "An Epistle to the Right Honourable Richard, Lord Viscount Cobham."
Or why so long (in life if long can be)
Lent heav'n a parent to the poor and me?
What makes all physical or moral ill?
There deviates nature, and here wanders will.
God sends not ill; if rightly understood,
Or partial ill is universal good,
Or change admits, or nature lets it fall,
Short, and but rare, till man improv'd it all.
Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Man/Chapter 6."
Manners with Fortunes, Humours change with Climes,
Tenets with Books, and Principles with Times.
Judge we by Nature? Habit can efface,
Int'rest o'ercome, or Policy take Place:
By Actions? those Uncertainty divides:
By Passions? these Dissimulation hides:
Affections? they still take a wider range:
Find, if you can, in what you cannot change?
'Tis in the ruling Passion: there, alone,
The wild are constant, and the cunning known,
The fool consistent, and the false sincere;
Priests, Princes, Women, no Dissemblers here.
Alexander Pope, "An Epistle to the Right Honourable Richard, Lord Viscount Cobham."
Heav'n forming each on other to depend,
A master, or a servant, or a friend,
Bids each on other for assistance call,
'Till one man's weakness grows the strength of all.
Wants, frailties, passions, closer still ally
The common int'rest, or endear the tye:
To these we owe such friendship, love sincere,
Each home-felt joy that life inherits here:
Yet from the same we learn, in its decline,
Those joys, those loves, those int'rests to resign:
Taught half by reason, half by mere decay,
To welcome death, and calmly pass away.
Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf,
Not one will change his neighbour with himself.
Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Man/Chapter 4."
Learn to know thy heart,
And, as the times, so let thy manners change,
For by the law of change a new God rules.
Aeshylus, Prometheus Bound, lines 309–310 (tr. G. M. Cookson)
Chameleon
It is not suitable for pleasant talents to occupy a place, Nor to have his own skin, worthy of a chameleon.
“Julius Caesar Scaliger: Epidorpides.” Epidorpidum. Book 2.
Change thy mind since she doth change,
Let not fancy still abuse thee.
Thy untruth cannot seem strange
When her falsehood doth excuse thee.
Love is dead and thou art free;
She doth live, but dead to thee.
Whilst she lov'd thee best awhile,
See how she hath still delay'd thee,
Using shows for to beguile
Those vain hopes that have deceiv'd thee.
Now, thou see'st although too late
Love loves truth, which women hate.
Love no more since she is gone;
She is gone and loves another.
Being once deceiv'd by one,
Leave her love, but love none other.
She was false, bid her adieu;
She was best, but yet; untrue.
Love, farewell, more dear to me
Than my life which thou preservest.
Life, all joys are gone from thee,
Others have what thou deservest.
O my death doth spring from hence;
I must die for her offence.
Die, but yet before thou die,
Make her know what she hath gotten.
She in whom my hopes did lie
Now is chang'd, I quite forgotten.
She is chang'd, but changed base,
Baser in so vile a place.
Robert Devereux, "Change thy mind."
Character
If my character of publick spirit be thought too heroick, at least for the living generation, who are indeed but babes in that virtue; I will readily own, that every man has a right and a call to provide for himself, to attend upon his own affairs, and to study his own happiness. All that I contend for is, that this duty of a man to himself be performed subsequently to the general welfare, and consistently with it. The affairs of all should be minded preferably to the affairs of one, as every man is ready to own when his own particular is embarked with the whole; as indeed every man's will prove to be sooner or later, though for a while some may thrive upon the publick ruins, but their fate seldom fails to meet them at last, them or their posterity.
"Cato's Letters/Letter 35." Written by Thomas Gordon.
Do not make Mistakes about Character. That is the worst and yet easiest error. Better be cheated in the price than in the quality of goods. In dealing with men, more than with other things, it is necessary to look within. To know men is different from knowing things. It is profound philosophy to sound the depths of feeling and distinguish traits of character. Men must be studied as deeply as books.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
Only lofty character is worth describing at all.
John Ruskin.
What is the true test of character, unless it be its progressive development in the bustle and turmoil, in the action and reaction, of daily life?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
THE STRONG, GOOD CHARACTER.—The restriction of views, which habit has made instinct, leads to what is called strength of character. When any one acts from few but always from the same motives, his actions acquire great energy ; if these actions accord with the principles of the fettered spirits they are recognised, and they produce, moreover, in those who perform them the sensation of a good conscience. Few motives, energetic action, and a good conscience compose what is called strength of character. The man of strong character lacks a knowledge of the many possibilities and directions of action ; his intellect is fettered and restricted, because in a given case it shows him, perhaps, only two possibilities ; between these two he must now of necessity choose, in accordance with his whole nature, and he does this easily and quickly because he has not to choose between fifty possibilities. The educating surroundings aim at fettering every individual, by always placing before him the smallest number of possibilities. The individual is always treated by his educators as if he were, indeed, something new, but should become a duplicate. If he makes his first appearance as something unknown, unprecedented, he must be turned into something known and precedented. In a child, the familiar manifestation of restriction is called a good character; in placing itself on the side of the fettered spirits the child first discloses its awakening common feeling; with this foundation of common sentiment, he will eventually become useful to his State or rank.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Human All-Too-Human."
DECIDED CHARACTER.—A man far oftener appears to have a decided character from persistently following his temperament than from persistently following his principles.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Human All-Too-Human."
Since character, so far as we understand its nature, is above and beyond time, it cannot undergo any change under the influence of life. But although it must necessarily remain the same always, it requires time to unfold itself and show the very diverse aspects which it may possess. For character consists of two factors: one, the will-to-live itself, blind impulse, so-called impetuosity; the other, the restraint which the will acquires when it comes to understand the world; and the world, again, is itself will. A man may begin by following the craving of desire, until he comes to see how hollow and unreal a thing is life, how deceitful are its pleasures, what horrible aspects it possesses; and this it is that makes people hermits, penitents, Magdalenes. Nevertheless it is to be observed that no such change from a life of great indulgence in pleasure to one of resignation is possible, except to the man who of his own accord renounces pleasure. A really bad life cannot be changed into a virtuous one. The most beautiful soul, before it comes to know life from its horrible side, may eagerly drink the sweets of life and remain innocent. But it cannot commit a bad action; it cannot cause others suffering to do a pleasure to itself, for in that case it would see clearly what it would be doing; and whatever be its youth and inexperience it perceives the sufferings of others as clearly as its own pleasures. That is why one bad action is a guarantee that numberless others will be committed as soon as circumstances give occasion for them.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "Character (Schopenhauer)."
With a good action,--that, every action in which a man's own advantage is ostensibly subordinated to another's,--the motive is either (1) self-interest, kept in the background; or (2) superstition, in other words, self-interest in the form of reward in another life; or (3) sympathy; or (4) the desire to lend a helping hand, in other words, attachment to the maxim that we should assist one another in need, and the wish to maintain this maxim, in view of the presumption that some day we ourselves may find it serve our turn. For what Kant calls a good action done from motives of duty and for the sake of duty, there is, as will be seen, no room at all. Kant himself declares it to be doubtful whether an action was ever determined by pure motives of duty alone. I affirm most certainly that no action was ever so done; it is mere babble; there is nothing in it that could really act as a motive to any man. When he shelters himself behind verbiage of that sort, he is always actuated by one of the four motives which I have described. Among these it is obviously sympathy alone which is quite genuine and sincere.
Good and bad apply to character only a potiori; that is to say, we prefer the good to the bad; but, absolutely, there is no such distinction. The difference arises at the point which lies between subordinating one's own advantage to that of another, and not subordinating it. If a man keeps to the exact middle, he is just. But most men go an inch in their regard for others' welfare to twenty yards in regard for their own.
The source of good and of bad character, so far as we have any real knowledge of it, lies in this, that with the bad character the thought of the external world, and especially of the living creatures in it, is accompanied--all the more, the greater the resemblance between them and the individual self--by a constant feeling of not I, not I, not I.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "Character (Schopenhauer)."
Therefore if egoism has a firm hold of a man and masters him, whether it be in the form of joy, or triumph, or lust, or hope, or frantic grief, or annoyance, or anger, or fear, or suspicion, or passion of any kind--he is in the devil's clutches and how he got into them does not matter. What is needful is that he should make haste to get out of them; and here, again, it does not matter how.
I have described character as theoretically an act of will lying beyond time, of which life in time, or character in action, is the development. For matters of practical life we all possess the one as well as the other; for we are constituted of them both. Character modifies our life more than we think, and it is to a certain extent true that every man is the architect of his own fortune. No doubt it seems as if our lot were assigned to us almost entirely from without, and imparted to us in something of the same way in which a melody outside us reaches the ear. But on looking back over our past, we see at once that our life consists of mere variations on one and the same theme, namely, our character, and that the same fundamental bass sounds through it all. This is an experience which a man can and must make in and by himself.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "Character (Schopenhauer)."
They are merely connecting links. But the great characteristics of the age, the loyal enthusiasm of the brave English gentry, the fierce licentiousness of the swearing, dicing, drunken reprobates whose excesses disgraced the royal cause,—the austerity of the Presbyterian Sabbaths in the city, the extravagance of the Independent preachers in the camp, the precise garb, the severe countenance, the petty scruples, the affected accent, the absurd names and phrases, which marked the Puritans,—the valour, the policy, the public spirit, which lurked beneath these ungraceful disguises,—the dreams of the raving Fifth-monarchy man, the dreams, scarcely less wild, of the philosophic republican,—all these would enter into the representation, and render it at once more exact and more striking.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, "The Task Of The Modern Historian."
Charity
Generosity.
What you neither had nor have, give to the one who does not have:
Why seek to have what you do not know how to use?
“Julius Caesar Scaliger: Epidorpides.” Epidorpidum. Book 1.
To Give Rather Than Receive.
An ancient saying shines forth in the ages.
Giving, rather than receiving, is of higher worth.
For he who gives, buys: he who receives, sells himself and his own.
“Julius Caesar Scaliger: Epidorpides.” Epidorpidum. Book 3.
And in another place he biddeth every man to bear one another’s burden, because we be members one of another. Look then whether they pertain unto this body whom thou hearest speaking everywhere after this manner, it is my good, it came to me by inheritance, I possess it by right and not by fraud, why shall not I use it and abuse it after mine own mind, why should I give them of it any deal at all to whom I owe nothing? I spill, I waste, I destroy, that which perisheth is mine own, it maketh no matter to other men. Thy member complaineth and grinneth for hunger and thou spuest up partridges. Thy naked brother shivereth for cold, and with thee so great plenty of raiment is corrupt with moths and long lying. One night’s dicing hath lost thee a thousand pieces of gold, while in the mean season some wretched wench (need compelling her) hath set forth her chastity to sell, and is become a common harlot, and thus perisheth the soul for whom Christ hath bestowed his life. Thou sayest again: what is that to me? I entreat that which is mine own after mine own fashion: and after all this with this so corrupt mind thinkest thou thyself to be a christian man, which art not once a man verily? Thou hearest in the presence of a great multitude the good name or fame of this or that man to be hurt, thou holdest thy peace, or peradventure rejoicest and art well content with the backbiter. Thou sayest, I would have reproved him if those things which were spoken had pertained to me, but I have nothing ado with him which was there slandered.
Erasmus, The Manual of a Christian Knight. Methuen, 1501, Chap. xv.
Great-Alms-giving, lessens no Man’s Living.
Benjamin Franklin, “Poor Richard Improved, 1757,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-07-02-0030.
You might have traversed the Roman empire in the zenith of its power, from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, without meeting with a single charitable asylum for the sick. Monuments of pride, of ambition, of vindictive wrath, were to be found in abundance; but not one legible record of commiseration for the poor. It was reserved for the religion whose basis is humility, and whose element is devotion, to proclaim with authority, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.”
Robert Hall (minister), On the Art of Healing.
Charity bestowed upon those who are worthy of it is like good seed sown on a good soil that yields an abundance of fruits. But alms given to those who are yet under the tyrannical yoke of the passions are like seed deposited in a bad soil. The passions of the receiver of the alms choke, as it were, the growth of merits.
Gautama Buddha.
Christ
But however spirits of a superficial greatness may disdain at first sight to do anything, but from a noble impulse in themselves, without any future regards in this or any other being; upon stricter inquiry they will find, to act worthily, and expect to be rewarded only in another world, is as heroic a pitch of virtue as human nature can arrive at. If the tenor of our actions have any other motive than the desire to be pleasing in the eye of the Deity, it will necessarily follow that we must be more than men, if we are not too much exalted in prosperity and depressed in adversity. But the Christian world has a Leader, the contemplation of whose life and sufferings must administer comfort in affliction, while the sense of his power and omnipotence must give them humiliation in prosperity.
Sir Richard Steele, Spectator, No. 356.
O Jesus, I Am Not Worthy to Lift Up My Eyes
Listen from afar from the temple, or even outside the temple's thresholds.
For what did that tax collector merit? Had he collected taxes too harshly, denied?
What then afterwards? Is it not permitted to carry out what is commanded?
Is it allowed to defraud? To deny aid to the king
Who watches over his people with vigilant arms, though sated?
Scarcely forgetting this crime, the tax collector
Scarcely dares to approach the gates, scarcely to approach the sacred places.
But standing far off, and prostrate in a corner's recess,
He does not dare to look up at the curve of the vaulted dome.
Ah ah what am I? What? Iniquity of the nefarious type
Possesses these restless hearts more than any kind.
Polluted eyes: foul hands: what not?
O Christ, God, the only true offspring of God:
(5) Who sang such examples to us in your piety:
Have mercy: and open your temple doors to me:
This hand alone is worth it. Why do I seek the lowest things?
“Julius Caesar Scaliger: Epidorpides.” Epidorpidum. Book 6.
By Your Command Alone, Lord Jesus, I Will Live
Is this place large enough or adorned enough?
To receive you, the greatest, the purest of all things.
What is worthy enough for a guest like you, what is worthy of thunder?
Everything, the Father created all things through the Only Begotten, the Only Word,
Everything from nothing, O gentle Jesus, you speak only one word.
And everything will become enough for me, and more than enough.
“Julius Caesar Scaliger: Epidorpides.” Epidorpidum. Book 6.
Renewal Only in Jesus.
Jesus, our redemption, I do not know how much
Far off I am, when I compare myself with you.
I am unworthy to love: but you are worthy to be loved.
I am unworthy of life: but you are life itself.
(5) I am unworthy to give: but you are worthy to receive.
In you I am renewed: you renew me grafted into myself.
Just say it, I want it. Nothing will harm me afterwards.
“Julius Caesar Scaliger: Epidorpides.” Epidorpidum. Book 7.
Christianity was the vampire of the imperium Romanum,—overnight it destroyed the vast achievement of the Romans: the conquest of the soil for a great culture that could await its time. Can it be that this fact is not yet understood? The imperium Romanum that we know, and that the history of the Roman provinces teaches us to know better and better,—this most admirable of all works of art in the grand manner was merely the beginning, and the structure to follow was not to prove its worth for thousands of years. To this day, nothing on a like scale sub specie aeterni has been brought into being, or even dreamed of!—This organization was strong enough to withstand bad emperors: the accident of personality has nothing to do with such things—the first principle of all genuinely great architecture. But it was not strong enough to stand up against the corruptest of all forms of corruption—against Christians.... These stealthy worms, which under the cover of night, mist and duplicity, crept upon every individual, sucking him dry of all earnest interest in real things, of all instinct for reality—this cowardly, effeminate and sugar-coated gang gradually alienated all “souls,” step by step, from that colossal edifice, turning against it all the meritorious, manly and noble natures that had found in the cause of Rome their own cause, their own serious purpose, their own pride.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Antichrist."
What could the Lord Jesus Christ have done for you more than he has? Then do not abuse his mercy, but let your time be spent in thinking and talking of the love of Jesus, who was incarnate for us, who was born of a woman, and made under the law, to redeem us from the wrath to come.
George Whitefield, Sermon 16: The Observation of the Birth of Christ, the Duty of All Christians.
I know that our Christ-lovers regard it as a vulgarity of the spirit to want to take literally the promises and prophecies as they were expressed. They abandon the literal and natural meaning of words in order to give them a meaning they call mystical and spiritual, and that they name allegorical and tropological. Saying, for example, that by the people of Israel and Judah - to whom these promises were made - one must understand not the Israelites of the flesh, but the Israelites of the spirit, that is the Christians, who are the Israel of God, the true Chosen People. That by the promise made to this enslaved people one should understand not a corporeal deliverance of a lone captive people, but the spiritual deliverance from servitude to the devil of all men, which is to be done by their divine savior. That by the abundance of riches and all the temporal happiness promised to this people should be understood the abundance of spiritual grace. And that finally, by the city of Jerusalem should be understood not the earthly Jerusalem, but the spiritual Jerusalem, which is the Christian church.
“Testament of Jean Meslier 1729.”
Civilization
Excellent citizens, many hold the opinion that opposing this provision will displease your Excellencies because it will seem as though it works to rob you of your advantages. Nevertheless, I have so much confidence in your prudence and your love of patria that I am convinced that each one of you will eagerly hear anyone who volunteers what he thinks about this subject. If his reasons for supporting it seem sound to your Excellencies, they should convince you that this course of action will serve the public good more than personal self-interest. If the arguments do not seem convincing, you should not judge the speaker as evil. In fact, you should praise him as a good citizen because he was willing to honestly state his opinion without fear of retribution and without fear of displeasing your Excellencies.
Excellent counselors, those who order popular governments and republican liberty know that they must secure two primary ends: First, and most important, they must ensure that every single citizen is equal before the law. No distinction between rich and poor, nor between the powerful and the weak, can exist. Everyone must feel sure that his person, property, and condition cannot be affected beyond what the laws and orders of the city dictate, which is the reason liberty was instituted in the first place. The second end is that the benefits of the republic—that is, the honors and the public offices—are widely distributed so that as many citizens participate in government as possible. Because we are all children of the same mother, everyone must enjoy his advantages (ai commodi suoi). Besides, it is said that the good multiplies with the inclusion of more people. Yet these two ends are different insofar as the first must be instituted without any exception whatsoever. The more that everyone is held equal under the law, the better. One can never have too much equality in this regard, for it will never generate disorders in a well-regulated city.
Francesco Guicciardini, On the Method of Electing Offices in the Great Council (1512).
All cities, all states, all reigns are mortal. Everything, either by nature or by accident, ends at some time. And so a citizen who is living in the final stage of his country's existence should not feel as sorry for his country as he should for himself. What happened to his country was inevitable; but to be born at a time when such a disaster bad to happen was his misfortune.
Francesco Guicciardini, Maxims and Reflections (Ricordi). University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990. pg. 89. Series C, maxim 189.
Civilization does not engross all the virtues of humanity: she has not even her full share of them. They flourish in greater abundance and attain greater strength among many barbarous people. The hospitality of the wild Arab, the courage of the North American Indian, and the faithful friendships of some of the Polynesian nations, far surpass any thing of a similar kind among the polished communities of Europe.
Herman Melville The Dover Reader (ed. Courier Dover Publications, 2016)
A semi-civilized state of society, equally removed from the extremes of barbarity and of refinement, seems to be that particular meridian under which all the reciprocities and gratuities of hospitality do most readily flourish and abound. For it so happens that the ease, the luxury, and the abundance of the highest state of civilization, are as productive of selfishness, as the difficulties, the privations, and the sterilities of the lowest.
Charles Caleb Colton, C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Compassion
The sweets of Pillage can be known
To no one but the Thief,
Compassion for Integrity
Is his divinest Grief.
Emily Dickinson.
Therein they see, through amorous eye-glances,
Armies of loves still flying to and fro,
Which dart at them their little fiery lances;
Whom having wounded, back again they go,
Carrying compassion to their lovely foe;
Who, seeing her fair eyes' so sharp effect,
Cures all their sorrows with one sweet aspect.
“An Hymn in Honour of Beauty by Edmund Spenser | Poetry Foundation.”
I see compassion may become a justice, though it be a weakness, I confess, and nearer a vice than a virtue.
Ben Jonson.
What is meant by "The regulation of one's family depends on the cultivation of his person is this:-men are partial where they feel affection and love; partial where they despise and dislike; partial where they stand in awe and reverence; partial where they feel sorrow and compassion; partial where they are arrogant and rude. Thus it is that there are few men in the world who love and at the same time know the bad qualities of the object of their love, or who hate and yet know the excellences of the object of their hatred.
“The Internet Classics Archive | the Great Learning by Confucius.”
They were frequent Guests of Wealth, and from that Moment inseparable. Diffidence, in the mean Time, not daring to approach the Great House, accepted of an Invitation from Poverty, one of the Tenants; and entering the Cottage, found Wisdom and Virtue, who being repuls'd by the Land-lord had retir'd thither. Virtue took Compassion of her, and Wisdom found, from her Temper, that she wou'd easily improve: So they admitted her into their Society. Accordingly, by their Means, she alter'd in a little Time somewhat of her Manner, and becoming much more amiable and engaging, was now call'd by the Name of Modesty. As ill Company has a greater Effect than good, Confidence, tho' more refractory to Counsel and Example, degenerated so far by the Society of Vice and Folly, as to pass by the Name of Impudence. Mankind, who saw these Societies as Jupiter first join'd them, and knew nothing of these mutual Desertions, are led into strange Mistakes by those Means; and wherever they see Impudence, make account of Virtue and Wisdom, and wherever they observe Modesty call her Attendants Vice and Folly.
David Hume, "Essays, Moral and Political/Essay 3."
Never complain. To complain always brings discredit. Better be a model of self-reliance opposed to the passion of others than an object of their compassion. For it opens the way for the hearer to what we are complaining of, and to disclose one insult forms an excuse for another. By complaining of past offences we give occasion for future ones, and in seeking aid or counsel we only obtain indifference or contempt. It is much more politic to praise one man's favours, so that others may feel obliged to follow suit. To recount the favours we owe the absent is to demand similar ones from the present, and thus we sell our credit with the one to the other. The shrewd will therefore never publish to the world his failures or his defects, but only those marks of consideration which serve to keep friendship alive and enmity silent.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
Never, from Sympathy with the Unfortunate, involve Yourself in his Fate. One man's misfortune is another man's luck, for one cannot be lucky without many being unlucky. It is a peculiarity of the unfortunate to arouse people's goodwill who desire to compensate them for the blows of fortune with their useless favour, and it happens that one who was abhorred by all in prosperity is adored by all in adversity. Vengeance on the wing is exchanged for compassion afoot. Yet ’tis to be noticed how fate shuffles the cards. There are men who always consort with the unlucky, and he that yesterday flew high and happy stands to-day miserable at their side. That argues nobility of soul, but not worldly wisdom.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
But health consists with temperance alone,
And peace, oh virtue! peace is all thy own.
The good or bad the gifts of fortune gain,
But these less taste them, as they worse obtain.
Say, in pursuit of profit or delight,
Who risk the most, that take wrong means or right?
Of vice, or virtue, whether bless'd, or curs'd,
Which meets contempt, or which compassion first?
Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Man/Chapter 6."
So where there is a great deal of pride and vanity, there also will there be a great desire of vengeance. But as the fulfillment of every wish brings with it more or less of a sense of disappointment, so it is with vengeance. The delight we hope to get from it is mostly embittered by compassion. Vengeance taken will often tear the heart and torment the conscience: the motive to it is no longer active, and what remains is the evidence of our malice.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "Psychological Observations (Religion: A Dialogue, Etc.)."
Compassion for animals is intimately associated with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he who is cruel to animals cannot be a good man.
Arthur Schopenhauer.
Nothing shocks our moral feelings so deeply as cruelty does. We can forgive every other crime, but not cruelty. The reason for this is that it is the very opposite of compassion.
Arthur Schopenhauer.
I take compassion, however, on the life thou didst lead; while, as I have already stated, I rejoice in thy mental abilities and in thy powers of expression. O thou great father of Roman eloquence! Not only I, but all who take delight in the elegance of the Latin tongue render thee great thanks. Thou art the fountain-head from which we draw the vivifying waters for our meadows. We frankly confess that we have been guided by thee, assisted by thy judgments, enlightened by thy radiance; and, finally, that it was under thy auspices, so to speak, that I have gained this ability as a writer (such as it is), and that I have attained my purpose.
Petrarch, Petrarch's Letters to Classical Authors, pg. 21-22, M.T. Cicero 2.
Vagabonds, without visible property or vocation, are placed in workhouses, where they are well clothed, fed, lodged, and made to labor. Nearly the same method of providing for the poor prevails through all our States; and from Savannah to Portsmouth you will seldom meet a beggar. In the larger towns, indeed, they sometimes present themselves. These are usually foreigners, who have never obtained a settlement in any parish. I never yet saw a native American begging in the streets or highways. A subsistence is easily gained here; and if by misfortunes they are thrown on the charities of the world, those provided by their own country are so comfortable and so certain, that they never think of relinquishing them to become strolling beggars. Their situation, too, when sick, in the family of a good farmer, where every member is emulous to do them kind offices, where they are visited by all the neighbors, who bring them the little rarieties which their sickly appetites may crave, and who take by rotation the nightly watch over them, when their condition requires it, is, without comparison, better than in a general hospital, where the sick, the dying, and the dead, are crammed together in the same rooms, and often in the same beds. The disadvantages, inseparable from general hospitals, are such as can never be counterpoised by all the regularities of medicine and regimen. Nature and kind nursing save a much greater proportion in our plain way, at a smaller expense, and with less abuse. One branch only of hospital institution is wanting with us; that is, a general establishment for those laboring under difficult cases of chirurgery. The aids of this art are not equivocal. But an able chirurgeon cannot be had in every parish. Such a receptacle should, therefore, be provided for those patients; but no others should be admitted.
Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on the State of Virginia (1853)/Query 14."
Confidence
With confidence I opened then my mouth,
And I began: "How can one meagre grow
There where the need of nutriment applies not?"
"If thou wouldst call to mind how Meleager
Was wasted by the wasting of a brand,
This would not," said he, "be to thee so sour;
And wouldst thou think how at each tremulous motion
Trembles within a mirror your own image;
That which seems hard would mellow seem to thee.
But that thou mayst content thee in thy wish
Lo Statius here; and him I call and pray
He now will be the healer of thy wounds."
Dante Alighieri, "Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867)/Volume 2/Canto 25."
And one began: "Each one has confidence
In thy good offices without an oath,
Unless the I cannot cut off the I will;
Whence I, who speak alone before the others,
Pray thee, if ever thou dost see the land
That 'twixt Romagna lies and that of Charles,
Thou be so courteous to me of thy prayers
In Fano, that they pray for me devoutly,
That I may purge away my grave offences.
Dante Alighieri, "Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867)/Volume 2/Canto 5."
Confidence have in your backsliding steps,
Do ye not comprehend that we are worms,
Born to bring forth the angelic butterfly
That flieth unto judgment without screen?
Why floats aloft your spirit high in air?
Like are ye unto insects undeveloped,
Even as the worm in whom formation fails!
Dante Alighieri, "Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867)/Volume 2/Canto 10."
Tsze-hsia said, "The superior man, having obtained their confidence, may then impose labors on his people. If he have not gained their confidence, they will think that he is oppressing them. Having obtained the confidence of his prince, one may then remonstrate with him. If he have not gained his confidence, the prince will think that he is vilifying him."
“The Internet Classics Archive | the Analects by Confucius.” Section 4 Part 19.
Tsze-kung asked about government. The Master said, "The requisites of government are that there be sufficiency of food, sufficiency of military equipment, and the confidence of the people in their ruler." Tsze-kung said, "If it cannot be helped, and one of these must be dispensed with, which of the three should be foregone first?" "The military equipment," said the Master. Tsze-kung again asked, "If it cannot be helped, and one of the remaining two must be dispensed with, which of them should be foregone?" The Master answered, "Part with the food. From of old, death has been the lot of an men; but if the people have no faith in their rulers, there is no standing for the state."
“The Internet Classics Archive | the Analects by Confucius.” Section 3 Part 12.
Elevated Taste. You can train it like the intellect. Full knowledge whets desire and increases enjoyment. You may know a noble spirit by the elevation of his taste: it must be a great thing that can satisfy a great mind. Big bites for big mouths, lofty things for lofty spirits. Before their judgment the bravest tremble, the most perfect lose confidence. Things of the first importance are few; let appreciation be rare. Taste can be imparted by intercourse: great good luck to associate with the highest taste. But do not affect to be dissatisfied with everything: ’tis the extreme of folly, and more odious if from affectation than if from Quixotry. Some would have God create another world and other ideals to satisfy their fantastic imagination.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
Waste not Influence. The great as friends are for great occasions. One should not make use of great confidence for little things: for that is to waste a favour. The sheet anchor should be reserved for the last extremity. If you use up the great for little ends what remains afterwards? Nothing is more valuable than a protector, and nothing costs more nowadays than a favour. It can make or unmake a whole world. It can even give sense and take it away. As Nature and Fame are favourable to the wise, so Luck is generally envious of them. It is therefore more important to keep the favour of the mighty than goods and chattels.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
Then the Count remarked: ‘And Alexander was a greater man than the one who mentioned the fly. But surely we must forgive outstanding men when they presume too much of themselves? After all, a man who has to achieve great things must have the courage to do them and must have confidence in himself. He should not be cowardly or abject, though he should be modest in his words, presuming less of himself than he achieves and being careful, too, that his presumption does not turn to rashness.’
Baldesar Castiglione, How to Achieve True Greatness, Bk 1, pg. 20.
It's well to have such a comfortable assurance regarding the worth of those we love. I only wish you may not find your confidence misplaced.
Alexander Pope.
By mutual confidence, and mutual aid, Great deeds are done, and great discoveries made...
Alexander Pope.
It comes to pass oft that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twanged off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned him.
William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night Act 3, Scene 4
AGAINST THE CONFIDENTIAL.—Persons who give us their full confidence think they have thereby a right to ours. That is a mistake; people acquire no right through gifts.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Human All-Too-Human."
You would fain be victor at the Olympic games, you say. Yes, but weigh the conditions, weigh the consequences; then and then only, lay to your hand--if it be for your profit. You must live by rule, submit to diet, abstain from dainty meats, exercise your body perforce at stated hours, in heat or in cold; drink no cold water, nor, it may be, wine. In a word, you must surrender yourself wholly to your trainer, as though to a physician.
Then in the hour of contest, you will have to delve the ground, it may chance dislocate an arm, sprain an ankle, gulp down abundance of yellow sand, be scourge with the whip--and with all this sometimes lose the victory. Count the cost--and then, if your desire still holds, try the wrestler's life. Else let me tell you that you will be behaving like a pack of children playing now at wrestlers, now at gladiators; presently falling to trumpeting and anon to stageplaying, when the fancy takes them for what they have seen. And you are even the same: wrestler, gladiator, philosopher, orator all by turns and none of them with your whole soul. Like an ape, you mimic what you see, to one thing constant never; the thing that is familiar charms no more. This is because you never undertook aught with due consideration, nor after strictly testing and viewing it from every side; no, your choice was thoughtless; the glow of your desire had waxed cold . . . .
“The Internet Classics Archive | the Golden Sayings by Epictetus.” Section 2 Saying CIV.
Having now seen the nature of fear, and of the things that cause it, and the various states of mind in which it is felt, we can also see what Confidence is, about what things we feel it, and under what conditions. It is the opposite of fear, and what causes it is the opposite of what causes fear; it is, therefore, the expectation associated with a mental picture of the nearness of what keeps us safe and the absence or remoteness of what is terrible: it may be due either to the near presence of what inspires confidence or to the absence of what causes alarm. We feel it if we can take steps-many, or important, or both-to cure or prevent trouble; if we have neither wronged others nor been wronged by them; if we have either no rivals at all or no strong ones; if our rivals who are strong are our friends or have treated us well or been treated well by us; or if those whose interest is the same as ours are the more numerous party, or the stronger, or both.
Aristotle, Rhetoric, bk 2, ch 5, Translated by W. Rhys Roberts.
Constitution
It suggests melancholy reflections, in consequence of the strange course we have long held, that we are now no longer quarrelling about the character, or about the conduct, of men, or the tenour of measures, but we are grown out of humour with the English Constitution itself; this is become the object of the animosity of Englishmen. This constitution in former days used to be the admiration and the envy of the world: it was the pattern for politicians, the theme of the eloquent, the meditation of the philosopher, in every part of the world. As to Englishmen, it was their pride, their consolation. By it they lived, for it they were ready to die. Its defects, if it had any, were partly covered by partiality, and partly borne by prudence. Now all its excellencies are forgot, its faults are now forcibly dragged into day, exaggerated by every artifice of representation. It is despised and rejected of men, and every device and invention of ingenuity or idleness is set up in opposition or in preference to it.
Edmund Burke, Speech on the Reform of the Representation of the Commons in Parliament.
Had a constitution been established two years ago (as ought to have been done) the violences that have since desolated France, and injured the character of the revolution, would, in my opinion, have been prevented. The nation would then have had a bond of union, and every individual would have known the line of conduct he was to follow. But instead of this, a revolutionary government, a thing without either principle or authority, was substituted in its place; virtue and crime depended upon accident; and that which was patriotism one day became treason the next. All these things have followed from the want of a constitution; for it is the nature and intention of a constitution to prevent governing by party, by establishing a common principle that shall limit and controul the power and impulse of party, and that says to all parties, thus far shalt thou go and no further. But in the absence of a constitution men look entirely to party; and instead of principle governing party, party governs principle.
An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if be violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Thomas Paine, "Dissertation on First-principles of Government/Dissertation."
A Constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory... It is made for people of fundamentally differing views, and the accident of our finding certain opinions natural and familiar, or novel, and even shocking, ought not to conclude our judgment upon the question whether statutes embodying them conflict with the Constitution of the United States.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., 198 U.S. at 76 - Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905).
Had a constitution been established two years ago (as ought to have been done) the violences that have since desolated France, and injured the character of the revolution, would, in my opinion, have been prevented. The nation would then have had a bond of union, and every individual would have known the line of conduct he was to follow. But instead of this, a revolutionary government, a thing without either principle or authority, was substituted in its place; virtue and crime depended upon accident; and that which was patriotism one day became treason the next. All these things have followed from the want of a constitution; for it is the nature and intention of a constitution to prevent governing by party, by establishing a common principle that shall limit and controul the power and impulse of party, and that says to all parties, thus far shalt thou go and no further. But in the absence of a constitution men look entirely to party; and instead of principle governing party, party governs principle.
An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if be violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Thomas Paine, "Dissertation on First-principles of Government/Dissertation."
Cato used to say that our constitution was superior to others, because in their case there had usually been one individual who had equipped his state with laws and institutions, for example, Minos of Crete, Lycurgus of Sparta, and the men who had brought about a succession of changes at Athens (Theseus, Draco, Solon, Cleisthenes, and many others) until finally, when it lay fainting and prostrate, it was revived by that learned man, Demetrius of Phalerum. Our own constitution, on the other hand, had been established not by one man’s ability but by that of many, not in the course of one man’s life but over several ages and generations. He used to say that no genius of such magnitude had ever existed that he could be sure of overlooking nothing; and that no collection of able people at a single point of time could have sufficient foresight to take account of everything; there had to be practical experience over a long period of history.
Cicero, The Republic, bk 2. Said by Scipio.
A constitution is the property of a nation, and not of those who exercise the government. All the constitutions of America are declared to be established on the authority of the people. In France, the word nation is used instead of the people; but in both cases, a constitution is a thing antecedent to the government, and always distinct there from.
In England it is not difficult to perceive that everything has a constitution, except the nation. Every society and association that is established, first agreed upon a number of original articles, digested into form, which are its constitution. It then appointed its officers, whose powers and authorities are described in that constitution, and the government of that society then commenced. Those officers, by whatever name they are called, have no authority to add to, alter, or abridge the original articles. It is only to the constituting power that this right belongs.
From the want of understanding the difference between a constitution and a government, Dr. Johnson, and all writers of his description, have always bewildered themselves. They could not but perceive, that there must necessarily be a controlling power existing somewhere, and they placed this power in the discretion of the persons exercising the government, instead of placing it in a constitution formed by the nation. When it is in a constitution, it has the nation for its support, and the natural and the political controlling powers are together. The laws which are enacted by governments, control men only as individuals, but the nation, through its constitution, controls the whole government, and has a natural ability to do so. The final controlling power, therefore, and the original constituting power, are one and the same power.
Thomas Paine, “Rights of Man Part the Second, 1792.” CHAPTER IV.
Contemplation
In contemplation as in action, we must distinguish between what may be attained and what is unattainable. Without this, little can be achieved, either in life or in knowledge.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
The deep and serious contemplation of the unworthiness of all past action, of the world ripe for judgment, has been whittled down to the sceptical consciousness that it is anyhow a good thing to know all that has happened, as it is too late to do anything better. The historical sense makes its servants passive and retrospective. Only in moments of forgetfulness, when that sense is dormant, does the man who is sick of the historical fever ever act; though he only analyses his deed again after it is over (which prevents it from having any further consequences), and finally puts it on the dissecting table for the purposes of history. In this sense we are still living in the Middle Ages, and history is still a disguised theology; just as the reverence with which the unlearned layman looks on the learned class is inherited through the clergy. What men gave formerly to the Church they give now, though in smaller measure, to science. But the fact of giving at all is the work of the Church, not of the modern spirit, which among its other good qualities has something of the miser in it, and is a bad hand at the excellent virtue of liberality.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life."
He loved the soothing hour, when the last tints of light die away; when the stars, one by one, tremble through æther, and are reflected on the dark mirror of the waters; that hour, which, of all others, inspires the mind with pensive tenderness, and often elevates it to sublime contemplation.
Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolfo: A Romance Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry (ed. 1795)
'I have often wished in vain,' said she, 'for another's judgment to appeal to when I could scarcely trust the direction of my own eye and head, they having been so long occupied with the contemplation of a single object as to become almost incapable of forming a proper idea respecting it.'
'That,' replied I, 'is only one of many evils to which a solitary life exposes us.'
Anne Brontë.
The bud, though plucked, would not be withered, only transplanted to a fitter soil to ripen and blow beneath a brighter sun; and though I might not cherish and watch my child's unfolding intellect, he would be snatched away from all the suffering and sins of earth; and my understanding tells me this would be no great evil; but my heart shrinks from the contemplation of such a possibility, and whispers I could not bear to see him die.
Anne Brontë.
The noble, in other words, the uncommon, element in the drama—nay, what is sublime in it—is not reached until the intellect is set to work, as opposed to the will; until it takes a free flight over all those passionate movements of the will, and makes them the subject of its contemplation. Shakespeare, in particular, shows that this is his general method, more especially in Hamlet. And only when intellect rises to the point where the vanity of all effort is manifest, and the will proceeds to an act of self-annulment, is the drama tragic in the true sense of the word: it is then that it reaches its highest aim in becoming really sublime.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "Studies in Pessimism/Further Psychological Observations."
Diversion.—Is not the royal dignity sufficiently great in itself to make its possessor happy by the mere contemplation of what he is? Must he be diverted from this thought like ordinary folk? I see well that a man is made happy by diverting him from the view of his domestic sorrows so as to occupy all his thoughts with the care of dancing well. But will it be the same with a king, and will he be happier in the pursuit of these idle amusements than in the contemplation of his greatness? And what more satisfactory object could be presented to his mind? Would it not be a deprivation of his delight for him to occupy his soul with the thought of how to adjust his steps to the cadence of an air, or of how to throw a [ball] skilfully, instead of leaving it to enjoy quietly the contemplation of the majestic glory which encompasses him? Let us make the trial; let us leave a king all alone to reflect on himself quite at leisure, without any gratification of the senses, without any care in his mind, without society; and we will see that a king without diversion is a man full of wretchedness. So this is carefully avoided, and near the persons of kings there never fail to be a great number of people who see to it that amusement follows business, and who watch all the time of their leisure to supply them with delights and games, so that there is no blank in it. In fact, kings are surrounded with persons who are wonderfully attentive in taking care that the king be not alone and in a state to think of himself, knowing well that he will be miserable, king though he be, if he meditate on self.
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 2."
There exist certain individuals who are, by nature, given purely to contemplation and are utterly unsuited to action, and who, nevertheless, under a mysterious and unknown impulse, sometimes act with a speed which they themselves would have thought beyond them.
Charles Baudelaire.
It is a mortifying truth, and ought to teach the wisest of us humility, that many of the most valuable discoveries have been the result of chance, rather than of contemplation, and of accident, rather than of design.
Charles Caleb Colton.
Arthur Gride, whose bleared eyes gloated only over the outward beauties, and were blind to the spirit which reigned within, evinced - a fantastic kind of warmth certainly, but not exactly that kind of warmth of feeling which the contemplation of virtue usually inspires.
Charles Dickens.
To believe a thing is to see the cool crystal water sparkling in the cup. But to meditate on it is to drink of it. Reading gathers the clusters; contemplation squeezes forth their generous juice.
Charles Spurgeon.
The Master said, "My children, why do you not study the Book of Poetry? "The Odes serve to stimulate the mind. "They may be used for purposes of self-contemplation. "They teach the art of sociability. "They show how to regulate feelings of resentment. "From them you learn the more immediate duty of serving one's father, and the remoter one of serving one's prince. "From them we become largely acquainted with the names of birds, beasts, and plants."
“The Internet Classics Archive | the Analects by Confucius.” Section 4 Part 17.
Rapt with the rage of mine own ravish'd thought,
Through contemplation of those goodly sights,
And glorious images in heaven wrought,
Whose wondrous beauty, breathing sweet delights
Do kindle love in high-conceited sprights;
I fain to tell the things that I behold,
But feel my wits to fail, and tongue to fold.
“An Hymn of Heavenly Beauty by Edmund Spenser | Poetry Foundation.”
Beginning then below, with th' easy view
Of this base world, subject to fleshly eye,
From thence to mount aloft, by order due,
To contemplation of th' immortal sky;
Of the soare falcon so I learn to fly,
That flags awhile her fluttering wings beneath,
Till she herself for stronger flight can breathe.
“An Hymn of Heavenly Beauty by Edmund Spenser | Poetry Foundation.”
Thence gathering plumes of perfect speculation,
To imp the wings of thy high-flying mind,
Mount up aloft through heavenly contemplation,
From this dark world, whose damps the soul so blind,
And, like the native brood of eagles' kind,
On that bright Sun of Glory fix thine eyes,
Clear'd from gross mists of frail infirmities.
“An Hymn of Heavenly Beauty by Edmund Spenser | Poetry Foundation.”
Contentment
The men of the clique live together because they have the same kind of soul, and their narrowness is a narrowness of spiritual coherence and contentment, like that which exists in hell...
G. K. Chesterton.
We do not want joy and anger to neutralize each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent. We have to feel the universe at once as an ogre's castle, to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage, to which we can return to at evening.
G. K. Chesterton.
These physiological states produced a depression, and Buddha tried to combat it by hygienic measures. Against it he prescribed a life in the open, a life of travel; moderation in eating and a careful selection of foods; caution in the use of intoxicants; the same caution in arousing any of the passions that foster a bilious habit and heat the blood; finally, no worry, either on one’s own account or on account of others. He encourages ideas that make for either quiet contentment or good cheer—he finds means to combat ideas of other sorts. He understands good, the state of goodness, as something which promotes health. Prayer is not included, and neither is asceticism.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Antichrist."
What is good?—Whatever augments the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself, in man.
What is evil?—Whatever springs from weakness.
What is happiness?—The feeling that power increases—that resistance is overcome.
Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not virtue, but efficiency (virtue in the Renaissance sense, virtu, virtue free of moral acid).
The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one should help them to it.
What is more harmful than any vice?—Practical sympathy for the botched and the weak—Christianity....
Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Antichrist."
The use of this work, honoured with a precedent in Aristotle, is nothing less than to give contentment to the appetite of curious and vain wits, as the manner of Mira-bilaries is to do; but for two reasons, both of great weight: the one to correct the partiality of axioms and opinions, which are commonly framed only upon common and familiar examples; the other because from the wonders of Nature is the nearest intelligence and passage towards the wonders of art, for it is no more but by following and, as it were, hounding Nature in her wanderings, to be able to lead her afterwards to the same place again.
Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning.
Fortify thyself with contentment: that is an impregnable stronghold.
“The Internet Classics Archive | the Golden Sayings by Epictetus.” Section 3 Fragment XVII.
I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment?
Epictetus.
Contentment, as it is a short road and pleasant, has great delight and little trouble.
Epictetus.
While we are on the road, we must try to make what is before us better than what is past; when we come to the road's end, we feel a smooth contentment.
“Epicurus - Vatican Sayings.” Saying Number 48.
Though our passage through this world be rough and troublesome, yet the trouble will be but short, and the rest and contentment at the end will be an ample recompense.
Francis Atterbury.
A sense of contentment makes us kindly and benevolent to others; we are not chafed and galled by cares which are tyrannical because original. We are fulfilling our proper destiny, and those around us feel the sunshine of our own hearts.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
A man's contentment is in his mind, not in the extent of his possessions. Alexander the Great, with all the world at his feet, cries for another world to conquer.
Charles Spurgeon.
The poor man's body, habituated to labour, knows the sweets of repose; this repose of the body, is the most troublesome fatigue to him who is wearied with his idleness; exercise, and frugality, procure for the one vigour, health, and contentment; the intemperance and sloth of the other, furnish him only with disgust--load him with infirmities. Indigence sets all the springs of the soul to work; it is the mother of industry; from its bosom arises genius; it is the parent of talents, the hot-bed of that merit to which opulence is obliged to pay tribute; to which grandeur bows its homage. In short the blows of fate find in the poor man a flexible reed, who bends without breaking, whilst the storms of adversity tear the rich man like the sturdy oak in the forest, up by the very roots.
Baron d’Holbach, “System of Nature - Part 1, Chapter 16.”
Correct the falsity of our senses, and after our long delirium give us the true substance of goodness. Quicken our intellects with the incense of spirituality and make us so attuned to the celestial harmony that there is no longer room within us for any discord of passion. Inebriate our souls at the inexhaustible fountain of contentment that always delights and never satiates and that gives a taste of true blessedness to whoever drinks from its living and limpid waters. With the rays of your light cleanse our eyes of their misty ignorance, so that they may no longer prize mortal beauty but know that the things which they first thought to see are not, and that those they did not see truly are.
Baldesar Castiglione, How to Achieve True Greatness, Bk 1, pg. 90.
You imply both, for what greater riches can there be than to lack nothing? What greater power than to be independent of every one else in the world? Certainly those kings and masters of the earth whom you think so rich have wanted a multitude of things. The generals of great armies depend on those whom they seem to command, and, kept in check by their armed legions, they find the very soldiers who render them invincible also render them in turn helpless. Give up, therefore, your dreams of the impossible, and be content to accept the lot of humanity; learn to live in want and in abundance, to command and to obey, without desiring, with those ideas of yours, to shake off the yoke of fortune that presses even on kings. You will only be free from this yoke when, caring not a straw for human passions, you bend your neck wholly to the rule of Virtue. Then you will be free, wanting nothing, then. you will be independent; in a word, then you will be a king, truly powerful and perfectly happy.
Petrarch, Petrarch’s Secret, or the Soul’s Conflict with Passion (Three Dialogues between Himself and St. Augustine). Second Dialogue.
For want of consulting reason, for want of knowing the value of virtue, for want of being instructed in their true interest, for want of being acquainted with what constitutes solid happiness, in what consists real felicity, the prince and the, people, the rich and the poor, the great and the little, are unquestionably, frequently very far removed from content; nevertheless if an impartial eye be glanced over the human race, it will be found to comprise a greater number of benefits than of evils. No man is entirely happy, but he is so in detail; those who make the most bitter complaints of the rigour of their fate, are however, held in existence by threads frequently imperceptible; are prevented from the desire of quitting it by circumstances of which they are not aware. In short, habit lightens to man the burden of his troubles; grief suspended becomes true enjoyment; every want is a pleasure in the moment when it is satisfied; freedom from chagrin, the absence of disease, is a happy state which he enjoys secretly, without even perceiving it; hope, which rarely abandons him entirely, helps him to support the most cruel disasters. The PRISONER laughs in his irons. The wearied VILLAGER returns singing to his cottage. In short, the man who calls himself the most unfortunate, never sees death approach without dismay, at least, if despair has not totally disfigured nature in his eyes.
Baron d’Holbach, “System of Nature - Part 1, Chapter 16.”
When thou comparest thine own condition, when thou examinest thine own soul, thou wilt have just cause to felicitate thyself, if thou shalt find that peace has taken up her abode with thee; that contentment dwells at the bottom of thine own heart. In short, thou seest accomplished upon them, as well as, upon thyself, the unalterable decrees of destiny, which imperiously demand, that crime shall punish itself, that virtue never shall be destitute Of remuneration.
Baron d’Holbach, “System of Nature - Part II, Chapter 14.”
The motive which the morality of nature employs, is the self-evident interest of each individual, of each community, of the whole human species, in all times, in every country, under all circumstances. Its worship is the sacrifice of vice, the practise of real virtues; its object is the conservation of the human race, the happiness of the individual, the peace of mankind; its recompences are affection, esteem, and glory; or in their default, contentment of mind, with merited self-esteem, of which no power will ever be able to deprive virtuous mortals; its punishments, are hatred, contempt, and indignation; which society always reserves for those who outrage its interests; from which even the most powerful can never effectually shield themselves.
Baron d’Holbach, “System of Nature - Part II, Chapter 14.”
Contentment! Parent of Delight,
So much a Stranger to our Sight,
Say, Goddess, in what happy Place
Mortals behold thy blooming Face;
Thy gracious Auspices impart,
And for thy Temple chuse my Heart.
Benjamin Franklin, “Poor Richard Improved, 1757,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-07-02-0030.
True contentment depends not upon what we have; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander.
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
Philosophers have widely differed as to the seat of the soul, and St. Paul has told us that out of the heart proceed murmurings; but there can be no doubt that the seat of perfect contentment is in the head, for every individual is thoroughly satisfied with his own proportion of brains.
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
I confess, it strikes me as a self-evident truth that variety or contrast is as essential a principle in art and nature as uniformity, and as necessary to make up the harmony of the universe and the contentment of the mind. Who would destroy the shifting effects of light and shade, the sharp, lively opposition of colours in the same or in different objects, the streaks in a flower, the stains in a piece of marble, to reduce all to the same neutral, dead colouring, the same middle tint?
Collected Works of William Hazlitt.
‘But for an utmost end, in which the ancient philosophers placed felicity, and disputed much concerning the way thereto, there is no such thing in this world, nor way to it, more than to Utopia; for while we live, we have desires, and desire presupposeth a further end. Seeing all delight is appetite, and desire of something further, there can be no contentment but in proceeding, and therefore we are not to marvel, when we see that as men attain to more riches, honour, or other power, so their appetite continually groweth more and more; and when they are come to the utmost degree of some kind of power they pursue some other, as long as in any kind they think themselves behind any other.
Collected Works of William Hazlitt.
None thereof worthy be, but those whom she
Vouchsafeth to her presence to receive,
And letteth them her lovely face to see,
Whereof such wondrous pleasures they conceive,
And sweet contentment, that it doth bereave
Their soul of sense, through infinite delight,
And them transport from flesh into the spright.
“An Hymn of Heavenly Beauty by Edmund Spenser | Poetry Foundation.”
And that fair lamp, which useth to inflame
The hearts of men with self-consuming fire
Thenceforth seems foul, and full of sinful blame;
And all that pomp to which proud minds aspire
By name of honour, and so much desire,
Seems to them baseness, and all riches dross,
And all mirth sadness, and all lucre loss.
So full their eyes are of that glorious sight,
And senses fraught with such satiety,
That in nought else on earth they can delight,
But in th' aspect of that felicity,
Which they have written in their inward eye;
On which they feed, and in their fastened mind
All happy joy and full contentment find.
“An Hymn of Heavenly Beauty by Edmund Spenser | Poetry Foundation.”
Control
Let those Princes of ours, therefore, who, after holding them for a length of years, have lost their dominions, blame not Fortune but their own inertness. For never having reflected in tranquil times that there might come a change (and it is human nature when the sea is calm not to think of storms), when adversity overtook them, they thought not of defence but only of escape, hoping that their people, disgusted with the arrogance of the conqueror, would some day recall them.
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince. Translated by Ninian Hill Thomson, SDE Classics, 2019. Chapter XXIV, pg. 90.
There are many ways in which a Prince may gain the goodwill of the people, but, because these vary with circumstances, no certain rule can be laid down respecting them, and I shall, therefore, say no more about them. But this is the sum of the matter, that it is essential for a Prince to be on a friendly footing with his people, since otherwise, he will have no resource in adversity. Nabis, Prince of Sparta, was attacked by the whole hosts of Greece, and by a Roman army flushed with victory, and defended his country and crown against them; and when danger approached, there were but few of his subjects against whom he needed to guard himself, whereas had the people been hostile, this would not have been enough.
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince. Translated by Ninian Hill Thomson, SDE Classics, 2019. Chapter IX, pg. 36-37.
But to make this part of the matter clearer, I say that as regards the nobles there is this first distinction to be made. They either so govern their conduct as to bind themselves wholly to your fortunes, or they do not. Those who so bind themselves, and who are not grasping, should be loved and honoured. As to those who do not so bind themselves, there is this further distinction. For the most part they are held back by pusillanimity and a natural defect of courage, in which case you should make use of them, and of those among them more especially who are prudent, for they will do you honour in prosperity, and in adversity give you no cause for fear. But where they abstain from attaching themselves to you of set purpose and for ambitious ends, it is a sign that they are thinking more of themselves than of you, and against such men a Prince should be on his guard, and treat them as though they were declared enemies, for in his adversity they will always help to ruin him.
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince. Translated by Ninian Hill Thomson, SDE Classics, 2019. Chapter IX, pg. 36.
Hence we may learn the lesson that on seizing a state, the usurper should make haste to inflict what injuries he must, at a stroke, that he may not have to renew them daily, but be enabled by their discontinuance to reassure men’s minds, and afterwards win them over by benefits. Whosoever, either through timidity or from following bad counsels, adopts a contrary course, must keep the sword always drawn, and can put no trust in his subjects, who suffering from continued and constantly renewed severities, will never yield him their confidence. Injuries, therefore, should be inflicted all at once, that their ill savour being less lasting may the less offend; whereas, benefits should be conferred little by little, that so they may be more fully relished.
Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince. Translated by Ninian Hill Thomson, SDE Classics, 2019. Chapter VIII, pg. 34.
PHERECIDES sacrificed a mediocre fortune to hopes that were scarcely wise. He entered on several careers at the same time, and not understanding how to curb his desires he trusted too implicitly to his ambition and his courage. He persists that circumstances and the world were against him. He thought a man could control his own destiny, and that it depended neither on his position nor on the waywardness of human affairs. He overtaxed his strength, he relied unsuccessfully on his own resources, he could not overcome adversity. He saw his equals leave the ranks and by various chances pass him in the race. Some owed their advance to gambling, others to rich inheritances, others again to the favour of the great, or to quite frivolous talents, but talents loved of the world; others again succeeded by dancing well, by the possession of pleasing features, beautiful hair or fine teeth. Pherecides committed an irreparable fault, he wished to hasten his destiny. He neglected the means that would have led to fortune slowly and gradually, but perhaps surely. Instead of applying himself with unceasing industry to one object, he aimed too high and cultivated no special talent. The great advantages he sought made him despise the small ones within his reach and he obtained neither. The haughty disposition that he vainly tried to conceal, deprived him of the assistance of men in office, so that the elevation of his soul, his mind and his merit were harmful to his advancement and his aims. Had he expected less of his resources, he would have better proportioned his hopes and his actions to his circumstances; mature and moderate minds do not force their future, they proportion their enterprises to their circumstances, they await their fortune from events, and sometimes win it without trouble. But it is one of the illusions of youth to believe that everything can be done by our own strength and intelligence, and to desire to rise by our own industry, or by paths that merit alone cannot open to men without fortune. Pherecides was reduced to regret the very advantages he had despised. The people he wished to excel found themselves naturally above him, and no one pitied his misfortunes or deigned to discover their cause.
Marquis de Vauvenargues, Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims.
I do not want to omit the following: There will always be those who hold the view that there would be more security [for you] to take control of the dominion and of the city absolutely, in fact and in title, instead of holding this government under the shadow of civility and liberty. Perhaps they have already tried to persuade you of this. I do not intend to dispute this here, but in my judgment, you could not take a more pernicious course of action for yourselves or for us. Moreover, this type of management would avail more difficulties, suspicions, and ultimately, more cruelty.
Francesco Guicciardini, On the Mode of Securing the State of the House of Medici (1516).
I am sure it is not to exalt the commerce with an ingenious companion too high, to say that every new accident or object which comes into such a gentleman’s way gives his wife new pleasures and satisfactions. The approbation of his words and actions is a continual new feast to her; nor can she enough applaud her good fortune in having her life varied every hour, her mind more improved, and her heart more glad, from every circumstance which they meet with. He will lay out his invention in forming new pleasures and amusements, and make the fortune she has brought him subservient to the honour and reputation of her and hers. A man of sense who is thus obliged is ever contriving the happiness of her who did him so great a distinction; while the fool is ungrateful without vice, and never returns a favour because he is not sensible of it.
Sir Richard Steele, Spectator, No. 522.
Spite of all do you still chafe and complain, not understanding that, in all the evils to which you refer, there is really only one – the fact that you do chafe and complain? If you ask me, I think that for a man there is no misery unless there be something in the universe which he thinks miserable. I shall not endure myself on that day when I find anything unendurable.
I am ill; but that is a part of my lot. My slaves have fallen sick, my income has gone off, my house is rickety, I have been assailed by losses, accidents, toil, and fear; this is a common thing. Nay, that was an understatement; it was an inevitable thing. 2. Such affairs come by order, and not by accident. If you will believe me, it is my inmost emotions that I am just now disclosing to you: when everything seems to go hard and uphill, I have trained myself not merely to obey God, but to agree with His decisions. I follow Him because my soul wills it, and not because I must. Nothing will ever happen to me that I shall receive with ill humour or with a wry face. I shall pay up all my taxes willingly. Now all the things which cause us to groan or recoil, are part of the tax of life – things, my dear Lucilius, which you should never hope and never seek to escape.
Seneca the Younger, Moral letters to Lucilius/Letter 96.
Because one is an advocate or a financier, he must not ignore the knavery there is in such callings; an honest man is not accountable for the vice or absurdity of his employment, and ought not on that account refuse to take the calling upon him: 'tis the usage of his country, and there is money to be got by it; a man must live by the world; and make his best of it, such as it is. But the judgment of an emperor ought to be above his empire, and see and consider it as a foreign accident; and he ought to know how to enjoy himself apart from it, and to communicate himself as James and Peter, to himself, at all events.
The Essays of Montaigne. 1877. Edited by William Carew Hazlitt, Translated by Charles Cotton. Book III Chapter X. Of Managing the Will.
When you see anyone weeping in grief because his son has gone abroad, or is dead, or because he has suffered in his affairs, be careful that the appearance may not misdirect you. Instead, distinguish within your own mind, and be prepared to say, "It's not the accident that distresses this person., because it doesn't distress another person; it is the judgment which he makes about it." As far as words go, however, don't reduce yourself to his level, and certainly do not moan with him. Do not moan inwardly either.
“The Internet Classics Archive | the Enchiridion by Epictetus.” Translated by Elizabeth Carter.
Indeed, the abuse of the bounties of Nature, much more surely than any partial privation of them, tends to intercept that precious boon of a second and dearer life in our progeny, which was bestowed in the first great command to man from the All-Gracious Giver of all,—whose name be blessed, whether He gives or takes away! His hand, in every page of His book, has written the lesson of moderation. Our physical well-being, our moral worth, our social happiness, our political tranquillity, all depend on that control of all our appetites and passions which the ancients designed by the cardinal virtue of temperance.
Edmund Burke, Letters on a Regicide Peace, Letter III., 1797.
Don’t give way to heedlessness or to intimacy with sensual delight – for a heedful person, absorbed in Jihana, attains an abundance of ease.
Gautama Buddha.
Corruption
Corruption, bribery, and treachery, were such ways to power, as Atticus would not tread. Colonel Sidney says, that "a noble person in his time, who was a great enemy to bribery, was turned out from a considerable post, as a scandal to the court; for, said the principal minister, 'he will make no profit of his place; and by that means cast a scandal upon those that do.'"
And Alexander ab Alexandro tells a story of a very honest man, well skilled in the languages, who having long struggled with difficulties and poverty, while he trusted in vain to his honesty and learning, bethought himself of a contrary road; and therefore turning pimp and pathick, instantly he prospered, and got great riches, power, and places.
Aude aliquid brevibus gyaris & carcere dignum.
Cicero, who lived to see dismal days of ambition and corruption at Rome, was sensible that he could do little or no good with all his abilities and his honesty. "If I saw," says he in a letter to Lentulus, "if I saw the commonwealth held and governed by corrupt and desperate men, as has happened in my days and formerly, no motive or consideration should engage me in their interests; neither their bribes could move me, nor could dangers, which often sway the boldest men, terrify me; nor could any of their civilities, or any of their obligations, soften me."
"Cato's Letters/Letter 27." Written by Thomas Gordon.
If then the great officers of state reckon up at the end of the year how much the dole brings in, how much it adds to their income, what shall we dependants do who, out of the self-same dole, have to find ourselves in coats and shoes, in the bread and fire of our homes? A mob of litters comes in quest of the hundred farthings; here is a husband going the round, followed by a sickly or pregnant wife; another, by a clever and well-known trick, claims for a wife that is not there, pointing, in her stead, to a closed and empty chair; "My Galla's in there," says he; "let us off quick, will you not?" "Galla, put out your head!" "Don't disturb her, she's asleep!"
Juvenal, The Sixteen Satires. Edited by G. G. Ramsay, Satire I, pg. 8. Note: Juvenal is criticizing the corruption and abuse of the public dole or distributions (dole being a form of social welfare or subsidy provided by the Roman state).
Corrupt men only attack the gods when they conceive them to be the enemies to their vile passions. Arrian says, "that when men imagine the gods are in opposition to their passions, they abuse them, and overturn their altars." The Chinese, I believe, do the same. The honest man makes war against systems which he finds are inimical to virtue--injurious to his own happiness--baneful to that of his fellow mortals--contradictory to the repose, fatal to the interests of the human species. The bolder, therefore, the sentiments of the honest atheist, the more strange his ideas, the more suspicious they appear to other men, the more strictly he ought to observe his own obligations; the more scrupulously he should perform his duties; especially if he be not desirous that his morals shall calumniate his system; which duly weighed, will make the necessity of sound ethics, the certitude of morality, felt in all its force; but which every species of superstition tends to render problematical, or to corrupt.
Baron d’Holbach, “System of Nature - Part II, Chapter 13.”
Olearius, giving an account of Muscovy, observes, that "the Great Duke's court hath this in common with those of other princes, that vice takes place of virtue, and gets nearest the throne. Those who have the honour to be nearest his person, are withal more subtle, more deceitful, and more insolent, than the others that have not. They know very well how to make their advantages of the prince's favour, and look for the greatest respects and humblest submissions imaginable, from those who make their addresses to them; which the others render them, as much to avoid the mischief they might do to them, as for the good they expect from them."
This is the character of a court, where one is not much surprized nor troubled to find out tyranny and corruption in abundance: But one is at once amazed and affected with the mournful account Sallust gives us of the Romans in his time; the Romans, who had been so virtuous a people, so great and so free!
The same author says, that it would have lessened his concern, had he seen such great wickedness perpetrated by men of great qualities. But his grief had not this mitigation: For, says he, wretched creatures with little souls, whose whole genius lay in their tongue and whose utmost talent and ability was to prate glibly, exercised with insolence that power which they had acquired by chance, or by the sloth of others.
"Cato's Letters/Letter 27." Written by Thomas Gordon.
For thousands of years, nations as well as sovereigns were emulously despoiling themselves to enrich the expounders of superstition; to enable them to wallow in abundance: they loaded them with honors, decorated them with titles, invested them with privileges, granted them immunities, for no other purpose than to make them bad citizens, unruly subjects, mischievous beings, who revenged upon society the advantages they had received. What was the fruit that kings and people gathered from their imprudent kindness? What was the harvest these men yielded to their labour? Did princes really become more powerful; were nations rendered more happy; did they grow more flourishing; did men become more rational? No! Unquestionably, the sovereign lost the greater portion of his authority; he was the slave of his priest; and when he wished to preserve the remnant that was left, or to recover some part of what had been wrested from him, he was obliged to be continually wrestling against the men his own indulgence, his own weakness, had furnished with means, to set his authority at defiance: the riches of society were lavished to support the idleness, maintain the splendour, satiate the luxury of the most useless, the most arrogant, the most dangerous of its members.
Baron d’Holbach, “System of Nature - Part II, Chapter 8.”
Up to that height the Patriarch Jacob saw it
Extending its supernal part, what time
So thronged with angels it appeared to him.
But to ascend it now no one uplifts
His feet from off the earth, and now my Rule
Below remaineth for mere waste of paper.
The walls that used of old to be an Abbey
Are changed to dens of robbers, and the cowls
Are sacks filled full of miserable flour.
But heavy usury is not taken up
So much against God's pleasure as that fruit
Which maketh so insane the heart of monks;
For whatsoever hath the Church in keeping
Is for the folk that ask it in God's name,
Not for one's kindred or for something worse.
The flesh of mortals is so very soft,
That good beginnings down below suffice not
From springing of the oak to bearing acorns.
Peter began with neither gold nor silver,
And I with orison and abstinence,
And Francis with humility his convent.
And if thou lookest at each one's beginning,
And then regardest whither he has run,
Thou shalt behold the white changed into brown.
In verity the Jordan backward turned,
And the sea's fleeing, when God willed were more
A wonder to behold, than succour here.
Dante Alighieri, "Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867)/Volume 3/Canto 22."
He, who could scarcely mark his first youthful face,
Whose fearful heart had been imbued with fiery fear,
Betrays better arts, deserting the better ones of the army,
Trampling on the first agreements of his military service.
Nor meanwhile, near the end of his old age,
He who deserted his God has turned his back.
Disgust for worship assails everyone:
And there is new material, and a new cause.
Dire lure of alluring profit drags one away,
Rapid ambition drives another to the whirlpools.
What shall I say, how the madness prowls over black sheets,
Throwing its dark and filthy slanders with poisonous bile,
And under the guise of robbery, many things in the guise of
Scriptural texts, they rudely attack men's honored beds?
And scarcely the heavens themselves are safe from their crime.
Almost his madness provokes God with a raging mouth.
You, who saw the beginnings of this treachery,
It's better for you that you do not see worse things.
And as long as the winds carry these ominous signs far away,
And false fear has invented these things rather than truth.
But you are fortunate, who neither lament these spectacles in person,
Nor fear worse things. We, unhappy, whom your absence
Burns with care, and does not allow us to be mindful of you.
“All the Poems of Joseph Scaliger, Son of Julius Caesar Scaliger.” 15. Epicedion for Adeodatus Seba [Theodore Beza].
Mankind are universally corrupt, but corrupt in different degrees; as they are universally ignorant, yet with greater or less irradiations of knowledge. How has knowledge or virtue been increased and preserved in one place beyond another, but by diligent inculcation and rational enforcement?
“No. 137. Writers Not a Useless Generation.” Samuel Johnson’s Essays, 1754, www.johnsonessays.com/the-adventurer/no-137-writers-not-a-useless-generation/.
Courage
Knowledge and Courage are the elements of Greatness. They give immortality, because they are immortal. Each is as much as he knows, and the wise can do anything. A man without knowledge, a world without light. Wisdom and strength, eyes and hands. Knowledge without courage is sterile.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
It may also be said in this connection that no one doubts the courage of a man in whom he sees the marks of bravery; nor the swiftness of a man who obviously can run fast. Similarly, music makes musicians, medical skill makes doctors, rhetoric makes rhetoricians; for each thing does what is proper to its nature. It is not mixed with the characteristics of contrary things; indeed, it repels its opposites. Therefore, riches cannot be separated from insatiable avarice, nor can power make a man master of himself if vicious desires bind him with unbreakable chains. Honor bestowed upon wicked men does not make them honorable; on the contrary, it betrays and emphasizes their dishonor.
Boethius, On the Consolation of Philosophy.
But without seeking further, we can give good proof of this by the glorious memory of Duke Federico, who in his day was the light of Italy; nor is there lack of credible and abundant witnesses, who are still living, to his prudence, humanity, justice, liberality, unconquered courage,—and to his military discipline, which is conspicuously attested by his numerous victories, his capture of impregnable places, the sudden swiftness of his expeditions, the frequency with which he put to flight large and formidable armies by means of a very small force, and by his loss of no single battle whatever; so that we may not unreasonably compare him to many famous men of old.
Baldesar Castiglione, How to Achieve True Greatness, Bk 1, pg. 4.
Valour, which has been mentioned as a virtue, or rather the Courage on which it is based (for valour is only courage in war), deserves a closer examination. The ancients reckoned Courage among the virtues, and cowardice among the vices; but there is no corresponding idea in the Christian scheme, which makes for charity and patience, and in its teaching forbids all enmity or even resistance. The result is that with the moderns Courage is no longer a virtue. Nevertheless it must be admitted that cowardice does not seem to be very compatible with any nobility of character—if only for the reason that it betrays an overgreat apprehension about one's own person.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "Human Nature."
No difference of rank, position, or birth, is so great as the gulf that separates the countless millions who use their head only in the service of their belly, in other words, look upon it as an instrument of the will, and those very few and rare persons who have the courage to say: No! it is too good for that; my head shall be active only in its own service; it shall try to comprehend the wondrous and varied spectacle of this world, and then reproduce it in some form, whether as art or as literature, that may answer to my character as an individual. These are the truly noble, the real noblesse of the world.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "The Art of Literature/On Genius."
Value of a man depends upon his courage; his veracity depends upon his self-respect and his chastity depends upon his sense of honor.
Ali ibn Abi Talib, Nahj al-Balagha, Translations by Askari Jafri.
Allah seeks you to thank Him and assigns to you His affairs. He has allowed time in the limited field (of life) so that you may vie with each other in seeking the reward (of Paradise). Therefore, tight up your girdles and wrap up the skirts. High courage and dinners do not go together. Sleep causes weakness in the big affairs of the day and (its) darkness obliterates the memories of courage.
Ali ibn Abi Talib, Nahj al-Balagha, Translations by Askari Jafri.
But as the priceless treasure too frequently hides at the bottom of well, it needs some courage to dive for it, especially as he that does so will be likely to incur more scorn and obloquy for the mud and water into which he has ventured to plunge, than thanks for the jewel he procures; as like in manner, she who undertakes the cleansing of a careless bachelor's apartment will be liable to more abuse for the dust she raises than commendation for the clearance she effects.
Anne Brontë.
If we have the courage to decide ourselves for peace we will have peace.
Albert Einstein.
Courage, sir, / That makes man or woman look their goodliest.
Alfred Tennyson.
A courage to endure and to obey:
A hate of gossip parlance and of sway,
Crown’d Isabel, thro’ all her placid life,
The queen of marriage, a most perfect wife.
Alfred Tennyson.
Men often bear little grievances with less courage than they do large misfortunes.
Aesop.
No argument, no matter how convincing, will give courage to a coward.
Aesop.
Courage and destiny in you Are proudly matched. Yet a brave death lends brightness to mortality."
Aeshylus, Oresteia - Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin, 1973.
For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point and does not break.
G. K. Chesterton, The Bodley Head G.K. Chesterton (ed. Vintage, 1985).
Courage for suffering.—Such as we now are, we are able to bear a great deal of displeasure, our stomachs being suited to such rich diet. If deprived of the latter we should perhaps think the banquet of life insipid: and but for our ready acceptance of pain we should have to give up too many pleasures,
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Dawn of the Day/Book 4."
To judge by the event is an error all abuse, and all commit; for, in every instance, courage, if crowned with success, is heroism; if clouded by defeat, temerity. When Nelson fought his battle in the Sound, it was the result alone that decided whether he was to kiss a hand at a court, or a rod at a court-martial.
Charles Caleb Colton, S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.
But as the priceless treasure too frequently hides at the bottom of well, it needs some courage to dive for it, especially as he that does so will be likely to incur more scorn and obloquy for the mud and water into which he has ventured to plunge, than thanks for the jewel he procures; as like in manner, she who undertakes the cleansing of a careless bachelor's apartment will be liable to more abuse for the dust she raises than commendation for the clearance she effects.
Anne Brontë, Preface, 2nd edition (July 22, 1848) - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848).
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.
Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar in Pudd'nhead Wilson, 1894.
Courage is always greatest when blended with meekness; intellectual ability is most admirable when it sparkles in the setting of a modest self-distrust; and never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury.
Edwin Hubbel Chapin
Crime
But the worst is that my enemies readily believe that wisdom itself is capable of the crime of ambition, and so they associate me with such misconduct because I am imbued with your knowledge and endowed with your virtues. So, my reverence for you is no help; their hatred of me leads them to dishonor you.
Boethius, On the Consolation of Philosophy.
Even the full confession of a crime does not usually make all the judges in the case equally severe; some, at least, temper their severity by recognizing the errors of human judgment and the uncertain conditions of fortune to which all mortals are subject. If I had been accused of plotting the burning of churches, the murder of priests, even the murder of all good men, even then I would have been sentenced only after I had confessed and been convicted, and when I was present before the court. But now, five hundred miles away, mute and defenseless, I am condemned to proscription and death because of my concern for the safety of the Senate. The Senate deserves that no one should ever again be convicted for such a 'crime'!
Boethius, On the Consolation of Philosophy.
Certainly had he known it, he would not have established this maxim, the most general of all that obtain among men, that each should follow the custom of his own country. The glory of true equity would have brought all nations under subjection, and legislators would not have taken as their model the fancies and caprice of Persians and Germans instead of this unchanging justice. We should have seen it set up in all the States on earth and in all times; whereas we see neither justice nor injustice which does not change its nature with change in climate. Three degrees of latitude reverse all jurisprudence; a meridian decides the truth. Fundamental laws change after a few years of possession; right has its epochs; the entry of Saturn into the Lion marks to us the origin of such and such a crime. A strange justice that is bounded by a river! Truth on this side of the Pyrenees, error on the other side.
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 5."
What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.
Benjamin Disraeli.
That neither fame nor love might wanting be
To greatness, Cary, I sing that and thee;
Whose house, if it no other honor had,
In only thee might be both great and glad;
Who, to upbraid the sloth of this our time,
Durst valor make almost, but not, a crime;
Which deed I know not, whether were more high,
Or thou more happy, it to justify
Against thy fortune: when no foe, that day,
Could conquer thee but chance, who did betray.
Ben Jonson, “To Sir Henry Cary by Ben Jonson | Poetry Foundation.”
Never offer Satisfaction unless it is demanded. And if they do demand it, it is a kind of crime to give more than necessary. To excuse oneself before there is occasion is to accuse oneself. To draw blood in full health gives the hint to ill-will. An excuse unexpected arouses suspicion from its slumbers. Nor need a shrewd person show himself aware of another's suspicion, which is equivalent to seeking out offence. He had best disarm distrust by the integrity of his conduct.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day.
Andrew Marvell.
If ever I am a mother I will zealously strive against this crime of over- indulgence. I can hardly give it a milder name when I think of the evils it brings.
Anne Brontë.
They, sweet soul, that most impute a crime / Are pronest to it, and impute themselves, / Wanting the mental range; or low desire / Not to feel lowest makes them level all; / Yea, they would pare the mountain to the plain, / To leave an equal baseness.
Alfred Tennyson.
PUNISHABLE, BUT NEVER PUNISHED.—Our crime against criminals lies in the fact that we treat them like rascals.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Human All-Too-Human."
Hence turn your looks to the abominations, not less to be deplored, of another kind of spectacle. In the theatres also you will behold what may well cause you grief and shame. It is the tragic buskin which relates in verse the crimes of ancient days. The old horrors of parricide and incest are unfolded in action calculated to express the image of the truth, so that, as the ages pass by, any crime that was formerly committed may not be forgotten. Each generation is reminded by what it hears, that whatever has once been done may be done again. Crimes never die out by the lapse of ages; wickedness is never abolished by process of time; impiety is never buried in oblivion. Things which have now ceased to be actual deeds of vice become examples.
Cyprian, Epistle 1 to Donatus, Section 8, translated by Robert Ernest Wallis, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 5.
In Dyer 304. a man was indicted and found guilty of rape on a girl of seven years old. The court ‘doubted of the rape of so tender a girl; but if she had been nine years old, it would have been otherwise.’ 14.Eliz. Therefore the statute 18.El.c.6. says ‘for plain declaration of law be it enacted that if any person shall unlawfully and carnally know and abuse any womanchild under the age of 10. years &c. he shall suffer as a felon without allowance of clergy.’ Ld. Hale however 1.P.C.630. thinks it rape independant of that statute to know carnally a girl under 12. the age of consent. Yet 4.Bl.212. seems to neglect this opinion; and as it was founded on the words of 3.E.1.c.13. and this is with us omitted, the offence of carnally knowing a girl under 12. or 10. years of age will not be distinguished from that of any other.
Thomas Jefferson, “64. A Bill for Proportioning Crimes and Punishments in Cases Heretofore Capital, 18 June 1779,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-02-02-0132-0004-0064.
All attempts to delude the people, or to abuse their understanding by exercise of the pretended arts of witchcraft, conjuration, inchantment, or sorcery or by pretended prophecies, shall be punished by ducking and whipping at the discretion of a jury, not exceeding 15. stripes.
Thomas Jefferson, “64. A Bill for Proportioning Crimes and Punishments in Cases Heretofore Capital, 18 June 1779,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-02-02-0132-0004-0064.
Besides the desire of avoiding evil there are other desires tending to some good, either real or imaginary. Real advantages, considered apart from virtues, and those actions, which have a virtuous tendency, are either such as give delight themselves, or, like abundance of riches, can procure those things, which administer to pleasure. Among advantages purely imaginary, we may reckon that of desiring to excel others, from a spirit of rivalry, rather than from any laudable intention, or the power of gratifying resentments, which the farther they deviate from natural justice the more shocking they are to natural feeling. These appetites the Apostle has described in terms of marked censure, calling them, the “lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life.” Here the first member of the sentence expresses the love of pleasure, the second implies the insatiable love of riches, and the third comprehends the pursuit of vain glory, and the desire of revenge.
The very injustice of all offences, ought to be a general motive with men, to restrain them from the commission of them. For at present we are not considering sins of any kind, but those, which extend their consequences beyond the offender himself, and affect others. And injustice is the more heinous and criminal in proportion to the greatness of the injury, which it inflicts.
In the highest rank of crimes and misdemeanours therefore, we may place those, which are carried into complete execution: and lower in the scale we find those criminal designs, which have proceeded some degrees, but not to the last stage of completion. For the aggravation of a criminal intent is measured by the length to which it goes. In either class that kind of injustice is most notorious, which tends to disturb the common peace of society, and therefore is injurious to greater numbers. Private wrongs follow in the next degree. The greatest of which are those affecting life, and very great, though somewhat inferior in the degrees of enormity, are those, that disturb the peace of families, which is founded on the marriage-contract. And the last description of wrongs are those affecting the property of individuals, either by taking it with open violence, or obtaining or injuring it by fraudulent means.
Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace (1901 ed.). M. Walter Dunne, 1625, p. 240-241.
Critic
I cannot discover Milton's authority for this circumstance; but all agree in the fact of the insurrection, and the defeat, and the casting out into Hell. Nothing can exceed the grandeur and the energy of the character of the Devil, as expressed in Paradise Lost. He is a Devil, very different from the popular personification of evil, and it is a mistake to suppose that he was intended for an idealism of Evil. Malignity, implacable hate, cunning, and refinement of device to inflict the utmost anguish on an enemy, these, which are venial in a slave, are not to be forgiven in a tyrant; these, which are redeemed by much that ennobles in one subdued, are marked by all that dishonours his conquest in the victor. Milton's Devil, as a moral being, is as far superior to his God, as one who perseveres in a purpose which he has conceived to be excellent, in spite of adversity and torture, is to one who in the cold security of undoubted triumph inflicts the most horrible revenge upon his enemy—not from any mistaken notion of bringing him to repent of a perseverance in enmity, but with the open and alleged design of exasperating him to deserve new torments.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley/On the Devil, and Devils."
Milton’s Devil as a moral being is as far superior to his God, as one who perseveres in some purpose which he has conceived to be excellent in spite of adversity and torture, is to one who in the cold security of undoubted triumph inflicts the most horrible revenge upon his enemy, not from any mistaken notion of inducing him to repent of a perseverance in enmity, but with the alleged design of exasperating him to deserve new torments. Milton has so far violated the popular creed (if this shall be judged to be a violation) as to have alleged no superiority of moral virtue to his God over his Devil. And this bold neglect of a direct moral purpose is the most decisive proof of the supremacy of Milton’s genius. He mingled as it were the elements of human nature as colors upon a single pallet, and arranged them in the composition of his great picture according to the laws of epic truth; that is, according to the laws of that principle by which a series of actions of the external universe and of intelligent and ethical beings is calculated to excite the sympathy of succeeding generations of mankind. The “Divina Commedia” and “Paradise Lost” have conferred upon modern mythology a systematic form; and when change and time shall have added one more superstition to the mass of those which have arisen and decayed upon the earth, commentators will be learnedly employed in elucidating the religion of ancestral Europe, only not utterly forgotten because it will have been stamped with the eternity of genius.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, "A Defence of Poetry."
The figures, which are termed polyptota—accumulations, and variations, and climaxes—are excellent weapons of public oratory, as you are aware, and contribute to elegance and to every form of sublimity and passion. Again, how greatly do changes of cases, tenses, persons, numbers, genders, diversify and enliven exposition. Where the use of numbers is concerned, I would point out that style is not adorned only or chiefly by those words which are, as far as their forms go, in the singular but in meaning are, when examined, found to be plural: as in the lines
A countless crowd forthright
Far-ranged along the beaches were clamoring “Thunny
[tunny—ed.] in sight!”
The fact is more worthy of observation that in certain cases the use of the plural (for the singular) falls with still more imposing effect and impresses us by the very sense of multitude which the number conveys. Such are the words of Oedipus in Sophocles:
O nuptials, nuptials,
Ye gendered me, and, having gendered, brought
To light the selfsame seed, and so revealed
Sires, brothers, sons, in one—all kindred blood!—
Brides, mothers, wives, in one!—yea, whatso deeds
Most shameful among humankind are done.
(Oedipus Tyrannus, 1403, trans. A. S. Way)
Longinus, On the Sublime, Translated by W. Rhys Roberts.
“Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls must dive below.”
A true critic ought to dwell rather upon excellences than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation. The most exquisite words, and finest strokes of an author, are those which very often appear the most doubtful and exceptionable to a man who wants a relish for polite learning; and they are those which a sour undistinguishing critic generally attacks with the greatest violence.
Joseph Addison, Spectator. No.291, February 2, 1712.
It is not forgot, since the acute and distinct Arminius was perverted meerly by the perusing of a namelesse discourse writt'n at Delf, which at first he took in hand to confute. Seeing therefore that those books, & those in great abundance which are likeliest to taint both life and doctrine, cannot be suppresst without the fall of learning, and of all ability in disputation, and that these books of either sort are most and soonest catching to the learned, from whom to the common people whatever is hereticall or dissolute may quickly be convey'd, and that evill manners are as perfectly learnt without books a thousand other ways which cannot be stopt, and evill doctrine not with books can propagate, except a teacher guide, which he might also doe without writing, and so beyond prohibiting, I am not able to unfold, how this cautelous enterprise of licencing can be exempted from the number of vain and impossible attempts. And he who were pleasantly dispos'd could not well avoid to lik'n it to the exploit of that gallant man who thought to pound up the crows by shutting his Parkgate.
John Milton, “Areopagitica: Text.”
Criticism
So even Shakespeare's dramas had, immediately after his death, to give place to those of Ben Jonson, Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher, and to yield the supremacy for a hundred years. So Kant's serious philosophy was crowded out by the nonsense of Fichte, Schelling, Jacobi, Hegel. And even in a sphere accessible to all, we have seen unworthy imitators quickly diverting public attention from the incomparable Walter Scott. For, say what you will, the public has no sense for excellence, and therefore no notion how very rare it is to find men really capable of doing anything great in poetry, philosophy, or art, or that their works are alone worthy of exclusive attention. The dabblers, whether in verse or in any other high sphere, should be every day unsparingly reminded that neither gods, nor men, nor booksellers have pardoned their mediocrity:
mediocribus esse poetis
Non homines, non Dî, non concessere columnae [It is not granted to mediocre poets Neither by men, nor by the gods, nor by columns].
Arthur Schopenhauer, "The Art of Literature/On Criticism."
Others for Language all their Care express,
And value Books, as Women Men, for Dress:
Their Praise is still——The Stile is excellent:
The Sense, they humbly take upon Content.
Words are like Leaves; and where they most abound,
Much Fruit of Sense beneath is rarely found.
False Eloquence, like the Prismatic Glass,
Its gawdy Colours spreads on ev'ry place;
The Face of Nature was no more Survey,
All glares alike, without Distinction gay:
But true Expression, like th' unchanging Sun,
Clears, and improves whate'er it shines upon,
It gilds all Objects, but it alters none.
Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Criticism."
Similarly, the legislator of the Jews, no ordinary man, having formed and expressed a worthy conception of the might of the Godhead, writes at the very beginning of his Laws, “God said”—what? “Let there be light, and there was light; let there be land, and there was land.” Perhaps I shall not seem tedious, friend, if I bring forward one passage more from Homer—this time with regard to the concerns of men—in order to show that he is wont himself to enter into the sublime actions of his heroes. In his poem the battle of the Greeks is suddenly veiled by mist and baffling night. Then Ajax, at his wits’ end, cries:
Zeus, Father, yet save thou Achaia’s sons from beneath the
gloom,
And make clear day, and vouchsafe unto us with our eyes to
see!
So it be but in light, destroy us!
(Iliad 17. 645)
That is the true attitude of an Ajax. He does not pray for life, for such a petition would have ill beseemed a hero. But since in the hopeless darkness he can turn his valor to no noble end, he chafes at his slackness in the fray and craves the boon of immediate light, resolved to find a death worthy of his bravery, even though Zeus should fight in the ranks against him. In truth, Homer in these cases shares the full inspiration of the combat, and it is neither more nor less than true of the poet himself that
Mad rageth he as Arěs the shaker of spears, or as mad flames
leap
Wild-wasting from hill unto hill in the folds of a forest deep,
And the foam-froth fringeth his lips.
(Iliad 15. 605–7)
Longinus, On the Sublime, Translated by W. Rhys Roberts.
Among the orators, too, eulogies and ceremonial and occasional addresses contain on every side examples of dignity and elevation, but are for the most part void of passion. This is the reason why passionate speakers are the worst eulogists, and why, on the other hand, those who are apt in encomium are the least passionate. If, on the other hand, Caecilius thought that passion never contributes at all to sublimity, and if it was for this reason that he did not deem it worthy of mention, he is altogether deluded. I would affirm with confidence that there is no tone so lofty as that of genuine passion, in its right place, when it bursts out in a wild gust of mad enthusiasm and as it were fills the speaker’s words with frenzy.
Longinus, On the Sublime, Translated by W. Rhys Roberts.
Xenophon writes in the Policy of the Lacedaemonians: “You would find it harder to hear their voice than that of busts of marble, harder to deflect their gaze than that of statues of bronze; you would deem them more modest than the very maidens in their eyes” (De Rep. Laced. III. 5).
It was worthy of an Amphicrates and not of a Xenophon to call the pupils of our eyes “modest maidens.” Good heavens, how strange it is that the pupils of the whole company should be believed to be modest notwithstanding the common saying that the shamelessness of individuals is indicated by nothing so much as the eyes! “Thou sot? that hast the eyes of a dog,” as Homer has it (Iliad 1.225. Way’s translation). Timaeus, however, has not left even this piece of frigidity to Xenophon, but clutches it as though it were hid treasure. At all events, after saying of Agathocles that he abducted his cousin, who had been given in marriage to another man, from the midst of the nuptial rites, he asks, “Who could have done this had he not had wantons, in place of maidens, in his eyes?” Yes, and Plato (usually so divine) when he means simply tablets says, “They shall write and preserve cypress memorials in the temples” (Laws 5.741c).
And again, “As touching walls, Megillus, I should hold with Sparta that they be suffered to lie asleep in the earth and not summoned to arise” (Laws 778d). The expression of Herodotus to the effect that beautiful women are “eye-smarts” is not much better (Histories 5.18). This, however, may be condoned in some degree since those who use this particular phrase in his narrative are barbarians and in their cups, but not even in the mouths of such characters is it well that an author should suffer, in the judgment of posterity, from an unseemly exhibition of triviality.
Longinus, On the Sublime, Translated by W. Rhys Roberts.
There was Burke, ignorant, indeed, or negligent, of the art of adapting his reasonings and his style to the capacity and taste of his hearers, but in amplitude of comprehension and richness of imagination superior to every orator, ancient or modern…. The charges and the answers of Hastings were first read. The ceremony occupied two whole days, and was rendered less tedious than it would otherwise have been by the silver voice and just emphasis of Cowper, the clerk of the court, a near relation of the amiable poet. On the third day Burke rose. Four sittings were occupied by his opening speech, which was intended to be a general introduction to all the charges. With an exuberance of thought and a splendour of diction which more than satisfied the highly-raised expectation of the audience, he described the character and institutions of the natives of India, recounted the circumstances in which the Asiatic empire of Britain had originated, and set forth the constitution of the Company and of the English Presidencies. Having thus attempted to communicate to his hearers an idea of Eastern society, as vivid as that which existed in his own mind, he proceeded to arraign the administration of Hastings as systematically conducted in defiance of morality and public law. The energy and pathos of the great orator extorted expressions of unwonted admiration from the stern and hostile Chancellor, and, for a moment, seemed to pierce even the resolute heart of the defendant. The ladies in the galleries, unaccustomed to such displays of eloquence, excited by the solemnity of the occasion, and perhaps not unwilling to display their taste and sensibility, were in a state of uncontrollable emotion. Handkerchiefs were pulled out; smelling-bottles were handed about; hysterical sobs and screams were heard; and Mrs. Sheridan was carried out in a fit. At length the orator concluded. Raising his voice till the old arches of Irish oak resounded, “Therefore,” said he, “hath it with all confidence been ordered by the Commons of Great Britain, that I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanours. I impeach him in the name of the Commons’ House of Parliament, whose trust he has betrayed. I impeach him in the name of the English nation, whose ancient honour he has sullied. I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose rights he has trodden under foot, and whose country he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in the name of human nature itself, in the name of both sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every rank, I impeach the common enemy and oppressor of all!”
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Warren Hastings, Oct. 1841.
But in truth the very admiration which we feel for the eminent philosophers of antiquity forces us to adopt the opinion that their powers were systematically misdirected. For how else could it be that such powers should effect so little for mankind? A pedestrian may show as much muscular vigour on a treadmill as on the highway road. But on the road his vigour will assuredly carry him forward; and on the treadmill he will not advance an inch. The ancient philosophy was a treadmill, not a path. It was made up of revolving questions, of controversies which were always beginning again. It was a contrivance for having much exertion and no progress. We must acknowledge that more than once, while contemplating the doctrines of the Academy and the Portico, even as they appear in the transparent splendour of Cicero’s incomparable diction, we have been tempted to mutter with the surly centurion in Persius, “Cur quis non prandeat hoc est?” What is the highest good, whether pain be an evil, whether all things be fated, whether we can be certain of anything, whether we can be certain that we are certain of nothing, whether a wise man can be unhappy, whether all departures from right be equally reprehensible, these, and other questions of the same sort, occupied the brains, the tongues, and the pens of the ablest men in the civilized world during several centuries. This sort of philosophy, it is evident, could not be progressive. It might indeed sharpen and invigorate the minds of those who devoted themselves to it; and so might the disputes of the orthodox Lilliputians and the heretical Blefuscudians about the big ends and the little ends of eggs. But such disputes could add nothing to the stock of knowledge. The human mind accordingly, instead of marching, merely marked time. It took as much trouble as would have sufficed to carry it forward; and yet remained on the same spot. There was no accumulation of truth, no heritage of truth acquired by the labour of one generation and bequeathed to another, to be again transmitted with large additions to a third. Where this philosophy was in the time of Cicero, there it continued to be in the time of Seneca, and there it continued to be in the time of Favorinus. The same sects were still battling with the same unsatisfactory arguments about the same interminable questions. There had been no want of ingenuity, of zeal, of industry. Every trace of intellectual cultivation was there, except a harvest. There had been plenty of ploughing, harrowing, reaping, threshing. But the garners contained only smut and stubble.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lord Bacon.
But among the young candidates for Addison’s favour there was one distinguished by talents above the rest, and distinguished, we fear, not less by malignity and insincerity. Pope was only twenty-five. But his powers had expanded to their full maturity; and his best poem, the Rape of the Lock, had recently been published. Of his genius, Addison had always expressed high admiration. But Addison had early discerned, what might indeed have been discerned by an eye less penetrating than his, that the diminutive, crooked, sickly boy was eager to revenge himself on society for the unkindness of nature. In the Spectator, the Essay on Criticism had been praised with cordial warmth; but a gentle hint had been added, that the writer of so excellent a poem would have done well to avoid ill-natured personalities. Pope, though evidently more galled by the censure than gratified by the praise, returned thanks for the admonition, and promised to profit by it. The two writers continued to exchange civilities, counsel, and small good offices. Addison publicly extolled Pope’s miscellaneous pieces; and Pope furnished Addison with a prologue. This did not last long. Pope hated Dennis, whom he had injured without provocation. The appearance of the Remarks on Cato gave the irritable poet an opportunity of venting his malice under the show of friendship; and such an opportunity could not but be welcome to a nature which was implacable in enmity, and which always preferred the tortuous to the straight path. He published, accordingly, the Narrative of the Frenzy of John Dennis. But Pope had mistaken his powers. He was a great master of invective and sarcasm: he could dissect a character in terse and sonorous couplets, brilliant with antithesis: but of dramatic talent he was altogether destitute. If he had written a lampoon on Dennis, such as that on Atticus, or that on Sporus, the old grumbler would have been crushed. But Pope writing dialogue resembled—to borrow Horace’s imagery and his own—a wolf which, instead of biting, should take to kicking, or a monkey which should try to sting. The Narrative is utterly contemptible. Of argument there is not even the show; and the jests are such as, if they were introduced into a farce, would call forth the hisses of the shilling gallery. Dennis raves about the drama; and the nurse thinks that he is calling for a dram. “There is,” he cries, “no peripetia in the tragedy, no change of fortune, no change at all.” “Pray, good sir, be not angry,” says the old woman; “I’ll fetch change.” This is not exactly the pleasantry of Addison.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Life and Writings of Addison, July, 1843.
By the extinction of the drama, the fashionable school of poetry—a school without truth of sentiment or harmony of versification,—without the powers of an earlier or the correctness of a later age—was left to enjoy undisputed ascendency. A vicious ingenuity, a morbid quickness to perceive resemblances and analogies between things apparently heterogeneous, constituted almost its only claim to admiration. Suckling was dead. Milton was absorbed in political and theological controversy. If Waller differed from the Cowleian sect of writers, he differed for the worse. He had as little poetry as they, and much less wit; nor is the languor of his verses less offensive than the ruggedness of theirs. In Denham alone the faint dawn of a better manner was discernible.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essay on John Dryden.
Even at present France is still the seat of the most intellectual and refined culture of Europe, it is still the high school of taste; but one must know how to find this "France of taste." He who belongs to it keeps himself well concealed:--they may be a small number in whom it lives and is embodied, besides perhaps being men who do not stand upon the strongest legs, in part fatalists, hypochondriacs, invalids, in part persons over- indulged, over-refined, such as have the AMBITION to conceal themselves.
They have all something in common: they keep their ears closed in presence of the delirious folly and noisy spouting of the democratic BOURGEOIS. In fact, a besotted and brutalized France at present sprawls in the foreground--it recently celebrated a veritable orgy of bad taste, and at the same time of self- admiration, at the funeral of Victor Hugo. There is also something else common to them: a predilection to resist intellectual Germanizing--and a still greater inability to do so! In this France of intellect, which is also a France of pessimism, Schopenhauer has perhaps become more at home, and more indigenous than he has ever been in Germany; not to speak of Heinrich Heine, who has long ago been re-incarnated in the more refined and fastidious lyrists of Paris; or of Hegel, who at present, in the form of Taine--the FIRST of living historians--exercises an almost tyrannical influence.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Beyond Good and Evil/Chapter VIII."
For instance, we enjoy Homer once more: it is perhaps our happiest acquisition that we know how to appreciate Homer, whom men of distinguished culture (as the French of the seventeenth century, like Saint- Evremond, who reproached him for his ESPRIT VASTE, and even Voltaire, the last echo of the century) cannot and could not so easily appropriate--whom they scarcely permitted themselves to enjoy. The very decided Yea and Nay of their palate, their promptly ready disgust, their hesitating reluctance with regard to everything strange, their horror of the bad taste even of lively curiosity, and in general the averseness of every distinguished and self-sufficing culture to avow a new desire, a dissatisfaction with its own condition, or an admiration of what is strange: all this determines and disposes them unfavourably even towards the best things of the world which are not their property or could not become their prey--and no faculty is more unintelligible to such men than just this historical sense, with its truckling, plebeian curiosity. The case is not different with Shakespeare, that marvelous Spanish-Moorish-Saxon synthesis of taste, over whom an ancient Athenian of the circle of Eschylus would have half-killed himself with laughter or irritation: but we--accept precisely this wild motleyness, this medley of the most delicate, the most coarse, and the most artificial, with a secret confidence and cordiality; we enjoy it as a refinement of art reserved expressly for us, and allow ourselves to be as little disturbed by the repulsive fumes and the proximity of the English populace in which Shakespeare's art and taste lives, as perhaps on the Chiaja of Naples, where, with all our senses awake, we go our way, enchanted and voluntarily, in spite of the drain-odour of the lower quarters of the town.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Beyond Good and Evil/Chapter VII."
Different from them are all the great critics. They have taught us one essential rule. I think the excellent and philosophic artist, a true judge as well as a perfect follower of Nature, Sir Joshua Reynolds, has somewhere applied it, or something like it, in his own profession. It is this: that, if ever we should find ourselves disposed not to admire those writers or artists (Livy and Virgil, for instance, Raphael or Michael Angelo) whom all the learned had admired, not to follow our own fancies, but to study them, until we know how and what we ought to admire; and if we cannot arrive at this combination of admiration with knowledge, rather to believe that we are dull than that the rest of the world has been imposed on.
Edmund Burke, "The Maxims & Reflections Of Burke" selected and edited by F.W. Rafferty.
To innovate or introduce any alterations in a state is more a question of time than of action; on some occasions it would be injudicious to attempt anything against the liberties of the people, and on others it is evident that everything may be ventured on. To-day you may subvert the freedom, rights, and privileges of a certain town, and to-morrow you must not so much as think of altering the signboards of their shops.
The Characters of Jean de La Bruyère. New York: Scribner & Welford, 1885; Bartleby.com, 2011.
Aristarchus hies to the market-place with a herald and a trumpeter, who blows on his instrument, so that a crowd comes running and gathers round him: “Oyez! Oyez! people!” exclaims the herald, “be attentive; silence! silence! This very Aristarchus, whom you see before you, is to do a good action to-morrow.” I would have said, in more simple and less ornate style: “Aristarchus has done well; is he now going to do better? If so, let me not know that he does well, or at least let me not suspect that I should be told it.”
The Characters of Jean de La Bruyère. New York: Scribner & Welford, 1885; Bartleby.com, 2011.
The best actions of men are spoiled and weakened by their manner of doing them, which sometimes leaves even a suspicion of the purity of their intentions. Whoever protects or commends virtue for virtue’s sake, or condemns and blames vice for the sake of vice, acts without design, naturally, without any artifice or peculiarity, pomp or affectation; he neither replies demurely and sententiously, and still less makes sharp and satirical remarks; he never acts a part for the benefit of the public, but he shows a good example and acquits himself of his duty; he is not a subject to be talked about when ladies visit one another, nor for the cabinet, nor amongst the newsmongers; he does not provide an amusing gentleman with a subject for a funny story. The good he does is, indeed, a little less known, but good he does, and what more could he desire?
The Characters of Jean de La Bruyère. New York: Scribner & Welford, 1885; Bartleby.com, 2011.
Corneille cannot be equalled where he is excellent; he shows then original and inimitable characteristics, but he is unequal. His first plays are uninteresting and heavy, and did not lead us to expect that he would afterwards soar to such a height, just as his last plays make us wonder at his fall from such a pinnacle. In some of his best pieces there are unpardonable errors in the characters of the drama—a declamatory style which arrests the action and delays it, and such negligence in his versification and in his expressions that we can hardly understand how so great a man could be guilty of them. His highest individual quality is his sublime genius, to which he is beholden for some of the most beautiful verses ever read; for the plots of his plays, in which he sometimes ventures to transgress the rules of the ancients; and finally, for his catastrophes. In this he does not always follow the taste of the Greeks and their grand simplicity; on the contrary, he delights in crowding the stage with events, which he almost always disentangles successfully; and is above all to be admired for his great variety and the little similarity of his plots in the large number of dramas he has written. It seems that Racine’s plays are more like one another, and that they lead up a little more to the same ending; but he is uniform, lofty in style, and everywhere the same, as well in the plots and incidents of his plays, which are sound, regular, rational and natural, as in his versification, which is correct, rich in its rhythm, elegant, melodious, and harmonious. He is an exact imitator of the ancients, whom he carefully follows in their distinctness and simplicity of action, and like Corneille, not lacking the sublime and marvellous, the moving and the pathetic. Where can we find greater tenderness diffused than in Le Cid, Polyeucte, and Les Horaces? What grandeur do we not observe in Mithridates, Porus, and Burrhus! Both poets were well acquainted with terror and pity, those favourite passions of the ancients, which the dramatic authors were fond of producing on the stage; as Orestes in the Andromaque of Racine, Phèdre of the same author, as well as Œdipus and the Horatii of Corneille clearly prove. If, however, it is allowable to draw some comparison between them, and distinguish what are the peculiarities of each of them, as is generally discovered in their writings, I should probably say: Corneille enthralls us by his characters and ideas; Racine’s coincide with ours; the one represents men as they ought to be, the other as they are. There is in the first more of what we admire and what we ought even to imitate; and in the second more of what we perceive in others or feel within ourselves. Corneille elevates, surprises, controls and instructs us; Racine pleases, affects, moves and penetrates us. The former employs the most beautiful, the most noble, and the most commanding arguments; the latter depicts the most praiseworthy and the most refined passions. One is full of maxims, rules, and precepts; the other of taste and feeling. Our mind is kept more occupied by Corneille’s tragedies, but by Racine’s we are more softened and moved. Corneille is more moral, Racine more natural. The one seems to imitate Sophocles, the other Euripides.
The Characters of Jean de La Bruyère. New York: Scribner & Welford, 1885; Bartleby.com, 2011.
It is not sufficient for the manners of the stage not to be bad; they should be decent and instructive. Some comical subjects are so low, so mean, or even so dull and so insignificant, that a poet should not be permitted to write about them, nor could an audience by any possibility be diverted by them. A peasant or an intoxicated man may furnish some scenes for a farce writer; but they can scarcely be personages of true comedy; for how can they be the basis of the main action of a comedy? Perhaps it may be said that “such characters are natural.” Then, according to a similar rule, the attention of an entire audience may be occupied by a lackey whistling, or a sick person on his bed-chair, or by a drunken man snoring and being sick; for can anything be more natural? An effeminate dandy rises late, spends part of the day at his toilet, looks at himself in the glass, perfumes himself, puts patches on his face, receives his letters and answers them. But such a character brought on the stage, made to stop for any length of time, during one or two acts, and depicted as natural and as like the original as possible, will be as dull and as tedious as it well can be.
The Characters of Jean de La Bruyère. New York: Scribner & Welford, 1885; Bartleby.com, 2011.
There are some passages in an opera which make us long for others; it sometimes happens we wish it was all over: this is the fault of the decorations, or of a want of action or interest.
The Characters of Jean de La Bruyère. New York: Scribner & Welford, 1885; Bartleby.com, 2011.
A TOPSY-TURVY WORLD.—We criticise a thinker more severely when he puts an unpleasant statement before us; and yet it would be more reasonable to do so when we find his statement pleasant.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Human All-Too-Human."
Pastoral is an imitation of the action of a shepherd; the form of this imitation is dramatic or narrative, or mixed of both, the fable simple, the manners not too polite nor too rustic.
Alexander Pope, Complete Poetical Works. 1903.
The author of the Prometheus Unbound (to take an individual instance of the last character) has a fire in his eye, a fever in his blood, a maggot in his brain, a hectic flutter in his speech, which mark out the philosophic fanatic. He is sanguine-complexioned and shrill-voiced. As is often observable in the case of religious enthusiasts, there is a slenderness of constitutional stamina, which renders the flesh no match for the spirit. His bending, flexible form appears to take no strong hold of things, does not grapple with the world about him, but slides from it like a river—
“And in its liquid texture mortal wound
Receives no more than can the fluid air.”
The shock of accident, the weight of authority make no impression on his opinions, which retire like a feather, or rise from the encounter unhurt through their own buoyancy. He is clogged by no dull system of realities, no earth-bound feelings, no rooted prejudices, by nothing that belongs to the mighty trunk and hard husk of nature and habit, but is drawn up by irresistible levity to the regions of mere speculation and fancy, to the sphere of air and fire, where his delighted spirit floats in “seas of pearl and clouds of amber.” There is no caput mortuum of worn-out, threadbare experience to serve as ballast to his mind; it is all volatile intellectual salt of tartar, that refuses to combine its evanescent, inflammable essence with anything solid or anything lasting. Bubbles are to him the only realities:—touch them, and they vanish. Curiosity is the only proper category of his mind, and though a man in knowledge, he is a child in feeling. Hence he puts everything into a metaphysical crucible to judge of it himself and exhibit it to others as a subject of interesting experiment, without first making it over to the ordeal of his common sense or trying it on his heart.
William Hazlitt, "Table-Talk/Volume 1/Essay 15." ON PARADOX AND COMMON-PLACE.
It is one of the maxims of the civil law, that definitions are hazardous. Things modified by human understandings, subject to varieties of complication, and changeable as experience advances knowledge, or accident influences caprice, are scarcely to be included in any standing form of expression, because they are always suffering some alteration of their state. Definition is, indeed, not the province of man; every thing is set above or below our faculties. The works and operations of nature are too great in their extent, or too much diffused in their relations, and the performances of art too inconstant and uncertain, to be reduced to any determinate idea. It is impossible to impress upon our minds an adequate and just representation of an object so great that we can never take it into our view, or so mutable that it is always changing under our eye, and has already lost its form while we are labouring to conceive it.
Definitions have been no less difficult or uncertain in criticisms than in law. Imagination, a licentious and vagrant faculty, unsusceptible of limitations, and impatient of restraint, has always endeavoured to baffle the logician, to perplex the confines of distinction, and burst the inclosures of regularity. There is therefore scarcely any species of writing, of which we can tell what is its essence, and what are its constituents; every new genius produces some innovation, which, when invented and approved, subverts the rules which the practice of foregoing authors had established.
“No. 125. The Difficulty of Defining Comedy. Tragick and Comick Sentiments Confounded.” Samuel Johnson’s Essays, 1751, www.johnsonessays.com/the-rambler/no-125-the-difficulty-of-defining-comedy-tragick-and-comick-sentiments-confounded/.
As the satisfactions, therefore, arising from memory are less arbitrary, they are more solid, and are, indeed, the only joys which we can call our own. Whatever we have once reposited, as Dryden expresses it, in the sacred treasure of the past, is out of the reach of accident, or violence, nor can be lost either by our own weakness, or another’s malice:
——Non tamen irritum
Quodcunque retro est, efficiet; neque
Diffinget, infectumque reddet,
Quod fugiens semel hora vexit.
Hor. lib. iii. Ode 29. 43.
Be fair or foul, or rain or shine,
The joys I have possess’d in spite of fate are mine.
Not Heav’n itself upon the past has pow’r,
But what has been has been, and I have had my hour.
Dryden.
“No. 41. The Advantages of Memory.” Samuel Johnson’s Essays, 1750, www.johnsonessays.com/the-rambler/the-advantages-memory/.
I have put an extreme case, but it strikes at the root of the error. The “rules” are grounded in “authority;” — and this “authority” — can any one tell us what it means? or can any one suggest anything that it may not mean? Is it not clear that the “scholar” above referred to, might as readily have deduced from authority a totally false system as a partially true one? To deduce from authority a consistent prosody of the ancient metres would indeed have been within the limits of the barest possibility; and the task has not been accomplished, for the reason that it demands a species of ratiocination altogether out of keeping with the brain of a bookworm. A rigid scrutiny will show that the very few “rules” which have not as many exceptions as examples, are those which have, by accident, their true bases not in authority, but in the omniprevalent laws of syllabification; such, for example, as the rule which declares a vowel before two consonants to be long.
In a word, the gross confusion and antagonism of the scholastic prosody, as well as its marked inapplicability to the reading flow of the rhythms it pretends to illustrate, are attributable, first to the utter absence of natural principle as a guide in the investigations which have been undertaken by inadequate men; and secondly, to the neglect of the obvious consideration that the ancient poems, which have been the criteria throughout, were the work of men who must have written as loosely, and with as little definitive system, as ourselves.
“Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Essays - the Rationale of Verse (Text-06).”
It must be observed, that in suggesting these processes, I assign them no date; nor do I even insist upon their order. Rhyme is supposed to be of modern origin, and were this proved, my positions remain untouched. I may say, however, in passing, that several instances of rhyme occur in the “Clouds” of Aristophanes, and that the Roman poets occasionally employ it. There is an effective species of ancient rhyming which has never descended to the moderns: that in which the ultimate and penultimate syllables rhyme with each other. For example:
Parturiunt montes et nascitur ridiculus mus.
and again —
Litoreis ingens inventa sub ilicibus sus.
The terminations of Hebrew verse, (as far as understood,) show no signs of rhyme; but what thinking person can doubt that it did actually exist? That men have so obstinately and blindly insisted, in general, even up to the present day, in confining rhyme to the ends of lines, when its effect is even better applicable elsewhere, intimates, in my opinion, the sense of some necessity in the connexion of the end with the rhyme — hints that the origin of rhyme lay in a necessity which connected it with the end — shows that neither mere accident nor mere fancy gave rise to the connexion — points, in a word, at the very necessity which I have suggested, (that of some mode of defining lines to the ear,) as the true origin of rhyme. Admit this, and we throw the origin far back in the night of Time — beyond the origin of written verse.
“Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Essays - the Rationale of Verse (Text 06).”
Wherein especially does the poetry of our times differ from that of the last century? Ninety-nine persons out of a hundred would answer that the poetry of the last century was correct, but cold and mechanical, and that the poetry of our time, though wild and irregular, presented far more vivid images and excited the passions far more strongly than that of Parnell, of Addison, or of Pope. In the same manner we constantly hear it said that the poets of the age of Elizabeth had far more genius, but far less correctness, than those of the age of Anne. It seems to be taken for granted that there is some incompatibility, some antithesis, between correctness and creative power. We rather suspect that this notion arises merely from an abuse of words, and that it has been the parent of many of the fallacies which perplex the science of criticism.
Thomas Babington Macaulay.
The latter manner be practises most frequently in his tragedies, the former in his comedies. The comic characters are, without mixture, loathsome and despicable. The men of Etherege and Vanbrugh are bad enough. Those of Smollett are perhaps worse. But they do not approach to the Celadons, the Wildbloods, the Woodalls, and the Rhodophils of Dryden. The vices of these last are set off by a certain fierce hard impudence, to which we know nothing comparable. Their love is the appetite of beasts; their friendship the confederacy of knaves. The ladies seem to have been expressly created to form helps meet for such gentlemen. In deceiving and insulting their old fathers they do not, perhaps, exceed the license which, by immemorial prescription, has been allowed to heroines. But they also cheat at cards, rob strong boxes, put up their favours to auction, betray their friends, abuse their rivals in the style of Billingsgate, and invite their lovers in the language of the Piazza. These, it must be remembered, are not the valets and waiting-women, the Mascarilles and Nerines, but the recognized heroes and heroines who appear as the representatives of good society, and who, at the end of the fifth act, marry and live very happily ever after. The sensuality, baseness, and malice of their natures is unredeemed by any quality of a different description,—by any touch of kindness,—or even by any honest burst of hearty hatred and revenge. We are in a world where there is no humanity, no veracity, no sense of shame,—a world for which any good-natured man would gladly take in exchange the society of Milton’s devils. But as soon as we enter the regions of Tragedy we find a great change. There is no lack of fine sentiment there. Metastasio is surpassed in his own department. Scuderi is out-scuderied. We are introduced to people whose proceedings we can trace to no motive,—of whose feelings we can form no more idea than of a sixth sense. We have left a race of creatures whose love is as delicate and affectionate as the passion which an alderman feels for a turtle. We find ourselves among beings whose love is a purely disinterested emotion,—a loyalty extending to passive obedience,—a religion, like that of the Quietists, unsupported by any sanction of hope or fear. We see nothing but despotism without power, and sacrifices without compensation.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, John Dryden, Jan. 1828.
Actually everything remains in the old condition, even in the presence of such "influence": men talk a little while of a new thing, and then of some other new thing, and in the meantime they do what they have always done. The historical training of our critics prevents their having an influence in the true sense, an influence on life and action. They put their blotting paper on the blackest writing, and their thick brushes over the gracefullest designs; these they call "corrections";—and that is all. Their critical pens never cease to fly, for they have lost power over them; they are driven by their pens instead of driving them. The weakness of modern personality comes out well in the measureless overflow of criticism, in the want of self-mastery, and in what the Romans called: impotentia.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life."
If the personality be once be emptied of its subjectivity, and come to what men call an "objective" condition, nothing can have any more effect on it. Something good and true may be done, in action, poetry or music: but the hollow culture of the day will look beyond the work and ask the history of the author. If the author have already created something, our historian will set out clearly the past and the probable future course of his development, he will put him with others and compare them, and separate by analysis the choice of his material and his treatment; he will wisely sum the author up and give him general advice for his future path. The most astonishing works may be created; the swarm of historical neuters will always be in their place, ready to consider the author through their long telescopes. The echo is heard at once: but always in the form of "criticism," though the critic never dreamed of the work's possibility a moment before. It never comes to have an influence, but only a criticism: and the criticism itself has no influence, but only breeds another criticism. And so we come to consider the fact of many critics as a mark of influence, that of few or none as a mark of failure.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life."
In the first pair of syllables the accent may deviate from the rigour of exactness, without any unpleasing diminution of harmony, as may be observed in the lines already cited, and more remarkably in this,
——————Thou also mad’st the night,
Maker omnipotent! and thou the day,
But, excepting in the first pair of syllables, which may be considered as arbitrary, a poet who, not having the invention or knowledge of Milton, has more need to allure his audience by musical cadences, should seldom suffer more than one aberration from the rule in any single verse.
“No. 86. The Danger of Succeeding a Great Author: An Introduction to a Criticism on Milton’s Versification.” Samuel Johnson’s Essays, 1751, www.johnsonessays.com/the-adventurer/succeeding-introduction-versification/.
As
Thus at their shady lodge arriv’d, both stood,
Both turned, and under open sky ador’d
The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heav’n.
In others the accent is equally upon two syllables, but upon both weak.
—————————————A race
To fill the earth, who shall with us extol
Thy goodness infinite, both when we wake,
And when we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep.
In the first pair of syllables the accent may deviate from the rigour of exactness, without any unpleasing diminution of harmony, as may be observed in the lines already cited, and more remarkably in this,
——————Thou also mad’st the night,
Maker omnipotent! and thou the day,
But, excepting in the first pair of syllables, which may be considered as arbitrary, a poet who, not having the invention or knowledge of Milton, has more need to allure his audience by musical cadences, should seldom suffer more than one aberration from the rule in any single verse.
“No. 86. The Danger of Succeeding a Great Author: An Introduction to a Criticism on Milton’s Versification.” Samuel Johnson’s Essays, 1751, www.johnsonessays.com/the-adventurer/succeeding-introduction-versification/.
The heroick measure of the English language may be properly considered as pure or mixed. It is pure when the accent rests upon every second syllable through the whole line.
Courage uncertain dangers may abate,
But whó can beár th’ appróach of cértain fáte.
Dryden.
Here love his golden shafts employs, here lights
His cónstant lámp, and wáves his púrple wíngs,
Reigns here, and revels; not in the bought smile
Of hárlots, lóveless, jóyless, únendéar’d.
Milton.
The accent may be observed, in the second line of Dryden, and the second and fourth of Milton, to repose upon every second syllable.
The repetition of this sound or percussion at equal times, is the most complete harmony of which a single verse is capable, and should therefore be exactly kept in distichs, and generally in the last line of a paragraph, that the ear may rest without any sense of imperfection.
“No. 86. The Danger of Succeeding a Great Author: An Introduction to a Criticism on Milton’s Versification.” Samuel Johnson’s Essays, 1751, www.johnsonessays.com/the-adventurer/succeeding-introduction-versification/.
An anonymous review has no more authority than an anonymous letter; and one should be received with the same mistrust as the other. Or shall we take the name of the man who consents to preside over what is, in the strict sense of the word, une société anonyme as a guarantee for the veracity of his colleagues?
Even Rousseau, in the preface to the Nouvelle Heloïse, declares tout honnête homme doit avouer les livres qu'il public [A honest man must confess the books he publishes]; which in plain language means that every honorable man ought to sign his articles, and that no one is honorable who does not do so. How much truer this is of polemical writing, which is the general character of reviews! Riemer was quite right in the opinion he gives in his Reminiscences of Goethe: An overt enemy, he says, an enemy who meets you face to face, is an honorable man, who will treat you fairly, and with whom you can come to terms and be reconciled: but an enemy who conceals himself is a base, cowardly scoundrel, who has not courage enough to avow his own judgment; it is not his opinion that he cares about, but only the secret pleasures of wreaking his anger without being found out or punished. This will also have been Goethe's opinion, as he was generally the source from which Riemer drew his observations. And, indeed, Rousseau's maxim applies to every line that is printed. Would a man in a mask ever be allowed to harangue a mob, or speak in any assembly; and that, too, when he was going to attack others and overwhelm them with abuse?
Arthur Schopenhauer, "The Art of Literature/On Criticism."
In history this error is far more disgraceful. Indeed, there is no fault which so completely ruins a narrative in the opinion of a judicious reader. We know that the line of demarcation between good and bad men is so faintly marked as often to elude the most careful investigation of those who have the best opportunities for judging. Public men, above all, are surrounded with so many temptations and difficulties that some doubt must almost always hang over their real dispositions and intentions. The lives of Pym, Cromwell, Monk, Clarendon, Marlborough, Burnet, Walpole, are well known to us. We are acquainted with their actions, their speeches, their writings; we have abundance of letters and well-authenticated anecdotes relating to them; yet what candid man will venture very positively to say which of them were honest and which of them were dishonest men? It appears easier to pronounce decidedly upon the great characters of antiquity, not because we have greater means of discovering truth, but simply because we have less means of detecting error. The modern historians of Greece have forgotten this. Their heroes and villains are as consistent in all their sayings and doings as the cardinal virtues and the deadly sins in an allegory. We should as soon expect a good action from giant Slay-good in Bunyan as from Dionysius; and a crime of Epaminondas would seem as incongruous as a faux-pas of the grave and comely damsel called Discretion, who answered the bell at the door of the house Beautiful.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, ON MITFORD'S HISTORY OF GREECE. (November 1824.)
In a rude state of society men are children with a greater variety of ideas. It is therefore in such a state of society that we may expect to find the poetical temperament in its highest perfection. In an enlightened age there will be much intelligence, much science, much philosophy, abundance of just classification and subtle analysis, abundance of wit and eloquence, abundance of verses, and even of good ones; but little poetry. Men will judge and compare; but they will not create. They will talk about the old poets, and comment on them, and to a certain degree enjoy them. But they will scarcely be able to conceive the effect which poetry produced on their ruder ancestors,—the agony, the ecstasy, the plenitude of belief. The Greek Rhapsodist, according to Plato, could scarce recite Homer without falling into convulsions. The Mohawk hardly feels the scalping-knife while he shouts his death-song. The power which the ancient bards of Wales and Germany exercised over their auditors seems to modern readers almost miraculous. Such feelings are very rare in a civilized community, and most rare among those who participate most in its improvements. They linger longest among the peasantry.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essay on Milton.
No writers have injured the Comedy of England so deeply as Congreve and Sheridan. Both were men of splendid wit and polished taste. Unhappily, they made all their characters in their own likeness. Their works bear the same relation to the legitimate drama which a transparency bears to a painting. There are no delicate touches, no hues imperceptibly fading into each other: the whole is lighted up with an universal glare. Outlines and tints are forgotten in the common blaze which illuminates all. The flowers and fruits of the intellect abound; but it is the abundance of a jungle, not of a garden, unwholesome, bewildering, unprofitable from its very plenty, rank from its very fragrance. Every fop, every boor, every valet, is a man of wit. The very butts and dupes, Tattle, Witwould, Puff, Acres, outshine the whole Hotel of Rambouillet. To prove the whole system of this school erroneous, it is only necessary to apply the test which dissolved the enchanted Florimel, to place the true by the false Thalia, to contrast the most celebrated characters which have been drawn by the writers of whom we speak with the Bastard in King John, or the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. It was not surely from want of wit that Shakspeare adopted so different a manner. Benedick and Beatrice throw Mirabel and Millamont into the shade. All the good sayings of the facetious houses of Absolute and Surface might have been clipped from the single character of Falstaff without being missed. It would have been easy for that fertile mind to have given Bardolph and Shallow as much wit as Prince Hal, and to have made Dogberry and Verges retort on each other in sparkling epigrams. But he knew that such indiscriminate prodigality was, to use his own admirable language, “from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essay On Machiavelli, 1850.
We have said that the critical and poetical faculties are not only distinct, but almost incompatible. The state of our literature during the reigns of Elizabeth and James the First is a strong confirmation of this remark. The greatest works of imagination that the world has ever seen were produced at that period. The national taste, in the mean time, was to the last degree detestable. Alliterations, puns, antithetical forms of expression, lavishly employed where no corresponding apposition existed between the thoughts expressed, strained allegories, pedantic allusions, everything, in short, quaint and affected, in matter and manner, made up what was then considered as fine writing. The eloquence of the bar, the pulpit, and the council-board was deformed by conceits which would have disgraced the rhyming shepherds of an Italian academy. The king quibbled on the throne. We might, indeed, console ourselves by reflecting that his majesty was a fool. But the chancellor quibbled in concert from the wool-sack: and the chancellor was Francis Bacon. It is needless to mention Sidney and the whole tribe of Euphuists; for Shakspeare himself, the greatest poet that ever lived, falls into the same fault whenever he means to be particularly fine. While he abandons himself to the impulse of his imagination his compositions are not only the sweetest and the most sublime, but also the most faultless, that the world has ever seen. But as soon as his critical powers come into play he sinks to the level of Cowley; or rather he does ill what Cowley does well. All that is bad in his works is bad elaborately and of malice aforethought. The only thing wanting to make them perfect was, that he should never have troubled himself with thinking whether they were good or not. Like the angels in Milton, he sinks “with compulsion and laborious flight.” His natural tendency is upwards. That he may soar, it is only necessary that he should not struggle to fall. He resembles an American Cacique who, possessing in unmeasured abundance the metals which in polished societies are esteemed the most precious, was utterly unconscious of their value, and gave up treasures more valuable than the imperial crowns of other countries to secure some gaudy and far-fetched bauble, a plated button, or a necklace of coloured glass.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essay on John Dryden.
There are two lines in this passage more remarkably unharmonious:
——————This delicious place,
For us too large; where thy abundance wants
Partakers, and uncrop’d falls to the ground,
Here the third pair of syllables in the first, and fourth pair in the second verse, have their accents retrograde or inverted; the first syllable being strong or acute, and the second weak. The detriment which the measure suffers by this inversion of the accents is sometimes less perceptible, when the verses are carried one into another, but is remarkably striking in this place, where the vicious verse concludes a period, and is yet more offensive in rhyme, when we regularly attend to the flow of every single line. This will appear by reading a couplet in which Cowley, an author not sufficiently studious of harmony, has committed the same fault.
“No. 86. The Danger of Succeeding a Great Author: An Introduction to a Criticism on Milton’s Versification.” Samuel Johnson’s Essays, 1751, www.johnsonessays.com/the-adventurer/succeeding-introduction-versification/.
As
Thus at their shady lodge arriv’d, both stood,
Both turned, and under open sky ador’d
The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heav’n.
In others the accent is equally upon two syllables, but upon both weak.
—————————————A race
To fill the earth, who shall with us extol
Thy goodness infinite, both when we wake,
And when we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep.
In the first pair of syllables the accent may deviate from the rigour of exactness, without any unpleasing diminution of harmony, as may be observed in the lines already cited, and more remarkably in this,
——————Thou also mad’st the night,
Maker omnipotent! and thou the day,
But, excepting in the first pair of syllables, which may be considered as arbitrary, a poet who, not having the invention or knowledge of Milton, has more need to allure his audience by musical cadences, should seldom suffer more than one aberration from the rule in any single verse.
“No. 86. The Danger of Succeeding a Great Author: An Introduction to a Criticism on Milton’s Versification.” Samuel Johnson’s Essays, 1751, www.johnsonessays.com/the-adventurer/succeeding-introduction-versification/.
Thus at their shady lodge arriv’d, both stood,
Both turn’d, and under open sky ador’d
The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heav’n,
Which they beheld; the moon’s resplendent globe,
And starry pole: thou also mad’st the night,
Maker omnipotent! and thou the day,
Which we in our appointed work employ’d
Have finish’d, happy in our mutual help,
And mutual love, the crown of all our bliss,
Ordain’d by thee; and this delicious place,
For us too large; where thy abundance wants
Partakers, and uncrop’d falls to the ground;
But thou hast promis’d from us two a race
To fill the earth, who shall with us extol
Thy goodness infinite, both when we wake,
And when we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep.
In this passage it will be at first observed, that all the lines are not equally harmonious, and upon a nearer examination it will be found that only the fifth and ninth lines are regular, and the rest are more or less licentious with respect to the accent. In some the accent is equally upon two syllables together, and in both strong.
“No. 86. The Danger of Succeeding a Great Author: An Introduction to a Criticism on Milton’s Versification.” Samuel Johnson’s Essays, 1751, www.johnsonessays.com/the-adventurer/succeeding-introduction-versification/.
It would be amusing to make a digest of the irrational laws which bad critics have framed for the government of poets. First in celebrity and in absurdity stand the dramatic unities of place and time. No human being has ever been able to find anything that could, even by courtesy, be called an argument for these unities, except that they have been deduced from the general practice of the Greeks. It requires no very profound examination to discover that the Greek dramas, often admirable as compositions, are, as exhibitions of human character and human life, far inferior to the English plays of the age of Elizabeth. Every scholar knows that the dramatic part of the Athenian tragedies was at first subordinate to the lyrical part. It would, therefore, have been little less than a miracle if the laws of the Athenian stage had been found to suit plays in which there was no chorus. All the greatest masterpieces of the dramatic art have been composed in direct violation of the unities, and could never have been composed if the unities had not been violated. It is clear, for example, that such a character as that of Hamlet could never have been developed within the limits to which Alfieri confined himself. Yet such was the reverence of literary men during the last century for these unities that Johnson, who, much to his honour, took the opposite side, was, as he says, “frightened at his own temerity,” and “afraid to stand against the authorities which might be produced against him.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Moore’s Life of Lord Byron, June, 1831.
The highest kind of poetry is, in a great measure, independent of those circumstances which regulate the style of composition in prose. But with that inferior species of poetry which succeeds to it the case is widely different. In a few years the good sense and good taste which had weeded out affectation from moral and political treatises would, in the natural course of things, have effected a similar reform in the sonnet and the ode. The rigour of the victorious sectaries had relaxed. A dominant religion is never ascetic. The government connived at theatrical representations. The influence of Shakspeare was once more felt. But darker days were approaching. A foreign yoke was to be imposed on our literature. Charles, surrounded by the companions of his long exile, returned to govern a nation which ought never to have cast him out or never to have received him back. Every year which he had passed among strangers had rendered him more unfit to rule his countrymen. In France he had seen the refractory magistracy humbled, and royal prerogative, though exercised by a foreign priest in the name of a child, victorious over all opposition. This spectacle naturally gratified a prince to whose family the opposition of Parliaments had been so fatal. Politeness was his solitary good quality. The insults which he had suffered in Scotland taught him to prize it. The effeminacy and apathy of his disposition fitted him to excel in it. The elegance and vivacity of the French manners fascinated him. With the political maxims and the social habits of his favourite people he adopted their taste in composition, and, when seated on the throne, soon rendered it fashionable, partly by direct patronage, but still more by that contemptible policy which for a time made England the last of the nations, and raised Louis the Fourteenth to a height of power and fame such as no French sovereign had ever before attained. It was to please Charles that rhyme was first introduced into our plays. Thus, a rising blow, which would at any time have been mortal, was dealt to the English Drama, then just recovering from its languishing condition. Two detestable manners, the indigenous and the imported, were now in a state of alternate conflict and amalgamation. The bombastic meanness of the new style was blended with the ingenious absurdity if the old; and the mixture produced something which the world had never before seen, and which we hope it will never see again,—something by the side of which the worst nonsense of all other ages appears to advantage,—something which those who have attempted to caricature it have, against their will, been forced to flatter,—of which the tragedy of Bayes is a very favourable specimen. What Lord Dorset observed to Edward Howard might have been addressed to almost all his contemporaries,—
“As skilful divers to the bottom fall
Swifter than those who cannot swim at all;
So, in this way of writing without thinking
Thou hast a strange alacrity in sinking.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essay on John Dryden.
The first victory of good taste is over the bombast and conceits which deform such times as these. But criticism is still in a very imperfect state. What is accidental is for a long time confounded with what is essential. General theories are drawn from detached facts. How many hours the action of a play may be allowed to occupy,—how many similes an Epic Poet may introduce into his first book,—whether a piece, which is acknowledged to have a beginning and an end, may not be without a middle, and other questions as puerile as these, formerly occupied, the attention of men of letters in France, and even in this country. Poets in such circumstances as these exhibit all the narrowness and feebleness of the criticism by which their manner has been fashioned. From outrageous absurdity they are preserved by their timidity. But they perpetually sacrifice nature and reason to arbitrary canons of taste. In their eagerness to avoid the mala prohibita of a foolish code, they are perpetually rushing on the mala in se. Their great predecessors, it is true, were as bad critics as themselves, or perhaps worse, but those predecessors, as we have attempted to show, were inspired by a faculty independent of criticism, and, therefore, wrote well while they judged ill.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essay on John Dryden.
At last, in the fifth act, appears a messenger from the lords assembled at the festival of Dagon, with a summons by which Samson is required to come and entertain them with some proof of his strength. Samson, after a short expostulation, dismisses him with a firm and resolute refusal; but, during the absence of the messenger, having a while defended the propriety of his conduct, he at last declares himself moved by a secret impulse to comply, and utters some dark presages of a great event to be brought to pass by his agency, under the direction of Providence:
Sams. Be of good courage, I begin to feel
Some rousing motions in me, which dispose
To something extraordinary my thoughts.
I with this messenger will go along,
Nothing to do, be sure, that may dishonour
Our Law, or stain my vow of Nazarite.
If there be aught of presage in the mind,
This day will be remarkable in my life
By some great act, or of my days the last.
“No. 139. A Critical Examination of Samson Agonistes.” Samuel Johnson’s Essays, 2024, www.johnsonessays.com/the-rambler/no-139-july-16-1751/.
What embitters the world is not excess of criticism, but absence of self-criticism.
G. K. Chesterton, "On Bright Old Things — and Other Things" in Sidelights on New London and Newer New York : And Other Essays (1932).
Culture
I called this inward condition the "first initiation into culture." I have now to describe the effects of the "second initiation," a task of greater difficulty. It is the passage from the inner life to the criticism of the outer life. The eye must be turned to find in the great world of movement the desire for culture that is known from the immediate experience of the individual; who must use his own strivings and aspirations as the alphabet to interpret those of humanity. He cannot rest here either, but must go higher. Culture demands from him not only that inner experience, not only the criticism of the outer world surrounding him, but action too to crown them all, the fight for culture against the influences and conventions and institutions where he cannot find his own aim,—the production of genius.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Schopenhauer as Educator."
Let a man attain the highest and broadest culture that any American has possessed, then let him die by sea-storm, railroad collision, or other accident, and all America will acquiesce that the best thing has happened to him; that, after the education has gone far, such is the expensiveness of America, that the best use to put a fine person to is to drown him to save his board.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life (ed. Harvard University Press, 2003).
This is a parable for each one of us: he must organise the chaos in himself by "thinking himself back" to his true needs. He will want all his honesty, all the sturdiness and sincerity in his character to help him to revolt against second- hand thought, second-hand learning, second-hand action. And he will begin then to understand that culture can be something more than a "decoration of life"—a concealment and disfiguring of it, in other words; for all adornment hides what is adorned. And thus the Greek idea, as against the Roman, will be discovered to him, the idea of culture as a new and finer nature, without distinction of inner and outer, without convention or disguise, as a unity of thought and will, life and appearance. He will learn too, from his own experience, that it was by a greater force of moral character that the Greeks were victorious, and that everything which makes for sincerity is a further step towards true culture, however this sincerity may harm the ideals of education that are reverenced at the time, or even have power to shatter a whole system of merely decorative culture.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life."
The instinct of the people can no longer meet him half-way; it is useless for them to stretch their arms out to him in yearning. What remains but to turn his quickened hatred against the ban, strike at the barrier raised by the so-called culture, and condemn as judge what blasted and degraded him as a living man and a source of life? He takes a profound insight into fate in exchange for the godlike desire of creation and help, and ends his days as a lonely philosopher, with the wisdom of disillusion. It is the painfullest comedy: he who sees it will feel a sacred obligation on him, and say to himself,—"Help must come: the higher unity in the nature and soul of a people must be brought back, the cleft between inner and outer must again disappear under the hammer of necessity." But to what means can he look? What remains to him now but his knowledge? He hopes to plant the feeling of a need, by speaking from the breadth of that knowledge, giving it freely with both hands. From the strong need the strong action may one day arise. And to leave no doubt of the instance I am taking of the need and the knowledge, my testimony shall stand, that it is German unity in, its highest sense which is the goal of our endeavour, far more than political union: it is the unity of the German spirit and life after the annihilation of the antagonism between form and substance, inward life and convention.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life."
This is a single example, its general application perhaps too hastily assumed. But how terrible it would be were that generalisation justified before our eyes! There would be then a note of despair in the phrase, "We Germans feel by theory, we are all spoilt by history;"—a phrase that would cut at the roots of any hope for a future national culture. For every hope of that kind grows from the belief in the genuineness and immediacy of German feeling, from the belief in an untarnished inward life. Where is our hope or belief, when its spring is muddied, and the inward quality has learned gestures and dances and the use of cosmetics, has learned to express itself "with due reflection in abstract terms," and gradually to lose itself? And how should a great productive spirit exist among a nation that is not sure of its inward unity and is divided into educated men whose inner life has been drawn from the true path of education, and uneducated men whose inner life cannot be approached at all? How should it exist, I say, when the people has lost its own unity of feeling, and knows that the feeling of the part calling itself the educated part and claiming the right of controlling the artistic spirit of the nation, is false and hypocritical? Here and there the judgment and taste of individuals may be higher and finer than the rest, but that is no compensation: it tortures a man to have to speak only to one section and be no longer in sympathy with his people. He would rather bury his treasure now, in disgust at the vulgar patronage of a class, though his heart be filled with tenderness for all.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life."
But there is also a famous danger in their "inwardness": the internal substance cannot be seen from the outside, and so may one day take the opportunity of vanishing, and no one notice its absence, any more than its presence before. One may think the German people to be very far from this danger: yet the foreigner will have some warrant for his reproach that our inward life is too weak and ill-organised to provide a form and external expression for itself. It may in rare cases show itself finely receptive, earnest and powerful, richer perhaps than the inward life of other peoples: but, taken as a whole, it remains weak, as all its fine threads are not tied together in one strong knot. The visible action is not the self-manifestation of the inward life, but only a weak and crude attempt of a single thread to make a show of representing the whole. And thus the German is not to be judged on any one action, for the individual may be as completely obscure after it as before. He must obviously be measured by his thoughts and feelings, which are now expressed in his books; if only the books did not, more than ever, raise the doubt whether the famous inward life is still really sitting in its inaccessible shrine. It might one day vanish and leave behind it only the external life,—with its vulgar pride and vain servility,—to mark the German. Fearful thought!—as fearful as if the inward life still sat there, painted and rouged and disguised, become a play-actress or something worse; as his theatrical experience seems to have taught the quiet observer Grillparzer, standing aside as he did from the main press. "We feel by theory," he says. "We hardly know any more how our contemporaries give expression to their feelings: we make them use gestures that are impossible nowadays. Shakespeare has spoilt us moderns."
Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life."
I am only speaking, directly, about the Germans of the present day, who have had to suffer more than other people from the feebleness of personality and the opposition of substance and form. "Form" generally implies for us some convention, disguise or hypocrisy, and if not hated, is at any rate not loved. We have an extraordinary fear of both the word convention and the thing. This fear drove the German from the French school; for he wished to become more natural, and therefore more German. But he seems to have come to a false conclusion with his "therefore." First he ran away from his school of convention, and went by any road he liked: he has come ultimately to imitate voluntarily in a slovenly fashion, what he imitated painfully and often successfully before. So now the lazy fellow lives under French conventions that are actually incorrect: his manner of walking shows it, his conversation and dress, his general way of life. In the belief that he was returning to Nature, he merely followed caprice and comfort, with the smallest possible amount of self-control. Go through any German town; you will see conventions that are nothing but the negative aspect of the national characteristics of foreign states. Everything is colourless, worn out, shoddy and ill-copied. Every one acts at his own sweet will—which is not a strong or serious will—on laws dictated by the universal rush and the general desire for comfort. A dress that made no head ache in its inventing and wasted no time in the making, borrowed from foreign models and imperfectly copied, is regarded as an important contribution to German fashion. The sense of form is ironically disclaimed by the people—for they have the "sense of substance": they are famous for their cult of "inwardness."
Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life."
This must not be misunderstood, as though it were merely a question of the opposition between barbarism and "fine style." The people that can be called cultured, must be in a real sense a living unity, and not be miserably cleft asunder into form and substance. If one wish to promote a people's culture, let him try to promote this higher unity first, and work for the destruction of the modern educative system for the sake of a true education. Let him dare to consider how the health of a people that has been destroyed by history may be restored, and how it may recover its instincts with its honour.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life."
Our modern culture is for that reason not a living one, because it cannot be understood without that opposition. In other words, it is not a real culture but a kind of knowledge about culture, a complex of various thoughts and feelings about it, from which no decision as to its direction can come. Its real motive force that issues in visible action is often no more than a mere convention, a wretched imitation, or even a shameless caricature. The man probably feels like the snake that has swallowed a rabbit whole and lies still in the sun, avoiding all movement not absolutely necessary. The "inner life" is now the only thing that matters to education, and all who see it hope that the education may not fail by being too indigestible. Imagine a Greek meeting it; he would observe that for modern men "education" and "historical education" seem to mean the same thing, with the difference that the one phrase is longer. And if he spoke of his own theory, that a man can be very well educated without any history at all, people would shake their heads and think they had not heard aright. The Greeks, the famous people of a past still near to us, had the "unhistorical sense" strongly developed in the period of their greatest power. If a typical child of his age were transported to that world by some enchantment, he would probably find the Greeks very "uneducated." And that discovery would betray the closely guarded secret of modern culture to the laughter of the world. For we moderns have nothing of our own.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life."
We only become worth notice by filling ourselves to overflowing with foreign customs, arts, philosophies, religions and sciences: we are wandering encyclopaedias, as an ancient Greek who had strayed into our time would probably call us. But the only value of an encyclopaedia lies in the inside, in the contents, not in what is written outside, in the binding or the wrapper. And so the whole of modern culture is essentially internal; the bookbinder prints something like this on the cover: "Manual of internal culture for external barbarians." The opposition of inner and outer makes the outer side still more barbarous, as it would naturally be, when the outward growth of a rude people merely developed its primitive inner needs. For what means has nature of repressing too great a luxuriance from without? Only one,—to be affected by it as little as possible, to set it aside and stamp it out at the first opportunity. And so we have the custom of no longer taking real things seriously, we get the feeble personality on which the real and the permanent make so little impression. Men become at last more careless and accommodating in external matters, and the considerable cleft between substance and form is widened; until they have no longer any feeling for barbarism, if only their memories be kept continually titillated, and there flow a constant stream of new things to be known, that can be neatly packed up in the cupboards of their memory. The culture of a people as against this barbarism, can be, I think, described with justice as the "unity of artistic style in every outward expression of the people's life."
Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life."
And if, unfortunately, a good many Germans will allow themselves to be thus moulded, one must continually say to them, till at last they listen:—"The old German way is no longer yours: it was hard, rough, and full of resistance; but it is still the most valuable material—one which only the greatest modellers can work with, for they alone are worthy to use it, What you have in you now is a soft pulpy stuff: make what you will out of it,—elegant dolls and interesting idols—Richard Wagner's phrase will still hold good, 'The German is awkward and ungainly when he wishes to be polite; he is high above all others, when he begins to take fire.'" All the elegant people have reason to beware of this German fire; it may one day devour them with all their wax dolls and idols. The prevailing love of "good form" in Germany may have a deeper cause in the breathless seizing at what the moment can give, the haste that plucks the fruit too green, the race and the struggle that cut the furrows in men's brows and stamp the same mark on all their actions. As if there were a poison in them that would not let them breathe, they rush about in disorder, anxious slaves of the "three m's," the moment, the mode and the mob: they see too well their want of dignity and fitness, and need a false elegance to hide their galloping consumption. The fashionable desire of "good form" is bound up with a loathing of man's inner nature : the one is to conceal, the other to be concealed. Education means now the concealment of man's misery and wickedness, his wild-beast quarrels, his eternal greed, his shamelessness in fruition. In pointing out the absence of a German culture, I have often had the reproach flung at me: "This absence is quite natural, for the Germans have been too poor and modest up to now.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Schopenhauer as Educator."
Death
If frequent Meditations upon Death, do not make us better Men, yet methinks they should moderate our Passions however, and put some restraint upon our Avarice and Ambition.
The Moral Maxims and Reflections of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld.
Disgrace Accompanies Death.
To make life shameful is worthy of death:
To be sated with hunger: or to be an exile in one's own country.
“Julius Caesar Scaliger: Epidorpides.” Epidorpidum. Book 5.
Oh, envious death, your hand didst rob us blind,
Of youth's bright virtues, noble heart and mind.
Yet, in the realm where noble souls reside,
Dousa's light shines, in glory purified.
Immortal in our hearts, his name takes flight,
A star ascending, in eternal light.
Dear Scaliger, his friend, now joins the sky,
In memory of the youth who had to die.
“All the Poems of Joseph Scaliger, Son of Julius Caesar Scaliger.” 7. Epicedium on the Death of Janus Dousa the Younger.
In death, as in life's labyrinth we tread,
A mystery unfolds, our tears are shed.
Yet, in our sorrow, there's a spark of grace,
For you, dear youth, we carve this sacred space.
No length of days, no numbers can decide,
The worth of one who in his duty bides.
In honor's light, the soul of Dousa shines,
His memory in time's deep night entwines.
“All the Poems of Joseph Scaliger, Son of Julius Caesar Scaliger.” 7. Epicedium on the Death of Janus Dousa the Younger.
The Contempt of certain Death, where there is no Christianity to support and justify it, does by no Means deserve that Admiration or Honour, that have been thought its due: In good earnest, when one comes to take a closer and stricter View of it, it is rather an Extravagance, than any Greatness or Constancy of Mind.
The Moral Maxims and Reflections of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld.
If it be desired to form honest, courageous, industrious citizens, who may be useful to their country, let them beware. of inspiring man from his infancy with an ill-founded dread of death; of amusing his imagination with marvellous fables; of occupying his mind with his destiny in a future life, quite useless to be known, which has nothing in common with his real felicity. Let them speak of immortality to intrepid, noble souls; let them show it as the price of their labours to energetic minds, who are solely occupied with virtue; who springing forward beyond the boundaries of their actual existence--who, little satisfied with eliciting the admiration, with gaining the love of their contemporaries, are will also to wrest the homage, to secure the affection of future races. Indeed, this is an immortality to which genius, talents, above all virtue, has a just right to pretend; do not therefore let them censure--do not let them endeavour to stifle so noble a passion in man; which is founded upon his nature; which is so calculated to render him happy; from which society gather the most advantageous fruits.
Baron d’Holbach, “System of Nature - Part 1, Chapter 14.”
Now, if man be permitted to live unnaturally, and be consequently unhappy, why may he not also die unnaturally? For death is indeed the only way by which he can deliver himself from the unhappiness that results from civilisation. Or, why not return to our primitive condition, and state of nature? Ah, we should find it almost impossible as far as mere external circumstances are concerned, and in the more important matters of the mind, quite impossible. What is less natural than medicine? By this I mean surgery, and the use of drugs. They are both ordinarily used expressly to combat nature, and are quite unknown to brute beasts and savages. Yet, since the diseases they remedy are unnatural, and only occur in civilised countries, where people have fallen from their natural condition, these arts, being also unnatural, are highly esteemed and even indispensable. Similarly, suicide, which is a radical cure for the disease of despair, one of the outcomes of civilisation, must not be blamed because it is unnatural; for unnatural evils require unnatural remedies. It would indeed be hard and unjust that reason, which increases our misery by forcing us to go contrary to nature, should in this matter join hands with nature, and take from us our only remaining hope and refuge, and the only resource consistent with itself, and should force us to continue in our wretchedness.
Giacomo Leopardi, Essays and Dialogues.
OLD AGE AND DEATH.—Apart from the commands of religion, the question may well be asked, Why is it more worthy for an old man who feels his powers decline, to await his slow exhaustion and extinction than with full consciousness to set a limit to his life ? Suicide in this case is a perfectly natural, obvious action, which should justly arouse respect as a triumph of reason, and did arouse it in those times when the heads of Greek philosophy and the sturdiest patriots used to seek death through suicide. The seeking, on the contrary, to prolong existence from day to day, with anxious consultation of doctors and painful mode of living, without the power of drawing nearer to the actual aim of life, is far less worthy. Religion is rich in excuses to reply to the demand for suicide, and thus it ingratiates itself with those who wish to cling to life.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Human All-Too-Human."
If dead, we cease to be; if total gloom
Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare
As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,
Whose sound and motion not alone declare,
But are their whole of being! If the Breath
Be Life itself, and not its Task and Tent,
If ev'n a soul like Milton's can know death;
O Man! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant,
Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes,
Surplus of nature's dread activity,
Which, as she gaz'd on some nigh-finish'd vase,
Retreating slow, with meditative pause,
She form'd with restless hands unconsciously.
Blank accident! nothing's anomaly!
If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state,
Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy Hopes thy Fears,
The counter- weights!—Thy Laughter and thy Tears
Mean but themselves, each fittest to create
And to repay the other! Why rejoices
Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good,
Why cowl thy face beneath the Mourner's hood,
Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices,
Image of Image, Ghost of Ghostly Elf,
That such a thing, as thou, feel'st warm or cold!
Yet what and whence thy gain, if thou withhold
These costless shadows of thy shadowy self!
Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun!
Thou hast no reason why! Thou can'st have none!
Thy being's being is contradiction.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Sibylline Leaves (Coleridge)/Human Life."
This long story of so light an accident would appear vain enough, were it not for the knowledge I have gained by it for my own use; for I do really find, that to get acquainted with death, needs no more but nearly to approach it. Every one, as Pliny says, is a good doctrine to himself, provided he be capable of discovering himself near at hand. Here, this is not my doctrine, 'tis my study; and is not the lesson of another, but my own; and if I communicate it, it ought not to be ill taken, for that which is of use to me, may also, peradventure, be useful to another. As to the rest, I spoil nothing, I make use of nothing but my own; and if I play the fool, 'tis at my own expense, and nobody else is concerned in't; for 'tis a folly that will die with me, and that no one is to inherit. We hear but of two or three of the ancients, who have beaten this path, and yet I cannot say if it was after this manner, knowing no more of them but their names. No one since has followed the track: 'tis a rugged road, more so than it seems, to follow a pace so rambling and uncertain, as that of the soul; to penetrate the dark profundities of its intricate internal windings; to choose and lay hold of so many little nimble motions; 'tis a new and extraordinary undertaking, and that withdraws us from the common and most recommended employments of the world.
The Essays of Montaigne. 1877. Edited by William Carew Hazlitt, Translated by Charles Cotton. Book II Chapter VI. Use makes perfect.
Death is beautiful when seen to be a law, and not an accident. It is as common as life.
Henry David Thoreau, Correspondence (ed. 1958).
And so, says Plato, the death which is occasioned by wounds and diseases is violent; but that which comes upon us, old age conducting us to it, is of all others the most easy, and in some sort delicious: "Vitam adolescentibus vis aufert, senibus maturitas." ["Young men are taken away by violence, old men by maturity." —Cicero, ubi sup.] Death mixes and confounds itself throughout with life; decay anticipates its hour, and shoulders itself even into the course of our advance. I have portraits of myself taken at five-and-twenty and five-and-thirty years of age. I compare them with that lately drawn: how many times is it no longer me; how much more is my present image unlike the former, than unlike my dying one? It is too much to abuse nature, to make her trot so far that she must be forced to leave us, and abandon our conduct, our eyes, teeth, legs, and all the rest to the mercy of a foreign and haggard countenance, and to resign us into the hands of art, being weary of following us herself.
The Essays of Montaigne. 1877. Edited by William Carew Hazlitt, Translated by Charles Cotton. Book III Chapter XIII. Of Experience.
The more we sink into the infirmities of age, the nearer we are to immortal youth. All people are young in the other world. That state is an eternal spring, ever fresh and flourishing. Now, to pass from midnight into noon on the sudden; to be decrepit one minute and all spirit and activity the next, must be a desirable change. To call this dying is an abuse of language.
Jeremy Collier, Essays upon several moral subjects (ed. 1732).
How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves,
Close by the street of this fair seaport town,
Silent beside the never-silent waves,
At rest in all this moving up and down!
The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleep
Wave their broad curtains in the south-wind's breath,
While underneath such leafy tents they keep
The long, mysterious Exodus of Death.
And these sepulchral stones, so old and brown,
That pave with level flags their burial-place,
Seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown down
And broken by Moses at the mountain's base.
The very names recorded here are strange,
Of foreign accent, and of different climes;
Alvares and Rivera interchange
With Abraham and Jacob of old times.
"Blessed be God! for he created Death!"
The mourners said, "and Death is rest and peace";
Then added, in the certainty of faith,
"And giveth Life that never more shall cease."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Birds of Passage (Collection)/The Jewish Cemetery at Newport."
"Old men's prayers for death are lying prayers, in which they abuse old age and long extent of life. But when death draws near, not one is willing to die, and age no longer is a burden to them."
Euripides, Alcestis - Line 669
Every man has experienced how much of this ardour has been remitted, when a sharp or tedious sickness has set death before his eyes. The extensive influence of greatness, the glitter of wealth, the praises of admirers, and the attendance of supplicants, have appeared vain and empty things, when the last hour seemed to be approaching: and the same appearance they would always have, if the same thought was always predominant. We should then find the absurdity of stretching out our arms incessantly to grasp that which we cannot keep, and wearing out our lives in endeavours to add new turrets to the fabrick of ambition, when the foundation itself is shaking, and the ground on which it stands is mouldering away.
“No. 17. The Frequent Contemplation of Death Necessary to Moderate the Passions.” Samuel Johnson’s Essays, 1750, www.johnsonessays.com/the-rambler/no-17-the-frequent-contemplation-of-death-necessary-to-moderate-the-passions/.
The best of us being unfit to die, what an unexpressible absurdity to put the worst to death.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Amongst which, loss and death of friends may challenge a first place, multi tristantur, as Vives well observes, post delicias, convivia, dies festos, many are melancholy after a feast, holiday, merry meeting, or some pleasing sport, if they be solitary by chance, left alone to themselves, without employment, sport, or want their ordinary companions, some at the departure of friends only whom they shall shortly see again, weep and howl, and look after them as a cow lows after her calf, or a child takes on that goes to school after holidays. Ut me levarat tuus adventus, sic discessus afflixit, (which Tully writ to Atticus) thy coming was not so welcome to me, as thy departure was harsh. Montanus, consil. 132. makes mention of a country woman that parting with her friends and native place, became grievously melancholy for many years; and Trallianus of another, so caused for the absence of her husband: which is an ordinary passion amongst our good wives, if their husband tarry out a day longer than his appointed time, or break his hour, they take on presently with sighs and tears, he is either robbed, or dead, some mischance or other is surely befallen him, they cannot eat, drink, sleep, or be quiet in mind, till they see him again. If parting of friends, absence alone can work such violent effects, what shall death do, when they must eternally be separated, never in this world to meet again? This is so grievous a torment for the time, that it takes away their appetite, desire of life, extinguisheth all delights, it causeth deep sighs and groans, tears, exclamations,
(O dulce germen matris, o sanguis meus,
Eheu tepentes, &c.—o flos tener.)
Robert Burton, “The Anatomy of Melancholy.”
Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born—a hundred million years—and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together. There was a peace, a serenity, an absence of all sense of responsibility, an absence of worry, an absence of care, grief, perplexity; and the presence of a deep content and unbroken satisfaction in that hundred million years of holiday which I look back upon with a tender longing and with a grateful desire to resume, when the opportunity comes.
Mark Twain, p. 69 of Vol. II of The Complete and Authoritative Edition, 2013, University of California Press.
Consider what you said and what I said too: doesn’t it make your crime and the crime of men like you even more serious and less pardonable? You received a treasure of such magnitude and magnificence from ancestors who, at the greatest cost of labor and money, preserved it and passed it on to you—and you, lazy, apathetic, and enfeebled by your blinded intelligence, let it slip through your fingers. I don’t know, in view of all this, whether to blame your slowness of mind and coarse sensibility, if it happened without your even knowing it, or, if you did bear and suffer such losses consciously, to condemn your degenerate and effeminate softness. These are things to be avoided even at the sacrifice of one’s life; for to me it is clear that an honorable death is preferable to a life of disgusting shame.
This truth did not escape the truly magnanimous mind and noble character of Jacopo and Francesco dei Pazzi and of the various heads of that family. Though they were flourishing, possessed ample wealth, had intimate connections with the most eminent citizens, and enjoyed popularity and the good will of the people as a whole, they scorned all these advantages “in the absence of liberty. Thus did they undertake a glorious deed, an action worthy of the highest praise. They tried to restore their own liberty and that of the country. You know that Fortune foiled their plans, as is often her way. Their resolution, however, and the action on which they embarked, deserve praise forever. Men of sound judgment will always rank them with Dion of Syracuse, Aristogiton and Harmodius of Athens, Brutus and Cassius of Rome, and in our own day, Giovanni and Geronimo Andrea of Milan. But I don’t know why this discussion has wandered so far from its starting point. The greatness of these men and of what they attempted certainly demand, not a little digression from us, but the full attention of an eloquent historian.
Alamanno Rinuccini, Dialogue on Liberty, bk 1, 1479.
For I am every dead thing,
In whom love wrought new alchemy.
For his art did express
A quintessence even from nothingness,
From dull privations, and lean emptiness
He ruined me, and I am re-begot
Of absence, darkness, death; things which are not.
John Donne, A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day, stanza 2.
Decadent
Meâ culpâ! I accuse myself
Of not being decadent.
In fruits that are too green, my Muse
Does not dare to put her tooth.
Perilous capers
Are not my province:
These gaieties are dangerous
For those who are not strong enough.
Camille Saint-Saëns, Familiar Rhymes/Mea Culpa.
Tacitus, taking notice of the woeful decline of virtue and liberty, towards the end of the Republick, says, that the greatest villainies were committed with impunity, and ruin was the price of honesty: Deterrima quaeque impune, ac multa honesta exitio fuere. And indeed, where corruption and publick crimes are not carefully opposed, and severely punished, neither liberty nor security can possibly subsist.
The immense briberies practised by Julius Caesar, were sure and terrible presages of Caesar's tyranny. It is amazing what mighty sums he gave away: Caius Curio alone, one of the tribunes, was bought into his interest, at no smaller a price than half a million of our money. Other magistrates too had their shares; and all were bribed, who would be bribed. We may easily conceive how he came by such sums; he got them as wickedly as he gave them away. Nor can I call him generous in this vast liberality; since he purchased the Roman empire with its own money, and gave away a part to get the whole.
"Cato's Letters/Letter 27." Written by Thomas Gordon.
If large classes of the population live under conditions which make it difficult if not impossible for them to keep a home together in decent comfort, if the children are habitually underfed, if the housewife is habitually overstrained, if the bread-winner is under-employed or under-paid, if all are unprotected and uninsured against the common hazards of modern industrial life, if sickness, accident, infirmity, or old age, or unchecked intemperance, or any other curse or affliction, break up the home, as they break up thousands of homes, and scatter the family, as they scatter thousands of families in our land, it is not merely the waste of earning-power or the dispersal of a few poor sticks of furniture, it is the stamina, the virtue, safety, and honour of the British race that are being squandered.
Winston Churchill, The People’s Rights [1909] (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), p. 147
The challenges may come from a dozen sources, and may by repetition or combination rise to a destructive intensity. Rainfall or oases may fail and leave the earth parched to sterility. The soil may be exhausted by incompetent husbandry or improvident usage. The replacement of free with slave labor may reduce the incentives to production, leaving lands untilled and cities unfed. A change in the instruments or routes of trade-as by the conquest of the ocean or the air-may leave old centers of civilization becalmed and decadent, like Pisa or Venice after 1492. Taxes may mount to the point of discouraging capital investment and productive stimulus. Foreign markets and materials may be lost to more enterprising competition; excess of imports over exports may drain precious metal from domestic reserves. The concentration of wealth may disrupt the nation in class or race war. The concentration of population and poverty in great cities may compel a government to choose between enfeebling the economy with a dole and running the risk of riot and revolution
Durant, Will, and Ariel Durant. The Lessons of History. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2010. Ch 12, pg. 92.
A lucky thought, a jest, a fortunate accident, or a jovial debauch, shall bring about designs and revolutions in human affairs, which twenty legions in the field could not bring about. A filthy strumpet made Alexander, for a kiss, burn Persepolis, the august seat of the Persian empire; and I have heard, somewhere or other, of a great prince, who being prevailed upon to swear by his mistress’s bum, that he would dissolve the States of his kingdom, religiously kept that oath against his interest, though he never valued all the rest that he took upon the evangelists. How often hath a merry story in our days turned a debate, when the most grave and solemn arguments, and the most obvious representations of publick advantage, could not prevail? And how many a fair and accomplished lady has been won by bribing her chambermaid, when perhaps all the solicitations of her parents and relations, and all the motives of self-interest, would have proved ineffectual?
"Cato's Letters/Letter 105." Written by John Trenchard.
Then came those days, never to be recalled without a blush, the days of servitude without loyalty and sensuality without love, of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices, the paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age of the coward, the bigot, and the slave. The King cringed to his rival that he might trample on his people, sank into a viceroy of France, and pocketed with complacent infamy her degrading insults and her more degrading gold. The caresses of harlots, and the jests of buffoons, regulated the policy of the state. The government had just ability enough to deceive, and just religion enough to persecute. The principles of liberty were the scoff of every grinning courtier, and the Anathema Maranatha of every fawning dean. In every high place, worship was paid to Charles and James, Belial and Moloch; and England propitiated those obscene and cruel idols with the blood of her best and bravest children. Crime succeeded to crime, and disgrace to disgrace, till the race, accursed of God and man, was a second time driven forth, to wander on the face of the earth, and to be a by-word and a shaking of the head to the nations.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essay on Milton, Chapter 6.
Deceit
The lion of anger shall give place to the lamb of meekness; the raven of uncleanness shall fly before the dove of purity; the vile serpent of deceit shall be trodden under the heel of truth.
Charles Spurgeon.
Human life is thus only a perpetual illusion; men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does of us in our absence. Human society is founded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each knew what his friend said of him in his absence, although he then spoke in sincerity and without passion.
Man is then only disguise, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in himself and in regard to others. He does not wish any one to tell him the truth; he avoids telling it to others, and all these dispositions, so removed from justice and reason, have a natural root in his heart.
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 2."
So chimerical is the nature of man! his greatest pleasures are always to come, and therefore never come. His content cannot possibly be perfect, because its highest objects are constantly future; and yet it is the more perfect for their being future. Our highest enjoyment is of that which is not: Our pleasure is deceit; and the only real happiness that we have is derived from non- entities. We are never satisfied with being just what we are; and therefore, though you give us all that we desire, or can conceive, yet we shall not have done desiring. The present possessions give but little joy, let them be ever so great; even as great as can be grasped: It is the enjoyment to come that is only or most valued. When we say, that if such a thing happened, we would be easy; we can only mean, or ought only to mean, that we would be more easy than we are: And in that too we are often mistaken; for new acquisitions bring new wants; and imaginary wants are as pungent as real ones. So that there is the same end of wishing as of living, and death only can still the appetites.
"Cato's Letters/Letter 40." Written by Thomas Gordon.
Sagacity now rises to higher flights on seeing its artifice foreseen, and tries to deceive by truth itself, changes its game in order to change its deceit, and cheats by not cheating, and founds deception on the greatest candour. But the opposing intelligence is on guard with increased watchfulness, and discovers the darkness concealed by the light and deciphers every move, the more subtle because more simple. In this way the guile of the Python combats the far darting rays of Apollo.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
Look into the Interior of Things. Things are generally other than they seem, and ignorance that never looks beneath the rind becomes disabused when you show the kernel. Lies always come first, dragging fools along by their irreparable vulgarity. Truth always lags last, limping along on the arm of Time. The wise therefore reserve for it the other half of that power which the common mother has wisely given in duplicate. Deceit is very superficial, and the superficial therefore easily fall into it. Prudence lives retired within its recesses, visited only by sages and wise men.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
A Solid Man. One who is finds no satisfaction in those that are not. ’Tis a pitiable eminence that is not well founded. Not all are men that seem to be so. Some are sources of deceit; impregnated by chimeras they give birth to impositions. Others are like them so far that they take more pleasure in a lie, because it promises much, than in the truth, because it performs little. But in the end these caprices come to a bad end, for they have no solid foundation. Only Truth can give true reputation: only reality can be of real profit. One deceit needs many others, and so the whole house is built in the air and must soon come to the ground. Unfounded things never reach old age. They promise too much to be much trusted, just as that cannot be true which proves too much.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
Do not be too much of a Dove. Alternate the cunning of the serpent with the candour of the dove. Nothing is easier than to deceive an honest man. He believes in much who lies in naught; who does no deceit, has much confidence. To be deceived is not always due to stupidity, it may arise from sheer goodness. There are two sets of men who can guard themselves from injury: those who have experienced it at their own cost, and those who have observed it at the cost of others. Prudence should use as much suspicion as subtlety uses snares, and none need be so good as to enable others to do him ill. Combine in yourself the dove and the serpent, not as a monster but as a prodigy.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
It is quite in keeping with the inextricable mixture of weal and woe, honesty and deceit, good and evil, nobility and baseness, which is the average characteristic of the world everywhere, that the most important, the most lofty, the most sacred truths can make their appearance only in combination with a lie, can even borrow strength from a lie as from something that works more powerfully on mankind; and, as revelation, must be ushered in by a lie.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "Religion: A Dialogue."
Woman is adept at getting money for herself and will not easily let herself be deceived; she understands deceit too well herself.
Aristophanes.
Being deceived.—Whenever you wish to act, you will have to close the door upon doubt—thus spake a man of action.—And you are not afraid of thus becoming the dupe? replied a lover of contemplation.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Dawn of the Day/Book 5."
Error is always prejudicial to man: it is by deceiving himself, the human race is plunged into misery. He neglected Nature; he did not comprehend her laws; he formed gods of the most preposterous and ridiculous kinds: these became the sole objects of his hope, and the creatures of his fear: he was unhappy, he trembled under these visionary deities; under the supposed influence of visionary beings created by himself; under the terror inspired by blocks of stone; by logs of wood; by flying fish; or the frowns of men, mortal as himself, whom his disturbed fancy had elevated above that Nature of which alone he is capable of forming any idea. His very posterity laughs at his folly, because experience has convinced them of the absurdity of his groundless fears--of his misplaced worship. Thus has passed away the ancient mythology, with all the trifling and nonsensical attributes attached to it by ignorance.
Baron d’Holbach, “System of Nature - Part 1, Chapter 1.”
Philalethes. I understand. It comes, in short, to truth wearing the garment of falsehood. But in doing so it enters on a fatal alliance. What a dangerous weapon is put into the hands of those who are authorized to employ falsehood as the vehicle of truth! If it is as you say, I fear the damage caused by the falsehood will be greater than any advantage the truth could ever produce. Of course, if the allegory were admitted to be such, I should raise no objection; but with the admission it would rob itself of all respect, and consequently, of all utility. The allegory must, therefore, put in a claim to be true in the proper sense of the word, and maintain the claim; while, at the most, it is true only in an allegorical sense. Here lies the irreparable mischief, the permanent evil; and this is why religion has always been and always will be in conflict with the noble endeavor after pure truth.
Demopheles. Oh no! that danger is guarded against. If religion mayn't exactly confess its allegorical nature, it gives sufficient indication of it.
Philalethes. How so?
Demopheles. In its mysteries. "Mystery," is in reality only a technical theological term for religious allegory. All religions have their mysteries. Properly speaking, a mystery is a dogma which is plainly absurd, but which, nevertheless, conceals in itself a lofty truth, and one which by itself would be completely incomprehensible to the ordinary understanding of the raw multitude. The multitude accepts it in this disguise on trust, and believes it, without being led astray by the absurdity of it, which even to its intelligence is obvious; and in this way it participates in the kernel of the matter so far as it is possible for it to do so.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "Religion: A Dialogue."
Degeneration
The Destinies, or the natures and fates of things, are justly made Pan's sisters, as the chain of natural causes links together the rise, duration, and corruption; the exaltation, degeneration, and workings; the processes, the effects, and changes, of all that can any way happen to things.
Bacon, Lord. Pagan Mythology, Or, the Wisdom of the Ancients. London : Progressive Publishing Company, 1891, Chapter 6: Pan, pg. 17-18.
The progressive degeneration of morality, because, as its scope becomes higher, practice falls further and further short of it, is insisted upon by both these great thinkers in much the same spirit and with much the same illustrations. The rise of empires, “of which there was never none yet in any nation, but it was gotten with the great shedding of man’s blood,” is seen by both in the same light.
Erasmus, Against War. Introduction, pg. 9-10.
The peculiar superiority of talent over riches may be best discovered from hence—That the influence of talent will always be the greatest in that government which is the most pure, while the influence of riches will always be the greatest in that government which is the most corrupt. So that from the preponderance of talent we may always infer the soundness and vigour of the commonwealth; but from the preponderance of riches, its dotage and degeneration.
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
But all this contributes to increase the measures of suffering in human life out of all proportion to its pleasures; and the pains of life are made much worse for man by the fact that death is something very real to him. The brute flies from death instinctively without really knowing what it is, and therefore without ever contemplating it in the way natural to a man, who has this prospect always before his eyes. So that even if only a few brutes die a natural death, and most of them live only just long enough to transmit their species, and then, if not earlier, become the prey of some other animal,—whilst man, on the other hand, manages to make so-called natural death the rule, to which, however, there are a good many exceptions,—the advantage is on the side of the brute, for the reason stated above. But the fact is that man attains the natural term of years just as seldom as the brute; because the unnatural way in which he lives, and the strain of work and emotion, lead to a degeneration of the race; and so his goal is not often reached.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "Studies in Pessimism/On the Sufferings of the World."
Wherever there is degeneration and apathy, there also is sexual perversion, cold depravity, miscarriage, premature old age, grumbling youth, there is a decline in the arts, indifference to science, and injustice in all its forms.
Anton Chekhov.
Even if this degeneration do not take place, and the foundation be not withered on which antiquarian history can alone take root with profit to life: yet there are dangers enough, if it become too powerful and invade the territories of the other methods. It only understands how to preserve life, not to create it; and thus always undervalues the present growth, having, unlike monumental history, no certain instinct for it. Thus it hinders the mighty impulse to a new deed and paralyses the doer, who must always, as doer, be grazing some piety or other. The fact that has grown old carries with it a demand for its own immortality. For when one considers the life-history of such an ancient fact, the amount of reverence paid to it for generations—whether it be a custom, a religious creed, or a political principle,—it seems presumptuous, even impious, to replace it by a new fact, and the ancient congregation of pieties by a new piety.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life."
The pietist, the priest of either sex, is a fraud because he is sick: his instinct demands that the truth shall never be allowed its rights on any point. “Whatever makes for illness is good; whatever issues from abundance, from superabundance, from power, is evil”: so argues the believer. The impulse to lie—it is by this that I recognize every foreordained theologian.—Another characteristic of the theologian is his unfitness for philology. What I here mean by philology is, in a general sense, the art of reading with profit—the capacity for absorbing facts without interpreting them falsely, and without losing caution, patience and subtlety in the effort to understand them.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Antichrist."
Frankly, this conjecture is an erroneous one, and he who forms it knows nothing of what agitates anddetermines the independent thinker: how little do his changes of opinion appear to him contemptible in themselves! How highly, on the contrary, does he honour in the faculty of changing his opinion, a rare and high distinction, especially if it extends far into old age. His ambition (and not his pusillanimity) reaches up even to the forbidden fruits of the ‘’speruere se sperui’’ (contempt for his despisers) and the ‘’speruere se ipsum’’ (contempt for self): not to mention theadditional anxieties of a rain and easy-going man. Besides he esteems the doctrine of the innocence of all opinions to be as safe as the doctrine of the innocence of all actions : how could he pose as judge and executioner before the apostate from intellectual freedom? His sight would more probably repel him, as the sight of any one who has some disease repels the physician. The physical disgust of the spongy, mollified, rank, suppurating, for a moment conquers reason and the desire to assist. Hence our readiness is overcome by the notion of the gigantic dishonesty which must have prevailed in the apostate from free thought: by the notion of a universal degeneration which has affected even the framework of Character.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Dawn of the Day/Book 1."
FATALITY OF GREATNESS.— Every great phenomenon is succeeded by degeneration, especially in the domain of art. The example of greatness incites all vainer natures to extreme imitation or attempts to outdo; in addition to which, all great talents have the fatal property of suppressing many weaker shoots and forces and as it were laying nature waste all around them. The most fortunate thing that can happen in the evolution of an art is that several geniuses appear together and keep one another in bounds; in the course of this struggle the weaker and tenderer natures too will usually be granted light and air.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Human All-Too-Human."
SOWING AND REAPING ON THE FIELD OF PERSONAL DEFECTS.—Men like Rousseau understand how to use their weaknesses, defects, and vices as manure for their talent. When Rousseau bewails the corruption and degeneration of society as the evil results of culture, there is a personal experience at the bottom of it, the bitterness which gives sharpness to his general condemnation and poisons the arrows with which he shoots ; he unburdens himself first as an individual, and thinks of getting a remedy which, while benefiting society directly, will also benefit himself indirectly by means of society.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Human All-Too-Human."
If one could observe the strangely painful, equally coarse and refined comedy of European Christianity with the derisive and impartial eye of an Epicurean god, I should think one would never cease marvelling and laughing; does it not actually seem that some single will has ruled over Europe for eighteen centuries in order to make a SUBLIME ABORTION of man? He, however, who, with opposite requirements (no longer Epicurean) and with some divine hammer in his hand, could approach this almost voluntary degeneration and stunting of mankind, as exemplified in the European Christian (Pascal, for instance), would he not have to cry aloud with rage, pity, and horror: "Oh, you bunglers, presumptuous pitiful bunglers, what have you done! Was that a work for your hands? How you have hacked and botched my finest stone! What have you presumed to do!"--I should say that Christianity has hitherto been the most portentous of presumptions. Men, not great enough, nor hard enough, to be entitled as artists to take part in fashioning MAN; men, not sufficiently strong and far-sighted to ALLOW, with sublime self- constraint, the obvious law of the thousandfold failures and perishings to prevail; men, not sufficiently noble to see the radically different grades of rank and intervals of rank that separate man from man:--SUCH men, with their "equality before God," have hitherto swayed the destiny of Europe; until at last a dwarfed, almost ludicrous species has been produced, a gregarious animal, something obliging, sickly, mediocre, the European of the present day.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Beyond Good and Evil/Chapter III."
I can only repeat that I set myself against all efforts to intrude the fanatic into the figure of the Saviour: the very word impérieux, used by Renan, is alone enough to annul the type. What the “glad tidings” tell us is simply that there are no more contradictions; the kingdom of heaven belongs to children; the faith that is voiced here is no more an embattled faith—it is at hand, it has been from the beginning, it is a sort of recrudescent childishness of the spirit. The physiologists, at all events, are familiar with such a delayed and incomplete puberty in the living organism, the result of degeneration.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Antichrist."
Pharisaism is not a degeneration in a good man: a large portion of it is rather the condition of all being-good.
Friedrich Nietzsche.
SYON lyes waste, and Thy Ierusalem,
O Lord, is falne to vtter desolation;
Against Thy Prophets, and Thy holy men,
The sinne hath wrought a fatal combination;
Prophan'd Thy name, Thy worship ouerthrowne,
And made Thee liuing Lord, a God vnknowne.
Thy powerfull lawes, Thy wonders of creation,
Thy word incarnate, glorious heauen, darke hell,
Lye shadowed vnder man's degeneration;
Thy Christ still crucifi'd for doing well;
Impiety, O Lord, sits on Thy throne,
Which makes Thee liuing Lord, A God vnknowne.
Fulke Greville, Jokinen, Anniina. “Fulke Greville. ‘Caelica.’ Sonnet 110. Sion Lies Waste, and Thy Jerusalem, O Lord, Is Fallen to Utter Desolation.” Luminarium.org, 2 Feb. 2007, www.luminarium.org/renlit/caelica110.htm.
The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word "damn" than in the word "degeneration."
G. K. Chesterton.
Desire
No more subtle master under heaven
Than is the maiden passion for a maid,
Not only to keep down the base in man
But teach high thought and amiable words
And courtliness and the desire of fame
And love of truth and all that makes a man.
Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King: Guinevere. Line 475.
Yet this grief / Is added to the griefs the great must bear, / That howsoever much they may desire / Silence, they cannot weep behind a cloud.
Alfred Tennyson.
Thou who stealest fire,
From the fountains of the past,
To glorify the present; oh, haste,
Visit my low desire!
Strengthen me, enlighten me!
I faint in this obscurity,
Thou dewy dawn of memory.
Alfred Tennyson.
So many minds did gird their orbs with beams,
Tho' one did fling the fire;
Heaven flow'd upon the soul in many dreams
Of high desire.
Alfred Tennyson.
Tonight, grave sir, both my poor house, and I
Do equally desire your company;
Not that we think us worthy such a guest,
But that your worth will dignify our feast
With those that come, whose grace may make that seem
Something, which else could hope for no esteem.
It is the fair acceptance, sir, creates
The entertainment perfect, not the cates.
“Inviting a Friend to Supper by Ben Jonson | Poetry Foundation.”
It is never too late to reform, as long as you have the sense to desire it, and the strength to execute your purpose.
Anne Brontë.
I perceive, with joy, my most valued friend, that the cloud of your displeasure has past away; the light of your countenance blesses me once more, and you desire the continuation of my story: therefore, without more ado, you shall have it.
Anne Brontë.
In every country where independence has taken the place of liberty, the first desire of a manly heart is to possess a weapon which at once renders him capable of defence or attack, and, by rendering its owner fearsome, makes him feared.
Alexandre Dumas.
Call round her tomb each object of desire,
Each purer frame inform'd with purer fire:
Bid her be all that chears or softens life,
The tender sister, daughter, friend and wife;
Bid her be all that makes mankind adore;
Then view this marble, and be vain no more!
Yet still her charms in breathing paint engage;
Her modest cheek shall warm a future age.
Beauty, frail flow'r that ev'ry season fears,
Blooms in thy colours for a thousand years.
Alexander Pope, "The Works of Alexander Pope (1717)/To Mr. Jervas, with Fresnoy's Art of Painting, translated by Mr. Dryden."
Self-love and reason to one end aspire,
Pain their aversion, pleasure their desire;
But greedy that its object would devour,
This taste the honey, and not wound the flow'r:
Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood,
Our greatest evil, or our greatest good.
Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Man/Chapter 4."
To be contents his natural desire,
He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.
Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense
Weigh thy opinion against providence;
Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much;
Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust,
Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust;
If man alone engross not heaven's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there,
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Rejudge his Justice, be the god of God!
Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Man/Chapter 3."
Eleutherius: …I don’t scorn the honors won by my ancestors nor do I lack the desire to follow in some modest way along the same path, if I may do so in liberty. I do not shirk labor and trouble. I would take on work, and danger too, for my country. But the truth is that I cannot peacefully tolerate our ungrateful citizenry and the usurpers of our liberty. I live, therefore, as you see, content with this little house and farm. I am free from all anxiety. I don’t inquire what goes on in the city, and I lead a quiet and free life. There’s never a day when I fail to read or write, and, except when it rains, I always take some exercise outdoors. If only I could have your company here, therefore, I should consider myself in paradise.
Alamanno Rinuccini, Dialogue on Liberty, bk 2, 1479.
Let war stay abroad; it makes no difficulty in coming, for the man who will have in him a strong desire for glory. I disapprove of a bird's battling in its own home.
Aeshylus.
I never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life only to the culture of them and the study of nature.
Abraham Cowley.
Man is subject to wants, and he has faculties to provide for them; and from the application of these faculties, differently modified and distributed, a mass of wealth is derived, destined to supply the wants of the community. But what are the principles by which the formation or allotment, the preservation or consumption, the increase or diminution of this wealth is governed? What are the laws of that equilibrium between the wants and resources of men which is continually tending to establish itself; and from which results, on the one hand, a greater facility of providing for those wants, and of consequence an adequate portion of general felicity, when wealth increases, till it has reached its highest degree of advancement; and on the other, as wealth diminishes, greater difficulties, and of consequence proportionate misery and wretchedness, till abstinence or depopulation shall have again restored the balance; How, in this astonishing multiplicity of labours and their produce, of wants and resources; in this alarming, this terrible complication of interests, which connects the subsistence and well-being of an obscure individual with the generalsystem of social existence, which renders him dependent on all the accidents of nature and every political event, and extends in a manner to the whole globe his faculty of experiencing privations or enjoyments; how is it that, in this seeming chaos, we still perceive, by a general law of the moral world, the efforts of each individual for himself conducing to the good of the whole, and, notwithstanding the open conflict of inimical interests, the public welfare requiring that each shouldund erstand his own interest, and be able to parsue it freely and uncontrouled?
Marquis de Condorcet, Outlines of an historical view of the progress of the human mind. M. Carey, 1795, p. 189.
That which men Desire, they are also sayd to LOVE; and to HATE those things, for which they have Aversion. So that Desire, and Love, are the same thing; save that by Desire, we alwayes signifie the Absence of the object; by Love, most commonly the Presence of the same. So also by Aversion, we signifie the Absence; and by Hate, the Presence of the Object.
Of Appetites, and Aversions, some are born with men; as Appetite of food, Appetite of excretion, and exoneration, (which may also and more properly be called Aversions, from somewhat they feele in their Bodies;) and some other Appetites, not many. The rest, which are Appetites of particular things, proceed from Experience, and triall of their effects upon themselves, or other men. For of things wee know not at all, or believe not to be, we can have no further Desire, than to tast and try. But Aversion wee have for things, not onely which we know have hurt us; but also that we do not know whether they will hurt us, or not.
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Part 1, Ch 6.
Of desire also, he (Pythagoras) said as follows:--This passion is various, laborious, and very multiform. Of desires, however, some are acquired and adventitious, but others are connascent. But he defined desire itself to be a certain tendency and impulse of the soul, and an appetite of a plentitude or presence of sense, or an emptiness and absence of it, and of non-perception. He also said, that there are three most known species of erroneous and depraved desire, viz., the indecorous, the incommensurate, and the unseasonable. For desire is either immediately Indecorous, troublesome, and illiberal, or it is not absolutely so, but is more vehement and lasting than is fit. Or in the third place, it is impelled when it is not proper, and to objects to which it ought not to tend.
Pythagoras, “Pythagorean Ethical Sentences from Stobæus.” Sacred-Texts.com, 2024, sacred-texts.com/cla/gvp/gvp08.htm.
Desire is the uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of anything whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it.
Johann Kaspar Lavater.
Discipline
I CAN wade grief,
Whole pools of it,—
I'm used to that.
But the least push of joy
Breaks up my feet,
And I tip—drunken.
Let no pebble smile,
'T was the new liquor,—
That was all!
Power is only pain,
Stranded, through discipline,
Till weights will hang.
Give balm to giants,
And they'll wilt, like men.
Give Himmaleh,—
They'll carry him!
"Poems: Second Series (Dickinson)/The Test."
The general end therefore of all the book is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline.
Edmund Spenser.
The whole man moves under the discipline of his opinions.
Edmund Burke.
What is the education of the generality of the world? Reading a parcel of books? No. Restraint of discipline, emulation, examples of virtue and of justice, form the education of the world.
Edmund Burke.
There was a class of the Druids whom they called Bards, who delivered in songs (their only history) the exploits of their heroes, and who composed those verses which contained the secrets of Druidical discipline, their principles of natural and moral philosophy, their astronomy, and the mystical rites of their religion. These verses in all probability bore a near resemblance to the Golden Verses of Pythagoras.—to those of Phocylides, Orpheus, and other remnants of the most ancient Greek poets.
Edmund Burke.
What purist magazines beseech,
A novel breed of belles may heed it,
And bend us (for my life of sin)
To strict grammatic discipline,
Prescribing meter, too, where needed;
But I - what is all this to me?
I like things as they used to be
Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin, Ch. 3, st. 28.
There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the wisdom of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men.
C. S. Lewis.
It's my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.
Charles Dickens.
'Tis said of Alexander the Great, that being in bed, for fear lest sleep should divert him from his thoughts and studies, he had always a basin set by his bedside, and held one of his hands out with a ball of copper in it, to the end, that, beginning to fall asleep, and his fingers leaving their hold, the ball by falling into the basin, might awake him. But the other had his soul so bent upon what he had a mind to do, and so little disturbed with fumes by reason of his singular abstinence, that he had no need of any such invention. As to his military experience, he was excellent in all the qualities of a great captain, as it was likely he should, being almost all his life in a continual exercise of war, and most of that time with us in France, against the Germans and Franks: we hardly read of any man who ever saw more dangers, or who made more frequent proofs of his personal valour.
Michel de Montaigne, The Essays of Montaigne. 1877. Edited by William Carew Hazlitt, Translated by Charles Cotton. Book II Chapter XIX. Of liberty of conscience.
So far is it from the kenne of these wretched projectors of ours that bescraull their Pamflets every day with new formes of government for our Church. And therefore all the ancient lawgivers were either truly inspir'd as Moses, or were such men as with authority anough might give it out to be so, as Minos, Lycurgus, Numa, because they wisely forethought that men would never quietly submit to such a discipline as had not more of Gods hand in it then mans. To come within the narrownesse of houshold government, observation will shew us many deepe counsellers of state and judges to demean themselves incorruptly in the setl'd course of affaires, and many worthy Preachers upright in their lives, powerfull in their audience; but look upon either of these men where they are left to their own disciplining at home, and you shall soone perceive for all their single knowledge and uprightnesse, how deficient they are in the regulating of their own family; not only in what may concerne the vertuous and decent composure of their minds in their severall places, but that which is of a lower and easier performance, the right possessing of the outward vessell, their body, in health or sicknesse, rest or labour, diet, or abstinence, whereby to render it more pliant to the soule, and usefull to the Common-wealth: which if men were but as good to discipline themselves, as some are to tutor their Horses and Hawks, it could not be so grosse in most housholds.
John Milton, “The Reason of Church Government: Book 1.” Bk. 1, CHAP. I.
Finally to make a short and compendious conclusion, these be the most special things which will make thee sure from pleasures and enticings of the flesh, first of all, circumspect and diligent avoiding of all occasions Avoiding occasions., which precept though it be meet to be observed also in other things, because that he which loveth perils is worthy to perish therein Syrenes be mere maidens., yet these be most chiefly those Syrenes which almost never man at all hath escaped, save he which hath kept far off. Secondly, moderation of eating and drinking and of sleep, temperance and abstinence from pleasures, yea from such as be lawful and permitted: the regard of thine own death, and the contemplation of the death of Christ, and those things also will help if thou shalt live with such as be chaste and uncorrupted: if thou shalt eschew as a certain pestilence the communication of corrupt and wanton persons: if thou shalt flee idle solitariness and sluggish idleness: if thou shalt exercise thy mind strongly in the meditation of celestial things, and in honest studies. But specially if thou shalt consecrate thyself with all thy might unto the investigation or searching of mysteries of holy scripture: if thou shalt pray both oft and purely, most of all when temptation invadeth and assaulteth thee.
Erasmus, The Manual of a Christian Knight. Methuen, 1501, Chap. xxxiii.
Dogmatism
Nothing can save us from a perpetual headlong fall into a bottomless abyss but a solid footing of dogma; and we no sooner agree to that than we find that the only trustworthy dogma is that there is no dogma.
George Bernard Shaw, Plays Extravagant: Too True to be Good, The Simpleton of the Unexpected Isles, The Millionairess (ed. Penguin UK, 1991).
The further the dogmas were departed from, the more a justification for this departure was aimed at in a cult of philanthropy: not to fall short of the Christin ideal in this point, but, if possible, to excel it, was a secret stimulus to all French free-thinkers from Voltaire clown to Auguste Comte; and the latter, with his famous moral formula of "vivre pour autrui." has indeed outchristianed Christianity! The doctrine of sympathetic affections and of the pity or utility of others, as the principle of action, has gained its greatest fame in Germany through Schopenhauer, in England through John Stuart Mill: but they themselves were only echoes—from about the time of the French revolution, these doctrines have, with an enormous motor force, sprung up everywhere in the coarsest as well as the subtlest forms, and all socialistic principles involuntarily, as it were, took their stand on the common ground of this doctrine. Perhaps in our days no prejudice is more implicitly believed in than that we know what really constitutes morality. It seems that now everybody is pleased to hear that society is about adapt the individual to the general requirements, and that the happiness and, at the same time, the sacrifice of the individual consists in feeling himself as a useful member and instrument of the whole: we have only our lingering doubts as to where to look for this whole; whether in an existing State or in one yet to be founded, or in the nation, or in an international brotherhood, or in small, new, economic communities.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Dawn of the Day/Book 2."
The opinions of different philosophers, were explained, defended and opposed in this school, but merely as hypotheses calculated to exercise the mind and illustrate more fully, by the uncertainty which accompanied these disputes, the vanity of human knowledge and absurdity of the dogmatical confidence of the other sects.
This doctrine, if it go no farther than to discountenance reasoning upon words to which we can affix no clear and precise ideas; than to proportion our belief in any proposition to the degree of probability it bears; than to ascertain, as to every species of knowledge, the bounds of certainty we are able to acquire,—this scepticism is then rational; but when it extends to demonstrated truths; when it attacks the principles of morality, it becomes either weakness or insanity; and such is the extreme into which the sophists have fallen, who succeeded in the academy the first disciples of Plato.
Marquis de Condorcet, Outlines of an historical view of the progress of the human mind. M. Carey, 1795, pp. 90-91.
What then will be the vain resources of the Christ-lovers? Their morality? Essentially it is the same as in all religions, but cruel dogmas have been born of it and have taught persecution and disorder. Their miracles? But what people don’t have their own, and what wise men don’t hold these fables in contempt? Their prophecies? Have we not demonstrated their falsity? Their morality? Is it not often unspeakable? The establishment of their religion? But did fanaticism not begin, intrigue not raise, and force not visibly support that edifice? Their doctrine? But isn’t it the height of absurdity?
I believe, my dear friends, to have provided you with sufficient protection against so many follies. Your reason will provide you with even more than my discourse, and may it please God that we not have reason to complain that we have been deceived. But since the time of Constantine human blood has flowed for the establishment of these impostures. The Roman Church, the Greek, the Protestant, so many vain disputes, so many ambitious hypocrites have ravaged Europe, Africa, and Asia. Add together, my friends, with the men these quarrels have slaughtered, those multitudes of monks and nuns who have been rendered sterile by their state. See how many creatures have been lost and you will see that the Christian religion has made half of humanity perish.
Jean Meslier, “Testament of Jean Meslier 1729.”
But, say they, that learn’d Person whom we make choice of, and who submits himself to the Laws of our Society, may adorn, illustrate, and set those Truths in a clearer Light, &c. But yet the Absurdity still remains as to the most material Points; and in a Word, I cannot see how a fix’d Resolution to remain invariably in the Belief of such and such Articles, can be freed from the heavy Imputation of either a Pretence to Infallibility, or a wilful Blindness. Neither can I see what great Occasion there is for a Teacher at all, except it be to save Parents and Masters the Trouble of Instructing their Children and Servants. It looks prodigiously odd that any should think That an Act of Christian Liberty which in reality appears the very contrary. To confine our selves to listen only to such Teachers as are sworn to tell us nothing but what we do sufficiently know and believe, is actually to forsake our Liberty, to fetter our Understandings, and limit ourselves to a poor, slavish, narrow Circle of Thought.
Benjamin Franklin, “A Letter to a Friend in the Country, [25 September 1735],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-02-02-0010.
Doubt
The Counterturn
Did wiser Nature draw thee back
From out the horror of that sack,
Where shame, faith, honor, and regard of right
Lay trampled on; the deeds of death and night
Urged, hurried forth, and hurled
Upon th’ affrighted world;
Sword, fire, and famine, with fell fury met,
And all on utmost ruin set,
As, could they but life’s miseries foresee,
No doubt all infants would return like thee?
“To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of That Noble Pair, Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Morison| Poetry Foundation.”
And whither rap'd, now thou but stoop'st to me?
Dwell, dwell here still. O, being everywhere,
How can I doubt to find thee ever here?
I know my state, both full of shame and scorn,
Conceiv'd in sin, and unto labour borne,
Standing with fear, and must with horror fall,
And destin'd unto judgment, after all.
I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground
Upon my flesh t' inflict another wound.
Yet dare I not complain, or wish for death
With holy Paul, lest it be thought the breath
Of discontent; or that these prayers be
For weariness of life, not love of thee.
“To Heaven by Ben Jonson | Poetry Foundation.”
No doubt a moldy tale,
Like Pericles, and stale
As the shrive’s crusts, and nasty as his fish,
Scraps out of every dish
Thrown forth, and raked into the common tub,
May keep up the Play Club.
Ben Jonson, “Ode to Himself [‘Come Leave the Loathéd Stage’]… | Poetry Foundation.”
Be moderate in your Views. Every one holds views according to his interest, and imagines he has abundant grounds for them. For with most men judgment has to give way to inclination. It may occur that two may meet with exactly opposite views and yet each thinks to have reason on his side, yet reason is always true to itself and never has two faces. In such a difficulty a prudent man will go to work with care, for his decision of his opponent's view may cast doubt on his own. Place yourself in such a case in the other man's place and then investigate the reasons for his opinion. You will not then condemn him or justify yourself in such a confusing way.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
An affected doubt is the subtlest picklock that curiosity can use to find out what it wants to know. Also in learning it is a subtle plan of the pupil to contradict the master, who thereupon takes pains to explain the truth more thoroughly and with more force, so that a moderate contradiction produces complete instruction.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
Select the Lucky and avoid the Unlucky. Ill-luck is generally the penalty of folly, and there is no disease so contagious to those who share in it. Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it. The greatest skill at cards is to know when to discard; the smallest of current trumps is worth more than the ace of trumps of the last game. When in doubt, follow the suit of the wise and prudent; sooner or later they will win the odd trick.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
For although the incontinent sin in that hesitant manner, and their reason does struggle with their desires, and they realize what evil is, yet they lack full knowledge and do not understand evil as well as they need to. Possessing only a vague notion rather than any certain knowledge of evil, they allow their reason to be overcome by emotion. But if they enjoyed true knowledge there is no doubt that they would not fall into error. For reason is always overcome by desire because of ignorance, and true knowledge can never be defeated by the emotions, which originate in the body rather than the soul. And if the emotions are properly governed and controlled by reason, then they become virtuous, and if otherwise, then vicious. However, reason is so potent that it always makes the senses obey it, insinuating itself by marvellous ways and means, provided what it ought to possess is not seized by ignorance.
Baldesar Castiglione, How to Achieve True Greatness, Bk 1, pg. 57.
It is painful to doubt the sincerity of those we love.
Anne Brontë.
She, however, attentively watched my looks, and her artist's pride was gratified, no doubt, to read my heartfelt admiration in my eyes.
Anne Brontë.
I ought not to doubt the steadiness of your affection. Yet such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest, and thus it is, that i always feel revived, as by a new convinction, when your words tell me I am dear to you; and wanting these, I relapse into doubt and often into despondency.
Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolfo: A Romance Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry (ed. 1795)
Similarly, doubt has also four aspects absurd reasoning; fear; vacillation and hesitation; and unreasonable surrender to infidelity, because one who has accustomed himself to unreasonable and absurd discussions will never see the Light of Truth and will always live in the darkness of ignorance. One who is afraid to face facts (of life, death and the life after death) will always turn away from ultimate reality, one who allows doubts and uncertainties to vacillate him will always be under the control of Satan and one who surrenders himself to infidelity accepts damnation in both the worlds.
Ali ibn Abi Talib, Nahj al-Balagha, Translations by Askari Jafri
I am going a long way
With these thou seest—if indeed I go
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)—
To the island-valley of Avilion,
Where falls not hail or rain or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.
Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur. Line 424.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.
Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam. xcvi. Stanza 3.
Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.
Alfred Tennyson, Locksley Hall. Line 137.
There are people who are willing to suffer and swallow their tears at leisure, and God will not doubt reward them in heaven for their resignation; but those who have the will to struggle strike back at fate in retaliation for the blows they receive. Do you intend to fight back at fate, Valentine? That's what I came here to ask you.
Alexandre Dumas.
He was thinking alone, and seriously racking his brain to find a direction for this single force four times multiplied, with which he did not doubt, as with the lever for which Archimedes sought, they should succeed in moving the world, when some one tapped gently at his door.
Alexandre Dumas.
This is my way of doubting all those incredible things which Schopenhauer attributes te commiseration: he, who would thereby make us believe in his great announcement that pity— the very pity so imperfectly observed and so badly described by him—is the source of all and every former and future moral action, for the very sake of those faculties which he had erroneously imputed to it. What is it really that distinguishes people without compassion from the compassionate ones? Above all, to give but a rough sketch, they have not the susceptible imagination of fear, the nice faculty for scenting danger; neither is their vanity so easily offended if something should happen which they might prevent (their cautious pride bids them not meddle uselessly with other people's affairs; may, they cling to the belief that everybody should help himself and play his own cards). Besides they are, in most cases, more hardened to the enduring of pain than the compassionate ones; it, therefore, does not seem so very unfair to them, since they have suffered, that others should suffer. Lastly, the state of softheartedness to them is as painful as the state of stoic equanimity to the compassionate; they bestow on it words of depreciation and think their manliness and cold valour thereby endangered, they conceal the tear from others and wipe it off, full of anger with themselves. Their selfishness differs from that of the compassionate ; but to call them, in the highest sense, evil, and the compassionate ones good, is nothing but a moral fashion, which is having its run, as the reverse fashion had its run, and a long run too,
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Dawn of the Day/Book 2."
We are told of the greater and the lesser prophets. They might as well tell us of the greater and the lesser God; for there cannot be degrees in prophesying consistently with its modern sense. But there are degrees in poetry, and there-fore the phrase is reconcilable to the case, when we understand by it the greater and the lesser poets.
It is altogether unnecessary, after this, to offer any observations upon what those men, styled prophets, have written. The axe goes at once to the root, by showing that the original meaning of the word has been mistaken, and consequently all the inferences that have been drawn from those books, the devotional respect that has been paid to them, and the laboured commentaries that have been written upon them, under that mistaken meaning, are not worth disputing about. – In many things, however, the writings of the Jewish poets deserve a better fate than that of being bound up, as they now are, with the trash that accompanies them, under the abused name of the Word of God.
If we permit ourselves to conceive right ideas of things, we must necessarily affix the idea, not only of unchangeableness, but of the utter impossibility of any change taking place, by any means or accident whatever, in that which we would honour with the name of the Word of God; and therefore the Word of God cannot exist in any written or human language.
“The Age of Reason - Part I, 1793.” CHAPTER VII - EXAMINATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
I would like to make my voice heard from one end of the kingdom to the other, or rather from one extremity of the earth to the other. I would cry out with all my force: You are mad, o men; you are mad to allow yourselves to be led this way and to blindly believe so much foolishness. I would make them understand that they are in a state of error, and that those who govern them abuse and impose upon them. I would reveal to them this detestable iniquitous mystery that everywhere makes them so miserable and unhappy and which without a question will, in the centuries to come, be the shame and opprobrium of our time. I would reproach them their madness and their foolishness in believing and putting faith in so many errors, so many illusions, and so many ridiculous and vulgar impostures. I would reproach them their cowardice for allowing such detestable tyrants to live so long and for not having shaken off the so odious yoke of their tyrannical governments and dominations.
Jean Meslier, “Conclusion 1728.”
Dreams
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
William Shakespeare, The Tempest. Act iv. Sc. 1.
O, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
Though ’t were to buy a world of happy days.
William Shakespeare, King Richard III. Act i. Sc. 4.
Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again.
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 4.
True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy.
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. Act i. Sc. 4.
But let the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,
Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep
In the affliction of these terrible dreams
That shake us nightly.
William Shakespeare, Macbeth Act 3, Scene 2.
To die, to sleep—
No more—and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep—
To sleep—perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death
The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
William Shakespeare, Hamlet.
When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected;
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright are bright in dark directed.
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow's form form happy show
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made
By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.
"Shakespeare's Sonnets (1883)/Sonnet 43."
Few have greater riches than the joy That comes to us in visions, In dreams which nobody can take away.
Euripides.
Do we, holding that the gods exist, deceive ourselves with insubstantial dreams and lies, while random careless chance and change alone control the world?"
Euripides.
I am nothing but words, just a shape of dreams or night.
Euripides, Heracles and Other Plays.
Dreams have neither a divine nature nor a prophetic power, but they are the result of images that impact on us.
“Epicurus - Vatican Sayings.” Saying Number 24.
Death? let it come when it will, whether it smite but a part of the whole: Fly, you tell me--fly! But whither shall I fly? Can any man cast me beyond the limits of the World? It may not be! And whithersoever I go, there shall I still find Sun, Moon, and Stars; there I shall find dreams, and omens, and converse with the Gods!
“The Internet Classics Archive | the Golden Sayings by Epictetus.” Section 2 Saying CXII.
Bright and illustrious illusions! Who can blame, who laugh at the boy, who not admire and commend him, for that desire of a fame outlasting the Pyramids by which he insensibly learns to live in a life beyond the present, and nourish dreams of a good unattainable, by the senses?
Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
Sublime Philosophy!
Thou art the patriarch’s ladder, reaching heaven,
And bright with beckoning angels; but, alas!
We see thee, like the patriarch, but in dreams,
By the first step, dull slumbering on the earth.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
Trust not in dreams, which make seem real and true Just what awake was most desired by you.
"Distichs of Cato" Book 2.
But if when morn is near our dreams are true,
Feel shalt thou in a little time from now
What Prato, if none other, craves for thee.
Dante Alighieri, "Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867)/Volume 1/Canto 26."
And as he is who dreams of his own harm,
Who dreaming wishes it may be a dream,
So that he craves what is, as if it were not;
Such I became, not having power to speak,
For to excuse myself I wished, and still
Excused myself, and did not think I did it.
"Less shame doth wash away a greater fault,"
The Master said, "than this of thine has been;
Therefore thyself disburden of all sadness,
And make account that I am aye beside thee,
If e'er it come to pass that fortune bring thee
Where there are people in a like dispute;
For a base wish it is to wish to hear it."
Dante Alighieri, "Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867)/Volume 1/Canto 30."
Nor prayer for inspiration me availed,
By means of which in dreams and otherwise
I called him back, so little did he heed them.
So low he fell, that all appliances
For his salvation were already short,
Save showing him the people of perdition.
For this I visited the gates of death,
And unto him, who so far up has led him,
My intercessions were with weeping borne.
God's lofty fiat would be violated,
If Lethe should be passed, and if such viands
Should tasted be, withouten any scot
Of penitence, that gushes forth in tears."
Dante Alighieri, "Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867)/Volume 2/Canto 30."
Perish that thought! No, never be it said
That Fate itself could awe the soul of Richard.
Hence, babbling dreams! you threaten here in vain!
Conscience, avaunt! Richard 's himself again!
Hark! the shrill trumpet sounds to horse! away!
My soul 's in arms, and eager for the fray.
Colley Cibber, Act V, scene 3. - Richard III (altered) (1700)
Love is a golden bubble, full of dreams,
That waking breaks, and fills us with extremes.
She mus'd how she could look upon her sire,
And not show that without, that was intire.
Christopher Marlowe, "Hero and Leander (Marlowe)/Third Sestyad."
The town was glad with morning light; places that had shown ugly and distrustful all night long, now wore a smile; and sparkling sunbeams dancing on chamber windows, and twinkling through blind and curtain before sleepers' eyes, shed light even into dreams, and chased away the shadows of the night.
Charles Dickens.
We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name.
Charles Lamb.
Metaphysicians have been learning their lessons for the last four thousand years, and it is high time that they should now begin to teach us something. Can any of the tribe inform us why all the operations of the mind are carried on with undiminished strength and activity in dreams, except the judgment, which alone is suspended and dormant?
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
Dreams ought to produce no conviction whatever on philosophical minds. If we consider how many dreams are dreamt every night, and how many events occur every day, we shall no longer wonder at those accidental coincidences which ignorance mistakes for verifications.
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
The more delicate and ambitious the soul, the further do dreams estrange it from possible things.
Charles Baudelaire.
The observer is a prince who enjoys his incognito everywhere. The lover of life makes the world his family, just as the lover of the fair sex devises his family from all discovered, discoverable and undiscoverable beauties; as the lover of pictures lives in an enchanted society of painted dreams on canvas.
Charles Baudelaire.
Common sense tells us that the things of the earth exist only a little, and that true reality is only in dreams.
Charles Baudelaire.
In each of us there is another whom we do not know. He speaks to us in dreams and tells us how differently he sees us from the way we see ourselves. When, therefore, we find ourselves in a difficult situation to which there is no solution, he can sometimes kindle a light that radically alters our attitude - the very attitude that led us into the difficult situation.
Carl Jung.
We do not feel as if we were producing the dreams, it is rather as if the dreams came to us. They are not subject to our control but obey their own laws.
Carl Jung.
I have no theory about dreams. I do not know how dreams arise. On the other hand, I know that if we meditate on a dream sufficiently long and thoroughly – if we take the boat with us and turn it over and over – something almost always comes out of it.
Carl Jung.
Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
Carl Jung.
Peaceful Life, a long Life. To live, let live. Peacemakers not only live: they rule life. Hear, see, and be silent. A day without dispute brings sleep without dreams. Long life and a pleasant one is life enough for two: that is the fruit of peace. He has all that makes nothing of what is nothing to him. There is no greater perversity than to take everything to heart. There is equal folly in troubling our heart about what does not concern us and in not taking to heart what does.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
Have reasonable Views of Yourself and of your Affairs, especially in the beginning of life. Every one has a high opinion of himself, especially those who have least ground for it. Every one dreams of his good-luck and thinks himself a wonder. Hope gives rise to extravagant promises which experience does not fulfil. Such idle imaginations merely serve as a well-spring of annoyance when disillusion comes with the true reality.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
Consequently, all those lovers who satisfy their impure desires with the women they love meet with one of two evils: either as soon as they achieve the end they desire they experience satiety and distaste and even begin to hate what they love, as if their desire repented of its error and recognized the way it had been deceived by the false judgement of the senses, which had made it believe that evil was good; or else they are still troubled by the same avidity and desire, since they have not in fact attained the end they were seeking. Admittedly, confused by their short-sighted view of things, they imagine that they are experiencing pleasure, just as sometimes a sick man dreams that he is drinking from a clear fountain.
Baldesar Castiglione, How to Achieve True Greatness, Bk 1, pg. 67.
Nina: Your play's hard to act, there are no living people in it.
Treplev: Living people! We should show life neither as it is nor as it ought to be, but as we see it in our dreams.
Anton Chekhov.
The most difficult discerning of a mans Dream, from his waking thoughts, is then, when by some accident we observe not that we have slept: which is easie to happen to a man full of fearfull thoughts; and whose conscience is much troubled; and that sleepeth, without the circumstances, of going to bed, or putting off his clothes, as one that noddeth in a chayre. For he that taketh pains, and industriously layes himselfe to sleep, in case any uncouth and exorbitant fancy come unto him, cannot easily think it other than a Dream. We read of Marcus Brutes, (one that had his life given him by Julius Caesar, and was also his favorite, and notwithstanding murthered him,) how at Phillipi, the night before he gave battell to Augustus Caesar, he saw a fearfull apparition, which is commonly related by Historians as a Vision: but considering the circumstances, one may easily judge to have been but a short Dream. For sitting in his tent, pensive and troubled with the horrour of his rash act, it was not hard for him, slumbering in the cold, to dream of that which most affrighted him; which feare, as by degrees it made him wake; so also it must needs make the Apparition by degrees to vanish: And having no assurance that he slept, he could have no cause to think it a Dream, or any thing but a Vision. And this is no very rare Accident: for even they that be perfectly awake, if they be timorous, and supperstitious, possessed with fearfull tales, and alone in the dark, are subject to the like fancies, and believe they see spirits and dead mens Ghosts walking in Churchyards; whereas it is either their Fancy onely, or els the knavery of such persons, as make use of such superstitious feare, to pass disguised in the night, to places they would not be known to haunt.
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Part 1, Ch 2.
The study of dreams may be considered the most trustworthy method of investigating deep mental processes. Now dreams occurring in traumatic neuroses have the characteristic of repeatedly bringing the patient back into the situation of his accident, a situation from which he wakes up in another fright.
Sigmund Freud, Abstracts of The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (ed. 1971).
There is an Art to make dreames as well as their interpretations, and physitians will tell us that some food makes turbulent, some gives quiet dreames. Cato who doated upon cabbadge might find the crude effects thereof in his sleepe; wherein the Egyptians might find some advantage by their superstitious abstinence from onions. Pythagoras might have more calmer sleepes if hee totally abstained from beanes. Even Daniel, that great interpreter of dreames, in his leguminous dyet seeemes to have chosen no advantageous food for quiet sleepes according to Graecian physick. To adde unto the delusion of dreames, the phantasticall objects seeme greater then they are, and being beheld in the vaporous state of sleepe, enlarge their diameters unto us; whereby it may prove more easie to dreame of Gyants then pygmies. Democritus might seldome of Atomes, who so often thought of them.
"On Dreams." Collected Works of Sir Thomas Browne, ed. Simon Wilkin, pub. Fletcher and Son, Norwich, 1835–36.
All dreams reflect inborn creativity and ability to face and solve life's problems.
Jeremy Taylor, The Wisdom of Your Dreams: Using Dreams to Tap into Your Unconscious and Transform Your Life (ed. Penguin, 2009).
Economy
The growth of every year presents us with a supererogatory value, which is deslined neither to remunerate the labour of which this growth is the fruit, nor to supply the stock which is to secure an equal and more abundant growth in time to come. The possessor of this supererogatory value does not owe it immediately to his labour, and possesses it independently of the daily and indispensible use of his faculties for the supply of his wants. This supererogatory growth is therefore the stock to which the sovereign authority may have recourse without injuring the rights of any, to supply the expences which are requisite for the security of the state, its intrific tranquillity, the preservation of the rights of all the exercise of the authorities instituted for the establishment or administration of law, in fine of the maintenance through all its branches of the public prosperity. There are certain operations, establishments, and institutions, beneficial to the community at large, which it is the office of the community to introduce, direct, and superintend, and which are calculated to supply the defects of personal inclination, and to parry the struggle of opposite interests, whether for the improvement of agriculture, industry, and commerce, or to prevent or diminish the evils entailed on our nature, or those which accident is continually accumulating upon us.
Marquis de Condorcet, Outlines of an historical view of the progress of the human mind. M. Carey, 1795, pp. 190-191.
How different a picture is to be painted of the poor man! The more humanity owes him, the more society refuses him. All doors are closed to him, even when he has a right to open them. And if sometimes he obtains justice, it is with greater difficulty than the rich man would have obtaining a pardon. If there is an unpleasant job to do or troops to be raised, he is the first to be called on. Besides his own burden, he always bears the one from which his more wealthy neighbor has the influence to get himself exempted. At the least accident that happens to him, everyone avoids him. If his humble cart tips over, far from being helped by anyone, I count him lucky if he avoids the insults of the smart-aleck servants of some young duke who is passing by. In short, any free assistance escapes him when he needs it, precisely because he has nothing with which to pay for it. But I take him for a lost man, if he has the misfortune of having an honest soul, a beautiful daughter, and a powerful neighbor.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Political Economy.
The great market for silver is the commercial and civilized part of the world.
If, by the general progress of improvement, the demand of this market should increase, while, at the same time, the supply did not increase in the same proportion, the value of silver would gradually rise in proportion to that of corn. Any given quantity of silver would exchange for a greater and a greater quantity of corn; or, in other words, the average money price of corn would gradually become cheaper and cheaper.
If, on the contrary, the supply, by some accident, should increase, for many years together, in a greater proportion than the demand, that metal would gradually become cheaper and cheaper; or, in other words, the average money price of corn would, in spite of all improvements, gradually become dearer and dearer.
But if, on the other hand, the supply of that metal should increase nearly in the same proportion as the demand, it would continue to purchase or exchange for nearly the same quantity of corn; and the average money price of corn would, in spite of all improvements, continue very nearly the same.
These three seem to exhaust all the possible combinations of events which can happen in the progress of improvement; and during the course of the four centuries preceding the present, if we may judge by what has happened both in France and Great Britain, each of those three different combinations seems to have taken place in the European market, and nearly in the same order, too, in which I have here set them down.
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Part 1, Chapter 11.
If the populace were to govern itself and there were nothing interposed between the administration of the state and the citizens, they would only have to tax themselves when circumstances made it necessary, in proportion to the public needs and the abilities of private individuals. And since no one would ever lose sight either of the collection or the use of funds, neither fraud nor abuse could slip into the management of them. The state would never be weighed down with debts, nor would the populace be crushed by taxes; or at least the assurance of how it would be used would console the people for the burden of the tax. But things cannot happen this way; and however limited a state may be, the civil society is always too populous to be capable of being governed by all its members. Public funds must necessarily pass through the hands of the leaders, who all have, over and above the interest of the state, their own private interest, which is not the last to be heard.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Political Economy.
The struggle of socialism against capitalism is part of the historic rhythm in the concentration and dispersion of wealth. The capitalist, of course, has fulfilled a creative function in history: he has gathered the savings of the people into productive capital by the promise of dividends or interest; he has financed the mechanization of industry and agriculture, and the rationalization of distribution; and the result has been such a flow of goods from producer to consumer as history has never seen before. He has put the liberal gospel of liberty to his use by arguing that businessmen left relatively free from transportation tolls and legislative regulation can give the public a greater abundance of food, homes, comfort, and leisure than has ever come from industries managed by politicians, manned by governmental employees, and supposedly immune to the laws of supply and demand. In free enterprise the spur of competition and the zeal and zest of ownership arouse the productiveness and inventiveness of men; nearly every economic ability sooner or later finds its niche and reward in the shuffle of talents and the natural selection of skills; and a basic democracy rules the process insofar as most of the articles to be produced, and the services to be rendered, are determined by public demand rather than by governmental decree. Meanwhile competition compels the capitalist to exhaustive labor, and his products to everrising excellence.
Durant, Will, and Ariel Durant. The Lessons of History. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2010. Ch 9, pg. 58-59.
In the year 1758 we exported seventy thousand hogsheads of tobacco, which was the greatest quantity ever produced in this country in one year. But its culture was fast declining at the commencement of this war, and that of wheat taking its place; and it must continue to decline on the return of peace. I suspect that the change in the temperature of our climate has become sensible to that plant, which, to be good, requires an extraordinary degree of heat. But it requires still more indispensably an uncommon fertility of soil; and the price which it commands at market will not enable the planter to produce this by manure. Was the supply still to depend on Virginia and Maryland alone, as its culture becomes more difficult, the price would rise, so as to enable the planter to surmount those difficulties and to live. But the Western country on the Missisipi, and the midlands of Georgia, having fresh and fertile lands in abundance, and a hotter sun, will be able to undersell these two States, and will oblige them to abandon the raising tobacco altogether. And a happy obligation for them it will be. It is a culture productive of infinite wretchedness. Those employed in it are in a continued state of exertion beyond the powers of nature to support. Little food of any kind is raised by them, so that the men and animals on these farms are badly fed, and the earth is rapidly impoverished. The cultivation of wheat is the reverse in every circumstance.
Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on the State of Virginia (1853)/Query 20."
... although a greater or lesser quantity of money in a state can give it more or less credit outside the state, it in no way alters the real fortune of the citizens and does not make them any more or less prosperous. But I must make two important remarks. First, unless the state has more commodities than it can use and the abundance of money comes from an export trade, only the commercial towns are aware of this abundance, and the peasant only becomes relatively poorer. Second, since the price of everything increases with the increase in money, taxes must be increased proportionately, so that the farmer finds himself under a greater burden without having greater resources.
It should be noted that the tax on lands is actually a tax on its product. While everyone agrees that nothing is so dangerous as a tax on grain paid by the buyer, how is it we do not see that it is a hundred times worse if this tax is paid by the farmer himself? Is this not an attack on the very source of the state’s subsistence? Is it not the most direct method possible of depopulating the homeland and thus in the long run of ruining it? For there is no worse scarcity for a nation than that of men.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Political Economy.
Astrologers have noticed this and been amazed by the favourable conditions and abundance of property in the East. They came and said that the gifts of the stars and the shares (of good fortune) were larger in the nativities of the East than in those of the West. This is correct from the point of view of the correspondence between astrological judgments and terrestrial conditions. But astrologers give us only the astrological reason. They ought also to give us the terrestrial reason; this being the large extent and concentration of civilization in the eastern regions. A large civilization yields large profits because of the large amount of available labour, which is the cause of (profit). Therefore, the East enjoys more prosperity than all other regions. This is not exclusively the result of the influence of the stars. Our previous indications have made it clear that the influence of the stars cannot produce such a result all by itself. A correspondence between astrological judgments and terrestrial civilization and nature is something inevitable.
The relationship between prosperity and civilization may be exemplified by the regions of Ifrîqiyah and Barca. When their population decreased and their civilization shrank, the condition of their inhabitants decayed. They became poor and indigent. The tax revenues decreased. The property of the dynasties that ruled there became small. . . .
Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, Book One, Chapter 4.
Crafts and labour also are expensive in cities with an abundant civilization. There are three reasons for this. First, they are much needed, because of the place luxury occupies in the city on account of its large population. Second, industrial workers place a high value on their services and employment, (for they do not have to work) since live is easy in a town because of the abundance of food there. Third, the number of people with money to waste is great, and these people have many needs for which they have to employ the services of others and have to use many workers and their skills. Therefore, they pay more for (the services of) workers than their labour is (ordinarily considered) worth, because there is competition for (their services) and the wish to have exclusive use of them. Thus, workers, craftsmen, and professional people become arrogant, their labour becomes expensive, and the expenditure of the inhabitants of the city for these things increases.
Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, Book One, Chapter 4.
But the absurdity and bad policy of laws against usury, are so obvious, that it iz surprizing scarcely an attempt haz been made to abolish them in any country. Such laws are absurd and impolitic, because they actually and always produce and multiply the distresses they are designed to remedy. It iz impossible it should be otherwise: The very laws of nature and commerce require that such restraints should necessarily counteract their own design. It iz necessary that commodities should be sometimes plenty and sometimes scarce; and it iz equally necessary that money, the representativ of all commodities, should be liable to the same fluctuations. In the commercial world, money and commodities wil always flow to that country, where they are most wanted and wil command the most profit. The consequence iz that a high price soon produces a low price, and vice versa.
Noah Webster, “A Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings.” No. XXIV. The INJUSTICE, ABSURDITY, and BAD POLICY of LAWS against USURY.
Education
Hence, in regard to reading, it is a very important thing to be able to refrain. Skill in doing so consists in not taking into one's hands any book merely because at the time it happens to be extensively read; such as political or religious pamphlets, novels, poetry, and the like, which make a noise, and may even attain to several editions in the first and last year of their existence. Consider, rather, that the man who writes for fools is always sure of a large audience; be careful to limit your time for reading, and devote it exclusively to the works of those great minds of all times and countries, who o'ertop the rest of humanity, those whom the voice of fame points to as such. These alone really educate and instruct. You can never read bad literature too little, nor good literature too much. Bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind. Because people always read what is new instead of the best of all ages, writers remain in the narrow circle of the ideas which happen to prevail in their time; and so the period sinks deeper and deeper into its own mire.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "On Books and Reading."
And, in general, children should not form their notions of what life is like from the copy before they have learned it from the original, to whatever aspect of it their attention may be directed. Instead, therefore, of hastening to place books, and books alone, in their hands, let them be made acquainted, step by step, with things—with the actual circumstances of human life. And above all let care be taken to bring them to a clear and objective view of the world as it is, to educate them always to derive their ideas directly from real life, and to shape them in conformity with it—not to fetch them from other sources, such as books, fairy tales, or what people say, and then to apply them ready-made to real life. For this will mean that their heads are full of wrong notions, and that they will either see things in a false light or try in vain to remodel the world to suit their views, and so enter upon false paths; and that, too, whether they are only constructing theories of life or engaged in the actual business of it. It is incredible how much harm is done when the seeds of wrong notions are laid in the mind in those early years, later on to bear a crop of prejudice; for the subsequent lessons which are learned from real life in the world have to be devoted mainly to their extirpation. To unlearn the evil was the answer, according to Diogenes Laertius, Antisthenes gave, when he was asked what branch of knowledge was most necessary; and we can see what he meant.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "Studies in Pessimism/On Education."
From what has been advanced, it will be felt that education, which should make man in early life contract good habits, adopt favorable dispositions, fortified by a respect for public opinion, invigorated by ideas of decency, strengthened by wholesome laws, corroborated by the desire of meriting the friendship of others, stimulated by the fear of losing his own esteem, would be fully adequate to accustom him to a laudable conduct, amply sufficient to divert him from even those secret crimes, from which he is obliged to punish himself by remorse; which costs him the most incessant labour to keep concealed, by the dread of that shame, which must always follow their publicity. Experience demonstrates in the clearest manner, that the success of a first crime disposes him to commit a second; impunity leads on to the third, this to a lamentable sequel that frequently closes a wretched career with the most ignominious exhibition; thus the first delinquency is the commencement of a habit: there is much less distance from this to the hundredth, than from innocence to criminality: the man, however, who lends himself to a series of bad actions, under even the assurance of impunity, is most woefully deceived, because he cannot avoid castigating himself: moreover, he cannot know at what point of iniquity he shall stop.
- Baron d’Holbach, “System of Nature - Part II, Chapter 8.”
I was at Colo. Peter Randolph’s about a Fortnight ago, and my Schooling falling into Discourse, he said he thought it would be to my Advantage to go to the College, and was desirous I should go, as indeed I am myself for several Reasons. In the first place as long as I stay at the Mountain the Loss of one fourth of my Time is inevitable, by Company’s coming here and detaining me from School. And likewise my Absence will in a great Measure put a Stop to so much Company, and by that Means lessen the Expences of the Estate in House-Keeping. And on the other Hand by going to the College I shall get a more universal Acquaintance, which may hereafter be serviceable to me; and I suppose I can pursue my Studies in the Greek and Latin as well there as here, and likewise learn something of the Mathematics. I shall be glad of your opinion and remain, Sir yr most humble servant
“From Thomas Jefferson to John Harvie, 14 January 1760,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0001. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1, 1760–1776, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950, p. 3.]
No one recognises now that the education of the professors is an exceedingly difficult problem, if their humanity is not to be sacrificed or shrivelled up:—this difficulty can be actually seen in countless examples of natures warped and twisted by their reckless and premature devotion to science. There is a still more important testimony to the complete absence of higher education, pointing to a greater and more universal danger. It is clear at once why an orator or writer cannot now be educated,—because there are no teachers; and why a savant must be a distorted and perverted thing,—because he will have been trained by the inhuman abstraction, science. This being so, let a man ask himself: "Where are now the types of moral excellence and fame for all our generation—learned and unlearned, high and low—the visible abstract of constructive ethics for this age? Where has vanished all the reflection on moral questions that has occupied every great developed society at all epochs?" There is no fame for that now, and there are none to reflect: we are really drawing on the inherited moral capital which our predecessors accumulated for us, and which we do not know how to increase, but only to squander. Such things are either not mentioned in our society, or, if at all, with a naive want of personal experience that makes one disgusted. It comes to this, that our schools and professors simply turn aside from any moral instruction or content themselves with formulae; virtue is a word and nothing more, on both sides, an old-fashioned word that they laugh at—and it is worse when they do not laugh, for then they are hypocrites.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Schopenhauer as Educator."
The good Education of Youth has been esteemed by wise Men in all Ages, as the surest Foundation of the Happiness both of private Families and of Common-wealths. Almost all Governments have therefore made it a principal Object of their Attention, to establish and endow with proper Revenues, such Seminaries of Learning, as might supply the succeeding Age with Men qualified to serve the Publick with Honour to themselves, and to their Country.
Benjamin Franklin, “Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania, [October 1749],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-03-02-0166.
The Hours of each Day are to be divided and dispos’d in such a Manner, as that some Classes may be with the Writing-Master, improving their Hands, others with the Mathematical Master, learning Arithmetick, Accompts, Geography, Use of the Globes, Drawing, Mechanicks, &c. while the rest are in the English School, under the English Master’s Care.
Thus instructed, Youth will come out of this School fitted for learning any Business, Calling or Profession, except such wherein Languages are required; and tho’ unaquainted with any antient or foreign Tongue, they will be Masters of their own, which is of more immediate and general Use; and withal will have attain’d many other valuable Accomplishments; the Time usually spent in acquiring those Languages, often without Success, being here employ’d in laying such a Foundation of Knowledge and Ability, as, properly improv’d, may qualify them to pass thro’ and execute the several Offices of civil Life, with Advantage and Reputation to themselves and Country.
Benjamin Franklin, “Idea of the English School, [7 January 1751],” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-04-02-0030.
And as I advise parents to think nothing more important than the education of their children, so I maintain that it must be a sound and healthy education, and that our sons must be kept as far as possible from vulgar twaddle. For what pleases the vulgar displeases the wise. I am borne out by the lines of Euripides, "Unskilled am I in the oratory that pleases the mob; but amongst the few that are my equals I am reckoned rather wise. For those who are little thought of by the wise, seem to hit the taste of the vulgar." And I have myself noticed that those who practise to speak acceptably and to the gratification of the masses promiscuously, for the most part become also profligate and lovers of pleasure in their lives. Naturally enough. For if in giving pleasure to others they neglect the noble, they would be hardly likely to put the lofty and sound above a life of luxury and pleasure, and to prefer moderation to delights. Yet what better advice could we give our sons than to follow this? or to what could we better exhort them to accustom themselves? For perfection is only attained by neither speaking nor acting at random—as the proverb says, Perfection is only attained by practice. Whereas extempore oratory is easy and facile, mere windbag, having neither beginning nor end. And besides their other shortcomings extempore speakers fall into great disproportion and repetition, whereas a well considered speech preserves its due proportions. It is recorded by tradition that Pericles, when called on by the people for a speech, frequently refused on the plea that he was unprepared. Similarly Demosthenes, his state-rival, when the Athenians called upon him for his advice, refused to give it, saying, "I am not prepared." But this you will say, perhaps, is mere tradition without authority. But in his speech against Midias he plainly sets forth the utility of preparation, for he says, "I do not deny, men of Athens, that I have prepared this speech to the best of my ability: for I should have been a poor creature if, after suffering so much at his hands, and even still suffering, I had neglected how to plead my case."
Plutarch, Morals, On Education.
Eloquence
First, then, it is absolutely necessary to indicate the source of this elevation, namely, that the truly eloquent must be free from low and ignoble thoughts. For it is not possible that men with mean and servile ideas and aims prevailing throughout their lives should produce anything that is admirable and worthy of immortality. Great accents we expect to fall from the lips of those whose thoughts are deep and grave. Thus it is that stately speech comes naturally to the proudest spirits.
Longinus, On the Sublime, Translated by W. Rhys Roberts.
Now we descend to that part which concerneth the illustration of tradition, com-prehended in that science which we call rhetoric, or art of eloquence, a science excellent, and excellently well laboured. For although in true value it is inferior to wisdom (as it is said by God to Moses, when he disabled himself for want of this faculty, “Aaron shall be thy speaker, and thou shalt be to him as God”), yet with people it is the more mighty; for so Solomon saith, Sapiens corde appellabitur prudens, sed dulcis eloquio majora reperiet, signifying that profoundness of wisdom will help a man to a name or admiration, but that it is eloquence that prevaileth in an active life. And as to the labouring of it, the emulation of Aristotle with the rhetoricians of his time, and the experience of Cicero, hath made them in their works of rhetoric exceed themselves. Again, the excellency of examples of eloquence in the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, added to the perfection of the precepts of eloquence, hath doubled the progression in this art; and therefore the deficiences which I shall note will rather be in some collections, which may as handmaids attend the art, than in the rules or use of the art itself.
Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning.
And again, because the great labour then was with the people (of whom the Pharisees were wont to say, Execrabilis ista turba, quæ non novit legem), for the winning and persuading of them, there grew of necessity in chief price and request eloquence and variety of discourse, as the fittest and forciblest access into the capacity of the vulgar sort; so that these four causes concurring - the admiration of ancient authors, the hate of the schoolmen, the exact study of languages, and the efficacy of preaching - did bring in an affectionate study of eloquence and copy of speech, which then began to flourish. This grew speedily to an excess; for men began to hunt more after words than matter - more after the choiceness of the phrase, and the round and clean composition of the sentence, and the sweet falling of the clauses, and the varying and illustration of their works with tropes and figures, than after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment. Then grew the flowing and watery vein of Osorius, the Portugal bishop, to be in price. Then did Sturmius spend such infinite and curious pains upon Cicero the Orator and Hermogenes the Rhetorician, besides his own books of Periods and Imitation, and the like. Then did Car of Cambridge and Ascham with their lectures and writings almost deify Cicero and Demosthenes, and allure all young men that were studious unto that delicate and polished kind of learning. Then did Erasmus take occasion to make the scoffing echo, Decem annos consuumpsi in legendo Cicerone; and the echo answered in Greek, One, Asine. Then grew the learning of the schoolmen to be utterly despised as barbarous. In sum, the whole inclination and bent of those times was rather towards copy than weight.
Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning.
As eloquence itself is necessary, or checked, or quite discouraged, in different forms of government; so the manner of eloquence must vary, even where it is useful, according to the various classes of men to whom it is addressed. There is a considerable difference between the speeches spoken by Cicero in the Senate, and those which he spoke to the people. In an assembly of gentlemen, he who speaks with brevity and clearness, and strong sense, speaks best. The chief court is to be paid to the understanding; and silence is better than a rote of good words, that carry with them no conviction. I do not deny, but in the most polite assembly, the manner of speaking, the voice, and the choice of words, will considerably recommend the speech and the speaker: But it is equally true, that a theatrical action, and an ostentation of language, prejudice both, as they break in upon propriety; and, instead of adorning good sense, disguise it with shew and sound.
"Cato's Letters/Letter 103." Written by John Trenchard.
Sir, If we now enquire how eloquence operates upon the minds of men, we must consider three things or causes: The sense, the sound, and the action. The first is addressed to the understanding; and the other two to the passions, and have consequently the greatest force.
Nothing is too hard for sound, which subdues every thing, and raises the highest and most opposite perturbations. One sound lulls men to sleep; another rouses them from it: one sort sets them a fighting, another to embracing; and a third sets them a weeping: It makes them groan or rage; it melts them into compassion, or animates them to resentment. And as to action, in which I also comprehend the motions of the countenance, and of the eyes, it is of such force, that Demosthenes being asked, which was the first excellency of an orator? answered, Action; that the second was Action; and the third was Action. Here is a testimony of a great and experienced judge.
Now the power of action seems to arise chiefly from hence: As it is a sign that the speaker is in earnest, and vehemently means what he speaks, it begets an opinion, that what he says is just, and reasonable, and important: And so his hearers adopt his passions and opinions, and are equally animated with him who animates them, and often more. Hence it is possible for a man, who thus carries his spirit in his gestures, and his meaning in his face, to look another into his sentiments and out of his senses, only by shewing, in the energy of his countenance, that he himself is strongly affected with that passion which he would convey to another, and that his external motions are but the result of his internal. Men have been converted into Quakerism at the silent-meetings of Quakers; and solemn looks, dumb shew, and ghostly groans, have had all the most prevailing effects of eloquence.
"Cato's Letters/Letter 104." Written by Thomas Gordon.
But, gentlemen, it is my opinion that the power of eloquence is most manifest when it deals with subjects which rouse no particular enthusiasm. Those which most stir our admiration can hardly be compassed within the bounds of a speech: the very abundance of material is a drawback, and the multiplicity of subjects narrows and confines the swelling stream of eloquence. I am now suffering from this excess of material: that which should be my strength makes me weak, and that which should be my defence makes me defenceless. So I must make my choice, or at least mention only in passing rather than discuss at length the numerous arguments on whose powerful support our cause relies for its defence and security. On this occasion it seems to me that my efforts must be directed entirely to showing how and to what extent Learning and Ignorance respectively promote that happiness which is the aim of every one of us. With this question I shall easily deal in my speech, nor need I be over-anxious about what objections Folly may bring against Knowledge, or Ignorance against Art. Yet the very ability of Ignorance to raise any objection, to make a speech, or even to open her lips in this great and learned assembly, is begged or rather borrowed from Art.
John Milton, Prolusions: Prolusion 7.
It is a well-known and common art of the orator to extol the ingenuity and eloquence of an opponent, that the effect of what he says may be attributed rather to his ability than to the strength of his cause, and that the hearers may even be led to feel a distrust and dread of him. We commonly find a barrister—especially when he has a weak cause—complimenting his “learned brother” on the skill with which he has pleaded.
Richard Whately, Annot. on Bacon’s Essay, Of Cunning.
Envy
This only grant me, that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.
Abraham Cowley.
Few men have the natural strength to honour a friend’s success without envy…. I well know that mirror of friendship, shadow of a shade.
Aeshylus, Agamemnon, 832.
Παύροις γὰρ ἀνδρῶν ἐστι συγγενὲς τόδε,
φίλον τὸν εὐτυχοῦντ' ἄνευ φθόνων σέβειν.
It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.
Aeshylus, Oresteia - lines 832–833
There are few whose inborn love Warms without envy to a friend’s prosperity.
Aeshylus, Oresteia - Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)
Ὁ δ' ἀφθόνητός γ' οὐκ ἐπίζηλος πέλει.
Life envy-free is life unenviable.
Aeshylus, Oresteia - line 939 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
Of fortune no man tastes his fill. While pointing envy notes his store, And tongues extol his happiness, Man surfeited will hunger still. For who grows weary of success, Or turns good fortune from his door Bidding her trouble him no more?"
Aeshylus, Oresteia - Phillip Vellacott, The Oresteian Trilogy, Penguin 1973 (Google Books)
Few men have the strength of character to rejoice in a friend's success without a touch of envy.
Aeshylus.
Eleutherius: I did not believe that, as long as my own conduct had not disqualified me by immorality or weakness or lack of judgment from even the highest offices, I ought to seek office in a manner unworthy of my ancestors. I have met the standards of the best citizens of our time and the most eminent. They have judged me worthy of the highest honor of standard bearer, a grade no one of our family attained before. This makes me feel that my ancestors and even I have won sufficient honor. Of the three levels of honor mentioned by Cicero, I have at least attained two. And if I am excluded from the third, it is not my own fault, but on account of the unjust hatred and envy of malevolent men.
Alamanno Rinuccini, Dialogue on Liberty, bk 2, 1479.
In search of Wit these lose their common Sense,
And then turn Criticks in their own Defence.
Those hate as Rivals all that write; and others
But envy Wits, as Eunuchs envy Lovers.
All Fools have still an Itching to deride,
And fain wou'd be upon the Laughing Side:
If Mævius Scribble in Apollo's spight,
There are, who judge still worse than he can write.
Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Criticism."
Nay shou'd great Homer lift his awful Head,
Zoilus again would start up from the Dead.
Envy will Merit as its Shade pursue,
But like a Shadow, proves the Substance too;
For envy'd Wit, like Sol Eclips'd, makes known
Th' opposing Body's Grossness, not its own.
Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Criticism."
The Owner's Wife, that other Men enjoy,
Then more his Trouble as the more admir'd,
Where wanted, scorn'd, and envy'd where acquir'd;
Maintain'd with Pains, but forfeited with Ease;
Sure some to vex, but never all to please;
'Tis what the Vicious fear, the Virtuous shun;
By Fools 'tis hated, and by Knaves undone!
Too much does Wit from Ign'rance undergo,
Ah let not Learning too commence its Foe!
Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Criticism."
Painful pre-eminence! yourself to view
Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.
Bring then these blessings to a strict account,
Make fair deductions, see to what they mount:
How much of other each is sure to cost;
How each for other oft is wholly lost;
How inconsistent greater goods with these;
How sometimes life is risk'd, and always ease:
Think, and if still the things thy envy call,
Say, Would'st thou be the man to whom they fall?
Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Man/Chapter 6."
How great a part is played by envy in the wicked ways of the world! Ariosto is right in saying that the dark side of our mortal life predominates, so full it is of this evil:
questa assai più oscura che serena
Vita mortal, tutta d'invidia piena. [This mortal life is much darker than serene, Full of envy from beginning to end]
For envy is the moving spirit of that secret and informal, though flourishing, alliance everywhere made by mediocrity against individual eminence, no matter of what kind. In his own sphere of work no one will allow another to be distinguished: he is an intruder who cannot be tolerated. Si quelq'un excelle parmi nous, qu'il aille exceller ailleurs [If someone excels among us, let him go excel elsewhere]! this is the universal password of the second-rate. In addition, then, to the rarity of true merit and the difficulty it has in being understood and recognized, there is the envy of thousands to be reckoned with, all of them bent on suppressing, nay, on smothering it altogether. No one is taken for what he is, but for what others make of him; and this is the handle used by mediocrity to keep down distinction, by not letting it come up as long as that can possibly be prevented.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "The Art of Literature/On Reputation."
There are two ways of behaving in regard to merit: either to have some of one's own, or to refuse any to others. The latter method is more convenient, and so it is generally adopted. As envy is a mere sign of deficiency, so to envy merit argues the lack of it.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "The Art of Literature/On Reputation."
A method of underrating good work often used by envy—in reality, however, only the obverse side of it—consists in the dishonorable and unscrupulous laudation of the bad; for no sooner does bad work gain currency than it draws attention from the good. But however effective this method may be for a while, especially if it is applied on a large scale, the day of reckoning comes at last, and the fleeting credit given to bad work is paid off by the lasting discredit which overtakes those who abjectly praised it. Hence these critics prefer to remain anonymous.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "The Art of Literature/On Reputation."
This last fate will be especially reserved for works of a high character. For the happy chance mentioned above will be all the more certain not to come, in proportion as there are few to appreciate the kind of work done by great minds. Herein lies the immeasurable advantage possessed by poets in respect of reputation; because their work is accessible to almost everyone. If it had been possible for Sir Walter Scott to be read and criticised by only some hundred persons, perhaps in his life-time any common scribbler would have been preferred to him; and afterwards, when he had taken his proper place, it would also have been said in his honor that he was in advance of his age. But if envy, dishonesty and the pursuit of personal aims are added to the incapacity of those hundred persons who, in the name of their generation, are called upon to pass judgment on a work, then indeed it meets with the same sad fate as attends a suitor who pleads before a tribunal of judges one and all corrupt.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "The Art of Literature/On Reputation."
I am Envy, begotten of a chimneysweeper and an oysterwife. I cannot read, and therefore wish all books were burnt.
Christopher Marlowe, Dr. Faustus (1604).
Some envious (speaking in their own Renown)
Say that my Book was not exactly done:
They wrong me; Yet like Feasts I’d have my Books
Rather be pleasing to the Guests than Cooks.
Ill thrives that hapless Family that shows
A Cock that’s silent, and a Hen that crows:
I know not which lives more unnatural Lives,
Obeying Husbands, or commanding Wives.
Benjamin Franklin, “Poor Richard, 1734,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-01-02-0107.
Try to Achieve Something, and Don't Envy.
Why does consuming envy tear at him, why does the black one envy?
As if anything that yields to this one departs from that one.
There is no division of glory of life's heap.
You take rewards worthy of your merits.
“Julius Caesar Scaliger: Epidorpides.” Epidorpidum. Book 8.
To diminish envy, let us consider not what others possess, but what they enjoy; mere riches may be the gift of lucky accident or blind chance, but happiness must be the result of prudent preference and rational design; the highest happiness then can have no other foundation than the deepest wisdom; and the happiest fool is only as happy as he knows how to be.
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
When any person of really eminent virtue becomes the object of envy, the clamour and abuse by which he is assailed is but the sign and accompaniment of his success in doing service to the Public. And if he is a truly wise man, he will take no more notice of it than the moon does of the howling of the dogs. Her only answer to them is “to shine on.”
Richard Whately, The Essays... Revised... by Thomas Markby... Second edition (ed. 1858).
That envy wished, and nature feared;
And on them burn so chaste a flame,
With so much loyalties’ expense,
As Love, t’ acquit such excellence,
Is gone himself into your name.
“An Elegy by Ben Jonson | Poetry Foundation.”
Envy them not, their palate’s with the swine.
No doubt a moldy tale,
Like Pericles, and stale
As the shrive’s crusts, and nasty as his fish,
Scraps out of every dish
Thrown forth, and raked into the common tub,
May keep up the Play Club.
Ben Jonson, “Ode to Himself [‘Come Leave the Loathéd Stage’]… | Poetry Foundation.”
Great honours are great burdens, but on whom They are cast with envy, he doth bear two loads.
Ben Jonson.
Equality
Naught is more hostile to a city than a despot; where he is, there are in the first place no laws common to all, but one man is tyrant, in whose keeping and in his alone the law resides, and in that case equality is at an end
Euripides, The Suppliants - Translated by Edward P. Coleridge.
The grave is, I suspect, the sole commonwealth which attains that dead flat of social equality that life in its every principle so heartily abhors.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
All other nations have begun the fabric of a new government, or the reformation of an old, by establishing originally, or by enforcing with greater exactness, some rites or other of religion. All other people have laid the foundations of civil freedom in severer manners and a system of a more austere and masculine morality. France, when she let loose the reins of regal authority, doubled the license of a ferocious dissoluteness in manners, and of an insolent irreligion in opinions and practices,—and has extended through all ranks of life, as if she were communicating some privilege or laying open some secluded benefit, all the unhappy corruptions that usually were the disease of wealth and power. This is one of the new principles of equality in France.
Edmund Burke.
You would have had a protected, satisfied, laborious, and obedient people, taught to seek and to recognize the happiness that is to be found by virtue in all conditions,—in which consists the true moral equality of mankind, and not in that monstrous fiction which, by inspiring false ideas and vain expectations into men destined to travel in the obscure walk of laborious life, serves only to aggravate and embitter that real inequality which it never can remove, and which the order of civil life establishes as much for the benefit of those whom it must leave in an humble state as those whom it is able to exalt to a condition more splendid, but not more happy. You had a smooth and easy career of felicity and glory laid open to you, beyond anything recorded in the history of the world; but you have shown that difficulty is good for man.
Edmund Burke.
But to be just, and to lay the Blame more equally, I am afraid it is the Fault of our Sex, if the Women be so fond of Rule, and that if we did not abuse our Authority, they wou'd never think it worth while to dispute it. Tyrants, we know, produce Rebels; and all History informs us, that Rebels, when they prevail, are apt to become Tyrants in their Turn. For this Reason, I cou'd wish there were no Pretensions to Authority on either Side; but that every Thing was carry'd on with perfect Equality, as betwixt two equal Members of the same Body.
David Hume, "Essays, Moral and Political/Essay 6."
When the voice of your friend or the page of your book sinks into democratic equality with the pattern of the wallpaper, the feel of your clothes, your memory of last night, and the noises from the road, you are falling asleep. The highly selective consciousness enjoyed by fully alert men, with all its builded sentiments and consecrated ideals, has as much to be called real as the drowsy chaos, and more.
C. S. Lewis.
When equality is treated not as a medicine or a safety-gadget, but as an ideal, we begin to breed that stunted and envious sort of mind which hates all superiority. That mind is the special disease of democracy, as cruelty and servility are the special diseases of privileged societies. It will kill us all if it grows unchecked. The man who cannot conceive a joyful and loyal obedience on the one hand, nor an unembarrassed and noble acceptance of that obedience on the other — the man who has never even wanted to kneel or to bow — is a prosaic barbarian. But it would be wicked folly to restore these old inequalities on the legal or external plane. Their proper place is elsewhere.
C. S. Lewis.
No doubt equality of goods is just; but, being unable to cause might to obey justice, men have made it just to obey might. Unable to strengthen justice, they have justified might; so that the just and the strong should unite, and there should be peace, which is the sovereign good.
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 5."
It is dangerous to make man see too clearly his equality with the brutes without showing him his greatness. It is also dangerous to make him see his greatness too clearly, apart from his vileness. It is still more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of both. But it is very advantageous to show him both. Man must not think that he is on a level either with the brutes or with the angels, nor must he be ignorant of both sides of his nature; but he must know both.
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 6."
Shall it be that of the philosophers, who put forward as the chief good, the good which is in ourselves? Is this the true good? Have they found the remedy for our ills? Is man's pride cured by placing him on an equality with God? Have those who have made us equal to the brutes, or the Mahommedans who have offered us earthly pleasures as the chief good even in eternity, produced the remedy for our lusts? What religion, then, will teach us to cure pride and lust? What religion will in fact teach us our good, our duties, the weakness which turns us from them, the cause of this weakness, the remedies which can cure it, and the means of obtaining these remedies?
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 7."
If the public thought elevates you above the generality of men, let the other humble you, and hold you in a perfect equality with all mankind, for this is your natural condition.
Blaise Pascal.
I am sensible that the Doctrine here advanc’d, if it were to be publish’d, would meet with but an indifferent Reception. Mankind naturally and generally love to be flatter’d: Whatever sooths our Pride, and tends to exalt our Species above the rest of the Creation, we are pleas’d with and easily believe, when ungrateful Truths shall be with the utmost Indignation rejected. “What! bring ourselves down to an Equality with the Beasts of the Field! with the meanest part of the Creation! ’Tis insufferable!” But, (to use a Piece of common Sense) our Geese are but Geese tho’ we may think ’em Swans; and Truth will be Truth tho’ it sometimes prove mortifying and distasteful.
Benjamin Franklin, “A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, 1725,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-01-02-0028.
Popular privileges are consistent with a state of society in which there is great inequality of position. Democratic rights, on the contrary, demand that there should be equality of condition as the fundamental basis of the society they regulate.
Benjamin Disraeli.
Modern science has vindicated the natural equality of man.
Benjamin Disraeli.
Although men's powers differ, their rights are alike. Their rights do not rest upon their powers, because Right is of a moral complexion; they rest on the fact that the same will to live shows itself in every man at the same stage of its manifestation. This, however, only applies to that original and abstract Right, which a man possesses as a man. The property, and also the honour, which a man acquires for himself by the exercise of his powers, depend on the measure and kind of power which he possesses, and so lend his Right a wider sphere of application. Here, then, equality comes to an end. The man who is better equipped, or more active, increases by adding to his gains, not his Right, but the number of the things to which it extends.
"Government (Schopenhauer)."
As a matter of fact, it is only to monotheism that intolerance is essential; an only god is by his nature a jealous god, who can allow no other god to exist. Polytheistic gods, on the other hand, are naturally tolerant; they live and let live; their own colleagues are the chief objects of their sufferance, as being gods of the same religion. This toleration is afterwards extended to foreign gods, who are, accordingly, hospitably received, and later on admitted, in some cases, to an equality of rights; the chief example of which is shown by the fact,that the Romans willingly admitted and venerated Phrygian, Egyptian and other gods. Hence it is that monotheistic religions alone furnish the spectacle of religious wars, religious persecutions, heretical tribunals, that breaking of idols and destruction of images of the gods,that razing of Indian temples, and Egyptian colossi, which had looked on the sun three thousand years, just because a jealous god had said, Thou shalt make no graven image.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "Religion: A Dialogue." said by Philalethes.
Alitheus: Consider the facts, really. Isn’t it well known that the basic principle of all liberty is citizen equality? This is a fundamental to keep the rich from oppressing the poor or the poor, for their part, from violently robbing the rich. On this basis everyone keeps what is his and is secure from attack. Judge for yourselves how secure things are in our country. Shall I describe the sale of justice? Most carefully, as long as our state was free, was justice kept clear of corruption.
Alamanno Rinuccini, Dialogue on Liberty, bk 1, 1479.
There is a certain degree of equality, too, in beneficial or gratuitous acts, not indeed like that prevailing in contracts of exchange, but proceeding upon a supposition of the hardship, that any one should receive detriment from voluntary services, which he bestows. For which reason a voluntary agent ought to be indemnified for the expence or inconvenience, which he incurs, by undertaking the business of another. A borrower too is bound to repair a thing that has been damaged or destroyed. Because he is bound to the owner not only for the thing itself, by virtue of the property which he retains in it, but he owes a debt of gratitude also for the favour of the loan; unless it appears that the thing so lent would have perished, had it even remained in possession of the owner himself. In this case, the owner loses nothing by the loan. On the other hand, the depositary has received nothing but a trust. If the thing therefore is destroyed, he cannot be bound to restore what is no longer in existence, nor can he be required to make a recompence, where he has derived no advantage for in taking the trust he did not receive a favour, but conferred one. In a pawn, the same as in a thing let out for hire, a middle way of deciding the obligation may be pursued, so that the person taking it is not answerable, like a borrower, for every accident, and yet he is obliged to use greater care, than the bare depositary, in keeping it safe. For though taking a pledge is a gratuitous acceptance, it is followed by some of the conditions of a contract. All these cases are conformable to the Roman law, though not originally derived from thence, but from natural equity. Rules, all of which may be found among other nations. And, among other works, we may refer to the third book and forty-second chapter of the Guide for doubtful cases written by Moses Maimonides, a Jewish writer.
Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace (1901 ed.). M. Walter Dunne, 1625, p. 150.
Equality is deemed by many a mere speculative chimera, which can never be reduced to practice. But if the abuse is inevitable, does it follow that we ought not to try at least to mitigate it? It is precisely because the force of things tends always to destroy equality that the force of the legislature must always tend to maintain it.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, An Inquiry into the Nature of the Social Contract; or principles of political right. Translated from the French (ed. 1791).
Equality, in a social sense, may be divided into that of condition, and that of rights... With an equality of civil rights, all men are equal before the law; all classes of the community being liable equally to taxation, military service, jury duties, and to the other impositions attendant on civilization, and no one being exempted from its control, except on general rules, which are dependent on the good of all, instead of the exemption's belonging to the immunities of individuals, estates, or families. An equality of civil rights may be briefly defined to be an absence of privileges.
James Fenimore Cooper, The American Democrat (1838).
Error
Error is continually repeating itself in action, and we must unweariedly repeat the truth in word.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
In my Opinion, there are two Things, which have led astray those Philosophers, that have insisted so much on the Selfishness of Man. In the First Place, they found, that every Act of Virtue or Friendship was attended with a secret Pleasure: From whence they concluded, that Friendship and Virtue could not be disinterested. But the Fallacy of this is obvious. The virtuous Sentiment or Passion produces the Pleasure, and does not arise from it. I feel a Pleasure in doing good to my Friend, because I love him; but do not love him for the sake of that Pleasure.
In the second Place, it has always been found, that virtuous Men are far from being indifferent to Praise; and therefore they have been represented as a Set of vain-glorious Men, that had nothing in View but the Applauses of others. But this also is a Fallacy. 'Tis very unjust in the World, when they find any Tincture of Vanity in a laudable Action, to depreciate it upon that Account, or ascribe it entirely to that Motive. The Case is not the same with Vanity, as with other Passions. Where Avarice or Revenge enters into any seemingly virtuous Action, 'tis difficult for us to determine how far it enters, and 'tis natural to suppose it the sole actuating Principle. But Vanity is so nearly ally'd to Virtue, and to love the Fame of virtuous Actions approaches so near the Love of virtuous Actions for their own sake, that these Passions are more capable of Mixture, than any other kinds of Passion; and 'tis almost impossible to have the latter without some Degree of the former.
David Hume, "Essays, Moral and Political/Essay 14."
The second of the Pharisees' reasons, which seems to have a certain speciousness about it, is derived from the nature of the thing itself. The defects and errors of the text they say cannot have been introduced of set purpose, but have crept by accident or inadvertence into the codices, and that this is the case appears from various considerations. In five different places, for example, in the Bible, the Hebrew word for girl, or young woman, is met with, and in each of these, with a single exception, the letter ה He, against all grammatical rule, is omitted; in the margin, however, the defective aspirate is regularly supplied. Now shall the error here be set down to the score of the writer or writers of the Bible? By what fatality could it have happened that the pen slipped as often as it had to write the Hebrew word for young woman? The error in the text could easily and without misgivings have been corrected, in conformity with a simple and definite grammatical rule. Since, therefore, these readings have not occurred from chance or accident, since such obvious errors have not been simply corrected, the Pharisees conclude that they were introduced by the first scribes of set purpose, and that they have a certain significance.
Benedictus de Spinoza, "Theologico-Political Treatise 1862/Chapter 9."
The unwise and incautious are always prone to rush from an error on one side into an opposite error. And a reaction accordingly took place, from the abuse of reasoning, to the undue neglect of it, and from the fault of not sufficiently observing facts, to that of trusting to a mere accumulation of ill-arranged knowledge. It is as if men had formerly spent vain labour in threshing over and over again the same straw and winnowing the same chaff, and then their successors had resolved to discard these processes altogether, and to bring home and use wheat and weeds, straw, chaff, and grain, just as they grew, and without any preparation at all.
Richard Whately, Preface to Bacon’s Essays.
The idols of the theatre, or of theories, are numerous, and may, and perhaps will, be still more so. For unless men’s minds had been now occupied for many ages in religious and theological considerations, and civil governments (especially monarchies), had been averse to novelties of that nature even in theory (so that men must apply to them with some risk and injury to their own fortunes, and not only without reward, but subject to contumely and envy), there is no doubt that many other sects of philosophers and theorists would have been introduced, like those which formerly flourished in such diversified abundance among the Greeks. For as many imaginary theories of the heavens can be deduced from the phenomena of the sky, so it is even more easy to found many dogmas upon the phenomena of philosophy—and the plot of this our theatre resembles those of the poetical, where the plots which are invented for the stage are more consistent, elegant, and pleasurable than those taken from real history.
In general, men take for the groundwork of their philosophy either too much from a few topics, or too little from many; in either case their philosophy is founded on too narrow a basis of experiment and natural history, and decides on too scanty grounds. For the theoretic philosopher seizes various common circumstances by experiment, without reducing them to certainty or examining and frequently considering them, and relies for the rest upon meditation and the activity of his wit.
There are other philosophers who have diligently and accurately attended to a few experiments, and have thence presumed to deduce and invent systems of philosophy, forming everything to conformity with them.
A third set, from their faith and religious veneration, introduce theology and traditions; the absurdity of some among them having proceeded so far as to seek and derive the sciences from spirits and genii. There are, therefore, three sources of error and three species of false philosophy; the sophistic, empiric, and superstitious.
Francis Bacon, Novum Organum.
Evil
Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,
Nor written thus in vain—
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,
Or deepen every stain:
If thou hadst died as Honour dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise,
To shame the world again—
But who would soar the solar height,
To set in such a starless night?
Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust
Is vile as vulgar clay;
Thy scales, Mortality! are just
To all that pass away:
But yet methought the living great
Some higher sparks should animate,
To dazzle and dismay:
Nor deem'd Contempt could thus make mirth
Of these, the Conquerors of the earth.
And she, proud Austria's mournful flower,
Thy still imperial bride;
How bears her breast the torturing hour?
Still clings she to thy side?
Must she too bend, must she too share
Thy late repentance, long despair,
Thou throneless Homicide?
If still she loves thee, hoard that gem,—
'Tis worth thy vanished diadem!
"The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 3/Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte."
In Evil Things Alone is Foulness.
You cannot blame any faultless face:
Or weakness in a wise man's body.
The strength of the squalid lictor is worthy of no praise.
Nor do you magnify the harlot's adornment.
“Julius Caesar Scaliger: Epidorpides.” Epidorpidum. Book 5.
In vain will you tell me that these terrible effects flow not from Christianity, but from the abuse of it. No such excuse will avail to palliate the enormities of a religion pretended to be divine. A limited intelligence is only so far responsible for the effects of its agency as it foresaw, or might have foreseen them; but Omniscience is manifestly chargeable with all the consequences of its conduct. Christianity itself declares that the worth of the tree is to be determined by the quality of its fruit. The extermination of infidels; the mutual persecutions of hostile sects; the midnight massacres and slow burning of thousands because their creed contained either more or less than the orthodox standard, of which Christianity has been the immediate occasion; and the invariable opposition which philosophy has ever encountered from the spirit of revealed religion, plainly show that a very slight portion of sagacity was sufficient to have estimated at its true value the advantages of that belief to which some Theists are unaccountably attached.
"The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley/A Refutation of Deism: in a Dialogue." Note: Said by THEOSOPHUS.
What is evil? Killing is evil, lying is evil, slandering is evil, abuse is evil, gossip is evil, envy is evil, hatred is evil, to cling to false doctrine is evil; all these things are evil. And what is the root of evil? Desire is the root of evil, illusion is the root of evil.
Gautama Buddha.
The evils of the body are murder, theft, and adultery; of the tongue, lying, slander, abuse and idle talk; of the mind, covetousness, hatred and error.
Gautama Buddha.
There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it. To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one’s own in the midst of abundance.
Gautama Buddha.
All the great evils which men cause to each other because of certain intentions, desires, opinions, or religious principles, are likewise due to non-existence, because they originate in ignorance, which is absence of wisdom.
Maimonides, Ch.11 - Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190) - Part III.
Excellence
In every kind of Art there is a degree of excellence which may be reached, so to speak, by the mere use of one's own natural talents. But at the same time it is impossible to go beyond that point, unless Art comes to one's aid.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
It would be easy to add exceptions to the limitary tone of English thought, and much more easy to adduce examples of excellence in particular veins: and if, going out of the region of dogma, we pass into that of general culture, there is no end to the graces and amenities, wit, sensibility and erudition, of the learned class. But the artificial succor which marks all English performance, appears in letters also: much of their aesthetic production is antiquarian and manufactured, and literary reputations have been achieved by forcible men, whose relation to literature was purely accidental, but who were driven by tastes and modes they found in vogue into their several careers. So, at this moment, every ambitious young man studies geology: so members of Parliament are made, and churchmen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, English Traits/Literature.
When much intercourse with a friend has supplied us with a standard of excellence, and has increased our respect for the resources of God who thus sends a real person to outgo our ideal; when he has, moreover, become an object of thought, and, whilst his character retains all its unconscious effect, is converted in the mind into solid and sweet wisdom,—it is a sign to us that his office is closing, and he is commonly withdrawn from our sight in a short time.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836)/Chapter 5.
Every excellence continues unknown, which fame does not blaze abroad.
The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, A Roman Slave.
It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity.
The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, A Roman Slave.
Honor is truly sacred, but holds a lower rank in the scale of moral excellence than virtue. Indeed, the former is but a part of the latter, and consequently has not equal pretensions to support a frame of government productive of human happiness.
The Works of John Adams, vol. 4. Little, Brown, and Company, 1851, pp. 193-194.
Ask our rhapsodist, If you have nothing but the excellence and loveliness of virtue to preach, and no future rewards or punishments, how many vicious wretches will you ever reclaim?
Dr. Isaac Watts.
There are moments of despondency when Shakespeare thought himself no poet, and Raphael no painter; when the greatest wits have doubted the excellence of their happiest efforts.
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
If men have been termed pilgrims, and life a journey, then we may add that the Christian pilgrimage far surpasses all others in the following important particulars: in the goodness of the road—in the beauty of the prospects—in the excellence of the company—and in the vast superiority of the Accommodation provided for the Christian traveller when he has finished his course.
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
The French have a saying that whatever excellence a man may exhibit in a public station he is very apt to be ridiculous in a private one.
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
Talented people almost always know full well the excellence that is in them.
Charlotte Brontë.
And on them burn so chaste a flame,
With so much loyalties’ expense,
As Love, t’ acquit such excellence,
Is gone himself into your name.
And you are he; the deity
To whom all lovers are designed
That would their better objects find;
Among which faithful troop am I.
Who, as an offspring at your shrine,
Have sung this hymn, and here entreat
One spark of your diviner heat
To light upon a love of mine.
Which, if it kindle not, but scant
Appear, and that to shortest view,
Yet give me leave t’ adore in you
What I in her am grieved to want.
“An Elegy by Ben Jonson | Poetry Foundation.”
So I wish our courtier to be an accomplished and versatile horseman and, as well as having a knowledge of horses and all the matters to do with riding, he should put every effort and diligence into surpassing the rest just a little in everything, so that he may always be recognized as superior. And as we read of Alcibiades, that he surpassed all those peoples among whom he lived, and each time in regard to what they claimed to be best at, so this courtier of ours should outstrip all others, and in regard to the things they know well. Thus it is the peculiar excellence of the Italians to ride well with the rein, to handle spirited horses very skilfully, and to tilt and joust; so in all this the courtier should compare with the best of them. In tourneys, in holding his ground, in forcing his way forward, he should compare with the best of the French; in volleying, in running bulls, in casting spears and darts, he should be outstanding among the Spaniards. But, above all, he should accompany his every act with a certain grace and fine judgement if he wishes to earn that universal regard which everyone covets.
Baldesar Castiglione, How to Achieve True Greatness, Bk 1, pg. 24.
It is true that, through the favour of the stars or of Nature, certain people come into the world endowed with such gifts that they seem not to have been born but to have been formed by some god with his own hands and blessed with every possible advantage of mind and body. Similarly, there are many to be found so uncouth and absurd that it can be believed simply that Nature was motivated by spite or mockery in bringing them into the world at all. Just as even with unceasing diligence and careful training the latter cannot usually be made to bear fruit, so with only the slightest effort the former reach the summit of excellence. And to give you an example, look at Don Ippolito d’Este, Cardinal of Ferrara, whose fortunate birth has influenced his person, his appearance, his words and all his actions.
Because of this favour, despite his youth, even among the most venerable cardinals he carries such weighty authority that he seems more suited to teach than to be taught. Similarly, when conversing with men and women of every sort, when playing or laughing or joking, he has such charming ways and such a gracious manner that anyone who speaks to, or merely sets eyes on the Cardinal feels a lasting affection for him.
Baldesar Castiglione, How to Achieve True Greatness, Bk 1, pg. 13.
We must, however, not only describe virtue as a state of character, but also say what sort of state it is. We may remark, then, that every virtue or excellence both brings into good condition the thing of which it is the excellence and makes the work of that thing be done well; e.g. the excellence of the eye makes both the eye and its work good; for it is by the excellence of the eye that we see well. Similarly the excellence of the horse makes a horse both good in itself and good at running and at carrying its rider and at awaiting the attack of the enemy. Therefore, if this is true in every case, the virtue of man also will be the state of character which makes a man good and which makes him do his own work well.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, bk 2, part 6, Translated by W. D. Ross.
The excellence of the body is health; that is, a condition which allows us, while keeping free from disease, to have the use of our bodies; for many people are 'healthy' as we are told Herodicus was; and these no one can congratulate on their 'health', for they have to abstain from everything or nearly everything that men do.-Beauty varies with the time of life. In a young man beauty is the possession of a body fit to endure the exertion of running and of contests of strength; which means that he is pleasant to look at; and therefore all-round athletes are the most beautiful, being naturally adapted both for contests of strength and for speed also. For a man in his prime, beauty is fitness for the exertion of warfare, together with a pleasant but at the same time formidable appearance. For an old man, it is to be strong enough for such exertion as is necessary, and to be free from all those deformities of old age which cause pain to others.
Aristotle, Rhetoric, bk 1, ch 5, Translated by W. Rhys Roberts.
Excellence in size is to surpass ordinary people in height, thickness, and breadth by just as much as will not make one's movements slower in consequence. Athletic excellence of the body consists in size, strength, and swiftness; swiftness implying strength. He who can fling forward his legs in a certain way, and move them fast and far, is good at running; he who can grip and hold down is good at wrestling; he who can drive an adversary from his ground with the right blow is a good boxer: he who can do both the last is a good pancratiast, while he who can do all is an 'all-round' athlete.
Aristotle, Rhetoric, bk 1, ch 5, Translated by W. Rhys Roberts.
It is quite true that genuine moral excellence is really innate; but the meaning of the Christian doctrine is expressed in another and more rational way by the theory of metempsychosis, common to Brahmans and Buddhists. According to this theory, the qualities which distinguish one man from another are received at birth, are brought, that is to say, from another world and a former life; these qualities are not an external gift of grace, but are the fruits of the acts committed in that other world.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "The Christian System."
To Excel in what is Excellent. A great rarity among excellences. You cannot have a great man without something pre-eminent. Mediocrities never win applause. Eminence in some distinguished post distinguishes one from the vulgar mob and ranks us with the elect. To be distinguished in a Small post is to be great in little: the more comfort, the less glory. The highest eminence in great affairs has the royal characteristic of exciting admiration and winning goodwill.
“The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892].
But to the particular species of excellence men are directed, not by an ascendant planet or predominating humour, but by the first book which they read, some early conversation which they heard, or some accident which excited ardour and emulation.
Samuel Johnson, The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: The lives of the most eminent English poets, concluded. Miscellaneous lives (ed. 1787).
A SPECIES originates, and a type becomes established and strong in the long struggle with essentially constant UNFAVOURABLE conditions. On the other hand, it is known by the experience of breeders that species which receive super-abundant nourishment, and in general a surplus of protection and care, immediately tend in the most marked way to develop variations, and are fertile in prodigies and monstrosities (also in monstrous vices). Now look at an aristocratic commonwealth, say an ancient Greek polis, or Venice, as a voluntary or involuntary contrivance for the purpose of REARING human beings; there are there men beside one another, thrown upon their own resources, who want to make their species prevail, chiefly because they MUST prevail, or else run the terrible danger of being exterminated. The favour, the super-abundance, the protection are there lacking under which variations are fostered; the species needs itself as species, as something which, precisely by virtue of its hardness, its uniformity, and simplicity of structure, can in general prevail and make itself permanent in constant struggle with its neighbours, or with rebellious or rebellion-threatening vassals. The most varied experience teaches it what are the qualities to which it principally owes the fact that it still exists, in spite of all Gods and men, and has hitherto been victorious: these qualities it calls virtues, and these virtues alone it develops to maturity. It does so with severity, indeed it desires severity; every aristocratic morality is intolerant in the education of youth, in the control of women, in the marriage customs, in the relations of old and young, in the penal laws (which have an eye only for the degenerating): it counts intolerance itself among the virtues, under the name of "justice."
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Beyond Good and Evil/Chapter IX."
Experience
The appetites therefore of men, especially of great men, are carefully to be observed and stayed, or else they will never stay themselves. The experience of every age convinces us, that we must not judge of men by what they ought to do, but by what they will do; and all history affords but few instances of men trusted with great power without abusing it, when with security they could. The servants of society, that is to say, its magistrates, did almost universally serve it by seizing it, selling it, or plundering it; especially when they were left by the society unlimited as to their duty and wages. In that case these faithful stewards generally took all; and, being servants, made slaves of their masters.
For these reasons, and convinced by woeful and eternal experience, societies found it necessary to lay restraints upon their magistrates or publick servants, and to put checks upon those who would otherwise put chains upon them; and therefore these societies set themselves to model and form national constitutions with such wisdom and art, that the publick interest should be consulted and carried at the same time, when those entrusted with the administration of it were consulting and pursuing their own.
"Cato's Letters/Letter 60." Written by John Trenchard.
Experience and fiction.—However highly a person way develop his self-knowledge, nothing can be more imperfect than the picture embodying all the cravings that constitute his being. He can only just name the more important ones: their number and power, their flux and reflux, their mutual action and counter-action, and, above all, the laws of their subsistence will remain totally unknown to him. Hence this subsistence becomes a matter of chance: our daily experiences throw out it "but" now to the one, then to another of our cravings, and these greedily seize upon it, but the whole coming and going of these occurrences stands in no rational connection will the required means of subsistence of the total number of cravings: the outcome of which will ever be the starving and spoiling of some, and the surfeit of others. Every moment in the life of a human being causes some polypusarus of his character to grow, others to wither, in correspondence with the sustenance which the moment may or may not supply. Our experiences, as previously mentioned, are, in this sense, all means of subsistence, but scattered about with a reckless land, without discriminating between the hungry and the glutted ones. In consequence of this accidental sustenance of the parts, the whole full-grown polypus will be something just as accidental as its growth.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Dawn of the Day/Book 2."
To me the form of the egg has never appeared to have aught to do with the engenderment of the chick, but to be a mere accident; and to this conclusion I come the rather when I see the diversities in the shapes of the eggs of different hens.
William Harvey, Great Books of the Western World (Volume 28), Anatomical Exercises on the Generation of Animals
But in our experience, man is cheap and friendship wants its deep sense. We affect to dwell with our friends in their absence, but we do not; when deed, word, or letter comes not, they let us go.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature: An Essay ; And, Lectures on the Times (ed. 1844).
That immobility and absence of elasticity which we find in the arts, we find with more pain in the artist. There is no power of expansion in men. Our friends early appear to us as representatives of certain ideas, which they never pass or exceed. They stand on the brink of the ocean of thought and power, but they never take the single step that would bring them there. A man is like a bit of Labrador spar, which has no lustre as you turn it in your hand, until you come to a particular angle; then it shows deep and beautiful colors. There is no adaptation or universal applicability in men, but each has his special talent, and the mastery of successful men consists in adroitly keeping themselves where and when that turn shall be oftenest to be practised. We do what we must, and call it by the best names we can, and would fain have the praise of having intended the result which ensues. I cannot recall any form of man who is not superfluous sometimes. But is not this pitiful? Life is not worth the taking, to do tricks in.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Essays: Second Series/Experience."
Faith
The reason why. Types.—[They had to deal with a carnal people and to render them the depositary of the spiritual covenant.] To give faith to the Messiah, it was necessary there should have been precedent prophecies, and that these should be conveyed by persons above suspicion, diligent, faithful, unusually zealous, and known to all the world.
To accomplish all this, God chose this carnal people, to whom He entrusted the prophecies which foretell the Messiah as a deliverer, and as a dispenser of those carnal goods which this people loved. And thus they have had an extraordinary passion for their prophets, and, in sight of the whole world, have had charge of these books which foretell their Messiah, assuring all nations that He should come, and in the way foretold in the books, which they held open to the whole world. Yet this people, deceived by the poor and ignominious advent of the Messiah, have been His most cruel enemies. So that they, the people least open to suspicion in the world of favouring us, the most strict and most zealous that can be named for their law and their prophets, have kept the books incorrupt. Hence those who have rejected and crucified Jesus Christ, who has been to them an offence, are those who have charge of the books which testify of Him, and state that He will be an offence and rejected. Therefore they have shown it was He by rejecting Him, and He has been alike proved both by the righteous Jews who received Him, and by the unrighteous who rejected Him, both facts having been foretold.
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 8."
The just man acts by faith in the least things; when he reproves his servants, he desires their conversion by the Spirit of God, and prays God to correct them; and he expects as much from God as from his own reproofs, and prays God to bless his corrections. And so in all his other actions he proceeds with the Spirit of God; and his actions deceive us by reason of the…or suspension of the Spirit of God in him; and he repents in his affliction.
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 7."
I can only repeat that I set myself against all efforts to intrude the fanatic into the figure of the Saviour: the very word impérieux, used by Renan, is alone enough to annul the type. What the “glad tidings” tell us is simply that there are no more contradictions; the kingdom of heaven belongs to children; the faith that is voiced here is no more an embattled faith—it is at hand, it has been from the beginning, it is a sort of recrudescent childishness of the spirit. The physiologists, at all events, are familiar with such a delayed and incomplete puberty in the living organism, the result of degeneration. A faith of this sort is not furious, it does not de nounce, it does not defend itself: it does not come with “the sword”—it does not realize how it will one day set man against man. It does not manifest itself either by miracles, or by rewards and promises, or by “scriptures”: it is itself, first and last, its own miracle, its own reward, its own promise, its own “kingdom of God.” This faith does not formulate itself—it simply lives, and so guards itself against formulae. To be sure, the accident of environment, of educational background gives prominence to concepts of a certain sort: in primitive Christianity one finds only concepts of a Judaeo-Semitic character (—that of eating and drinking at the last supper belongs to this category—an idea which, like everything else Jewish, has been badly mauled by the church).
Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Antichrist."
... there is between us one common name and appellation, one faith, and necessary body of principles common to us both; and therefore I am not scrupulous to converse and live with them, to enter their Churches in defect of ours, and either pray with them, or for them: I could never perceive any rationall consequence from those many texts which prohibite the children of Israel to pollute themselves with the Temples of the Heathens; we being all Christians, and not divided by such detested impieties as might prophane our prayers, or the place wherein we make them; or that a resolved conscience may not adore her Creator any where, especially in places devoted to his service; where if their devotions offend him, mine may please him, if theirs prophane it, mine may hallow it; Holy water and Crucifix (dangerous to the common people) deceive not my judgement, nor abuse my devotion at all: I am, I confesse, naturally inclined to that, which misguided zeale termes superstition; my common conversation I do acknowledge austere, my behaviour full of rigour, sometimes not without morosity; yet at my devotion I love to use the civility of my knee, my hat, and hand, with all those outward and sensible motions, which may expresse, or promote my invisible devotion. I should violate my owne arme rather then a Church, nor willingly deface the memory of Saint or Martyr. At the sight of a Crosse or Crucifix I can dispence with my hat, but scarce with the thought or memory of my Saviour; I cannot laugh at but rather pity the fruitlesse journeys of Pilgrims, or contemne the miserable condition of Friers...
Thomas Browne, “Religio Medici.” Part 1, Sect. 3.
When a mans Discourse beginneth not at Definitions, it beginneth either at some other contemplation of his own, and then it is still called Opinion; Or it beginneth at some saying of another, of whose ability to know the truth, and of whose honesty in not deceiving, he doubteth not; and then the Discourse is not so much concerning the Thing, as the Person; And the Resolution is called BELEEFE, and FAITH: Faith, In the man; Beleefe, both Of the man, and Of the truth of what he sayes. So then in Beleefe are two opinions; one of the saying of the man; the other of his vertue. To Have Faith In, or Trust To, or Beleeve A Man, signifie the same thing; namely, an opinion of the veracity of the man: But to Beleeve What Is Said, signifieth onely an opinion of the truth of the saying. But wee are to observe that this Phrase, I Beleeve In; as also the Latine, Credo In; and the Greek, Pisteno Eis, are never used but in the writings of Divines. In stead of them, in other writings are put, I Beleeve Him; I Have Faith In Him; I Rely On Him: and in Latin, Credo Illi; Fido Illi: and in Greek, Pisteno Anto: and that this singularity of the Ecclesiastical use of the word hath raised many disputes about the right object of the Christian Faith.
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Part 1, Ch 7.
Fame
My remarks are, as I have said, confined to achievements that are not of any material use. Work that serves some practical end, or ministers directly to some pleasure of the senses, will never have any difficulty in being duly appreciated. No first-rate pastry-cook could long remain obscure in any town, to say nothing of having to appeal to posterity.
Under fame of rapid growth is also to be reckoned fame of a false and artificial kind; where, for instance, a book is worked into a reputation by means of unjust praise, the help of friends, corrupt criticism, prompting from above and collusion from below. All this tells upon the multitude, which is rightly presumed to have no power of judging for itself. This sort of fame is like a swimming bladder, by its aid a heavy body may keep afloat. It bears up for a certain time, long or short according as the bladder is well sewed up and blown; but still the air comes out gradually, and the body sinks. This is the inevitable fate of all works which are famous by reason of something outside of themselves. False praise dies away; collusion comes to an end; critics declare the reputation ungrounded; it vanishes, and is replaced by so much the greater contempt. Contrarily, a genuine work, which, having the source of its fame in itself, can kindle admiration afresh in every age, resembles a body of low specific gravity, which always keeps up of its own accord, and so goes floating down the stream of time.
Arthur Schopenhauer, "The Art of Literature/On Reputation."
Fame is of that force, as there is scarcely any great action wherein it hath not a great part, especially in the war. Mucianus undid Vitellius by a fame that he scattered, that Vitellius had in purpose to remove the legions of Syria into Germany, and the legions of Germany into Syria; whereupon the legions of Syria were infinitely inflamed. Julius Cæsar took Pompey unprovided, and laid asleep his industry and preparations, by a fame that he cunningly gave out how Cæsar's own soldiers loved him not; and being wearied with the wars, and laden with the spoils of Gaul, would forsake him as soon as he came into Italy. Livia settled all things for the succession of her son Tiberius, by continual giving out that her husband Augustus was upon recovery and amendment; and it is an usual thing with the bashaws, to conceal the death of the Great Turk from the janizaries and men of war, to save the sacking of Constantinople, and other towns, as their manner is. Themistocles made Xerxes, king of Persia, post apace out of Græcia, by giving out that the Grecians had a purpose to break his bridge of ships which he had made athwart Hellespont.
The Essays of Francis Bacon: The Fifty-Nine Essays, Complete. Adansonia Press, 2018. Of Fame, pg. 102.
The poets make Fame a monster; they describe her in part finely and elegantly, and in part gravely and sententiously: they say, look how many feathers she hath, so many eyes she hath underneath, so many tongues, so many voices, she pricks up so many ears.
The Essays of Francis Bacon: The Fifty-Nine Essays, Complete. Adansonia Press, 2018. Of Fame, pg. 101.
Fame, we may understand, is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such: it is an accident, not a property, of a man; like light, it can give little or nothing, but at most may show what is given; often it is but a false glare, dazzling the eyes of the vulgar, lending, by casual extrinsic splendour, the brightness and manifold glance of the diamond to pebbles of no value.
Thomas Carlyle, James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.
Fame cannot spread wide or endure long that is not rooted in nature, and matured by art. That which hopes to resist the blast of malignity, and stand firm against the attacks of time, must contain in itself some original principle of growth. The reputation which arises from the detail or transposition of borrowed sentiments, may spread for awhile, like ivy on the rind of antiquity, but will be torn away by accident or contempt, and suffered to rot unheeded on the ground.
“No. 154. The Inefficacy of Genius without Learning.” Samuel Johnson’s Essays, 1751, www.johnsonessays.com/the-rambler/no-154-the-inefficacy-of-genius-without-learning/.
Upon an attentive and impartial review of the argument, it will appear that the love of fame is to be regulated rather than extinguished: and that men should be taught not to be wholly careless about their memory, but to endeavour that they may be remembered chiefly for their virtues, since no other reputation will be able to transmit any pleasure beyond the grave.
It is evident that fame, considered merely as the immortality of a name, is not less likely to be the reward of bad actions than of good; he therefore has no certain principle for the regulation of his conduct, whose single aim is not to be forgotten. And history will inform us, that this blind and undistinguishing appetite of renown has always been uncertain in its effects, and directed by accident or opportunity, indifferently to the benefit or devastation of the world. When Themistocles complained that the trophies of Miltiades hindered him from sleep, he was animated by them to perform the same services in the same cause. But Cæsar, when he wept at the sight of Alexander’s picture, having no honest opportunities of action, let his ambition break out to the ruin of his country.
“No. 49. A Disquisition upon the Value of Fame.” Samuel Johnson’s Essays, 1750, www.johnsonessays.com/the-rambler/disquisition-value-fame/.
Family
Think of me rather as one of the toga-wearing people, who has been given a liberal education thanks to his father’s kindly concern, and has been fired from boyhood with a love of learning, but who has, nevertheless, been trained by experience and family sayings much more than by books.
Cicero, The Republic, bk 1. Said by Scipio.
From commonwealths and cities, I will descend to families, which have as many corsives and molestations, as frequent discontents as the rest. Great affinity there is betwixt a political and economical body; they differ only in magnitude and proportion of business (so Scaliger writes) as they have both likely the same period, as Bodin and Peucer hold, out of Plato, six or seven hundred years, so many times they have the same means of their vexation and overthrows; as namely, riot, a common ruin of both, riot in building, riot in profuse spending, riot in apparel, &c. be it in what kind soever, it produceth the same effects. A chorographer of ours speaking obiter of ancient families, why they are so frequent in the north, continue so long, are so soon extinguished in the south, and so few, gives no other reason but this, luxus omnia dissipavit, riot hath consumed all, fine clothes and curious buildings came into this island, as he notes in his annals, not so many years since; non sine dispendio hospitalitatis to the decay of hospitality. Howbeit many times that word is mistaken, and under the name of bounty and hospitality, is shrouded riot and prodigality, and that which is commendable in itself well used, hath been mistaken heretofore, is become by his abuse, the bane and utter ruin of many a noble family.
Robert Burton, “The Anatomy of Melancholy.” THE DEMOCRITUS JUNIOR TO THE READER.
But although the family fathers owed their greatness to their ancestors’ piety and virtue and to their clients’ labours, they eventually began to abuse the laws of protection and to subject their clients to harsh treatment. When they had abandoned the natural order, which is that of justice, their clients rebelled against them. But without order, which is to say without God, human society cannot endure for even a moment. So providence led the family fathers naturally to unite with their relations in social orders formed against their clients. In the world’s first agrarian law, they appeased the clients by granting them bonitary ownership of the fields, while retaining for themselves supreme ownership as family sovereigns. In this way, the first cities sprang from the ruling orders of nobles.
Giambattista Vico, New Science. Penguin Classics, 2000, pg. 485.
In the midst of grief, however, I recall that excellent saying of Epicurus; I remember how fortunate we once were in our native land, how our family once numbered many men, possessed ample goods, flourished in fame and dignity, commanding favor, grace, and much good will. Then I compensate for present unhappiness with these happy memories, and I promise myself, even in the midst of this storm and all these evils, that someday our patience and fortitude will find a wholesome and quiet haven. To free my soul of all bitterness, I turn my thoughts elsewhere and consider that for a family which wished to be great no model could be more fitting than our Alberti family, our family, that is, as it was before. Thanks to the blows of fortune, it fell on adversity and stormy troubled days. I see and recognize this, that no family lacking the things we used to have in abundance, no family small in number of men, or poor, lowly, and friendless, let alone surrounded by enemies, no such family could ever be considered anything but wretched and unfortunate. So let us call that family fortunate which has a good supply of rich men, men who are highly esteemed and loved. Let us call the family unfortunate which has few men, and those obscure, poor, and disliked. While the first is feared, the second is inevitably injured and insulted. While the first is given honor and due dignity, the second is hated and treated with contempt. While the first is called and admitted to high and glorious enterprises, the second is excluded and shunned.
Leon Battista Alberti, The Family in Renaissance Florence. Waveland Press, 1994. pg. 110.
Fate
Never, from Sympathy with the Unfortunate, involve Yourself in his Fate. One man's misfortune is another man's luck, for one cannot be lucky without many being unlucky. It is a peculiarity of the unfortunate to arouse people's goodwill who desire to compensate them for the blows of fortune with their useless favour, and it happens that one who was abhorred by all in prosperity is adored by all in adversity. Vengeance on the wing is exchanged for compassion afoot. Yet ’tis to be noticed how fate shuffles the cards. There are men who always consort with the unlucky, and he that yesterday flew high and happy stands to-day miserable at their side. That argues nobility of soul, but not worldly wisdom.
Baltasar Gracián, “The Art of Worldly Wisdom” tr. by Joseph Jacobs, [1892]
Fate, which some introduce as sovereign over all things, he scorns, affirming rather that some things happen of necessity, others by chance, others through our own agency. For he sees that necessity destroys responsibility and that chance is inconstant; whereas our own actions are autonomous, and it is to them that praise and blame naturally attach. It were better, indeed, to accept the legends of the gods than to bow beneath that yoke of destiny which the natural philosophers have imposed. The one holds out some faint hope that we may escape if we honor the gods, while the necessity of the naturalists is deaf to all entreaties. Nor does he hold chance to be a god, as the world in general does, for in the acts of a god there is no disorder; nor to be a cause, though an uncertain one, for he believes that no good or evil is dispensed by chance to men so as to make life blessed, though it supplies the starting-point of great good and great evil. He believes that the misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool. It is better, in short, that what is well judged in action should not owe its successful issue to the aid of chance.
“Epicurus - Letter to Menoeceus.”
Langius readily, farr, farr be it from me Lipsius said he; I would not so much as in my dreams introduce that Fate of the Stoicks; nor do I endeavour to revive those long since expired Beldames the destinies: It is a modest and pious fate I contend for, and which differs from the violent one these four wayes. The Stoicks subject God to Fate; neither was Jupiter himself in Homer able to exempt his Sarpedon from its bonds, when he earnestly desired it, But we on the contrary subject Fate to God whom we acknowledge to be a most free Author, and independent Agent in all things: Who when he pleases can surpass, and break through all the strengths, and intricate foldings of Fate. They also constitute a Series and Flux of Natural causes from Eternity; we admit not such a Series of these causes without interruption (for God makes Prodigies, and worketh Miracles, oftentimes besides, yea contrary to Nature) nor can this Series of causes be from Eternity. For Second causes are not Eternal, as having (most certainly) their beginings with that of the world. Thirdly, they seem to have remov'd contingency from things; we restore it, and as often as second causes are such, we admit contingency and accident in events. Lastly, they seem to have brought in a violent force upon the Will; this is farr from us, who as we do assert Fate, so we reconcile it with the Liberty of the Will.
Justus Lipsius, "A Discourse of Constancy in Two Books. Chiefly containing Consolations against Publick Evils/Book 1." Chap. XX.
But I have said enough of the Sentiments and dissents of the ancients, for why should I over curiously or subtilly search into the Mysteries of Hell? my business is with true Fate; this I shall now propound and illustrate. And I here call it, an eternal decree of Providence, which is as inseparable from things, as Providence it self. Nor let any one cavil at the Name; for I do confidently affirm that the Latine language doth not afford any other that is proper to the thing. Did the ancients abuse it? Let us use it nevertheless; and inlarging the word from the Prison of the Stoicks, let us bring it forth into a better light. For certainly Fate is derived a fando from speaking: Nor is it properly any other than the Divine Sentence and injunction, which is that very thing I here mean by it. For I define the true Fate either with the illustrious Picus Mirandula, a Series and Order of Causes depending upon Divine Counsel, or in my own termes (though not so plainly, yet more exactly) an immoveable decree of Providence inherent in things moveable, which surely disposes every of them in its own Order, Place and Time. I call it a decree of Providence; for I am not altogether of the same Mind, with the Divines of our dayes (I crave leave for a free Investigation of Truth) who confound it as well in Name as Thing with Providence it self.
Justus Lipsius, "A Discourse of Constancy in Two Books. Chiefly containing Consolations against Publick Evils/Book 1." Chap. XIX.
Only if the earth always began its drama again after the fifth act, and it were certain that the same interaction of motives, the same deus ex machina the same catastrophe would occur at particular intervals, could the man of action venture to look for the whole archetypic truth in monumental history, to see each fact fully set out in its uniqueness: it would not probably be before the astronomers became astrologers again. Till then monumental history will never be able to have complete truth; it will always bring together things that are incompatible and generalise them into compatibility, will always weaken the differences of motive and occasion. Its object is to depict effects at the expense of the causes—"monumentally," that is, as examples for imitation: it turns aside, as far as it may, from reasons, and might be called with far less exaggeration a collection of "effects in themselves," than of events that will have an effect on all ages. The events of war or religion cherished in our popular celebrations are such "effects in themselves"; it is these that will not let ambition sleep, and lie like amulets on the bolder hearts—not the real historical nexus of cause and effect, which, rightly understood, would only prove that nothing quite similar could ever be cast again from the dice-boxes of fate and the future.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life."
Fear
There is a courageous wisdom: there is also a false, reptile prudence, the result, not of caution, but of fear. Under misfortunes, it often happens that the nerves of the understanding are so relaxed, the pressing peril of the hour so completely confounds all the faculties, that no future danger can be properly provided for, can be justly estimated, can be so much as fully seen. The eye of the mind is dazzled and vanquished. An abject distrust of ourselves, an extravagant admiration of the enemy, present us with no hope but in a compromise with his pride by a submission to his will. This short plan of policy is the only counsel which will obtain a hearing. We plunge into a dark gulf with all the rash precipitation of fear. The nature of courage is, without a question, to be conversant with danger; but in the palpable night of their terrors, men under consternation suppose, not that it is the danger which by a sure instinct calls out the courage to resist it, but that it is the courage which produces the danger. They therefore seek for a refuge in the fears themselves, and consider a temporizing meanness as the only source of safety.
Edmund Burke, Letters on a Regicide Peace, Letter I., 1796.
Man when he has nothing to fear, presently becomes wicked; he who believes he has not occasion for his fellow, persuades himself he may follow the inclinations of his heart without caution or discretion. Thus fear is the only obstacle society can effectually oppose to the passions of its chiefs; without it they will quickly become corrupt, and will not scruple to avail themselves of the means society has placed in their hands, to make them accomplices in their iniquity. To prevent these abuses, it is requisite society should set bounds to its confidence; should limit the power which it delegates to its chiefs; should reserve to itself a sufficient portion of authority to prevent them from injuring it; it must establish prudent checks: it must cautiously divide the power it confers, because re-united, it will by such reunion be infallibly oppressed. The slightest reflection, the most scanty review, will make men feel that the burthen of governing and weight of administration, is too ponderous and overpowering to be borne by an individual; that the scope of his jurisdiction, that the range of his surveillance, and multiplicity of his duties must always render him negligent; that the extent of his power has ever a tendency to render him mischievous. In short, the experience of all ages will convince nations that man is continually tempted to the abuse of power: that as an abundance of strong liquor intoxicates his brain, so unlimited power corrupts his heart; that therefore the sovereign ought to be subject to the law, not the law to the sovereign.
Baron d’Holbach, “System of Nature - Part 1, Chapter 9.”
If fear is associated with the expectation that something destructive will happen to us, plainly nobody will be afraid who believes nothing can happen to him; we shall not fear things that we believe cannot happen to us, nor people who we believe cannot inflict them upon us; nor shall we be afraid at times when we think ourselves safe from them. It follows therefore that fear is felt by those who believe something to be likely to happen to them, at the hands of particular persons, in a particular form, and at a particular time. People do not believe this when they are, or think they a are, in the midst of great prosperity, and are in consequence insolent, contemptuous, and reckless-the kind of character produced by wealth, physical strength, abundance of friends, power: nor yet when they feel they have experienced every kind of horror already and have grown callous about the future, like men who are being flogged and are already nearly dead-if they are to feel the anguish of uncertainty, there must be some faint expectation of escape.
Rhetoric, bk 2, ch 5, Translated by W. Rhys Roberts.
I Will Boast of What I Fear:
I bear absence lightly: presence bends me.
And now I become someone else, so great is the sound.
“Julius Caesar Scaliger: Epidorpides.” Epidorpidum. Book 4.
Flattery
What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering.
George Bernard Shaw, John Bull's Other Island (1907).
Tacitus, who never mentions the woes of his country without seeming to feel them, talking of Sejanus, who having got the whole administration into his hands, was now the chief idol at Rome, makes M. Terentius, say with indignation, 'We worshipped his manumised slaves, and prostituted ourselves to his former footmen; and to be acquainted with his porter, was a mighty honour.'
As flatterers make tyrants, tyrants make flatterers; neither is it possible that any prince could be a tyrant without them: He must have servile hands to execute his will, servile mouths to approve it. It was with great fear that Nero ordered the murder of his mother, though he had wicked counsellors enough to advise and applaud it; and when he had done it, he was thunder-struck and distracted with apprehensions of the consequences: But finding flattery from all hands, instead of resentment from any, he grew outrageously abandoned, and plunged into all licentiousness and infamy: Had it not been for flatterers, the middle and end of his reign might have been as good as the beginning, than which there was scarce ever a better.
"Cato's Letters/Letter 34." Written by Thomas Gordon.
Flattery is cruel, and gives bloody counsels; and flatterers are constant and merciless calumniators: Every word which they do not like, is a libel; every action that displeases them, is treason or sedition: Where there are no faults, they create them. The crimes objected to the honest and excellent Thrasea Petus, were such as these:
That he had never applauded Nero, nor encouraged others to applaud him; that when the Senate were running into all the extravagancies of flattery, he would not be present, and therefore had not been in it for three years; that he had never sacrificed for Nero's charming voice; that he would never own Madam Poppaea for a goddess, she who had been Nero's mistress, and was then his wife; that he would not vote that a gentleman who had made satirical verses upon Nero should be put to death, though he condemned the man and his libel; but he contended that no law made the offence capital; that they could not, without scandal, and the imputation of cruelty, punish with death, an offence for which the laws had already provided a punishment that was milder.
"Cato's Letters/Letter 34." Written by Thomas Gordon.
Men who stand in the highest ranks of society seldom hear of their faults; if by any accident an opprobrious clamour reaches their ears, flattery is always at hand to pour in her opiates, to quiet conviction and obtund remorse.
Samuel Johnson, The Rambler: In Four Volumes (ed. 1761).
Men who have flattered themselves into this opinion of their own abilities, look down on all who waste their lives over books, as a race of inferior beings, condemned by nature to perpetual pupilage, and fruitlessly endeavouring to remedy their barrenness by incessant cultivation, or succour their feebleness by subsidiary strength. They presume that none would be more industrious than they, if they were not more sensible of deficiencies; and readily conclude, that he who places no confidence in his own powers, owes his modesty only to his weakness.
It is however certain, that no estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius. It generally happens at our entrance into the world, that, by the natural attraction of similitude, we associate with men like ourselves, young, sprightly, and ignorant, and rate our accomplishments by comparison with theirs; when we have once obtained an acknowledged superiority over our acquaintances, imagination and desire easily extend it over the rest of mankind, and if no accident forces us into new emulations, we grow old, and die in admiration of ourselves.
Vanity, thus confirmed in her dominion, readily listens to the voice of idleness, and sooths the slumber of life with continual dreams of excellence and greatness. A man, elated by confidence in his natural vigour of fancy and sagacity of conjecture, soon concludes that he already possesses whatever toil and inquiry can confer.
“No. 154. The Inefficacy of Genius without Learning.” Samuel Johnson’s Essays, 1751, www.johnsonessays.com/the-rambler/no-154-the-inefficacy-of-genius-without-learning/.
Though they know that the flatterer knows the falsehood of his own flatteries, yet they love the impostor, and with both arms hug the abuse.
Robert South, S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.
Adroit observers will find that some who affect to dislike flattery may yet be flattered, indirectly by a well-seasoned abuse and ridicule of their rivals.
Charles Caleb Colton, S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.
In four ways … should one who flatters be understood as a foe in the guise of a friend: He approves of his friend’s evil deeds, he disapproves his friend’s good deeds, he praises him in his presence, he speaks ill of him in his absence.
Gautama Buddha.
Folly
Duelling is the triumph of fashion, which it sways tyrannically and most conspicuously. This custom does not allow a coward to live, but compels him to go and be killed by a man of more valour than himself, and to be mistaken for a man of courage. The maddest and most absurd action has been called honourable and glorious; it has been sanctioned by the presence of kings; in some cases it has even been considered a sort of duty to countenance it; it has decided the innocence of some persons, and the truth or falsity of certain accusations of capital crimes; it was so deeply rooted in the opinion of all nations, and had obtained such a complete possession of the feelings and minds of men, that to cure them of this folly has been one of the most glorious actions of the greatest of monarchs.
The Characters of Jean de La Bruyère. New York: Scribner & Welford, 1885; Bartleby.com, 2011.
‘’Our claim to our folly.’’—How are we to act? Why are we to act? The answer to these questions is easy enough with reference to the most immediate and most urgent pants of the individual ; but in proportion as our provinces of action grow more subtle, more extensive, and more important, the more certain and the more arbitrary will be the answer. But the arbitrariness of decision is the very thing to be excluded here—so commands the authority of morals: a vague anxiety and awe shall forthwith guide man in those very actions, the aims and means of which are not at once clear to him. This authority of morals undermines the thinking faculty in matters on which it might be dangerous to have wrong notions—thus its wonted justification before its accusers. Wrong here means “dangerous"—butdangerous to whom? Usually it is not so much the danger threatening the doer of an action which the adherents of authoritative morals live in view, but their own danger, the loss of power and authority which might cause if the right of arbitrary and foolish action in conformity with their own lesser or greater rationality were granted to all: they themselves unhesitatingly make use of the right of arbitrariness and folly—they even command where an answer to the question, "How amI to act? Why am I to act ?" is barely possible, or, at least, sufficiently difficult.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Dawn of the Day/Book 2."
My second argument is grounded upon the like place of Scripture, which though before mentioned in effect, yet for some reasons is to be repeated (and by Plato's good leave, I may do it, δίς τὸ καλὸν ρηθέν ὀυδέν βλάπτει) “Fools” (saith David) “by reason of their transgressions.” &c. Psal. cvii. 17. Hence Musculus infers all transgressors must needs be fools. So we read Rom. ii., “Tribulation and anguish on the soul of every man that doeth evil;” but all do evil. And Isaiah, lxv. 14, “My servant shall sing for joy, and ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and vexation of mind.” 'Tis ratified by the common consent of all philosophers. “Dishonesty” (saith Cardan) “is nothing else but folly and madness.” Probus quis nobiscum vivit? Show me an honest man, Nemo malus qui non stultus, 'tis Fabius' aphorism to the same end. If none honest, none wise, then all fools. And well may they be so accounted: for who will account him otherwise, Qui iter adornat in occidentem, quum properaret in orientem? that goes backward all his life, westward, when he is bound to the east? or hold him a wise man (saith Musculus) “that prefers momentary pleasures to eternity, that spends his master's goods in his absence, forthwith to be condemned for it?” Nequicquam sapit qui sibi non sapit, who will say that a sick man is wise, that eats and drinks to overthrow the temperature of his body? Can you account him wise or discreet that would willingly have his health, and yet will do nothing that should procure or continue it?
Robert Burton, “The Anatomy of Melancholy.” THE DEMOCRITUS JUNIOR TO THE READER.
Such is probably the natural state of the universe; but it is so much deformed by interest and passion, that the benefit of this adaptation of men to things is not always perceived. The folly or indigence of those who set their services to sale, inclines them to boast of qualifications which they do not possess, and attempt business which they do not understand; and they who have the power of assigning to others the task of life, are seldom honest or seldom happy in their nomination. Patrons are corrupted by avarice, cheated by credulity, or overpowered by resistless solicitation. They are sometimes too strongly influenced by honest prejudices of friendship, or the prevalence of virtuous compassion. For, whatever cool reason may direct, it is not easy for a man of tender and scrupulous goodness to overlook the immediate effect of his own actions, by turning his eyes upon remoter consequences, and to do that which must give present pain, for the sake of obviating evil yet unfelt, or securing advantage in time to come. What is distant is in itself obscure, and, when we have no wish to see it, easily escapes our notice, or takes such a form as desire or imagination bestows upon it.
“No. 160. Rules for the Choice of Associates.” Samuel Johnson’s Essays, 1751, www.johnsonessays.com/the-rambler/no-160-rules-for-the-choice-of-associates/.
This fable seems to paint the behaviour and fortune of those, who, for their beauty, or other endowments, wherewith nature (without any industry of their own) has graced and adorned them, are extravagantly fond of themselves: for men of such a disposition generally affect retirement, and absence from public affairs; as a life of business must necessarily subject them to many neglects and contempts, which might disturb and ruffle their minds whence such persons commonly lead a solitary, private, and shadowy life; see little company, and those only such as highly admire and reverence them; or, like an echo, assent to all they say.
Bacon, Lord. Pagan Mythology, Or, the Wisdom of the Ancients. London : Progressive Publishing Company, 1891, Chapter 4: Narcissus, pg. 13-14.
THE PARASITE.—It denotes entire absence of a noble disposition when a person prefers to live in dependence at the expense of others, usually with a secret bitterness against them, in order only that he may not be obliged to work. Such a disposition is far more frequent in women than in men, also far more pardonable (for historical reasons).
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Human All-Too-Human."
Fool
Why Foolish Things Please.
What do I think, what reason do I remember,
That a story moves us more with severity?
Who has said, or who has calculated with reason:
That the times for which we lose our time for profit, are worth it?
Why do serious things trouble us: while lies feed us?
“Julius Caesar Scaliger: Epidorpides.” Epidorpidum. Book 4.
For what is more foolish than for a man to study nothing else than how to please himself? To make himself the object of his own admiration? And yet, what is there that is either delightful or taking, nay rather what not the contrary, that a man does against the hair? Take away this salt of life, and the orator may even sit still with his action, the musician with all his division will be able to please no man, the player be hissed off the stage, the poet and all his Muses ridiculous, the painter with his art contemptible, and the physician with all his slip-slops go a-begging. Lastly, you will be taken for an ugly fellow instead of youthful, and a beast instead of a wise man, a child instead of eloquent, and instead of a well-bred man, a clown. So necessary a thing it is that everyone flatter himself and commend himself to himself before he can be commended by others.
Erasmus, In Praise of Folly. Translated by John Wilson, pg. 24.
But what of this when they give up and down their foolish insipid verses, and there wants not others that admire them as much? They believe presently that Virgil's soul is transmigrated into them! But nothing like this, when with mutual compliments they praise, admire, and claw one another. Whereas if another do but slip a word and one more quick-sighted than the rest discover it by accident, O Hercules! what uproars, what bickerings, what taunts, what invectives! If I lie, let me have the ill will of all the grammarians. I knew in my time one of many arts, a Grecian, a Latinist, a mathematician, a philosopher, a physician, a man master of them all, and sixty years of age, who, laying by all the rest, perplexed and tormented himself for above twenty years in the study of grammar, fully reckoning himself a prince if he might but live so long till he could certainly determine how the eight parts of speech were to be distinguished, which none of the Greeks or Latins had yet fully cleared: as if it were a matter to be decided by the sword if a man made an adverb of a conjunction. And for this cause is it that we have as many grammars as grammarians; nay more, forasmuch as my friend Aldus has given us above five, not passing by any kind of grammar, how barbarously or tediously soever compiled, which he has not turned over and examined; envying every man's attempts in this kind, how to be pitied than happy, as persons that are ever tormenting themselves; adding, changing, putting in, blotting out, revising, reprinting, showing it to friends, and nine years in correcting, yet never fully satisfied; at so great a rate do they purchase this vain reward, to wit, praise, and that too of a very few, with so many watchings, so much sweat, so much vexation and loss of sleep, the most precious of all things.
Erasmus, In Praise of Folly. Translated by John Wilson, pg. 59-60.
But, someone may say, the ears of princes are strangers to truth, and for this reason they avoid those wise men, because they fear lest someone more frank than the rest should dare to speak to them things rather true than pleasant; for so the matter is, that they don't much care for truth. And yet this is found by experience among my fools, that not only truths but even open reproaches are heard with pleasure; so that the same thing which, if it came from a wise man's mouth might prove a capital crime, spoken by a fool is received with delight. For truth carries with it a certain peculiar power of pleasing, if no accident fall in to give occasion of offense; which faculty the gods have given only to fools. And for the same reasons is it that women are so earnestly delighted with this kind of men, as being more propense by nature to pleasure and toys. And whatsoever they may happen to do with them, although sometimes it be of the most serious, yet they turn it to jest and laughter, as that sex was ever quick-witted, especially to color their own faults.
Erasmus, In Praise of Folly. Translated by John Wilson, pg. 41.
Fools make researches and wise men exploit them—that is our earthly way of dealing with the question, and we thank Heaven for an assumed abundance of financially impotent and sufficiently ingenious fools.
H. G. Wells, Ch. 2, sect. 5 - A Modern Utopia (1905)
Nothing exceeds in Ridicule, no doubt,
A Fool in Fashion, but a Fool that’s out;
His Passion for Absurdity’s so strong
He cannot bear a Rival in the Wrong.
Tho’ wrong the Mode, comply; more Sense is shewn
In wearing others Follies than your own.
If what is out of Fashion most you prize,
Methinks you should endeavour to be wise.
Benjamin Franklin, “Poor Richard, 1746,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-03-02-0025.
Fortune
In prosperous times the mercantile classes often realize fortunes, which go far towards securing them against the future; but unfortunately the working classes, though they share in the general prosperity, do not share in it so largely as in the general adversity.
Thomas Robert Malthus, Book II, Chapter I, On The Progress of Wealth, Section X, p. 437. - Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836).
Worthy of Good Fortune.
If you bear the scepter, it befits you to prepare yourself for it.
A decent character suits well with a jester.
“Julius Caesar Scaliger: Epidorpides.” Epidorpidum. Book 1.
Wherein it may appear at the first a new and unwonted argument to teach men how to raise and make their fortune; a doctrine wherein every man perchance will be ready to yield himself a disciple, till he see the difficulty: for fortune layeth as heavy impositions as virtue; and it is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politique, as to be truly moral. But the handling hereof concerneth learning greatly, both in honour and in substance. In honour, because pragmatical men may not go away with an opinion that learning is like a lark, that can mount and sing, and please herself, and nothing else; but may know that she holdeth as well of the hawk, that can soar aloft, and can also descend and strike upon the prey. In substance, because it is the perfect law of inquiry of truth, that nothing be in the globe of matter, which should not be likewise in the globe of crystal or form; that is, that there be not anything in being and action which should not be drawn and collected into contemplation and doctrine. Neither doth learning admire or esteem of this architecture of fortune otherwise than as of an inferior work, for no man’s fortune can be an end worthy of his being, and many times the worthiest men do abandon their fortune willingly for better respects: but nevertheless fortune as an organ of virtue and merit deserveth the consideration.
Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning.
Yet, says Battista here, remember the teaching of that Terentian character, Demiphus. Every man finds it hard in prosperity to envisage how in time of need he will sustain the cruel tyranny of fortune and the dangers, injury, and exile that may come. When you return from a journey, therefore, think of some misdeed that children or wife may have committed or of some accident that may have befallen them, for these things happen every day—thus your spirit will never be overwhelmed by some unexpected calamity. The sword a man has seen ahead of time usually strikes less deep. Also, if you find things safe and better than you had imagined, you will count all that as gain. If this is a good rule to follow in prosperity, how much more so when things are on the decline and falling apart.
Leon Battista Alberti, The Family in Renaissance Florence. Waveland Press, 1994. pg. 173-174.
Literary endeavors also depend on a thousand chances. Sometimes a man has no father, his relatives are envious, hard, and inhumane, and poverty strikes him down or he suffers some accident. Surely over your studies, as over human affairs in general, fortune has great power. You cannot persevere unless you have certain things which lie under fortune’s scepter. In the pursuit of every most noble and glorious enterprise, then, you must not omit fortune from your considerations but must moderate its influence by the use of discretion and judgment.
Leon Battista Alberti, The Family in Renaissance Florence. Waveland Press, 1994. pg. 146.
Fortune may raise up or abuse the ordinary mortal, but the sage and the soldier should have minds beyond her control.
Walter Scott, The Works: Tales of the crusaders ; Vol. 6, The talisman ; Vol. 3 (ed. 1826)
And if there are such things as sobriety and justice and fortitude, with what reason can we deny the existence of prudence, and if prudence exists, how can we deny the existence of wisdom? For sobriety is a kind of prudence, as people say, and justice also needs the presence of prudence. Nay more, we call the wisdom and prudence that makes people good in regard to pleasure self-control and sobriety, and in dangers and hardships endurance and fortitude, and in dealings between man and man and in public life equity and justice. And so, if we are to ascribe to fortune the acts of wisdom, let us ascribe justice and sobriety to fortune also, aye, and let us put down to fortune stealing, and picking pockets, and lewdness, and let us bid farewell to argument, and throw ourselves entirely on fortune, as if we were, like dust or refuse, borne along and hurried away by a violent wind. For if there be no wisdom, it is not likely that there is any deliberation or investigation of matters, or search for expediency, but Sophocles only talked nonsense when he said,
"Whate'er is sought is found, what is neglected
Escapes our notice;"
and again in dividing human affairs,
"What can be taught I learn, what can be found out
Duly investigate, and of the gods
I ask for what is to be got by prayer."
For what can be found out or learnt by men, if everything is due to fortune? And what deliberative assembly of a state is not annulled, what council of a king is not abrogated, if all things are subject to fortune? whom we abuse as blind because we ourselves are blind in our dealings with her.
Plutarch, Morals, On Fortune.
Fortune… and chance, are said to be in the number of causes… [W]ith some it is dubious whether these things have subsistence or not. For, say they, nothing is produced from fortune, but there is a definite cause of all such things… For if fortune were any thing, it would truly appear to be absurd; and some one might doubt why no one of the ancient wise men, when assigning the causes of generation and corruption, has ever defined any thing concerning fortune. …[M]any things are produced, and have a subsistence, from fortune and chance… They did not, however, think that fortune was any thing belonging to friendship or strife, or fire, or intellect, or any thing else of things of this kind. They are chargeable, therefore, with absurdity, whether they did not conceive that it had a substance, or whether fancying that it had, they omitted it; especially since it was sometimes employed by them. Thus Empedocles says that the air…
Thus it then chanc’d to run, tho’ varying oft.
He also says that the greater part of… animals were generated by fortune. But there are some who assign chance to the cause of this heaven, and of all mundane natures… [W]e must consider… whether chance or fortune are the same… or different from each other, and how they fall into definite causes.
Aristotle, Physics, Book II, Ch. IV, pp. 113-115.
Demosthenes expresses the view, with regard to human life in general, that good fortune is the greatest of blessings, while good counsel, which occupies the second place, is hardly inferior in importance, since its absence contributes inevitably to the ruin of the former (“Against Aristocrates”). This we may apply to diction, nature occupying the position of good fortune, art that of good counsel.
Longinus, On the Sublime, Translated by W. Rhys Roberts.
So each degree of good fortune which raises us in the world removes us farther from truth, because we are most afraid of wounding those whose affection is most useful and whose dislike is most dangerous. A prince may be the byword of all Europe, and he alone will know nothing of it. I am not astonished. To tell the truth is useful to those to whom it is spoken, but disadvantageous to those who tell it, because it makes them disliked. Now those who live with princes love their own interests more than that of the prince whom they serve; and so they take care not to confer on him a benefit so as to injure themselves.
This evil is no doubt greater and more common among the higher classes; but the lower are not exempt from it, since there is always some advantage in making men love us. Human life is thus only a perpetual illusion; men deceive and flatter each other. No one speaks of us in our presence as he does of us in our absence. Human society is founded on mutual deceit; few friendships would endure if each knew what his friend said of him in his absence, although he then spoke in sincerity and without passion.
Man is then only disguise, falsehood, and hypocrisy, both in himself and in regard to others. He does not wish any one to tell him the truth; he avoids telling it to others, and all these dispositions, so removed from justice and reason, have a natural root in his heart.
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 2."
Fortune sometimes makes our very Failings the Means of raising us. And there are some troublesome Fellows, who deserve to be rewarded so far, as to have their Absence purchased by Preferments at a distance.
The Moral Maxims and Reflections of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld.
Freedom
Freedom of speech.—"The truth should be told, even though the world should go to rack and ruin"—thus says great, outspoken Fichte! Yes, certainly! But we must first of all love it. But he means to say that everybody ought to speak out his mind, even though everything were to be turned upside clown. This point, however, is still open to argument.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Dawn of the Day/Book 4."
Freedom is the alone unoriginated birthright of man, and belongs to him by force of his humanity; and is independence on the will and co-action of every other in so far as this consists with every other person's freedom.
Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Ethics by Immanuel Kant, trans. J.W. Semple, ed. with Iintroduction by Rev. Henry Calderwood (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1886) (3rd edition).
Freed by full realization and at peace, the mind of such a man is at peace, and his speech and action peaceful. He has no need for faith who knows the uncreated, who has cut off rebirth, who has destroyed any opportunity for good or evil, and cast away all desire. He is indeed the ultimate man.
Gautama Buddha.
Of the realm of freedom.—We can think a great many more things than act and experience—that is, our thinking faculty is superficial and contents itself with the surface; nay, it does not even notice it. If our intellect had been developed in strict proportion to our strength and our exercise of strength, the topmost principle of our thinking would be that we can only understand that which we can do—if there is any understanding at all. The thirsty man is deprived of water, but the creations of his fancy continually produce water before his sight, as if nothing could be more easily procured; the superficial and easily satisfied nature of the intellect cannot grasp the real distress, and in this it feels its superiority. It is proud of knowing more, of running faster, and of reaching the goal almost instantaneously, so the realm of thoughts in comparison with the realms of action, of volition, and experience, appears to be a realm of freedom, while, as previously stated, it is but a realm of superficiality and sufficiency
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Dawn of the Day/Book 2."
AUTHORITY AND FREEDOM.—However highly women may honour their husbands, they honour still more the powers and ideas recognised by society; they have been accustomed for millennia to go along with their hands folded on their breasts, and their heads bent before every thing dominant, disapproving of all resistance to public authority. They therefore unintentionally, and as if from instinct, hang themselves as a drag on the wheels of free-spirited, independent endeavour, and in certain circumstances make their husbands highly impatient, especially when the latter persuade themselves that it is really love which prompts the action of their wives. To disapprove of women's methods and generously to honour the motives that prompt them—that is man's nature and often enough his despair.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Human All-Too-Human."
Enlightened self-interest is, of course, not the loftiest of motives, but those who decry it often substitute, by accident or design, motives which are much worse, such as hatred, envy, and love of power. On the whole, the school which owed its origin to Locke, and which preached enlightened self-interest, did more to increase human happiness, and less to increase human misery, than was done by the schools which despised it in the name of heroism and self-sacrifice. I do not forget the horrors of early industrialism, but these, after all, were mitigated within the system. And I set against them Russian serfdom, the evils of war and its aftermath of fear and hatred, and the inevitable obscurantism of those who attempt to preserve ancient systems when they have lost their vitality.
Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. Simon and Schuster, 2007. Book 3, Ch 15, pg. 647.
If every action which is good, or evill in man at ripe years, were to be under pittance, and prescription, and compulsion, what were vertue but a name, what praise could be then due to well-doing, what gramercy to be sober, just or continent? many there be that complain of divin Providence for suffering Adam to transgresse, foolish tongues! when God gave him reason, he gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing; he had bin else a meer artificiall Adam, such an Adam as he is in the motions. We our selves esteem not of that obedience, or love, or gift, which is of force: God therefore left him free, set before him a provoking object, ever almost in his eyes herein consisted his merit, herein the right of his reward, the praise of his abstinence. Wherefore did he creat passions within us, pleasures round about us, but that these rightly temper'd are the very ingredients of vertu? They are not skilfull considerers of human things, who imagin to remove sin by removing the matter of sin; for, besides that it is a huge heap increasing under the very act of diminishing, though some part of it may for a time be withdrawn from some persons, it cannot from all, in such a universall thing as books are; and when this is done, yet the sin remains entire. Though ye take from a covetous man all his treasure, he has yet one jewell left, ye cannot bereave him of his covetousnesse. Banish all objects of lust, shut up all youth into the severest discipline that can be exercis'd in any hermitage, ye cannot make them chaste, that came not thither so: such great care and wisdom is requir'd to the right managing of this point.
John Milton, “Areopagitica.”
Whenever I have made a discovery, I do not wait for you to cry "Shares!" I say it to myself in your behalf. If you wish to know what it is that I have found, open your pocket; it is clear profit. What I shall teach you is the ability to become rich as speedily as possible. How keen you are to hear the news! And rightly; I shall lead you by a short cut to the greatest riches. It will be necessary, however, for you to find a loan; in order to be able to do business, you must contract a debt, although I do not wish you to arrange the loan through a middle-man, nor do I wish the brokers to be discussing your rating. 2. I shall furnish you with a ready creditor, Cato's famous one, who says: "Borrow from yourself!" No matter how small it is, it will be enough if we can only make up the deficit from our own resources. For, my dear Lucilius, it does not matter whether you crave nothing, or whether you possess something. The important principle in either case is the same – freedom from worry.
Seneca the Younger, Moral letters to Lucilius/Letter 119.
Friendship
That of children to parents is rather respect: friendship is nourished by communication, which cannot by reason of the great disparity, be betwixt these, but would rather perhaps offend the duties of nature; for neither are all the secret thoughts of fathers fit to be communicated to children, lest it beget an indecent familiarity betwixt them; nor can the advices and reproofs, which is one of the principal offices of friendship, be properly performed by the son to the father. There are some countries where 'twas the custom for children to kill their fathers; and others, where the fathers killed their children, to avoid their being an impediment one to another in life; and naturally the expectations of the one depend upon the ruin of the other. There have been great philosophers who have made nothing of this tie of nature, as Aristippus for one, who being pressed home about the affection he owed to his children, as being come out of him, presently fell to spit, saying, that this also came out of him, and that we also breed worms and lice; and that other, that Plutarch endeavoured to reconcile to his brother: "I make never the more account of him," said he, "for coming out of the same hole." This name of brother does indeed carry with it a fine and delectable sound, and for that reason, he and I called one another brothers but the complication of interests, the division of estates, and that the wealth of the one should be the property of the other, strangely relax and weaken the fraternal tie: brothers pursuing their fortune and advancement by the same path, 'tis hardly possible but they must of necessity often jostle and hinder one another.
The Essays of Montaigne. 1877. Edited by William Carew Hazlitt, Translated by Charles Cotton. Book I Chapter XXVII. Of friendship.
If a friend has done something kind to you,
Be a grateful interpreter of their actions,
So that, while you receive these favors,
you prove yourself worthy of others.
“All the Poems of Joseph Scaliger, Son of Julius Caesar Scaliger.” Gnomic Iambs; 29.
Your notions of friendship are new to me; I believe every man is born with his quantum, and he cannot give to one without robbing another. I very well know to whom I would give the first place in my friendship, but they are not in the way, I am condemned to another scene, and therefore I distribute it in pennyworths to those about me, and who displease me least, and should do the same to my fellow prisoners if I were condemned to a jail.
Jonathan Swift, Letter to and from Jonathan Swift (ed. 1741).
154
[I have no friends] to your advantage].
155
A true friend is so great an advantage, even for the greatest lords, in order that he may speak well of them, and back them in their absence, that they should do all to have one. But they should choose well; for, if they spend all their efforts in the interests of fools, it will be of no use, however well these may speak of them; and these will not even speak well of them if they find themselves on the weakest side, for they have no influence; and thus they will speak ill of them in company.
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 2."
It is not to be forgotten what Comineus observeth of his first master, Duke Charles the Hardy, namely, that he would communicate his secrets with none; and least of all, those secrets which troubled him most. Whereupon he goeth on, and saith that towards his latter time that closeness did impair and a little perish his understanding. Surely Comineus might have made the same judgment also, if it had pleased him, of his second master, Lewis the Eleventh, whose closeness was indeed his tormentor. The parable of Pythagoras is dark but true, "Cor ne edito,"—"eat not the heart." Certainly, if a man would give it a hard phrase, those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts: but one thing is most admirable, (wherewith I will conclude this first fruit of friendship,) which is, that this communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects, for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halfs; for there is no man that imparteth his joys to his friend, but he joyeth the more: and no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he grieveth the less. So that it is, in truth, of operation upon a man's mind of like virtue as the alchymists use to attribute to their stone for man's body, that it worketh all contrary effects, but still to the good and benefit of nature: but yet, without praying in aid of alchymists, there is a manifest image of this in the ordinary course of nature; for, in bodies, union strengtheneth and cherisheth any natural action; and, on the other side, weakeneth and dulleth any violent impression; and even so it is of minds.
The Essays of Francis Bacon: The Fifty-Nine Essays, Complete. Adansonia Press, 2018. Of Friendship, pg. 49.
Heart. And what more sublime delight than to mingle tears with one whom the hand of heaven hath smitten! To watch over the bed of sickness, and to beguile it’s tedious and it’s painful moments! To share our bread with one to whom misfortune has left none! This world abounds indeed with misery: to lighten it’s burthen we must divide it with one another. But let us now try the virtues of your mathematical balance, and as you have put into one scale the burthens of friendship, let me put it’s comforts into the other. When languishing then under disease, how grateful is the solace of our friends! How are we penetrated with their assiduities and attentions! How much are we supported by their encouragements and kind offices! When Heaven has taken from us some object of our love, how sweet is it to have a bosom whereon to recline our heads, and into which we may pour the torrent of our tears! Grief, with such a comfort, is almost a luxury! In a life where we are perpetually exposed to want and accident, yours is a wonderful proposition, to insulate ourselves, to retire from all aid, and to wrap ourselves in the mantle of self-sufficiency! For assuredly nobody will care for him who cares for nobody. But friendship is precious not only in the shade but in the sunshine of life: and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine.
“From Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 12 October 1786,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-10-02-0309.
We ought always to make choice of persons of such worth and honour for our friends, that if they should ever cease to be so, they will not abuse our confidence, nor give us cause to fear them as enemies.
Joseph Addison, S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.
We ought not to make those people our enemies who might have become our friends, if we had only known them better. We ought to choose friends of such a high and honourable character that, even after having ceased to remain our friends, they should not abuse our confidence, nor make us dread them as our enemies.
Jean de La Bruyere, The Characters of Jean de La Bruyère. New York: Scribner & Welford, 1885; Bartleby.com, 2011.
What man then is so industrious, so changeable, and so versatile, as to be able to make himself like and adapt himself to many different persons, and not to laugh at the advice of Theognis, "Imitate the ingenuity of the polypus, that takes the colour of whatever stone it sticks to." And yet the changes in the polypus do not go deep but are only on the surface, which, from its thickness or thinness takes the impression of everything that approaches it, whereas friends endeavour to be like one another in character, and feeling, and language, and pursuits, and disposition. It requires a not very fortunate or very good Proteus, able by jugglery to assume various forms, to be frequently at the same time a student with the learned, and ready to try a fall with wrestlers, or to go a hunting with people fond of the chase, or to get drunk with tipplers, or to go a canvassing with politicians, having no fixed character of his own. And as the natural philosophers say of unformed and colourless matter when subjected to external change, that it is now fire, now water, now air, now solid earth, so the soul suitable for many friendships must be impressionable, and versatile, and pliant, and changeable. But friendship requires a steady constant and unchangeable character, a person that is uniform in his intimacy. And so a constant friend is a thing rare and hard to find.
Plutarch, Morals, On Abundance of Friends.
And the remembrance of wrongs done by an enemy and the kindness of a friend do not weigh in the same balance. See how Alexander treated the friends and intimates of Philotas and Parmenio, how Dionysius treated those of Dion, Nero those of Plautus, Tiberius those of Sejanus, torturing and putting them to death. For as neither the gold nor rich robes of Creon's daughter availed her or her sire, but the flame that burst out suddenly involved him in the same fate as herself, as he ran up to embrace her and rescue her, so some friends, though they have had no enjoyment out of their friends' prosperity, are involved in their misfortunes. And this is especially the case with philosophers and kind people, as Theseus, when his friend Pirithous was punished and imprisoned, "was also bound in fetters not of brass." And Thucydides tells us that during the plague at Athens those that most displayed their virtue perished with their friends that were ill, for they neglected their own lives in going to visit them.
Plutarch, Morals, On Abundance of Friends.
And yet people bear patiently and without anger the carelessness and neglect of friends, if they get from them such excuses as "I forgot," "I did it unwittingly." But he who says, "I did not assist you in your lawsuit, for I was assisting another friend," or "I did not visit you when you had your fever, for I was helping so-and-so who was entertaining his friends," excusing himself for his inattention to one by his attention to another, so far from making the offence less, even adds jealousy to his neglect. But most people in friendship regard only, it seems, what can be got out of it, overlooking what will be asked in return, and not remembering that he, who has had many of his own requests granted, must oblige others in turn by granting their requests. And as Briareus with his hundred hands had to feed fifty stomachs, and was therefore no better provided than we are, who with two hands have to supply the necessities of only one belly, so in having many friends one has to do many services for them, one has to share in their anxiety, and to toil and moil with them. For we must not listen to Euripides when he says, "mortals ought to join in moderate friendships for one another, and not love with all their heart, that the spell may be soon broken, and the friendship may either be ended or become closer at will," that so it may be adjusted to our requirements, like the sail of a ship that we can either slacken or haul tight. But let us transfer, Euripides, these lines of yours to enmities, and bid people make their animosities moderate, and not hate with all their heart, that their hatred, and wrath, and querulousness, and suspicions, may be easily broken. Recommend rather for our consideration that saying of Pythagoras, "Do not give many your right hand," that is, do not make many friends, do not go in for a common and vulgar friendship, which is sure to cause anyone much trouble; for its sharing in others' anxieties and griefs and labours and dangers is quite intolerable to free and noble natures. And that was a true saying of the wise Chilo to one who told him he had no enemy, "Neither," said he, "do you seem to me to have a friend." For enmities inevitably accompany and are involved in friendships.
Plutarch, Morals, On Abundance of Friends.
The silence resulting from absence has destroyed many a friendship.
Proverb.
Putting all this into a few words, we can say that in human affairs nothing is sweeter than friendship, and, after virtue, nothing is more sacred. Those who rule over others by their power and ability especially have need of true friends who will stick with them through thick and thin. You should never ask a friend to do anything dishonorable, nor should you ever do anything dishonorable on behalf of a friend. But nothing honorable is to be denied to a friend. Now you ought to adopt this principle: Among friends everything ought to be held in common, all should act with one accord and by common consent; and what friends agree to ought never to be changed simply because of other expectations, fear, or some imminent danger. Each person ought to love his friend as himself and to overlook any difference in status or wealth. In short, seek to act as Pythagoras orders: “Several persons are gathered in one.” Likewise, the conditions of true friendship are expressed in Holy Scripture, where in the Acts of the Apostles it is written: “The company of those who believed and who loved one another in Christ was of one head and one soul, and no one of them, whatever he possessed, claimed it for his own use, and all their property was held in common.”
Petrarch, How a Ruler Ought to Govern His State, 1373.
Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and unlikeness, that piques each with the presence of power and of consent in the other party. Let me be alone to the end of the world, rather than that my friend should overstep, by a word or a look, his real sympathy. I am equally balked by antagonism and by compliance. Let him not cease an instant to be himself. The only joy I have in his being mine, is that the not mine is mine. I hate, where I looked for a manly furtherance, or at least a manly resistance, to find a mush of concession. Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo. The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it. That high office requires great and sublime parts. There must be very two, before there can be very one. Let it be an alliance of two large, formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep identity which beneath these disparities unites them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Essays: First Series/Friendship."
A true friend is so great an advantage, even for the greatest lords, in order that he may speak well of them, and back them in their absence, that they should do all to have one. But they should choose well; for, if they spend all their efforts in the interests of fools, it will be of no use, however well these may speak of them; and these will not even speak well of them if they find themselves on the weakest side, for they have no influence; and thus they will speak ill of them in company.
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 2."
O friend! O best of friends! Thy absence more
Than the impending night darkens the landscape o’er.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christus. Pt. II. The Golden Legend. I.
Frugality
To make any happiness sincere, it is necessary that we believe it to be lasting; since whatever we suppose ourselves in danger of losing, must be enjoyed with solicitude and uneasiness, and the more value we set upon it, the more must the present possession be imbittered. How can he then be envied for his felicity, who knows that its continuance cannot be expected, and who is conscious that a very short time will give him up to the gripe of poverty, which will be harder to be borne, as he has given way to more excesses, wantoned in greater abundance, and indulged his appetites with more profuseness?
It appears evident that frugality is necessary even to complete the pleasure of expense; for it may be generally remarked of those who squander what they know their fortune not sufficient to allow, that in their most jovial expense, there always breaks out some proof of discontent and impatience; they either scatter with a kind of wild desperation, and affected lavishness, as criminals brave the gallows when they cannot escape it, or pay their money with a peevish anxiety, and endeavour at once to spend idly, and to save meanly: having neither firmness to deny their passions, nor courage to gratify them, they murmur at their own enjoyments, and poison the bowl of pleasure by reflection on the cost.
“No. 53. The Folly and Misery of a Spendthrift.” Samuel Johnson’s Essays, 1750, www.johnsonessays.com/the-rambler/folly-misery-spendthrift/.
Demosthenes vehemently opposes the law of his city that assigned the public money for the pomp of their public plays and festivals: he would that their greatness should be seen in numbers of ships well equipped, and good armies well provided for; and there is good reason to condemn Theophrastus, who, in his Book on Riches, establishes a contrary opinion, and maintains that sort of expense to be the true fruit of abundance. They are delights, says Aristotle, that a only please the baser sort of the people, and that vanish from the memory as soon as the people are sated with them, and for which no serious and judicious man can have any esteem. This money would, in my opinion, be much more royally, as more profitably, justly, and durably, laid out in ports, havens, walls, and fortifications; in sumptuous buildings, churches, hospitals, colleges, the reforming of streets and highways: wherein Pope Gregory XIII. will leave a laudable memory to future times: and wherein our Queen Catherine would to long posterity manifest her natural liberality and munificence, did her means supply her affection. Fortune has done me a great despite in interrupting the noble structure of the Pont-Neuf of our great city, and depriving me of the hope of seeing it finished before I die.
The Essays of Montaigne. 1877. Edited by William Carew Hazlitt, Translated by Charles Cotton. Book III Chapter VI. Of Coaches.
Paper money is the present hobby horse of the States, and every State has more or less of the paper madness. What a pity it is mankind will not discern their right hands from their left. Cash is scarce, is the general cry. Well, this proves nothing more than that the balance of trade is against us, and that we eat, drink, and wear more foreign commodities than we can pay for in produce: That is, we spend more than we earn; or in other words, we are poor.
But nothing shows the folly of people more, than their attempts to remedy the evil by a paper currency. This is ignorance, it is absurdity in the extreme. Do not people know that the addition of millions and millions of money does not increase the value of a circulating medium one farthing. Do they not know that the value of a medium ought not to be increased beyond a certain ratio, even if it could be? and that to increase the circulating cash of one State beyond the circulating cash of other States, is a material injury to it. These propositions are as demonstrable as any problem in Euclid. Ten millions of dollars in specie were supposed to be the medium in America before the war. Congress issued at first five millions in bills. As these came into circulation, specie went out; consequently they held their nominal and real value on par, for the nominal value of the medium was not much increased. Congress sent out another sum in bills; the nominal value of the medium was doubled, the bills sunk one half, and the real value of the medium remained the same. This was the subsequent progress; every emission sunk the real value of bills, and two hundred millions of dollars were, in the end, worth just ten millions in specie, and no more.
Noah Webster, “A Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings.” No. XI. DESULTORY THOUGHTS.
Thus interest rolls on interest as wave upon wave, and he that is involved in debt struggles against the load that bears him down, but cannot swim away and escape, but sinks to the bottom, and carries with him to ruin his friends that have gone security for him. But Crates the Theban, though he had neither duns nor debts, and was only disgusted at the distracting cares of housekeeping, gave up a property worth eight talents, and assumed the philosopher's threadbare cloak and wallet, and took refuge in philosophy and poverty. And Anaxagoras left his sheep-farm. But why need I mention these? since the lyric poet Philoxenus, obtaining by lot in a Sicilian colony much substance and a house abounding in every kind of comfort, but finding that luxury and pleasure and absence of refinement was the fashion there, said, "By the gods these comforts shall not undo me, I will give them up," and he left his lot to others, and sailed home again. But debtors have to put up with being dunned, subjected to tribute, suffering slavery, passing debased coin, and like Phineus, feeding certain winged Harpies, who carry off and lay violent hands on their food, not at the proper season, for they get possession of their debtors' corn before it is sown, and they traffic for oil before the olives are ripe; and the money-lender says, "I have wine at such and such a price," and takes a bond for it, when the grapes are yet on the vine waiting for Arcturus to ripen them.
Plutarch, Morals, Against Borrowing Money.
Let us at the same time reflect, seeing that Providence rescues from its perils the world itself, which is no less mortal than we ourselves, that to some extent our petty bodies can be made to tarry longer upon earth by our own providence, if only we acquire the ability to control and check those pleasures whereby the greater portion of mankind perishes. 30. Plato himself, by taking pains, advanced to old age. To be sure, he was the fortunate possessor of a strong and sound body (his very name was given him because of his broad chest); but his strength was much impaired by sea voyages and desperate adventures. Nevertheless, by frugal living, by setting a limit upon all that rouses the appetites, and by painstaking attention to himself, he reached that advanced age in spite of many hindrances. 31. You know, I am sure, that Plato had the good fortune, thanks to his careful living, to die on his birthday, after exactly completing his eighty-first year. For this reason wise men of the East, who happened to be in Athens at that time, sacrificed to him after his death, believing that his length of days was too full for a mortal man, since he had rounded out the perfect number of nine times nine. I do not doubt that he would have been quite willing to forgo a few days from this total, as well as the sacrifice.
Seneca the Younger, Moral letters to Lucilius/Letter 58.
Genius
Genius, when employed in works whose tendency it is to demoralize and to degrade us, should be contemplated with abhorrence rather than with admiration; such a monument of its power, may indeed be stamped with immortality, but like the Coliseum at Rome, we deplore its magnificence because we detest the purposes for which it was designed.
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon.
The action of genius is in a way ubiquitous: towards general truths before experience, and towards particular truths after it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Such richness of genius had not existed more than once before. These heights could not be maintained. As we find stumps of vast trees in our exhausted soils, and have received traditions of their ancient fertility to tillage, so history reckons epochs in which the intellect of famed races became effete. So it fared with English genius. These heights were followed by a meanness, and a descent of the mind into lower levels; the loss of wings; no high speculation. Locke, to whom the meaning of ideas was unknown, became the type of philosophy, and his "understanding" the measure, in all nations, of the English intellect. His countrymen forsook the lofty sides of Parnassus, on which they had once walked with echoing steps, and disused the studies once so beloved; the powers of thought fell into neglect. The later English want the faculty of Plato and Aristotle, of grouping men in natural classes by an insight of general laws, so deep, that the rule is deduced with equal precision from few subjects or from one, as from multitudes of lives. Shakspeare is supreme in that, as in all the great mental energies. The Germans generalize: the English cannot interpret the German mind. German science comprehends the English. The absence of the faculty in England is shown by the timidity which accumulates mountains of facts, as a bad general wants myriads of men and miles of redoubts, to compensate the inspirations of courage and conduct.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, English Traits/Literature.
Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, On Writing (ed. Scribner, 1985).
So a military force has no constant formation, water has no constant shape: the ability to gain victory by changing and adapting according to the opponent is called genius.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War (ed. Shambhala Pubns, 1991).
These are a few of the conditions under which the philosophical genius can at least come to light in our time, in spite of all thwarting influences;—a virility of character, an early knowledge of mankind, an absence of learned education and narrow patriotism, of compulsion to earn his livelihood or depend on the state,—freedom in fact, and again freedom; the same marvellous and dangerous element in which the Greek philosophers grew up. The man who will reproach him, as Niebuhr did Plato, with being a bad citizen, may do so, and be himself a good one; so he and Plato will be right together! Another may call this great freedom presumption; he is also right, as he could not himself use the freedom properly if he desired it, and would certainly presume too far with it. This freedom is really a grave burden of guilt; and can only be expiated by great actions. Every ordinary son of earth has the right of looking askance on such endowments; and may Providence keep him from being so endowed—burdened, that is, with such terrible duties! His freedom and his loneliness would be his ruin, and ennui would turn him into a fool, and a mischievous fool at that.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "Schopenhauer as Educator."
Glory
Glory.—Admiration spoils all from infancy. Ah! How well said! Ah! How well done! How well-behaved he is! &c.
The children of Port-Royal, who do not receive this stimulus of envy and glory, fall into carelessness.
"Blaise Pascal/Thoughts/Section 2."
When the love of glory enkindles in the heart, and influences the whole soul, then, and only then, may we depend on a rapid progression of the intellectual faculties. The awful feeling of a mortified emulation, is not peculiar to children. In an army, or a navy, sometimes the interest of the service requires, and oftener perhaps private interest and partial favor prevail, to promote officers over their superiors or seniors. But the consequence is, that those officers can never serve again together. They must be distributed in different corps, or sent on different commands. Nor is this the worst effect. It almost universally happens, that the superseded officer feels his heart broken by his disgrace. His mind is enfeebled by grief, or disturbed by resentment; and the instances have been very rare, of any brilliant action performed by such an officer. What a monument to this character of human nature is the long list of yellow admirals in the British service! Consider the effects of similar disappointments in civil affairs. Ministers of state are frequently displaced in all countries; and what is the consequence? Are they seen happy in a calm resignation to their fate? Do they turn their thoughts from their former employments, to private studies or business? Are they men of pleasant humor, and engaging conversation? Are their hearts at ease? Or is their conversation a constant effusion of complaints and murmurs, and their breast the residence of resentment and indignation, of grief and sorrow, of malice and revenge? Is it common to see a man get the better of his ambition, and despise the honors he once possessed; or is he commonly employed in projects upon projects, intrigues after intrigues, and manœuvres on manœuvres, to recover them?
The Works of John Adams, vol. 6. Little, Brown, and Company, 1851, p. 248.
"Non levior cippus nunc imprimit ossa? Laudat posteritas! Nunc non e manibus illis, Nunc non a tumulo fortunataque favilla, Nascentur violae?" ["Does the tomb press with less weight upon my bones? Do comrades praise? Not from my manes, not from the tomb, not from the ashes will violets grow."—Persius, Sat., i. 37.] but of this I have spoken elsewhere. As to what remains, in a great battle where ten thousand men are maimed or killed, there are not fifteen who are taken notice of; it must be some very eminent greatness, or some consequence of great importance that fortune has added to it, that signalises a private action, not of a harquebuser only, but of a great captain; for to kill a man, or two, or ten: to expose a man's self bravely to the utmost peril of death, is indeed something in every one of us, because we there hazard all; but for the world's concern, they are things so ordinary, and so many of them are every day seen, and there must of necessity be so many of the same kind to produce any notable effect, that we cannot expect any particular renown from it: "Casus multis hic cognitus, ac jam Tritus, et a medio fortunae ductus acervo." ["The accident is known to many, and now trite; and drawn from the midst of Fortune's heap."—Juvenal, Sat., xiii. 9.]
The Essays of Montaigne. 1877. Edited by William Carew Hazlitt, Translated by Charles Cotton. Book II Chapter XVI. Of glory.
Accordingly we find, that this Passion for Glory is always warp'd and varied according to the particular Taste or Sentiment of the Mind on which it falls. Nero had the same Vanity in driving a Chariot, that Trajan had in governing the Empire with Justice and Ability. To love the Glory of virtuous Actions is a sure Proof of the Love of virtuous Actions.
David Hume, "Essays, Moral and Political/Essay 14."
When Mutius Scaevola held his hand in the fire, he was as much acting under the influence of necessity, caused by interior motives, that urged him to this strange action, as if his arm had been held by strong men; pride, despair, the desire of braving his enemy, a wish to astonish him, an anxiety to intimidate him, &c. were the invisible chains that held his hand bound to the fire. The love of glory, enthusiasm for their country, in like manner, caused Codrus and Decius to devote themselves for their fellow citizens. The Indian Calanus and the philosopher Peregrinus were equally obliged to burn themselves, by the desire of exciting the astonishment of the Grecian assembly.
Baron d’Holbach, “System of Nature - Part 1, Chapter 11.”