|
"I value a man mainly for his
primary
relations with truth, as I understand truth, - not for any secondary
artifice
in handling his ideas."
The
Autocrat
of the Breakfast Table
|
|
"Language is a solemn thing," which
"grows out of life - out of its agonies and ecstasies, its wants and
its
weariness. Every language is a temple, in which the soul of those who
speak it
is enshrined."
The
Professor
at the Breakfast Table
|
|
"Articulation is a shallow trick. ... Words, which are a set
of clickings, hissings, lispings, and so on, mean very little compared
to tones
and expressions of the features."
The
Professor
at the Breakfast Table
|
|
"Spoken
language is so plastic, - you can pat and coax, and spread and shave,
and rub
out, and fill up, and stick on so easily when you work that soft
material, that
there is nothing like it for modelling. Out of it come the shapes which
you
turn into marble or bronze in your immortal books, if you happen to
write
such."
The
Autocrat
of the Breakfast Table
|
|
"Build
thee more stately mansions, O my soul,/ As the swift seasons roll!/
Leave thy
low-vaulted past!/ Let each new temple, nobler than the last,/ Shut
thee from
heaven with a dome more vast,/ Till thou at length are free,/ Leaving
thine
outgrown shell by life's unresisting sea!"
The
Autocrat
of the Breakfast Table
|
|
"... all the accidents of our lives, -
the house we dwell in, the living people round us, the landscape we
look over,
all, up to the sky that covers us like a bell glass, - all these are
but looser
outside garments which we have worn until they seem part of us."
A
Mortal
Antipathy
|
|
"The
self-determining principle" in relation to "its prearranged and
impossible restrictions" is a "drop of water, imprisoned in a
crystal... One little fluid particle in the crystalline prism of the
solid
universe!"
The
Autocrat
of the Breakfast Table
|
|
"Our own sense of freedom, whatever it
is, is never affected by argument. Conscience won't be reasoned with.
We feel
that we can practically do this or that, and if we choose the wrong, we
know we
are responsible; but observation teaches us that this or that other
race or
individual has not the same practical freedom of choice."
Elsie
Venner
|
|
"The
one great thought" that the American "inherits as his national
birthright; free to form and express his opinions on almost every
subject, and
assured that he will soon acquire the last franchise which men withhold
from
men, - that of stating the laws of his spiritual being and the beliefs
he
accepts without hindrance except from clearer views of truth."
The
Professor at the
Breakfast Table
|
If
a person "chooses to vote for the Devil, that is his lookout; - perhaps
he
thinks the Devil is better than the other candidates; and I don't doubt
he's
often right, Sir!"
The
Professor
at the Breakfast Table
|
"It
is a curious fact that with all our boasted 'free and equal'
superiority over
the communities of the Old World, our people have the most enormous
appetite
for Old World titles of distinction"
Over
the
Teacups
|
"He
himself is unconscious of the agencies which made him what he is.
Self-determining he may be, if you will, but who determines the self
which is
the proximate source of the determination?"
Over
the
Teacups
|
In
the modern era, "... you have a Society, and they come together and
make a
great mosaic, each man bringing his little bit and sticking it in its
place,
but so taken up with his petty fragment that he never thinks of looking
at the
picture the little bits make when they are put together."
The
Poet at
the Breakfast Table
|
|
"...the
great coach and team that is carrying us fast enough, I don't know but
too
fast, somewhere or other."
The
Poet at
the Breakfast Table
|
|
A
media interview - "What has the
public to do with my private affairs?"
"You are a minority of one opposed to a large number
of curious
people that form a majority against you.'" "There
is nothing left for minorities, then, but the right
of rebellion... I rebel against your system of forced publicity."
A
Mortal
Antipathy
|
The
new rich are a "mob of millionaires who come together for social
rivalry"
A Mortal
Antipathy
|
|
"The
safety of great wealth with us lies in obedience to the new version of
the Old
World axiom, RICHESSE oblige."
A
Mortal
Antipathy
|
