Faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast, / To save dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.
The mark of the man of the world is absence of pretension. He does not make a speech; he takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses plainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables, hugs his fact. He calls his employment by its lowest name, and so takes from evil tongues their sharpest weapon.
But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.
Remember when I used to chase you and your sister around the house to get my daily minimum requirement of hugs? I said if I didn’t get one hundred hugs I would float up into the sky like Mary Poppins and you would never see me again. We stopped playing that game when you started school, but we never stopped hugging.
I will not play at tug o' war. I'd rather play at hug o' war, Where everyone hugs</p> Instead of tugs, Where everyone giggles And rolls on the rug, Where everyone kisses, And everyone grins, And everyone cuddles, And everyone wins. -- Shel Silverstein, "Hug o' War"
The sublimest canticle to be heard on earth is the stammering of the human soul on the lips of infancy.
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?
Yet still we hug the dear deceit.
Il faut avoir pitie des morts=--One must have pity on the dead.
It is by suffering that human beings become angels.
To each, therefore, must be given his own share of goods, and the distribution of created goods, which, as every discerning person knows, is laboring today under the gravest evils due to the huge disparity between the few exceedingly rich and the unnumbered propertyless, must be effectively called back to and brought into conformity with the norms of the common good, that is, social justice. [ Quadragesimo Anno , § 58, 1931.]
But Venus, anxious for her son's affairs, New counsels tries, and new designs prepares: That Cupid should assume the shape and face Of sweet Ascanius, and the sprightly grace; Should bring the presents, in her nephew's stead, And in Eliza's veins the gentle poison shed: For much she fear'd the Tyrians, double-tongued, And knew the town to Juno's care belong'd. These thoughts by night her golden slumbers broke, And thus alarm'd, to winged Love she spoke: "My son, my strength, whose mighty pow'r alone Controls the Thund'rer on his awful throne, To thee thy much-afflicted mother flies, And on thy succor and thy faith relies. Thou know'st, my son, how Jove's revengeful wife, By force and fraud, attempts thy brother's life; And often hast thou mourn'd with me his pains. Him Dido now with blandishment detains; But I suspect the town where Juno reigns. For this 't is needful to prevent her art, And fire with love the proud Phoenician's heart: A love so violent, so strong, so sure, As neither age can change, nor art can cure. How this may be perform'd, now take my mind: Ascanius by his father is design'd To come, with presents laden, from the port, To gratify the queen, and gain the court. I mean to plunge the boy in pleasing sleep, And, ravish'd, in Idalian bow'rs to keep, Or high Cythera, that the sweet deceit May pass unseen, and none prevent the cheat. Take thou his form and shape. I beg the grace But only for a night's revolving space: Thyself a boy, assume a boy's dissembled face; That when, amidst the fervor of the feast, The Tyrian hugs and fonds thee on her breast, And with sweet kisses in her arms constrains, Thou may'st infuse thy venom in her veins." The God of Love obeys, and sets aside His bow and quiver, and his plumy pride; He walks Iulus in his mother's sight, And in the sweet resemblance takes delight.
There are two sentences inscribed upon the Delphic oracle, hugely accommodated to the usages of man's life: "Know thyself," and "Nothing too much;" and upon these all other precepts depend.
We are the children of our own deeds.
From time to time the exceptional is necessary. For events as well as for men, the stock company is not enough; geniuses are needed among men, and revolutions among events. Great accidents are the law; the order of things cannot get along without them; and, to see the apparitions of comets, one would be tempted to believe that Heaven itself is in need of star actors.
For there is no virtue, the honour and credit for which procures a man more odium [from the elite] than that of justice; and this, because more than any other, it acquires a man power and authority among the common people. For they only honour the valiant and admire the wise, while in addition they also love just men, and put entire trust and confidence in them. They fear the bold man, and mistrust the clever man, and moreover think them rather beholding to their natural complexion, than to any goodness of their will, for these excellences; they look upon valour as a certain natural strength of the mind, and wisdom as a constitutional acuteness; whereas a man has it in his power to be just, if he have but the will to be so, and there injustice is thought the most dishonourable, because it is least excusable. [“Cato the Younger,” The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans , Translated by John Dryden and revised by Arthur Hugh Clough. (New York: Random House, Modern Library edition, p. 943).]
There are fathers who do not love their children; there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson.
Above the cloud with its shadow is the star with its light.
Table talk and lovers’ talk equally elude the grasp; lovers’ talk is clouds, table talk is smoke.
Parfois, elus maudits de la fureur supreme, / ... Ces envoyes du ciel sont apparus au monde / Comme s'ils venaient de l'enfer=--Sometimes these ambassadors of heaven, the accursed elect of the wrath of heaven, appear in the world as though they came from hell.
Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.
If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned!
All things that are, Are with more spirit chased than enjoy'd. How like a younker or a prodigal The scarfed bark puts from her native bay, Hugg'd and embraced by the strumpet wind! How like the prodigal doth she return, With over-weather'd ribs and ragged sails, Lean, rent, and beggar'd by the strumpet wind!
It is the Law of Influence that WE BECOME LIKE THOSE WHOM WE HABITUALLY ADMIRE. Through all the range of literature, of history, and biography this law presides. Men are all mosaics of other men. There was a savour of David about Jonathan and a savour of Jonathan about David. Jean Valjean, in the masterpiece of Victor Hugo, is Bishop Bienvenu risen from the dead. Metempsychosis is a fact. The Changed Life, p. 31.
Covetousness, like jealousy, when it has once taken root, never leaves a man but with his life.
The need of the immaterial is the most deeply rooted of all needs. One must have bread; but before bread, one must have the ideal.
A soul only needs to see a smile in a white crape bonnet in order to enter the palace of dreams.--_Victor Hugo._
There is a writing upon the wall of cliffs at Cromer, and whoso runs may read it. It tells us, with an authority which cannot be impeached, that the ancient sea-bed of the chalk sea was raised up, and remained dry land, until it was covered with forest, stocked with the great game the spoils of which have rejoiced your geologists. How long it remained in that condition cannot be said; but "the whirligig of time brought its revenges" in those days as in these. That dry land, with the bones and teeth of generations of long-lived elephants, hidden away among the gnarled roots and dry leaves of its ancient trees, sank gradually to the bottom of the icy sea, which covered it with huge masses of drift and boulder clay. Sea-beasts, such as the walrus, now restricted to the extreme north, paddled about where birds had twittered among the topmost twigs of the fir-trees. How long this state of things endured we know not, but at length it came to an end. The upheaved glacial mud hardened into the soil of modern Norfolk. Forests grew once more, the wolf and the beaver replaced the reindeer and the elephant; and at length what we call the history of England dawned.
Emotion is always new.
The Iron Man came to the top of the cliff. How far had he walked? Nobody knows. Where did he come from? Nobody knows. How was he made? Nobody knows. Taller than a house the Iron Man stood at the top of the cliff, at the very brink, in the darkness.
Soyez comme l'oiseau, pose pour un instant / Sur des rameaux trop freles, / Qui sent ployer la branche et qui chante pourtant, / Sachant qu'il a des ailes=--Be as the bird perched for an instant on the too frail branch which she feels bending beneath, but sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.
God created the coquette as soon as he had made the fool.--_Victor Hugo._
El pensador busca activamente, el soñador encuentra pasivamente.
The term "just war" contains an internal contradiction. War is inherently unjust, and the great challenge of our time is how to deal with evil, tyranny, and oppression without killing huge numbers of people.
It is not easy to keep silent when silence is a lie.
The drop of rain maketh a hole in the stone, not by violence, but by oft falling.
He caught glimpses of everything, but saw nothing.
La popularite c'est la gloire en gros sous=--Popularity is glory in penny-pieces.
If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.
Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent
Anon out of the earth a fabric huge Rose, like an exhalation.
Providence has a wild, rough, incalculable road to its end; and it is no use to try to whitewash its huge, mixed instrumentalities, to dress up that terrific benefactor in a clean shirt and white neckcloth of a student in divinity.
There is heresy in always explaining omnes by 'all,' and heresy in not explaining it sometimes by 'all.' _Bibite ex hoc omnes_, the Huguenots are heretics in explaining it by 'all.' _In quo omnes peccaverunt_, the Huguenots are heretics in excepting the children of the faithful. We must then follow the Fathers and tradition to know when to do so, since there is heresy to be feared on one side or the other.
O youth! thou often tearest thy wings against the thorns of voluptuousness.--_Victor Hugo._
The pretext of an opera engagement was so much the more feasible, as there chanced to be on that very night a more than ordinary attraction at the Academie Royale. Levasseur, who had been suffering under severe illness, made his reappearance in the character of Bertrand, and, as usual, the announcement of the most admired production of the favorite composer of the day had attracted a brilliant and fashionable audience. Morcerf, like most other young men of rank and fortune, had his orchestra stall, with the certainty of always finding a seat in at least a dozen of the principal boxes occupied by persons of his acquaintance; he had, moreover, his right of entry into the omnibus box. Chateau-Renaud rented a stall beside his own, while Beauchamp, as a journalist, had unlimited range all over the theatre. It happened that on this particular night the minister's box was placed at the disposal of Lucien Debray, who offered it to the Comte de Morcerf, who again, upon his mother's rejection of it, sent it to Danglars, with an intimation that he should probably do himself the honor of joining the baroness and her daughter during the evening, in the event of their accepting the box in question. The ladies received the offer with too much pleasure to dream of a refusal. To no class of persons is the presentation of a gratuitous opera-box more acceptable than to the wealthy millionaire, who still hugs economy while boasting of carrying a king's ransom in his waistcoat pocket.
The only real progress to abiding peace is found in the friendly disposition of peoples and … facilities for maintaining peace are useful only to the extent that this friendly disposition exists and finds expression. War is not only possible, but probable, where mistrust and hatred and desire for revenge are the dominant motives. Our first duty is at home with our own opinion, by education and unceasing effort to bring to naught the mischievous exhortation of chauvinists; our next is to aid in every practicable way in promoting a better feeling among peoples, the healing of wounds, and the just settlement of differences.
There 's something in a flying horse, There 's something in a huge balloon.
I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I’m dead. I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.
If the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.
There is no thought in any mind, but it quickly tends to convert itself into a power, and organises a huge instrumentality of means.
I don't think life is absurd. I think we are all here for a huge purpose. I think we shrink from the immensity of the purpose we are here for.
I guess by now I should know enough about loss to realize that you never really stop missing someone-you just learn to live around the huge gaping hole of their absence.
People do not lack strength; they lack will.
Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.
Let us fear the worst, but work with faith; the best will always take care of itself.
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world / Like a Colossus, and we petty men / Walk under his huge legs and peep about / To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
There are many tongues to talk, and but few heads to think.
To destroy abuses is not enough; Habits must also be changed. The windmill has gone, but the wind is still there.
Smelfungus in the grand portico of the Pantheon says, "'Tis nothing but a huge cockpit."
A man is not idle, because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labour and there is an invisible labour.
S?pius ventis agitatur ingens / Pinus, et cels? graviore casu / Decidunt turres, feriuntque summos / Fulmina montes=--The huge pine is more frequently shaken by the winds, high towers fall with a heavier crash, and it is the mountain-tops that the thunderbolts strike.
There is no one for spying on people's actions like those who are not concerned in them. . . . They will follow up such and such a man or woman for whole days; they will do sentry duty for hours at a time on the corners of the streets, under alley-way doors at night, in cold and rain; they will bribe errand-porters, they will make the drivers of hackney-coaches and lackeys tipsy, buy a waiting-maid, suborn a porter. Why? For no reason. A pure passion for seeing, knowing, and penetrating into things. A pure itch for talking. And often these secrets once known, these mysteries made public, these enigmas illuminated by the light of day, bring on catastrophies, duels, failures, the ruin of families, and broken lives, to the great joy of those who have "found out everything," without any interest in the matter, and by pure instinct. A sad thing.
Society is a republic. When an individual endeavours to lift himself above his fellows, he is dragged down by the mass, either by ridicule or calumny.
You ask me what forces me to speak? a strange thing; my conscience.
For the rich men without scruple drew the estate into their own hands, excluding the rightful heirs from their succession; and all the wealth being centred upon the few, the generality were poor and miserable. Honourable pursuits, for which there was no longer leisure, were neglected; the state was filled with sordid business, and with hatred and envy of the rich. There did not remain above seven hundred of the old Spartan families, of which, perhaps, one hundred might have estate in land, the rest were destitute alike of wealth and of honour, were tardy and unperforming in the defense of their country against its enemies abroad, and eagerly watched the opportunity for change and revolution at home. [“Agis,” The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans , Translated by John Dryden and revised by Arthur Hugh Clough. (New York: Random House, Modern Library edition, p. 962).
What Is Love? I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul
It’s a big world,” I said. “I like to fly because it reminds me how huge the planet is and how small we are by comparison. I like that idea—that we’re inconsequential, so our troubles are inconsequential, too.” A corner of his mouth lifted. “You could never be inconsequential, Merit.” He glanced out his window, traced a knuckle across the glass. “But I take your point. Living in darkness reduces our visibility, seems to narrow the world. Up here, thirty thousand feet above the earth, you are reminded of its magnitude.
We assume that a large brain, the use of tools, superior learning abilities and complex social structures are huge advantages. It seems self-evident that these have made humankind the most powerful animal on earth. But humans enjoyed all of these advantages for a full 2 million years during which they remained weak and marginal creatures. Thus humans who lived a million years ago, despite their big brains and sharp stone tools, dwelt in constant fear of predators, rarely hunted large game, and subsisted mainly by gathering plants, scooping up insects, stalking small animals, and eating the carrion left behind by other more powerful carnivores.
The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible; for the fainthearted, it is unknown; but for the valiant, it is ideal.
Rome was in the most dangerous inclination to change on account of the unequal distribution of wealth and property, those of highest rank and greatest spirit having impoverished themselves by shows, entertainments, ambition of offices, and sumptuous buildings, and the riches of the city having thus fallen into the hands of mean and low-born persons. So that there wanted but a slight impetus to set all in motion, it being in the power of every daring man to overturn a sickly commonwealth. [“Cicero,” The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans , translated by John Dryden and revised by Arthur Hugh Clough. (New York: Random House, Modern Library edition, p. 1046).]
Littus ama, altum alii teneant=--Hug thou the shore, let others stand out to sea.
Life lies before us as a huge quarry before the architect; and he deserves not the name of architect except when, out of this fortuitous mass, he can combine, with the greatest economy, fitness and durability, some form the pattern of which originated in his own soul.
Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web of the finest silken threads suspended in the chamber of consciousness, and catching every air-borne particle in its tissue. It is the very atmosphere of the mind; and when the mind is imaginative — much more when it happens to be that of a man of genius — it takes to itself the faintest hints of life, it converts the very pulses of the air into revelations.
Most of us have simple passions at the core of who we are. Those passions might change over time, but at any one moment, I feel like there’s a striving inside us that frames our decisions. The shame is that most people never ask themselves what their passions are, much less look deep into others. They just do whatever feels right at any one moment,
Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.
Incens'd with indignation Satan stood Unterrify'd, and like a comet burn'd That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair Shakes pestilence and war.
O l'amour d'une mere! amour que nul n'oublie! / Pain merveilleux, que Dieu partage et multiplie! / Table toujours servie au paternel foyer! / Chacun en a sa part, et tous l'ont tout entier=--Oh, the love of a mother, love no one forgets; miraculous bread which God distributes and multiplies; board always spread by the paternal hearth, whereat each has his portion, and all have it entire!
He is the best gentleman that is the son of his own deserts, and not the degenerated heir of another's virtue.
There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.
I have always been interested in the way that elements of stories twine and combine. At school I had an art teacher, a great influence on me, who disliked man-made objects unless they were old and showed the effects of time and wear; she loved all natural things. I share this attitude and it plays a large part in my writing. I'm fascinated by the ambiguity of man's relationship to the huge, mysterious universe around him; how, on the one hand, we make ourselves little boxes and think to exist safely and snugly in them; on the other, we extend our knowledge further and further into the limitless void; and yet from time to time these opposites collide and produce astonishing results.
England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare,but the Bible made England.
I like to see people reunited, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone.
He who opens a school door, closes a prison.
He doth bestride the narrow world / Like a Colossus; and we petty men / Walk under his huge legs, and peep about / To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Usually, Marilyn Norton loved the hot weather, but she was having a tough time with it, nine months pregnant, with her due date in two days. She was expecting her second child, another boy, and he was going to be a big one. She could hardly move in the heat, and her ankles and feet were so swollen that all she had been able to get her feet into were rubber flip-flops. She was wearing huge white shorts that were too tight on her now, and a white T-shirt of her husband’s that outlined her belly. She had nothing left to wear that still fit, but the baby would arrive soon. She was just glad that she had made it to the first day of school with Billy. He had been nervous about his new school, and she wanted to be there with him.
To put everything in balance is good, to put everything in harmony is better.
If I must die, / I will encounter darkness as a bride / And hug it in my arms.
If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.
I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
Unity and plurality: _Duo aut tres in unum_. It is an error to exclude one of the two, as the papists do who exclude plurality, or the Huguenots who exclude unity.
Courage and wisdom are, indeed, rarities amongst men, but of all that is good, a just man it would seem is the most scarce. [“Flamininus,” The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans , Translated by John Dryden and revised by Arthur Hugh Clough. (New York: Random House, Modern Library edition, p. 457).]
The promissory lies of great men are known by shouldering, hugging, squeezing, smiling, and bowing.
When you turn the corner And you run into yourself Then you know that you have turned All the corners that are left.
Don't play for safety. It's the most dangerous thing in the world.
Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. Victor Hugo
If you seek warmth of affection from a similar motive to that from which cats and dogs and slothful persons hug the fire, you are on the downward road.
"Friends all, my poor brother that lays yonder has done generous by them that's left behind in the vale of sorrers. He has done generous by these yer poor little lambs that he loved and sheltered, and that's left fatherless and motherless. Yes, and we that knowed him knows that he would a done _more_ generous by 'em if he hadn't ben afeard o' woundin' his dear William and me. Now, _wouldn't_ he? Ther' ain't no question 'bout it in _my_ mind. Well, then, what kind o' brothers would it be that 'd stand in his way at sech a time? And what kind o' uncles would it be that 'd robyes, _rob_sech poor sweet lambs as these 'at he loved so at sech a time? If I know Williamand I _think_ I dohewell, I'll jest ask him." He turns around and begins to make a lot of signs to the duke with his hands, and the duke he looks at him stupid and leather-headed a while; then all of a sudden he seems to catch his meaning, and jumps for the king, goo-gooing with all his might for joy, and hugs him about fifteen times before he lets up. Then the king says, "I knowed it; I reckon _that 'll_ convince anybody the way _he_ feels about it. Here, Mary Jane, Susan, Joanner, take the moneytake it _all_. It's the gift of him that lays yonder, cold but joyful."