It wouldn’t be worth going on.” The words caught in her throat, and tears sprang to her eyes. “I know it all sounds far-fetched. I’ve thought that too. That my mistakes … and there are an awful lot of them … couldn’t possibly be erased clean. That Jesus couldn’t possibly forgive them. But I think that’s the whole point of why he came.
Magic words and incantations are as fatal to our science as they are to any other. Methods, when classified and separated, acquire their true bearing and perspective as a means to an end, not as ends in themselves. We seek to find peace of mind in the word, the formula, the ritual. The hope is illusion.
Life is too deep for words, so don't try to describe it, just live it.
Die Worte sind gut, sie sind aber nicht das Beste. Das Beste wird nicht deutlich durch Worte=--Words are good, but are not the best. The best is not to be understood by words.
~Smile.~--A woman has two smiles that an angel might envy--the smile that accepts a lover afore words are uttered, and the smile that lights on the first-born baby.--_Haliburton._
I think one's feelings waste themselves in words, they ought all to be distilled into actions and into actions which bring results.
Figures themselves, in their symmetrical and inexorable order, have their mistakes like words and speeches. An hour of pleasure and an hour of pain are alike only on the dial in their numerical arrangement. Outside the dial they lie sixty times.--_Méry._
Man is so prone to occupy himself with what is most common, the soul and the senses are so easily blunted to the impressions of the beautiful and perfect, that one ought by all means to preserve the capability of feeling it. We ought every day at least to hear a little song, read a good poem, see an excellent painting, and, if possible, speak a few reasonable words.
Rightly, poetry is organic. We cannot know things by words and writing, but only by taking a central position in the universe and living in its forms.
I found myself thinking about President William McKinley, the third American president to be assassinated. He lived for several days after he was shot, and towards the end, his wife started crying and screaming, "I want to go too! I want to go too!" And with his last measure of strength, McKinley turned to her and spoke his last words: "We are all going.
No words suffice the secret soul to show, For truth denies all eloquence to woe.
Prayer consists not in many words, but in the fervor of desire, which raises the soul to God by the knowledge of its own nothingness and the divine goodness.--BL. HENRY SUSO.
"Odious! in woollen! 't would a saint provoke," Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke.
In the ordinary sense of knowledge we cannot have any knowledge of God; our very idea of God implies that He is beyond our powers of perception and understanding. Then what can we do? Shut our eyes and be silent? That will not satisfy creatures such as we are. We must speak, but all our words apply to things perceptible or intelligible. The old Buddhists used to say, The only thing we can say of God is No, No! He is not this, He is not that. Whatever we can see or understand, He is not that. But again I say that kind of self-denial will not satisfy such creatures as we are. What can we do? We can only give the best we have. Now the best we have or know on earth is Love, therefore we say God is Love or loving. Love is entire self-surrender, we can go no further in our conception of what is best. And yet how poor a name it is in comparison of what we want to name. Our idea of love includes, as you say, humility, a looking up and worshipping. Can we say that of God's love? Depend upon it, the best we say is but poor endeavour,--it is well we should know it,--and yet, if it is the best we have and can give, we need not be ashamed.
If we all were judged according to the consequences Of all our words and deeds, beyond the intention And beyond our limited understanding Of ourselves and others, we should all be condemned.
What care I for words? yet words do well / When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
There are words which are worth as much as the best actions, for they contain the germ of them all.
I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.
Rivers, with their ruinous inundations, seem to me the most potent of all causes of terrestrial losses, and not fire, as some have maintained; because the violence of fire is exhausted where there is nothing forthcoming to feed it. The flowing of water, which is maintained by sloping valleys, ends and dies at the lowest depth of the valley; but fire is caused by fuel and the movement of water by incline. The fuel of fire is disunited, and its damage is disunited and isolated, and fire dies where there is no fuel. The incline of valleys is united, and damage caused by water is collective, along with the ruinous course of the river, until with its valley it winds into the sea, the universal base and sole haven of the wandering waters of rivers. But what voice or words shall I find to express the disastrous ravages, the incredible upheavals, the insatiable rapacity, caused by the headstrong rivers? What can I say? Certainly I do not feel myself equal to such a demonstration, yet by experience I will try to relate the process of ruin of the rivers which destroy their banks and against which no mortal bastion can prevail.
Men of few words are the best men.
Silence in love bewrays more woe Than words, though ne'er so witty: A beggar that is dumb, you know, May challenge double pity.
Under its theological aspect, morality is obedience to the will of God; and the ground for such obedience is two-fold: either we ought to obey God because He will punish us if we disobey Him, which is an argument based on the utility of obedience; or our obedience ought to flow from our love towards God, which is an argument based on pure feeling and for which no reason can be given. For, if any man should say that he takes no pleasure in the contemplation of the ideal of perfect holiness, or, in other words, that he does not love God, the attempt to argue him into acquiring that pleasure would be as hopeless as the endeavour to persuade Peter Bell of the "witchery of the soft blue sky."
The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies.
I thought a long time about my happiness, and my unworthiness, and God's unbounded mercy. And then I heard the words within me: 'Be not afraid.' Yes, there must be no fear. Where there is fear there is no perfect love. Our happiness here is but a foretaste of our blessed life hereafter. We must never forget that. We shall be called away, but we shall meet again.
The discovery of the soul, the first attempts at naming the soul, started everywhere from the simplest observations of material facts. The lesson cannot be inculcated too often that the whole wealth of our most abstract and spiritual words comes from a small number of material or concrete terms.
What people call 'mere words' are in truth the monuments of the fiercest intellectual battles; triumphant arches of the grandest victories won by the intellect of man. When man had formed names for body and soul, for father and mother, and not till then, did the first art of human history begin. Not till there were names for right and wrong, for God and man, could there be anything worthy of the name of human society. Every new word was a discovery, and these early discoveries, if but properly understood, are more important to us than the greatest conquests of the kings of Egypt and Babylon. Not one of our greatest explorers has unearthed more splendid palaces, than the etymologist. Every word is the palace of a human thought, and in scientific etymology we possess the charm with which to call these ancient thoughts back to life.
Art is supposed to tell a story. It is supposed to be a piece of the soul that created it. Art is supposed to be alive, vibrant. It is supposed to speak directly to the spirit. To say things words alone could never say. Art is the essence of being.
La montagne est passee, nous irons mieux=--We are over the hill; we shall go better now.
Great writers and orators are commonly economists in the use of words.
If you would be pungent, be brief, for it is with words as with sunbeams, the more they are condensed the deeper they burn.
I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within.
The gift blindeth the wise and perverteth the words of the righteous.
I read once that the ancient Egyptians had fifty words for sand & the Eskimos had a hundred words for snow. I wish I had a thousand words for love, but all that comes to mind is the way you move against me while you sleep & there are no words for that.
Laws are only words words written on paper, words that change on society's whim and are interpreted differently daily by politicians, lawyers, judges, and policemen. Anyone who believes that all laws should always be obeyed would have made a fine slave catcher. Anyone who believes that all laws are applied equally, despite race, religion, or economic status, is a fool.
Write as the wind blows and command all words like an army!
Democritus said, words are but the shadows of actions.
Wut 's words to them whose faith an' truth On war's red techstone rang true metal; Who ventered life an' love an' youth For the gret prize o' death in battle?
So far from being dishonest, the distinction between a higher and a lower form of religion is in truth the only honest recognition of the realities of life. If to a philosophic mind religion is a spiritual love of God, and the joy of his full consciousness of the spirit of God within him, what meaning can such words convey to the millions of human beings who nevertheless want a religion, a positive, authoritative, or revealed religion, to teach them that there is a God, and that His commands must be obeyed without questioning?
Explanation of these words: "He that is not with me is against me." And these others: "He that is not against you is with you." A person who says: I am neither for nor against; we ought to answer him.... One of the Antiphons for Vespers at Christmas: _Exortum est in tenebris lumen rectis corde_.
Definition of words has been commonly called a mere exercise of grammarians; but when we come to consider the innumerable evils men have inflicted on each other from mistaking the meaning of words, the exercise of definition certainly begins to assume rather a more dignified aspect.
"I must sleep now."
The eye, which reflects the beauty of the universe to those who see, is so excellent a thing that he who consents to its loss deprives himself of the spectacle of the works of nature; and it is owing to this spectacle, effected by means of the eye, which enables the soul to behold the various objects of nature, that the soul is content to remain in the prison of the body; but he who loses his eyesight leaves the soul in a dark prison, where {53} all hope of once more beholding the sun, the light of the whole world, is lost.... And how many are they who feel great hatred for the darkness of night, although it is brief. Oh! what would they do were they constrained to abide in this darkness during the whole of their life? Certainly there is no one who would not rather lose his hearing or his sense of smell than his eyesight, and the loss of hearing includes the loss of all sciences which find expression in words; and this loss a man would incur solely so as not to be deprived of the sight of the beauty of the world which consists in the surfaces of bodies artificial as well as natural, which are reflected in the human eye.
If I could only give three words of advice, they would be, "Tell the Truth." If I got three more words, I'd add, "All the time."
God is in heaven, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few.
I do not ask for your answer now.” Brokenstar ignored the warrior’s challenge. “You must each go away and consider my words. But bear this in mind: Would you prefer to share your prey, or be driven out and left homeless and starving?
If thou, O musician, sayest that painting is mechanical because it is wrought by the work of the hands, music is wrought by the mouth, but {88} not by the tasting faculties of the mouth; just and as the hand is employed indeed in the case of painting, but not for its faculties of touch. Words are less worthy than actions. But thou, writer of science, dost thou not copy with thy hand, and write what is in thy mind, as the painter does? And if thou wast to say that music is formed of proportion, by proportion have I wrought painting, as thou shalt see.
I understand a fury in your words, But not the words.
Jewels five-words-long, That on the stretch'd forefinger of all Time Sparkle forever.
Copia verborum=--Superabundance of words.
It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?
I never could believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden. RICHARD RUMBOLD, _on the scaffold, 1685. History of England (Macaulay), Chap. v._ The last link is broken That bound me to thee, And the words thou hast spoken Have render'd me free.
~Pretension.~--Pretences go a great way with men that take fair words and magisterial looks for current payment.--_L'Estrange._
In my deepest contacts with individuals in therapy, even those whose troubles are most disturbing, whose behavior has been most anti-social, whose feelings seem most abnormal, I find this to be true. When I can sensitively understand the feelings which they are expressing, when I am able to accept them as separate persons in their own right, then I find that they tend to move in certain directions. And what are these directions in which they tend to move? The words which I believe are most truly descriptive are words such as positive, constructive, moving toward self-actualization, growing toward maturity, growing toward socialization.
Luther's words are half battles.
We live and breathe words. .... It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone. They could be honest with me, and I with them. Reading your words, what you wrote, how you were lonely sometimes and afraid, but always brave; the way you saw the world, its colors and textures and sounds, I felt--I felt the way you thought, hoped, felt, dreamt. I felt I was dreaming and thinking and feeling with you. I dreamed what you dreamed, wanted what you wanted--and then I realized that truly I just wanted you.
His life is like your life and my life and all the lives of all the people who are reading these words right now. It’s a roiling stew of fear and need and desire and love and the hunger to be loved. And mostly, it’s the latter.
Little deeds of kindness, little words of love, / Make our earth an Eden like the heaven above.
The intellectual power, through words and things / Went sounding on a dim and perilous way.
We live in a time when the words impossible and unsolvable are no longer part of the scientific community's vocabulary. Each day we move closer to trials that will not just minimize the symptoms of disease and injury but eliminate them.
A distinction has been made for us between religion and philosophy, and, so far as form and object are concerned, I do not deny that such a distinction may be useful. But when we look to the subjects with which religion is concerned, they are, and always have been, the very subjects on which philosophy has dwelt, nay, from which philosophy has sprung. If religion depends for its very life on the sentiment or the perception of the infinite within the finite and beyond the finite, who is to determine the legitimacy of that sentiment, or of that perception, if not the philosopher? Who is to determine the powers which man possesses for apprehending the finite by his senses, for working up his single, and therefore finite, impressions into concepts by his reason, if not the philosopher? And who, if not the philosopher, is to find out whether man can claim the right of asserting the existence of the infinite, in spite of the constant opposition of sense and reason, taking these words in their usual meaning? We should damnify religion if we separated it from philosophy: we should ruin philosophy if we divorced it from religion.
Ignavissimus quisque, et, ut res docuit, in periculo non ausurus, nimio verbis et lingua ferox=--Every recreant, who, as experience has proved, will fly in the hour of danger, is the most boastful in his words and language afterwards.
Dulcibus est verbis alliciendus amor=--Love is to be won by affectionate words.
Under the old social philosophy which had governed the Middle Ages, temporal, and therefore all economic, activities were referred to an eternal standard. The production of wealth, it distribution and exchange were regulated with a view to securing the Christian life of Christian men. In two points especially was this felt: First in securing the independence of the family, which can only be done by the wide distribution of property, in others words the prevention of the growth of a proletariat; secondly, in the close connection between wealth and public function. Under the old philosophy which had governed the high Middle Ages things had been everywhere towards a condition of Society in which property was well distributed throughout the community, and thus the family rendered independent. [ The Crisis of Civilization, Being the Matter of a Course of Lectures Delivered at Fordham University, 1937 . Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1991, p. 107.]
To which we reply that none of these things of which he speaks is his true profession; but if he wishes to speak and make orations, it can be shown that he is surpassed by the orator in this province; and if he speaks of astrology, that he has stolen the subject of the astrologer; and in the case of philosophy, of the philosopher; and that in reality poetry has no true position and merits no more consideration than a shopkeeper {77} who collects goods made by various workmen. As soon as the poet ceases to represent by means of words the phenomena of nature, he then ceases to act as a painter, because if the poet leaves such representation and describes the flowery and persuasive speech of him to whom he wishes to give speech, he then becomes an orator, and neither a poet nor a painter; and if he speaks of the heavens he becomes an astrologer, and a philosopher and a theologian if he discourses of nature or God; but if he returns to the description of any object he would rival the painter, if with words he could satisfy the eye as the painter does.
Pedantry and mastery are opposite attitudes toward rules. To apply a rule to the letter, rigidly, unquestioningly, in cases where it fits and in cases where it does not fit, is pedantry... To apply a rule with natural ease, with judgment, noticing the cases where it fits, and without ever letting the words of the rule obscure the purpose of the action or the opportunities of the situation, is mastery.
That which we do not believe we cannot adequately say, though we may repeat the words never so often.
This day is call'd — the feast of Crispian: He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd, And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that outlives this day, and sees old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his friends, And say, "To-morrow is Saint Crispian;" Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars, And say, "These wounds I had on Crispin's day." Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember, with advantages, What feats he did that day. Then shall our names, Familiar in his mouth as household words, — Harry the King, Bedford, and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd. This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remember'd, — We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he to-day that sheds his blood with me, Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England, now a-bed, Shall think themselves accurs'd, they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap, whiles any speaks, That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day. King Henry V as portrayed in Henry V by
Conceits arising from the use of words that agree in sound but differ in sense.--_Addison._
Good words cool more than cold water.
Ask thy director, when my own words are to thee occasion of evil, or vanity, or curiosity.
Painting represents to the brain the works of nature with greater truth and accuracy than speech or writing, but letters represent words with greater truth, which painting does not do. But we say that the science which represents the works of nature is more wonderful than that which represents the works of the artificer, that is to say, the works of man, which consist of words--such as poetry and the like--which issue from the tongue of man.
It is strictly and philosophically true in nature and reason that there is no such thing as chance or accident; it being evident that these words do not signify anything really existing, anything that is truly an agent or the cause of any event; but they signify merely men's ignorance of the real and immediate cause.--_Adam Clarke._
But as for those who live without knowing him and without seeking him, they judge themselves to deserve their own care so little, that they are not worthy the care of others, and it needs all the charity of the Religion they despise, not to despise them so utterly as to abandon them to their madness. But since this Religion obliges us to look on them, while they are in this life, as always capable of illuminating grace, and to believe that in a short while they may be more full of faith than ourselves, while we on the other hand may fall into the blindness which now is theirs, we ought to do for them what we would they should do for us were we in their place, and to entreat them to take pity on themselves and advance at least a few steps, if perchance they may find the light. Let them give to reading these words a few of the hours which otherwise they spend so unprofitably: with whatever aversion they set about it they may perhaps gain something; at least they cannot be great losers. But if any bring to the task perfect sincerity and a true desire to meet with truth, I despair not of their satisfaction, nor of their being convinced of so divine a Religion by the proofs which I have here gathered up, and have set forth in somewhat the following order....