“Manners are very communicable: men catch them from each other.”
Thoughtful feeling
Thoughtful Quotes — page 232 of 303
“A man should not go where he cannot carry his whole sphere or society with him,Mnot bodily, the whole circle of his friends, but atmospherically. He should preserve in a new company the same attitude of mind and reality of relation, which his daily associates draw him to, else he is shorn of his best beams, and will be an orphan in the merriest club.”
“All men in the abstract are just and good.”
“Well, the world has a million writers. One would think, then, that good thought would be as familiar as air and water, and the gifts of each new hour would exclude the last. Yet we can count all our good books; nay, I remember any beautiful verse for twenty years.”
“I confess myself utterly at a loss in suggesting particular reforms in our ways of teaching. No discretion that can be lodged with a school-committee, with the overseers or visitors of an academy, of a college, can at all avail to reach these difficulties and perplexities, but they solve themselves when we leave institutions and address individuals.”
“. . . [Y]ou must understand that we have always considered the writing of books a hindrance to our work, and that for this reason the custom was not to be introduced into the Company. However, since no rule, however general, does not have some exception, we shall see whether it is advisable to have yours printed.”
“There are some persons who are content with everything and others who are scarcely content with anything. These latter need patience to bear with themselves.”
“If you say that a good reputation serves to benefit the neighbor more, I admit that. However, since it should be based on a good life, it is, therefore, preserved by the practice of virtue and not by human intrigue.”
“We must hold as an irrefutable maxim that the difficulties we have with our neighbor arise more from our immortified moods than from anything else.”
“I have heard that M. Guesdon is dictating lessons to his seminarians. This is contrary to the custom of the Company and a somewhat ineffective way of teaching, since the students rely on their notes and do not exercise either their judgment or their memory, In this way, their minds remain empty while they pile up papers which they will perhaps never look at again.”
“One of the difficulties of photography is that it is much better at being explicit than at being reticent.”
“Each time I caught sight of geese swooping in formation across the sky, I wondered how our life below might look from their perspective, and imagined that, were they ever to indulge in such speculation, the high-rises might seem to them like firs massed in a grove.”
“In the motive lies the good or ill.”
“He to whom many objects of pursuit arise at the same time, will frequently hesitate between different desires till a rival has precluded him, or change his course as new attractions prevail, and harass himself without advancing.”
“It is common to overlook what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote.”
“Locke, whom there is no reason to suspect of being a favorer of idleness or libertinism, has advanced that whoever hopes to employ any part of his time with efficacy and vigor must allow some of it to pass with trifles.”
“They who look but little into futurity, have, perhaps, the quickest sensation of the present.”
“Irresolution and mutability are often the faults of men whose views are wide, and whose imagination is vigorous and excursive.”
“Actions are visible, though motives are secret.”
“Life is barren enough surely with all her trappings; let us be therefore cautious of how we strip her.”