Quote collection
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"But the nomads were the terror of all those whom the soil or the advantages of the market had induced to build towns. Agriculture therefore was a religious injunction, because of the perils of the state from nomadism."
"No rent-roll nor army-list can dignify skulking and dissimulation: and the first point of courtesy must always be truth, as really all the forms of good-breeding point that way."
"But genius is religious. It is a larger imbibing of the common heart."
"Man is the broken giant, and in all his weakness both his body and his mind are invigorated by habits of conversation with nature."
"To me, however, the question of the times resolved itself into a practical question of the conduct of life. How shall I live? We are incompetent to solve the times. Our geometry cannot span the huge orbits of the prevailing ideas, behold their return, and reconcile their opposition. We can only obey our own polarity."
"Our religion vulgarly stands on numbers of believers. Whenever the appeal is made--no matter how indirectly--to numbers, proclamation is then and there made, that religion is not. He that finds God a sweet, enveloping presence, who shall dare to come in?"
"The moment the doctrine of the immortality is separately taught, man is already fallen. In the flowing of love, in the adoration of humility, there is no question of continuance. No inspired man ever asks this question, or condescends to these evidences. For the soul is true to itself, and the man in whom it is shed abroad cannot wander from the present, which is infinite, to a future which would be finite."
"Europe has always owed to oriental genius its divine impulses. What these holy bards said, all sane men found agreeable and true."
"Everywhere I am hindered of meeting God in my brother, because he has shut his own temple doors and recites fables merely of his brother's, or his brother's brother's God."
"Good churches are not built by bad men; at least, there must be probity and enthusiasm somewhere in the society. These minsters were neither built nor filled by atheists."
"Each religious sect has its own physiognomy. The Methodists have acquired a face; the Quakers, a face; the nuns, a face. An Englishman will pick out a dissenter by his manners."
"Therefore is nature ever the ally of Religion: lends her all her pomp and riches to the religious sentiment."
"When we can't piece together the puzzle of our own lives, remember the best view of a puzzle is from above. Let Him help put you together."
"Happy is he who looks only into his work to know if it will succeed, never into the times or the public opinion; and who writes from the love of imparting certain thoughts and not from the necessity of sale - who writes always to the unknown friend."
"Who makes and keeps the Jew or the Negro base, who but you, who exclude them from the rights which others enjoy?"
"I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will I call mine."
"It's a luxury to be understood."
"For, whom the Muses smile upon, And touch with soft persuasion, His words like a storm-wind can bring Terror and beauty on their wing; In his every syllable Lurketh nature veritable."
"In politics and in trade, bruisers and pirates are of better promise than talkers and clerks."
"One single idea may have greater weight than all the men, animals, and machines for a century."