Arthur Brisbane

“ He knows little of real life, its greatest happiness, deepest devotion, intensest suffering, who has never witnessed the arrival of a new human being in this life of progress and struggle.
There lies the new baby at last, its black face gradually turning pink, its first gasping breaths changing the color of its blood, its tiny fists opening and closing—reaching out for nourishment already, its face tying itself into the first philosophical, cosmos-interrogating knot. Its feet turn inward and its legs are crooked. Its head is so shapeless as to discourage any one but a mother ”

“ It is the absolute nullity of the man of many millions. It is the vapid colorlessness, the dull inactivity, the total lack of imagination among men whose power is unlimited. What possibilities are spread out before the man who by signing his name could set to work in any direction a million of his fellow men! The world stands ready to obey his orders; every law says that he shall have whatever he demands. Any conception born in his brain can become reality as soon as conceived. ”

“ A few centuries ago the great majority of all human beings were slaves or serfs. The noblest of human brains, those of the Greek philosophers, wrote and lived in the midst of slavery. Even as great a man as Aristotle could not conceive a society based on a non-slave-holding system.
But except in some African jungle, here and there among savage and semi-savage races, no man is a slave now. And where slavery does exist it exists in stagnant pools of humanity, and it exists side by side with the other monsters, cruel superstition and widespread disease, that progressive humanity has left behind. ”

“ When we shall have developed as much as possible on this limited planet, our home will be cooled and ready on the sun, centre of our life in this corner of space.
We shall move up a step—as boys do in the public schools. We shall have been moon men, earth men, and shall graduate into sun men. Think of a home so vast! On that grand star we shall lead lives worth while, and justify Huxley's belief that men exist somewhere compared to whom we should "be as black beetles compared to us." ”

“ Its flames leap hundreds of thousands of miles into space. If our earth fell to the sun, it would melt as a snow-flake falling upon a blazing forest. We certainly do not readily look upon the sun as our future home, if we accept its present condition as permanent.
But once upon a time, hundreds of millions of years back, this earth used to look TO THE MOON, on a smaller scale, as the sun now looks to us. If there were on the moon at that time inferior human beings, in a low state of cosmic evolution, they undoubtedly had to thank the earth for their life, as we thank the sun. ”

“ When nine-tenths of human beings were slaves, these dreamers refused to recognize slavery, and they died for their belief. Every man who led a great moral reform ahead of his time was a dreamer. And these dreamers, whose lives are scattered through history, each a tragedy and each a milestone on the path of civilization, did for civilization what a frontiersman does for a new country. ”

“ Men, uncertain of their future and of their children's future, engage in a constant struggle for wealth that is not needed—a struggle that develops in the end a passion as useless as it is degrading.
Unless you believe that the world is perfect because YOU happen to have enough to eat and to wear, you should be discontented.
You should remember that the world's achievements and great changes have all come from discontent, and you should be, in as many ways as possible, a breeder of discontent among the human beings around you. ”

“ You say that labor unions have killed English industry? No. They have kept England alive in the face of fierce competition. Millions upon millions of Englishmen live on a little foggy northern island incapable of supporting them. By their courage, their mental power, their genius, their UNION, they have kept the nation great. It is as though in one corner of New York State we had the greatest industrial power on earth. What the Gulf Stream has been to England's agriculture, labor unionism has been to England's industry.
It is not the English WORKINGMAN who has been beaten. ”

“ Twenty-five centuries ago a Greek philosopher, to make heaven attractive, described the table at which heroes sat in a never-ending, blissful state of drunkenness.
To-day even the meanest man is ashamed to have it known that he is drunk, and the most hopeless drunkard would ask no greater favor than that some one should make it impossible for him ever to drink again.
There is a criminal conspiracy, called the Beef Trust, which thrives on the needs and privations of the whole people. It is a blot on humanity. Do what you can to destroy this evil. ”

“ The surface of the earth, the air as high as we can study it, the depths of the sea, swarm with animal life.
The earth rolls around the sun bathed in its warm light. Millions of creatures die with every revolution of the little planet which is their home. And man "going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it" rules the little animals and the big ones and calls himself sole heir of immortality. ”

“ It is all right for the humble savage mother in the dark African jungle to be built on the same lines. Like the cow, all that she has to do is to take care of the baby until it is able to run around and forage for itself.
But the civilized mother, the woman who must do her duty in the present and in the future as well, requires a good mind, love based upon knowledge and a sense of justice, affection that follows the child from the cradle to maturity, gradually substituting for intense motherly physical care an equally intense and loving intellectual companionship and guidance. ”

“ Every one of them was well fed, had a well- nourished brain—Danton, Robespierre, Marat, Desmoulins, Mirabeau—every one a well-fed brain in a vigorous body.
The labor unions and the great strikes, although sometimes unwise and unreasonable, are great blessings to the Nation. They compel the worker to get such pay as will feed himself and his children, giving the Nation well-fed brains. The Union is the enemy of poverty, and for that reason especially it is an agent for good. ——
As poverty breeds ignorance, so ignorance breeds poverty. The greatest enemy of poverty is the Public School. ”

“ Science admits and thinks it proves that the inorganic atom of matter is indestructible—that it persists forever. Why should we not admit—and ultimately prove—that the atom of organic force called a soul is indestructible and exists forever?
Every atom of matter, every particle of force, existing in the visible universe will continue to exist billions of centuries after the universe shall have melted and lost its present shape. The nail on your finger will exist as separate atoms when the Milky Way shall have faded from the heavens. How does that strike you for immortality? ”

“ Hundreds of thousands of children are born only to struggle for a few years through a stunted infancy—poverty digs their graves.
For one genius that has fought and conquered in spite of poverty ten thousand have sunk out of sight in the fight against the worst of enemies.
Don't waste time extolling the blessings of poverty—use your energies to diminish poverty's curse, and to improve humanity by giving it the full efficiency which freedom from worry alone can give. ”

“ WILLIAM HENRY CHANNING'S SYMPHONY THE THOUGHT— To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common—this is my symphony. ”

“ You have made a good fight against the slavery that used to oppress you. In England you destroyed mills, endured shooting and hanging. All over the world, by hard fighting and wise voting, you have established the fact that the top class of mechanics must no longer be treated as cattle.
Now, what are you going to do for the others who are still cattle? You have demanded in the name of holy justice that others help you. In the same name, what do you propose to do for those still oppressed? Will you use your big voting power for the millions who are still at the bottom? ”

“ If you are surprised to learn how much you did not know about iron—after living near bits of iron all your life—is it not just possible that your mind may be too feeble to conceive of God?
For the fly buzzing about the edge of Niagara Falls, the falls do not exist. The fly's brain cannot grasp their grandeur. It can understand only the speck of spray that falls on its wing. ”

“ Shall we some day go rolling back to the ocean of cosmic wisdom whence we came?
Is it possible that man is indeed made in the image of God, as drops are made in the ocean's image—the individual men, like the individual drops, being sent forth to do necessary cosmic work through the universe, going back to the ocean after each errand is done, and so going back and forth, forever and ever? ”

“ There are hundreds of thousands of men with their thoughts fixed absolutely on money making. They hate what threatens money. They love those who sympathize with money. They live, work, vote, talk, marry and cheat their friends for money.
If they fail—as most of them do—they die unhappy. If they succeed, money cheats THEM, and for all their devotion gives them nothing.
"For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
The man wastes his soul who devotes its forces only to accumulating wealth. ”

“ We are like a swarm of human beings cast away on some desert island. This earth is our island, a little island in space, and it is a desert island and a badly arranged island in more ways than one. Many of us lack good dwellings, some of us lack food, all of us are worried about the future. The island is infested with mosquitoes and with diseases that we have not learned to conquer. There are many criminals on it that prey upon the honest people—criminals at the top and criminals at the bottom of society. ”