Rev. James Wood

“ Die Leidenschaft flieht, / Die Liebe muss bleiben; 20 / Die Blume verblüht, / Die Frucht muss treiben—Passion takes flight, love must abide; the flower fades, the fruit must ripen. Schiller.
Die letzte Wahl steht auch dem Schwächsten offen; / Ein Sprung von dieser Brücke macht mich frei—The last choice of all is open even to the weakest; a leap from this bridge sets me free. Schiller.
Die Liebe hat kein Mass der Zeit; sie keimt / Und blüht und reift in einer schönen Stunde—Love follows no measure of time; it buds and blossoms and ripens in one happy hour. ”

“ Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is to genius the stern friend, the cold, obscure shelter where moult the wings that will bear it farther than suns and stars. He who would inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing, reading, and writing in the daily time-worn yoke of their opinions. ”

“ Talent is something, but tact is everything. It is not a seventh sense, but is the life of all the five. It is the open eye, the quick ear, the judging taste, the keen smell, and the lively touch; it is the interpreter of all riddles, the surmounter of all difficulties, the remover of all obstacles. W. P. Scargill.
Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is. ”

“ The sun-steeds of time, as if goaded by invisible spirits, bear onward the light car of our destiny, and nothing remains for us but, with calm self-possession, to grasp the reins, and now right, now left, to steer the wheels, here from the precipice, and there from the rock. ”

“ Nur der Glaube aller stärkt den Glauben, / Wo Tausende anbeten und verehren, / Da wird die Glut zur Flamme, und beflügelt / Schwingt sich der Geist in alle Himmel auf—Only the faith of all strengthens faith; where thousands worship and reverence, there the glow becomes flame, and the spirit soar upwards on wings into all heavens. Schiller.
Nur der Irrthum ist das Leben, / Und das Wissen ist der Tod—Only error is life, and knowledge is death. ”

“ There is ever a certain languor attending the fulness of prosperity. When the heart has no more to wish, it yawns over its possessions, and the energy of the soul goes out, like a flame that has no more to devour. ”

“ We are ourselves / Our heaven and hell, the joy, the penalty, / The yearning, the fruition. Lewis Morris.
We are pent, / Who sing to-day, by all the garnered wealth / Of ages of past song. Lewis Morris.
We are reformers in spring and summer; in autumn and winter we stand by the old; reformers in the morning, conservers at night. Emerson.
We are rid of the Wicked One, but the wicked are still with us. ”

“ Religion, poetry, is not dead; it will never die. Its dwelling and birthplace is in the soul of man, and it is eternal as the being of man. In any point of space, in any section of time, let there be a living man; and there is an infinitude above him and beneath him, and an eternity encompasses him on this hand and on that; and tones of sphere-music and tidings from loftier worlds will flit round him, if he can but listen, and visit him with holy influences, even in the thickest press of trivialities or the din of busiest life. Carlyle. ”

“ Es ist ein gross Ergötzen / Sich in den Geist der Zeiten zu versetzen, / Zu schauen, wie vor uns ein weiser Mann gedacht, / Und wie wir's dann zuletzt so herrlich weit gebracht—Pardon! It is a great pleasure to transport one's self into the spirit of the times, to see how a wise man thought before us, and to what a glorious height we have at last carried it. ”

“ Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labour in it, but they labour in it because they excel. Hazlitt.
Men of genius have acuter feelings than common men; they are like the wind-harp, which answers to the breath that touches it, now low and sweet, now rising into wild swell or angry scream, as the strings are swept by some passing gust. Froude.{pg 276}
Men of God have always, from time to time, walked among men, and made their commission felt in the heart and soul of the commonest hearer. ”

“ For while a youth is lost in soaring thought, / 45 And while a mind grows sweet and beautiful, / And while a spring-tide coming lights the earth, / And while a child, and while a flower is born, / And while one wrong cries for redress and finds / A soul to answer, still the world is young. ”

“ Ein Gott ist, ein heiliger Wille lebt, / Wie auch der menschliche wanke; / Hoch über der Zeit und dem Raume webt / Lebendig der höchste Gedanke—A god is, a holy will lives, however man's will may waver; high over all time and space the highest thought weaves itself everywhere into life's web. ”

“ Carlyle.
Time has only a relative existence. Carlyle. 40
Time incessantly hasteneth on; he seeks for perfection; if thou art true, thou canst cast fetters eternal on him. Schiller.
Time is a continual over-dropping of moments, which fall down one upon the other and evaporate. Jean Paul.
Time is a strange thing. It is a whimsical tyrant, which in every century has a different face for all that one says and does. Goethe.
Time is a wonder-working god. In one hour many thousand grains of sand run out, so quickly do thoughts stir in the minds of men. ”

“ Enthusiasm gives life to what is invisible, and interest to what has no immediate action on our comfort in this world. Mme. de Staël.
Enthusiasm imparts itself magnetically, and fuses all into one happy and harmonious unity of feeling and sentiment. A. B. Alcott.
Enthusiasm is grave, inward, self-controlled; mere excitement, outward, fantastical, hysterical, and passing in a moment from tears to laughter. John Sterling.
Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it. Bulwer Lytton.
Enthusiasm is the height of man ”

“ Love is not to be reason'd down or lost / In high ambition or a thirst of greatness. Addison.
Love is old, old as eternity, but not outworn; with each new being born or to be born. Byron.
Love is omnipresent in nature as motive and reward. Emerson.
Love is sparingly soluble in the words of men, 20 therefore they speak much of it; but one syllable of woman's speech can dissolve more of it than a man's heart can hold. Holmes.
Love is strong as death. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. ”

“ For knowledge is a barren tree and bare, / Bereft of God, and duty but a word, / And strength but tyranny, and love, desire, / And purity a folly. Lewis Morris.
For knowledge is a steep which few may climb, / While duty is a path which all may tread. ”

“ Nine times out of ten it is over the Bridge of Sighs that we pass the narrow gulf from youth to manhood. That interval is usually occupied by an ill-placed or disappointed affection. We recover and we find ourselves a new being. The intellect has become hardened by the fire through which it has passed. The mind profits by the wrecks of every passion, and we may measure our road to wisdom by the sorrows we have undergone. ”

“ Knowledge hath a bewildering tongue, and she will stoop and lead you to the stars, and witch you with her mysteries, till gold is a forgotten dross, and power and fame toys of an hour, and woman's careless love light as the breath that breaks it. ”

“ Der Mensch ist nicht geboren frei zu sein / 5 Und für den Edeln ist kein schöner Glück / Als einem Fürst, den er ehrt, zu dienen—Man is not born to be free; and for the noble soul there is no fairer fortune than to serve a prince whom he regards with honour. ”

“ Joy is the mainspring in the whole round of universal Nature; joy moves the wheels of the great timepiece of the world; she it is that loosens flowers from their buds, suns from their firmaments, rolling spheres in distant space not seen by the glass of the astronomer. ”

“ The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it; not having it, to confess your ignorance. Confucius.{pg 426}
The essence of poetry is will and passion. Hazlitt.
The essence of true nobility is neglect of self. Let the thought of self pass in, and the beauty of a great action is gone, like the bloom from a soiled flower. Froude.
The essence of wealth consists in its authority over men; if (therefore) the apparent or nominal wealth fail in this power, it fails in essence; in fact, ceases to be wealth at all. ”

“ In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man / As modest stillness and humility; / But when the blast of war blows in our ears, / Then imitate the action of the tiger; / Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, / Disguise fair Nature with hard-favour'd rage, / Then lend the eye a terrible aspect ”

“ The great moments of life are but moments like the others. Your doom is spoken in a word or two. A single look from the eyes, a mere pressure of the hand, may decide it; or of the lips, though they cannot speak. ”

“ So soon as one's heart is tender it is weak. When it is beating so warmly against the breast, and the throat is, as it were, tied tightly, and one strives to press the tears from one's eyes and feels an incomprehensible joy as they begin to flow, then we are so weak that we are fettered by chains of flowers, not because they have become strong through any magic chain, but because we tremble lest we should tear them asunder. ”

“ Life is the jailer, death the angel sent to draw the unwilling bolts and set us free. Lowell.
Life is the jailer of the soul in this filthy prison, and its only deliverer is death. What we call life is a journey to death, and what we call death is a passport to life. ”

“ Keinen Glauben hat die Liebe / Als den Glauben an sich selber!—Love has no faith but faith in itself. Bodenstedt.
Keinen Reimer wird man finden, / Der sich nicht den besten hielte, / Keinen Fiedler, der nicht lieber / Eigne Melodien spielte—You will meet with no rhymer who does not think himself the best, no fiddler who does not prefer to play his own tunes. Goethe.
Keiner ist so klug, dass er nicht ein wenig Narrheit übrig hätte—No one is so wise as not to have a little folly to spare. ”

“ Such hath been—shall be—beneath the sun, / That many still must labour for the one. Byron.
Such is hope, Heaven's own gift to struggling 50 mortals; pervading, like some subtle essence from the skies, all things both good and bad. Dickens.
Such is the aspect of this shore; / 'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more! / So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, / We start, for soul is wanting there. Byron.
Such only enjoy the country as are capable of thinking when they are there; then they are prepared for solitude, and in that case solitude is prepared for them. ”

“ Hell lies near, / Around us, as does heaven, 40 and in the world, / Which is our Hades, still the chequered souls, / Compact of good and ill—not all accurst, / Nor altogether blest—a few brief years / Travel the little journey of their lives, / They know not to what end. ”

“ Art is long and time is fleeting, / And our 35 hearts, though stout and brave, / Still, like muffled drums, are beating / Funeral marches to the grave. Longfellow.
Art is noble, but the sanctuary of the human soul is nobler still. ”

“ Great deeds cannot die; / They with the sun and moon renew their light, / For ever blessing those that look on them. Tennyson.
Great deeds immortal are—they cannot die, / Unscathed by envious blight or withering frost, / They live, and bud, and bloom; and men partake / Still of their freshness, and are strong thereby. ”

“ Nothing is so envied as genius, nothing so hopeless of attainment by labour alone. Though labour always accompanies the greatest genius, without the intellectual gift labour alone will do little. Haydon.
Nothing is so grand as truth, nothing so forcible, nothing so novel. Landor.
Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; if you flatter only one or two, you affront the rest. ”

“ Religion is universal, theology is exclusive; religion is humanitarian, theology is sectarian; religion unites mankind, theology divides it; religion is love—broad and all-comprising as God's love, theology preaches love and practises bigotry; religion looks to the moral worth of man, theology to his creed and denomination. ”

“ The stars shall fade away, the sun himself / Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years; / But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, / Unhurt amidst the war of elements, / The wrecks of matter and the crash of worlds. ”

“ Rauch ist alles irdsche Wesen; / Wie des Dampfes Säule weht, / Schwinden alle Erdengrössen, / Nur die Götter bleiben stät—A vapour is all earthly existence; as a column of vapour it drifts along: vanish all earth's great ones; only the gods remain stable. Schiller.
Raum für alle hat die Erde—The earth is wide enough for all. Schiller.
Raum, ihr Herrn, dem Flügelschlag / Einer freien Seele—Room, gentlemen, for a free soul to clap its wings. G. Herwegh.
Raum ist in der kleinsten Hütte / Für ein glücklich liebend Paar—There is room in the smallest cottage for a happy loving pair. ”

“ True religion is always mild, propitious, and humble; plays not the tyrant, plants no faith in blood, nor bears destruction on her chariot-wheels; but stoops to polish, succour, and redress, and builds her grandeur on the public good. James Miller.
True religion is the poetry of the heart; it has enchantments useful to our manners; it gives us both happiness and virtue. Joubert.
True religion teaches us to reverence what is under us, to recognise humility and poverty, mockery and despite, wretchedness and disgrace, suffering and death, as things divine. ”

“ Men are tatooed with their special beliefs like so many South Sea islanders; but a real human heart, with divine love in it, beats with the same glow under all the patterns of all earth's thousand tribes. ”

“ Une froideur ou une incivilité qui vient de ceux qui sont au-dessus de nous nous les fait haïr, mais un salut ou un sourire nous les réconcilie—A coldness or an incivility from such as are above us makes us hate them, but a salute or a smile quickly reconciles us to them.
Une grande âme est au-dessus de l'injustice, de la douleur, de la moquerie; et elle seroit invulnérable si elle ne souffroit par la compassion—A great soul is proof against injustice, pain, and mockery ”