Newar people

“ But while welcoming all changes tending towards refinement and a higher civilization, the careful observer of the life of these remote people can point to some qualities among them which he would have unchangeable as their grand old mountains,—their frankness and honesty of purpose, their love of justice, and their sturdy democracy. ”

“ To them the early pioneers appear to have been people of a character demi-devil, demi-savage, not only with out the remains of former civilization, but without even the recollection that they had been born and bred where people were, at the least, measurably sane, somewhat religiously inclined, and, for the most, civilly behaved. ”

“ But there is sometimes nothing like the imagination of these people who have none, and Newman, now and then, in an unguided stroll in a foreign city, before some lonely, sad-towered church, or some angular image of one who had rendered civic service in an unknown past, had felt a singular inward tremor. It was not an excitement or a perplexity; it was a placid, fathomless sense of diversion. ”

“ In a word, the existing social pattern is in process of being turned over, turned upside down, transformed by forces which seem to operate according to their own principles and often quite independently of human intention or intervention.
Our society--western civilization--is undergoing a revolution. People born into a rapidly changing society are often tempted and sometimes compelled to play significant roles in the revolutionary process. ”

“ We have had, at intervals, persons who rebelled, through recurrent heredity perhaps, against our admirable system, and to them we administer lex dernier—they are transported to some other land, by methods known only to ourselves, there to mingle with a new people, with but a faint conception of their nativity. ”

“ The significance, therefore, of the colonizing movement from the Old World to the New is the breaking up of the fatal power of transmitted routine, exclusive prerogative and caste, and the securing for the people of a condition inviting them to blend and co-operate on pure grounds of universal humanity. In spite of fears and threats, over all drawbacks, the experiment is triumphantly going on. ”

“ Here is practically the gist of the whole matter, as far as Francis Newman is concerned. Throughout all his writings one comes again and again upon this note. "The People! The People!" is his ever-recurring thought. What are "the People" suffering; what are their needs, their wrongs which call for justice? ”

“ Western civilization, in the early years of the present century, produced a generation of insecure, unsettled, anxious, worried, harried people. This is generally true of young, middle aged and old, of rich and poor. ”

“ The new world, the new people, if I may say so, who boast of being the most enlightened people on the face of the earth,—these are the people who, in proportion to their number, contribute most to the support of Popish brothels, modestly called nunneries. ”

“ Therefore the fundamental difficulty for the rise of primitive people—namely, that an individual who has risen to the level of the higher civilization is still looked upon as belonging to an inferior race—did not prevail. ”

“ Furthermore, in the early ages, and among people where castes were prominent, when the learning, culture, and power were confined to one class at the expense of others, it is unquestionable that copious and fearful descriptions of the future state were spread abroad by those who were interested in establishing such a dogma. ”

“ The only change which can be brought about [335] with any sort of rapidity among a primitive race is the change towards degeneration and ruin. Such a change, in the spiritual sphere, sets in as soon as we attempt to impose ethical conceptions upon a people at a stage of cultivation different from our own. ”

“ Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that each of the component elements making up the expanding civilization--each people, city, state, nation, empire--developed its own total culture pattern, subject to the pressures mutually exerted by neighboring communities. ”

“ That we may live to see England once more possess a free Monarchy and a privileged and prosperous People, is my prayer; that these great consequences can only be brought about by the enemy and devotion of our Youth is my persuasion. We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions; and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity. ”

“ From the era which dates the national existence of the American people, dates also a mighty step in the march of human knowledge. And it is consistent with that principle in our conformation which leads us to rejoice in the good which befalls our species, and to sorrow for the evil, that our hearts should expand on this day; ”

“ Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided inmany ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered. ”

“ The truth that no abrupt change has ever taken place in all the customs of a people, and that it [Pg 5] cannot, in the nature of things, take place, is perhaps the most fundamental lesson that history teaches. ”

“ for, amongst democratic nations, each new generation is a new people. ”

“ History does not record in its annals any lasting domination exercised by one people over another, of different race, of diverse usages and customs, of opposite and divergent ideals.
One of the two had to yield and succumb. ”

“ In a short while our ears, fingers, and toes were almost frozen, and the fast driving snow beat mercilessly against our faces, making our eyes ache. We proceeded like so many blind people, speechless and exhausted, rising slowly higher on the mountain range, and feeling our way with our feet. ”

“ From a small community we have risen to a people powerful in numbers and in strength; but with our increase has gone hand in hand the progress of just principles. ”

“ The men, women, and children who compose a society at any time are the unconscious depositaries and transmitters of the mores. They inherited them without knowing it; they are molding them unconsciously; they will transmit them involuntarily. The people cannot make the mores. They are made by them. ”

“ Prior to the rebellion the great mass of the people were satisfied to remain near the scenes of their birth. In fact an immense majority of the whole people did not feel secure against coming to want should they move among entire strangers. So much was the country divided into small communities that localized idioms had grown up, so that you could almost tell what section a person was from by hearing him speak. ”

“ "With people like that we needn't despair of civilisation," said Howe. ”

“ I wished to see humanity as she presented herself in the New World, now that she had cast off all dominion of courts, forms and uniforms, which had become oppressive burdens in the Old World; now that she had there, on the new soil, erected for herself a kingdom and an asylum for all nations, according to no other law than that promulgated in the Christian revelation and within her own breast. That was the form of humanity which I desired to see and to comprehend, and with her the new community and life. ”

“ I take things as I find them on the surface of history, and am but classing phenomena. Looking, then, at the countries which surround the Mediterranean Sea as a whole, I see them to be, from time immemorial, the seat of an association of intellect and mind, such as to deserve to be called the Intellect and the Mind of the Human Kind. Starting as it does and advancing from certain centres, till their respective influences intersect and conflict, and then at length intermingle and combine, a common Thought has been generated, and a common Civilization defined and established. ”

“ What contribution has western civilization made to human nature, to human society and to mother nature, and what further contribution can it make in the foreseeable future?
Individuals, born or reared in any form of society are adjusted, shaped and conditioned by the social pattern of which they are a part. Each society attempts to stamp the individuals with its own image and likeness. ”

“ They no longer preëmpted the whole world—present and future, as well as past, but, freed from romance, they ranged themselves in the form of a foundation upon which the structure of civilization is building. The successive steps in human achievement, from the use of fire to the harnessing of electricity, constituted a process of evolution creating “a stage where every man must play his part”—a part expanding and broadening with each succeeding generation ”

“ As she and I hung over the deck rail side by side we felt ourselves on the edge of wonders. The Old World was in need of us, and we were in need of the New. To us who were New World born, and who were coming back to generous, easy-going welcome after the unspeakable things we had seen, the craving for New World brotherhood and vigor was like that of hunger or thirst. ”

“ A new civilization was not to be improvised by a single mind. ”

“ Under such conditions the habit patterns of civilizations could be deliberately abandoned or superceded by life styles more appropriate to the institutions and practices of human beings prepared to live and able to live and develop in a community which is establishing itself on a level beyond civilization. ”

“ EVOLUTION OF THE MORES
All modern social institutions arise from the evolution of the primitive customs of your savage ancestors; the conventions of today are the modified and expanded customs of yesterday. What habit is to the individual, custom is to the group; and group customs develop into folkways or tribal traditions—mass conventions. From these early beginnings all of the institutions of present-day human society take their humble origin. ”

“ It is necessary to distinguish between what upholds a group, and what advances the species, raises the type. [34] The social virtues—mutual consideration and friendliness, respect for authority, reverence for law and custom—strengthen and solidify an existing group, but they do not change its character; and if there is to be change, either the group must be refashioned, or the new type be reached through its disintegration or destruction. ”

“ A new world is in the making. The old world had been divided by men into races, religions and creeds. Each race had different standards, each race was prejudiced against all others. Each religion and creed had, in the course of time, accomodated itself to the pettiness of humanity and had lost sight of its essential principles. ”

“ In the vastness of the outlook over the unwritten history of past ages, the individual is merged entirely in the social unit of which he forms a part, and we see in the dim distance of time and space only the movements of peoples, the emergence of new types of man, the gradual development of new forms of civilization, and a constant repetition of processes of integration and disintegration of peoples and cultures. ”

“ Newman is pleased to say, "Some nations sink, while others rise; but the lower and higher levels are both generally ascending." Has this level for the whole race been raised perceptibly within the memory of so-called history? ”

“ The Criticism of our Ancestors.—Why should we now endure the truth, even about the most recent past? Because there is now always a new generation which feels itself in contradiction to the past and enjoys in this criticism the first-fruits of its sense of power. In former times the new generation, on the contrary, wished to base itself on the old and began to feel conscious of its power, not only in accepting the opinions of its ancestors but, if possible, taking them even more seriously. ”

“ Ideologies have played a role in determining the structure and function of every civilization. As civilization grows up, matures, and declines, ideologies change with the changing times. In its early history each civilization seeks acceptance for its picture of reality and its techniques for reaching individual and social goals. As each civilization declines and disintegrates, a multitude of counselors clamors for attention to a particular formula that will prove acceptable and workable in the existing emergent circumstances. ”

“ THE world-old phenomenon of the contact of diverse races of men is to have new exemplification during the new century. Indeed, the characteristic of our age is the contact of European civilization with the world's undeveloped peoples. ”

“ Here was a new generation, shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through a revery of long days and nights; destined finally to go out into that dirty gray turmoil to follow love and pride; a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken. ”

“ Scientists, poets, musicians, inventors, artists, teachers, healers, philosophers, statesmen have appeared in each civilization adding their mite to the sum-total of community culture.
Innovators, moralists and counselors of perfection have played a noteworthy part by advocating and often by living noteworthy lives. Reports of their sayings and doings are part of the folklore and the history of each civilization. If they did not set the tone of their generation, they provided it with a model toward which their less talented, less creative fellows might aspire. ”

“ Through such social processes as these—through unconscious suggestion, through communication and discussion that mould public opinion, through changes in environment and the influence of new leaders of thought and action—the evolution of folk life has carried whole races, sometimes to oblivion, but generally out of savagery and barbarism into a material and cultural civilization. ”