Activity

“ Discipline, habit, and character, appear to be activity crystallized in seeking adaptation to our environments. What is the truth that stands out in relief? Clearly, that character, habit, and discipline, are the reflex upon ourselves of activity, moral, mental, or physical. Whence it seems to follow that useless or vicious activity will appear as useless or vicious character and discipline. ”

“ We thus acquire a habit, in discussing activity-experiences, of defining them by their relation to something more. If an experience be one of narrow span, it will be mistaken as to what activity it is and whose. You think that you are acting while you are only obeying someone’s push. ”

“ My book raised only the question of which activity deserved the name of ‘ours.’ So far as we are ‘persons,’ and contrasted and opposed to an ‘environment,’ movements in our body figure as our activities ”

“ Now since every activity, whether of knowing or doing, aims at some good, it is for us to settle what the good is which the civic activity aims at,—what, in short, is the ultimate end of all 'goods' connected with conduct? ”

“ His incessant labours, first to learn and then to practise, again to learn and again to practise, and again, and again, and again to learn and practise, so long as his physical energies could support the activity of his intellect, ought to convey to us all a lesson of profound humility, and a stimulus to exertion of the most active kind. ”

“ The sense of activity is thus in the broadest and vaguest way synonymous with the sense of ‘life.’ We should feel our own subjective life at least, even in noticing and proclaiming an otherwise inactive world. ”

“ As a spiritual activity, it takes the impressions derived from those forces, works them up into the organic growth of itself, converts them into conscious knowledge and uses these products as means to set other forces into activity and produce new results. ”

“ Whenever you find anywhere in nature an activity of any kind, however pestiferous its activity may seem to you—or however good—you may be sure that if you look deep enough you will find that that activity has a use, arises from a need. ”

“ On the other hand, constant labour of one uniform kind disturbs the intensity and flow of a man's animal spirits, which find recreation and delight in mere change of activity. ”

“ Such an activity is the unchanging goal towards which life advances and by which its different stages are measured: But since the purpose of things, and not their natural causes, is that which explains them, we may call this eventual activity their reason for being. ”

“ By attractive method in the use of life, activity, exercise, we mean that which appeals to one's peculiar desires, tastes, and circumstances, so long as these are normal and right. Some chosen profession, trade, or work is the rightful heritage of every person. Each man, woman, and child should know when he gets up of a morning, what his work is for that day. ”

“ What even an infant "experiences" is not a passively received quality impressed by an object, but the effect which some activity of handling, throwing, pounding, tearing, etc., has upon an object, and the consequent effect of the object upon the direction of activities. ”

“ The first of these faculties is activity, voluntary and free activity, in which human personality especially appears, and without which the other faculties would be as if they were not, since we should not exist for ourselves. ”

“ We are rather inclined to refer the fact in question to some peculiar structure of mind—possibly to its activity—perhaps occasioned by lack of early discipline—one fancy thrusting forth another, and occupying its place. ”

“ The various forms of intellectual activity which together make up the culture of an age, move for the most part from different starting-points, and by unconnected roads. ”

“ These functions and structures have been accompanied by pleasure and pain, and have formed the basis of the pleasures of intellectual activity in their multiform variety. From their very nature in relation to the environment they have increased wonderfully the quantitative development of life. ”

“ I prefer thought to action, an idea to a transaction, contemplation to activity. ”

“ We are accustomed however to ignore most of these modifications of the total organic activity, concentrating upon that one which is most specifically adapted to the most urgent stimulus of the moment. ”

“ Every one of the faculties by which knowledge is accumulated and arranged or digested into new forms grows stronger by being employed upon its own appropriate objects." Mental activity is the means by which the material of knowledge is gathered, and all faculties strengthened for future gathering. ”

“ In place of the restlessness of the preceding period, activity directed toward more definite ends appears. It is very important that the activity be expended rightly, since its use in every action strengthens some one of the rapidly forming habits. ”

“ With fuller experience and further practice in the ordinary avocations of life, the responsive activities link themselves more and more closely in association, become more and more complex, are combined in series and classes of activity of greater length and accuracy, and thus become organized into habits. ”

“ Who would not give the meed of “Pulchræa gentis pulcherrima” to Sagartia rosea, with olive-brown or pinkish-drab column, dark greenish-brown discs, and two or three rows of exquisite satiny, rose-coloured, bluntish tentacles, as its brilliant hue flashes on one’s sight for the first time from within the darkened chamber and sanded couch that it loves best in the limestone rock? The light and warmth from heaven are grateful to its senses, the roar of the waters and the battling of the waves are sweetest music to its ears, and soothingly tranquillising to its comfort in activity or repose. ”

“ When I say work, I mean study of books, work of the hand, effort of the body, willingness of the heart. No matter what the thing is, put your conscience into it; do your best. Let it be possible for you to say: "I have put my whole soul into my study, into my work, into whatever I have attempted. Whatever I have done I have honestly endeavored to do to the best of my ability." ”

“ Thus, whether we look at the dignity of the subject matter, or at the nature of the mental exercise which it requires, or at the nature of the field over which the pursuit ranges, History, the knowledge of the adventures, the development, the changeful career, the varied growths, the ambitions, aspirations, and, if you like, the approximating destinies of mankind, claims a place second to none in the roll of Sciences. ”

“ Natural means of cultivating an even temper and a buoyant disposition are: some kind of labor or occupation, avoidance of hurry and worry in one’s affairs, cultivation of some interesting hobby or avocation that will vary the monotony of business or work, use of congenial recreations, whether of a more refined (e.g., conversation with friends, literature, music, art, the drama, travel to historic or beautiful scenes, etc.) ”

“ We cannot, however, say more than that the factors of human progress have always had these three aspects, Folk, Place, Work, and that if progress is to continue on stable lines it must always recognise the essential correlation of fitter folk in body and mind: improved habits and functions, alike in work and leisure ”

“ It is to study the succession of events, not as separate units, but as links of one vast chain, on every one of which is inscribed a phrase discoursing of the progress of the human race, and showing the growth of man in the complex, from infancy to adolescence. ”

“ Now, of these conditions one of the most important is suitable recreation. For this is the condition which extends to all classes of the community, and the observance of which is, as we have seen, an imperative necessity to every individual who desires to possess a sound working mind in a sound working body. ”

“ But the final value of action, like that of books, and better than books, is, that it is a resource. That great principle of undulation in nature, that shows itself in the inspiring and expiring of the breath ”

“ TO a refined and liberal mind, it must, and it has always given great pleasure to observe, the progress and advancement of knowledge, and good sense in the lower orders, whose leisure is little, and whose access to Books is circumscribed how much greater satisfaction must it give, to observe that progress manifested in an age, generally reckoned unfit for mental exertion. ”

“ The most beautiful actions of the human body, and the highest results of the human intelligence, are conditions, or achievements, of quite unlaborious,—nay, of recreative,—effort. But labour is the suffering in effort. ”

“ Other people's interests—tenement conditions, factory rules—can be described in figures and actions that appeal to the imagination and impress upon the mind pictures that are repeatedly reawakened by experience and observation on the playground, at home, on the way to school or to work. ”

“ Do you sigh for books and leisure and wealth? It takes more "concentration" to use books—head tools—well than to use hand tools. It takes more "self-control" to use leisure well than workdays. Compare the Sundays and Mondays of your city; which day, all things considered, stands for the city's higher life,—the day on which so many men are lolling, or the day on which all toil? ”

“ When, again, we speak of moral or intellectual progress, we refer to the state of the individual or people exhibiting it; while, when the progress of Knowledge, of Science, of Art, is commented upon, we have in view certain abstract results of human thought and action. ”

“ These separations we will study, and the laws of them, among energetic men only, who, whether they work or whether they play, put their strength into the work, and their strength into the game; being in the full sense of the word 'industrious,' one way or another—with a purpose, or without. ”

“ In which of its adventures would the human race, reviewing its whole experience, acknowledge a progress and a gain? To answer these questions, as they may be answered speculatively and provisionally by an individual, is the purpose of the following work. ”

“ The sphere in which I now move and work is strangely foreign to the preparations of my early youth, yet how easily we adapt ourselves, if once we have tasted the joy of effort—the joy of seeing things around us develop and thrive. ”

“ Society's great task is, therefore, the understanding of the life-force, its manifold efforts at expression and the way of attaining this, and to provide as free and expansive ways as possible for the creative energy which is to work marvelous things for the future. ”

“ The studies which engaged my leisure brought me into connection with the men of learning, and in them I found the similar merits of industry, intelligence, cheerfulness, frankness, with others peculiar to their avocation. ”

“ We find in its varied scenes an exercise of the mind analogous to that which we all, less or more, find out for ourselves, amidst the mixed groupes of people whom we meet with in society; and which I have already mentioned as an exercise universally pleasing to man. ”

“ It is through these occupations that the intellectual and emotional interpretation of nature has been developed. It is through what we do in and with the world that we read its meaning and measure its value. ”

“ To contribute the opportunity and the stimulus for such change is our business. The child cries out to his environment—“Give me ideas and experiences; good and pleasurable if you can, bad or painful, if you must, but give me ideas and experiences.” ”

“ Conversely, a general or a local sense of well-being will seem to demand expression in action. A little abandon at such moments will suggest exercises that are both pleasant and profitable to the body and interesting and enjoyable to the mind. ”

“ Our volitional habits depend, then, first, on what the stock of ideas is which we have; and, second, on the habitual coupling of the several ideas with action or inaction respectively. How is it when an alternative is presented to you for choice, and you are uncertain what you ought to do? ”

“ There are moments in which the mind attains the highest and clearest perception,—seasons in which, whatever the nature of the mental operation, the faculties address themselves readily to the task, and labor becomes less a toil than an actual pleasure. ”