Affluence

“ The influence that goes out from an individual or mass of individuals, we mean—that subtle, invisible power that acts from one upon another, and which when aggregated is almost irresistible? You have felt it in a company moved by a single impulse which carried you for a time with the rest, though all your calmer convictions were in opposition to the movement. ”

“ So much and so plainly do I realise it that I even attribute everything done in the world to ‘influence.’ Each one of us is ‘influenced’ by something or some one. Even you, my dearest brother, share the common lot, though I dare say you do not quite perceive where your ruling force is generated, your own powers being so extraordinary. ”

“ There comes to you an acquisition of power. Your influence, by a process which escapes any human analysis, reaches out over your associates, and, in proportion to the magnitude of your character, over humanity. ”

“ Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being? ”

“ One division, vast in number, a part of the good and all the bad ones, have become the beasts, birds, fishes, reptiles, insects, plants, stones, cold, heat, light, darkness, fire, rain, snow, earthquake, sun, moon, stars,—have become, in fact, every living thing, object, agency, phenomenon, process, and power outside of man. ”

“ The Widening Horizon.—The reign of authority in intellectual matters lasted for twelve centuries, and then gave way gradually to the reign of observation and reason. Under the influence of the new method we have been moving generation by generation into a state of clearer discernment and into an intellectual atmosphere of wider horizon. ”

“ Thus, every act we do or word we utter, as well as every act we witness or word we hear, carries with it an influence which extends over, and gives a colour, not only to the whole of our future life, but makes itself felt upon the whole frame of society. We may not, and indeed cannot, possibly, trace the influence working itself into action in its various ramifications amongst our children, our friends, or associates ”

“ And we see, it may be with some wonder, that as they become more and more absorbed in their special work, they become more and more centres of influence. Without at all willing it they draw people about them, become centres of influences, arouse interest, become widely known. ”

“ Carven capital, fluted pillar, and scrolled entablature each tell a different tale, and in the wide aisles, open to every wind of heaven, a child might learn, almost as it might learn from nature, the unending mutation, the ceaseless variety of life. ”

“ Every phenomenon in social and national life (as in Nature) is an effect, and all these effects are embodied by a cause which is not remote and detached, but which is the immediate soul and life of the effect itself. ”

“ The important influence which this power of endurance or self-control will have upon your later life, you can not as yet fully estimate, though you may perhaps have some idea of it. Important, indeed, will its influence prove in the family circle, in your intercourse with your neighbors, in the community, in business, and in public life when you are called upon to take an active share in political affairs. ”

“ It now remains for me to examine the effect of those other physical agents to which I have given the collective name of Aspects of Nature, and which will be found suggestive of some very wide and comprehensive inquiries into the influence exercised by the external world in predisposing men to certain habits of thought, and thus giving a particular tone to religion, arts, literature, and, in a word, to all the principal manifestations of the human mind. ”

“ The field of influence was great and infinitely varied—once one had conquered a name. ”

“ All genera and species and families and individuals are so many forms in which the radiant energy of the sun has deposited itself. Playing with its heat and its light upon soil, sea, and sky, the sun has built the myriad organic forms we see. So all objects, interests, and laws embraced within the range of civilization are the forms in which social force, arising through relations, has deposited itself. Human language itself is an embodiment of social force. ”

“ Sympathetic influence enters into our system of thought as a matter of course, and affects our conduct as surely as water affects the growth of a plant. The kindred spirit can turn on a system of lights, to recur to the image of the last chapter, and so transform the mental illumination. This is the nature of all authority and leadership, as I shall try to explain more fully in another chapter. ”

“ The fourth division of power or influence is doing, or being done by, well or ill; thus we can become ill or be educated, be restored to health and the like. Power, then, is either in the mind, or the body, or in armies and resources, or in acting and being acted upon. ”

“ SOCRATES: My answer is, that all things instrumental, remedial, material, are given to us with a view to generation, and that each generation is relative to, or for the sake of, some being or essence, and that the whole of generation is relative to the whole of essence.
PROTARCHUS: Assuredly.
SOCRATES: Then pleasure, being a generation, must surely be for the sake of some essence? ”

“ Let the same power and influence be exerted upon different individuals, no matter how nearly they may resemble each other, different results will flow from each, the character of which will be absolutely determined by the status of the development of, and the relations between the material, and spiritual elements represented in the individuals acted upon. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the question may be asked, "Do we not admit a similar principle when we speak of a man's influence as something that survives him?" We answer, "No." Influence is a simple radiation of impressions. ”

“ We know now that they are stages in a growth, and in a growth not determined by an accidental environment only, but by an original purpose, a purpose to be realized in the history of the human race as a whole. ”

“ Has poetry a nobler theme than this? Agencies are seen like winged spirits of infinite power, each one working in its own peculiar way, and all to a common end,—to produce, under the guidance of omnipotent rule, the waters of the rivers and the seas. ”

“ Au dedans et au dehors le cerveau est entretenu dans une sorte d’ébullition incessante. Les points de vue, les aspects des choses, les combinaisons, les possibilités, tant pour les individus que pour les collectivités, se succèdent si rapidement qu’il faut pour en tenir compte et les utilises au besoin se tenir toujours en éveil et comme en une mobilisation permanente. ”

“ Though these divisions give somewhat roughly general group types, humanity shows infinite variety of expression, and individuals may change from time to time according to influence and environment. Each may be developed through her special abilities. ”

“ In the first place, then, we have this abstract case: the power of representation and will are present, a sphere of action is present, and a free way opened from the soul to the world, from the world to the soul. ”

“ While in all these departments changes have been going on, which upon a superficial view appear to indicate a kind of spontaneous development, when they are analyzed they are seen to have been wholly caused, or more or less influenced, by the genius, the thought, the discoveries, the exertions, and the acts of particular individuals who have had the force to impress themselves upon the age, and thus to make new systems, new beliefs, new products, new rules of social or political life, new tastes, and new habits of thinking and acting. ”

“ Each step toward an orderly social state makes larger accumulations possible, and the pleasures achievable by them more sure; while the resulting encouragement to accumulate leads to increase of capital and further progress. This action and reaction of the sentiment and the social state, should be in every case observed.
6. The Altruistic Sentiments.—Coming last, these are also highest. The evolution of them in the course of civilization shows us very clearly the reciprocal influences of the social unit and the social organism. ”

“ It is moreover a name well contrived for the purposes of the class; because it is calculated to keep the real character of the associations out of sight.
6. The aggregate, included under the comprehensive term Mankind, is in so many ways associated with our pains and pleasures, that the interest of each individual appears, in some degree, bound up in the interest of the race. Any act of ours, then, by which the interest of the race can be promoted, is associated in our minds with our own interest; and becomes a motive. ”

“ Into whatever place the news entered, circles were formed, and the number of converts outstripped the pen of the enroller. It gathered adherents from every walk of life—from the higher classes as well as the lower; the educated, cultured, and refined, as well as the uncultivated and ignorant ”

“ Spheres of influence mean—well, don't you know, they mean some country that's not quite yours, but it's more yours than anybody else's, and if anybody else comes into it, you're allowed to make a protocol of it. ”

“ The groups and single figures on their own bases, abstracted from the general composition, and considered without attention to the plan, frequently exhibit those genuine and unaffected attitudes, those simple graces which Nature and the heart alone can dictate, and only an eye inspired by both, discover. ”

“ In contrast to this view, there is the allocentric outlook which is marked by an 'open encounter of the total person with the world.' Growth, spontaneity and expression are the goals of such an existence. ”

“ The influence attained is exactly commensurate with the means employed, and the listeners find themselves on a level of caution, equally removed from danger on the one hand, or of excellence on the other. ”

“ But this evolution of personal character—under which we include the actions, instincts, emotions, reason, imagination of the individual unit—must not be viewed apart from the extent to which it prevails, that is, the number of units in any social group who may be regarded as having attained a given standard of such evolution. ”

“ The ordinary natural flow of rejoinder and repartee, the swirling of talk around one obstacle and another, its winding and rippling here and there as individual whim suggests, will not be allowed, but all will be improving, and tend to that general culture of which we have been speaking. ”

“ The processes involved in this change, in their very nature, require intelligence, and imply a character of more than common elevation. It is neither the lowest nor the highest who commence, and at first carry on, a work like this; but those who fill the intermediate spaces. ”

“ Of course, success in all of the above depends largely upon cultivating, through the closest concentration, the power to image or picture what you read; upon the power, as one writer expresses it, of letting the mountains of which we hear loom before us and the rivers of which we read roll at our feet. ”

“ Influence, once acquired by accident or artifice, is easily prolonged by him who knows the secret of its origin and existence--and hence in all ages and countries of the world, the mysteries and mummeries of designing men, leagued to practise on the infatuated propensities and real weaknesses of their fellow creatures. ”

“ Each social formation, through each of its material activities, exerts its influence upon the civic whole; and each of its ideas and ideals wins also its place and power. ”

“ In this homely illustration we see what is accomplished by a small influence. A little changes all. Here again are the acts of Man typified. All that we do is leaven; all that our country does is leaven. Everybody in his sphere contributes leaven, and helps his country to contribute that mighty leaven which will leaven the whole mighty lump. ”

“ In this way all lower and undesirable influences from both the seen and the unseen side of life are closed out, while all higher influences are invited, and in the degree that they are invited will they enter. ”

“ Throughout it was essentially one phase of human organization. When one comes to examine the final result, it is astonishing to remark the small amount of essential change, of positively final and irreparable alteration, in the conditions of the common life. ”

“ I make no attack upon any organization or body. I criticize the trend of certain influences, and I willingly admit, as all must do, even those who most dread their effects, that these influences have their origin in centres imbued with genuine altruism. ”

“ In any aggregate "the relations of outside and inside, and of comparative nearness to neighbouring sources of influence, imply the reception of influences that are unlike in quantity, or quality, or both ”

“ Sympathy and understanding, supplemented by communication, and backed up by the enormous mass of common feelings and ideas, find expression in those common and usual ways of doing things, those norms and elements of custom which Professor Sumner has so admirably named "the folkways." ”

“ The point at issue is, whether the physical changes of the material world, the introduction, continuance, and variation of organized beings, are due to the direct, special intervention of Deity, or whether they are the results of primeval laws, inherent in matter, and out of whose workings spring the phenomena of nature. ”