Debility

“ Thou art a slave if thou prefer-rest to be; thou art a master if thou wilt make thyself one. Build upon thy animal desires and intellectual opinions, and thou buildest upon the sand; build upon Virtue and Holiness, and no wind nor tide shall shake thy strong abode. So shall the Unfailing Wisdom uphold thee in every emergency, and the Everlasting Arms gather thee to thy peace. ”

“ God and man, and I, myself, have made you my judge, and the arbiter of my destiny here. It is an awful power. You have made me feel it to be such. It is an awful power, because it is a subtile, invisible power—higher, and deeper, and broader than any law. ”

“ Let us spring forth when the word is given to perform any and every duty we are called upon to perform. Let us present a firm and unbroken phalanx of strength against evil of every description, and be united in frowning it down. ”

“ If, as we all admit, there is a supreme Ruler of the universe, and if, as you say, He rules, over both good and bad spirits, then those actions which we perform against our will are likewise under His direction. ”

“ In that one maxim is concentrated whatever is noble in morality, sublime in religion, or unanswerable in truth. In that pursuit we have all scope for whatever is excellent in our hearts, and none for the petty passions which our nature is heir to. Thus engaged, whatever be our errors, there will be nobility, not weakness, in our remorse; whatever our failure, virtue, not selfishness, in our regret; and, in success, vanity itself will become holy and triumph eternal. ”

“ Indeed, the comparison is often drawn between the nobility and necessity of the duties which we perform and those of him who by divine inspiration and laying on of hands has been called to succor the diseased soul. ”

“ We confess our weakness to any [64] one because that permits us to indulge in it—but when we see in another goodness, strength, virtue, we worship it. You may bind us to you with bands of iron by your virtues—never, as all foreigners think, by your vices. ”

“ Should he give himself over? Should he make over his own life and body to the control of something which he knew was inferior, in spirit, to his own self? Should he commit himself into the power of an inferior control? ”

“ If he is omnipresent, why raise temples to him? If he is master of all, why sacrifice and make offerings to him? If he is just, how can we believe that he punishes creatures whom he has afflicted with weaknesses? ”

“ Come, now, and let us gently reason with the unjust, who is not intentionally in error. “Sweet sir,” we will say to him, “what think you of things esteemed noble and ignoble? Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the god in man? and the ignoble that which subjects the man to the beast?” ”

“ In the which if we follow the rule of Reason, taking it to be our only guide and governor, they lose all the force, power and effect which they by any means may have in and upon us: contrariwise, if we give ourselves over to follow our own sensuality and natural dispositions, they work even the same effect on us—that they do in brute beasts. ”

“ May he strengthen him, that he may vanquish and overcome all his Enemies! And finally, when it pleases his infinite Wisdom to take him out of this World, may he take him to himself, and reward him with an everlasting Crown of Glory in the next! ”

“ But if we enter the parlor or take a peep into the nursery, we shall soon find our mistake. We shall see that the power itself which moves the thousand wheels without, resides within—not a physical, but amoral power —not a power to be feared and dreaded, but a power to be admired and loved—not a power which binds with chains of iron, but with slender, silken cords. ”

“ I’m thinking, that if I was a lord, I should act in a clean contrary way; by the powers now, that man has got what I call a tough constitution; his heart’s made of stone like a brick wall—Oh! that a man should have the power of a man, and not know how to behave like a man! ”

“ He who selfishly seeks authority shall succeed only in becoming a trembling apologist courting protection behind the back of acknowledged greatness. He who will become the servant of all men, desiring no personal authority, shall live as a man, and shall be called great. "Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart, and thou shalt reproduce the foreworld again." ”

“ Without any historical knowledge of the matter, he knew by a species of instinct that pride was the wreck of most men, and that, to wield real, substantial power, it is often necessary to assume a garb of apparent inefficiency and incapacity. ”

“ But can we, with all our boasted advantages of wealth, power, and knowledge, truly say that all our aims are as high, all our desires as pure, our words as true, and our deeds as noble, as those whose opinions we feel this tendency to contemn? ”

“ Do ye also want a light, ye most concealed, strongest and most undaunted men of the blackest midnight?—This world is the Will to Power—and nothing else! And even ye yourselves are this will to power—and nothing besides! ”

“ Can you control your character? We have already seen that you cannot. Can you control the conduct of others,—others perhaps whom you have never seen, but who may ruin you at a word; a despot, for instance, or a warrior? ”

“ For we take away from confidence in our doctrine when conscience impedes the tongue. Whence also it is written of the Lord, ‘He taught as one having authority, and not as the Scribes.’ For peculiarly and above all He spoke only from a good power, because He had done no evil through weakness. ”

“ And if I believed that the world was made by a malignant Power, or that the fortunes of men were the sport of a doubtful conflict between good and evil deities or principles, my life, like that of the ancients, would be filled with superstitions and painful fears. ”

“ I often compared myself to them, and finding that my chief superiority consisted in power, I soon persuaded myself that it was in power only that I was inferior to the chiefest potentates of the earth. ”

“ Should the breath of the Holy Spirit confirm the weakest of creatures, he would attain all to which he aspireth and would possess anything he desireth. Indeed, Thou hast assisted Thy servants in the past and, though they were the weakest of Thy creatures, the lowliest of Thy servants and the most insignificant of those who lived upon the earth, through Thy sanction and potency they took precedence over the most glorious of Thy people and the most noble of mankind. ”

“ Si vous persistez à vous creuser l'esprit pour trouver de nouveaux malheurs, choisissez les tels que vous voudrez. Je suis roi, je puis vous en procurer au gré de vos souhaits: et ce qui sûrement ne vous arrivera pas vis à vis de vos ennemis, je cesserai de vous persecuter quand vous cesserez de mettre votre gloire à l'être. ”

“ As to the world, I hope that I shall be endued by Heaven with that presence of mind, that serene dignity in misfortune, that constitutes the character of a true nobleman; a dignity far beyond that of coronets; a nobility arising from the just principles of philosophy, refined and exalted by those of Christianity. ”

“ I bear witness also that all besides Thee are but Thy creatures, and are held within Thy grasp. No one is favoured with means or liveth in want except by Thy Will. Thou art the King of everlasting days and the supreme Ruler. Thy might is potent over all things and all created things exist by Thy Will. All mankind recognize their lowly servitude and confess their shortcomings and naught is there which doth not celebrate Thy praise. ”

“ Then everything includes itself in power; Power into will, will into appetite; And appetite, an universal wolf. So doubly seconded with will and power, Must make perforce an universal prey. And, last, eat up himself. ”

“ Yesterday, we worshiped, with them, gods of man’s creation, bearing the kindred impress of decay, and, with our authority, would have punished with death those subject to a defection like our own of to-day. ”

“ Thou seest how Thy righteous servants have fallen into the hands of the wicked doers, who have disbelieved in Thy name, the Unconstrained, and denied Thy majesty, and Thine unrestrained authority, and Thy strength, and Thy sovereign might. ”

“ To a graceful fashion and deportment of body, you have joined a winning conversation, and an easy greatness, derived to you from the best, and best-beloved of princes. And with a great power of obliging, the world has observed in you a desire to oblige, even beyond your power. ”

“ It was through this fatal paradox in the nature of things that all these modern adventurers come at last to a sort of tedium and acquiescence. They desired strength; and to them to desire strength was to admire strength; to admire strength was simply to admire the statu quo. ”

“ Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power—how COULD you live in accordance with such indifference? ”

“ And by this process, humility and docile dispositions may exist towards the master, endued as he is with the power which personal presence confers; but at the same time they will be liable to overstep their due bounds, and to degenerate into passiveness and prostration of mind. This towards him; while, with respect to other living men, nay even to the mighty spirits of past times, there may be associated with such weakness a want of modesty and humility. ”

“ How few men we see use their authority to repair an error, punish a lie or any villainy whatsoever! Weakness, hesitation, doubt, lack of initiative, indifference, have taken the place of moral courage, and that through the lack of character-training. ”

“ Signs of nobility: never to think of lowering our duties to the rank of duties for everybody; to be unwilling to renounce or to share our responsibilities; to count our prerogatives, and the exercise of them, among our duties. ”

“ Wouldst thou force the Spirits of the Evening Breeze to minister to thy folly and caprice? Know that with such desires thou canst but attract the Weak, not the Strong, and in that case the Weak will have power over thee. ”

“ Where we may endeavour to drive or even to lead in vain, influence, with subtle tact and potent sway, may, like a gracious Divinity, become an unseen but pervading power, restoring, controlling, directing those who come within her realm. ”

“ There is only one motto for good manners: the two words "noblesse oblige"—not in the restricted sense of the word “noblesse” but in the widest sense in which every human being has a conscious nobility. ”

“ In asking myself why is it that the meanest are safe from our condemnation when we sit on the true seat of judgment in the heart, it seemed to me that their shield was the sense we have of a nobility hidden in them under the cover of ignoble things ”

“ When in doubt how to act, ask yourself, What does nobility command? Be on good terms with yourself.
17. Look for no reward for goodness but goodness itself. Remember heaven and hell are utterly immoral institutions, if they are meant as reward and punishment. ”

“ We see the just troubled and perplexed in their own minds, the wicked easy, fearless, and secure,—the just crossed and afflicted by the divine Providence, the wicked prosperous, successful, and smiled upon,—the just, censured, reproached, and run down, by the higher powers, the wicked applauded and preferred. ”

“ He fixes our attention, we may say, on three great principles: the character of God our Father, and His impartial, individual, disciplinary love: the final and universal victory of His kingdom over all resisting forces within and without: the critical character of our present life with its capacities for good or for evil, and the limitless consequences for good or evil which flow from the present attitude of each individual towards his personal responsibilities. ”

“ I am persuaded that we are weak and fallible creatures; but I cannot for an instant admit, that an all-wise and merciful Being has exacted any one duty, or enforced any one command, without having bestowed upon us the faculties and capacity for fulfilling our obligations. ”

“ Of austere and commanding virtue, irreproachable in his self-denying life, trained in all the learning of the schools, and gifted with rare persuasive eloquence, he became the terror of the hierarchy, and found the laity ready enough to listen and to act upon doctrines which satisfied their worldly aspirations as well as their spiritual longings. ”