Disapproval

“ And rebuke; convince and reprove such as contradict or gainsay, or neglect and do not receive the truth as they should, or retain it in unrighteousness—those who hear it not with such a believing and obedient mind and heart as they ought, but, instead of this (it may be) live in contrary practices, showing themselves stubborn and disobedient, and to every good work reprobate. Rebuke with all authority, as coming in the name of God, and armed with his threatenings and discipline, whoever make light of which will do it at their peril. Ministers are reprovers in the gate. ”

“ For a man to address himself to an assembly like this, however, goaded to madness by suffering, sorrow, humiliation, perplexity—and now roused by venomous arts to an almost unanimous condemnation of the innocent—I say to address you, turn you in your tracks and force you to go the other way—that would indeed be a feat of transcendent oratorical power. I am no orator—but I am going to tell you the truth and the truth will make you do that thing! ”

“ THERE are few constitutional misfortunes that lead to more unhappiness and disgrace than a wavering, unsettled disposition. In all its aspects of ambiguous expression, variable opinion, and contradictory behaviour, it is blameable and hideous. It is always open to censure, and is often the parent of deceit, dissimulation, and treachery. ”

“ I see all the captious jealousy of conscious usurpation dreaded, detested, and obeyed—the giddiness and intoxication of splendid but unmerited success—the arrogance, the presumption, the self-will of unlimited and idolized power, and—more dreadful than all in the plenitude of authority—the restless and incessant activity of guilty but unsated ambition. ”

“ If so, what precise inference could you draw as a guide for your conduct, were I to acknowledge that I had expressed an opinion of you still more despicable than the one which is particularized? How could you be sure that even this opinion had exceeded the bounds which you would yourself deem admissible between political opponents?
But I forbear further comment on the embarrassment to which the requisition you have made naturally leads. The occasion forbids a more ample illustration, though nothing could be more easy than to pursue it. ”

“ Every day I exist, I the more fervently [102] congratulate myself upon having forsaken the deceitful splendour of a false ambition, for wherever I look around among those who belong to that undeservedly honoured section of society I was forced to leave in disgust, I observe so much of envy, inquietude, pride, folly, hatred, ignorance, ambition, and tyranny, I wonder that such things the prejudices of custom can regard with homage. ”

“ So that they cry out at the suggestion that it is no more than a selfish vice; and finding truth where they had looked for the materials of another debauch of self-delusion, they moan aloud: they protest, and they demand as their sacred right that the bitter cup be taken from before them. ”

“ Knowing that 'due decorum's' breach foulest disgrace will cause.
Those firm in mind will not slacken in their observance of the proprieties of life, knowing, as they do, the misery that flows from the transgression from them. ”

“ Whether you examine the conduct of the nation at large, or that of its chiefs and leaders, your feelings revolt at the one, and your integrity despises the other. You see the idols erected by Folly, degraded by Caprice;—the authority obtained by Intrigue, bartered by Profligacy;—and the perfidy and corruption of one side so balanced by the barbarity and levity of the other, that the mind, unable to decide on the preference of contending vices, is obliged to find repose, though with regret and disgust, in acknowledging the general depravity. ”

“ If, in laying open the real causes of our present misery, I am forced to speak with some freedom, I think it will require no apology. Reputation is the smallest sacrifice those can make us, who have been the instruments of our ruin ”

“ Over-refinement, however, cannot be charged as the failing of most of our periodical publications. Some are full of polemical orthodoxy—some of methodistical deliration—some inculcate servility, and others preach up sedition—some creep along in a series of dull truisms and stale moralities—while others, more ‘lively, audible, and full of vent,’ subsist on the great staple of falsehood and personality, and enjoy all the advantages that result from an entire contempt for the restraints of decency, consistency, or candour. ”

“ But the things which are in the habit of being said, for the sake of amplification, or in the way of digression, or when men are summing up, are introduced either to excite hatred, or pity, or to work on the feelings of the judges by means of those arguments which have been already given; provided that the importance of the facts, or the envy of men, or the dignity of the parties, will allow of it. ”

“ Else, when he has mistaken his authority, through passion, through ignorance, or absurdity, he will be the object of contempt from his inferiors, and of censure from those to whom he is accountable for his conduct. ”

“ Will you suffer them to insult your understanding, and to stamp you as incorrigible fools, with impunity? This, indeed, is one of the cases in which we do not know what to admire most—the towering impudence of the imposters, or the unfathomable stupidity of the victims. ”

“ For if it be found that uneasiness, discontent, clamour, nay, if you will, permanent unpopularity, are the necessary results of a certain statement, supposing it to be true, then the actual prevalence of such feelings, however undesirable in itself, is no objection to the truth of the statement, but rather an argument in its favour, as far as it goes. ”

“ Desperate necessity, the sense of her own forlornness, the utter impossibility to struggle with an omnipotent foe, who, her husband had taught her, was above all scruples, prejudices, and fears, and who, though he respected law, despised opinion, made the victim yield. ”

“ How long will it take an individual or a nation to conquer prejudices, by continuing to practice and excuse them;—substituting general acknowledgements of their guilt, for immediately and thoroughly repudiating them? ”

“ That the reproach urged with so much petulance, the reproach of labouring for what cannot be enjoyed, is founded on an opinion which may with great probability be doubted; for since we suppose the powers of the soul to be enlarged by its separation, why should we conclude that its knowledge of sublunary transactions is contracted or extinguished? ”

“ One of the complaints against disloyal suitors, and one which strikes a singularly modern note, is that they make protests of love, and false promises, which must be either paid for dearly, or rejected with scorn. ”

“ But according to every hypothesis as to the law, and the temptations and pressures towards vice, here are the individuals who, of all the society, have yielded to said pressure. These are of the worst substance for enduring pressure! ”

“ The learned dulness of declamation will be silent; and even the venal muse, though happiest in fiction, will forget your virtues. Yet, for the benefit of the succeeding age, I could wish that your retreat might be deferred until your morals shall happily be ripened to that maturity of corruption, at which the worst examples cease to be contagious. ”

“ Even where the approbation or censure of those who may pass an opinion, favorable, or unfavorable, upon our conduct, can be of no benefit or injury to us, that approbation is still desired, that censure is still feared. ”

“ Your deplorable situation fills all minds here; no one doubts that unforeseen revelations, to which time and circumstances always lead, will completely justify the details that you yourself have given, and cause pity and universal interest to take the place of the prejudices you speak of. ”

“ But there are particular moments in public affairs, when the people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures, which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. ”

“ Their dereliction of their principles becomes manifest and indefensible, in proportion to the vehemence with which they have pledged themselves always to maintain them, and the contempt and indignation which accompanies their retreat is equivalent to the expectations excited by the boldness and determination of their advance. ”

“ The continual spectacle of woe blunts the finer feelings, and the necessity of bearing with the sight, renders it familiar. In like manner, are many of the moral obligations of society weakened, till the custom of acting by necessity becomes an apology, where it is truly a crime. ”

“ And I protest for myself, the alms which the narrowness of my fortune will permit me to bestow, is distributed, much more in favour of those of a disgusting and a forbidding aspect, than in favour of those who have a persuasive manner, and a winning outward appearance. ”

“ For if they who by their importunity urge our modesty, do it either for their own reputation or their authority, it were absurd and beside the purpose for us to augment the honour, credit and authority of another, and to dishonour, discredit and disgrace ourselves ”

“ If the volition of the child, or ignorant citizen, is restrained, judgment is trampled upon, and passion leads on to personal and civil misery, to which no remedy can be applied, but absolute and despotic restraint. ”

“ Any one answers too well for me, if he answers what I say: when the dispute is irregular and disordered, I leave the thing itself, and insist upon the form with anger and indiscretion; falling into wilful, malicious, and imperious way of disputation, of which I am afterwards ashamed. 'Tis impossible to deal fairly with a fool: my judgment is not only corrupted under the hand of so impetuous a master, but my conscience also. ”

“ One may imagine the emotions of shame, sorrow, and indignation with which the vast assembly, consisting of both sexes, listened to the words of an instrument, every sentence of which seemed to convey a personal indignity to the hearers—an outrage on all those ideas of decorum and decency in which they had been nurtured from infancy ”

“ The dark and uncertain notions, not to say the absolute disbelief, which they entertained of a future state, is the only apology that can be offered for this reasoning. But while we censure their tenets, let us not adopt their errors; errors which would be infinitely more inexcusable in us, who, from the clearer views which revelation has given us, shall not have their ignorance or their doubts to plead. ”

“ If he displeases us, we may express our distaste, and we may stand aloof from a person as well as from a thing that displeases us; but we shall not therefore feel called on to make his life uncomfortable. We shall reflect that he already bears, or will bear, the whole penalty of his error; if he spoils his life by mismanagement, we shall not, for that reason, desire to spoil it still further: instead of wishing to punish him, we shall rather endeavour to alleviate his punishment, by showing him how he may avoid or cure the evils his conduct tends to bring upon him. ”

“ Soon your chastisement will serve as a memorable example to posterity! That is how a man must speak to you in whom you at first inspired pity. Accuse no one of conspiracy against your infernal Constitution. ”

“ The gradual debasement of a word into a term of reproach is sometimes a species of scandal. It is wilfully perverted in the course of years, and made to tell a different tale,—a false tale, probably,—which generations receive as true. ”

“ We are not advised that even in the great excitement which has distressed you for some months past, any one has impeached our moral conduct, or charged us with unsoundness in doctrine, or corruption, or tyranny in the administration of discipline. ”

“ For as to your scoldings so frequent and so severe, and your saying that I am faint-hearted, I would ask you what misery is there so heavy as not to be included in my disfranchisement? Did anyone ever fall from such a high position, in so good a cause, with such endowments of genius, wisdom and popularity, with such powerful supports from all loyalists? ”

“ In actions of enthusiasm this drawback appears, but in those lower activities, which have no higher aim than to make us more comfortable and more cowardly; in actions of cunning, actions that steal and lie, actions that divorce the speculative from the practical faculty and put a ban on reason and sentiment, there is nothing else but drawback and negation. ”

“ That clear voice, prompted by a magnificent love, by a burning zeal, sometimes makes us forget that the zeal was often misguided, and that disobedience to authority is not always the best way of effecting reform. ”

“ It is not that of the two courses we know that one is in the long run the best, and the other more immediately tempting. We have a sense of obligation irrespective of consequence, the violation of which is followed again by a sense of self-disapprobation, of censure, of blame. ”

“ This innoxious and ineffectual character, that seems formed upon a plan of apology and disculpation, falls miserably short of the mark of public duty. That duty demands and requires, that what is right should not only be made known, but made prevalent; that what is evil should not only be detected, but defeated. ”

“ It seems an ungracious task, unfair—perhaps it seems above all retrograde and ignorant—to express doubt and not to think hopefully of a cause in which so many lives have been spent with singular disinterestedness and self-devotion. ”

“ If his reproaches are true, if thou art the envious, ill-natured man he takes thee for, give thyself another turn, become mild, affable and obliging, and his reproaches of thee naturally cease. His reproaches may indeed continue, but thou art no longer the person he reproaches.—Epictetus. ”