Human hands

“ Thus one order and degree of loves and of thoughts may constitute the head in the mind, whilst another may constitute the trunk, another the arms and hands, and a fourth the legs and feet, the three latter being all of them in subordination to, and under the control of, the first, or highest, as is the case in the corresponding members of the body, which are all of them subject to, and at the disposal of the head. ”

“ If in my hour of agony and shame I could implore the help of any human being, I would come to you—dear, honest, brave girl!—before all others, to fling myself at your feet, and kiss your hands, and beseech you to pity me and save me from myself, to hold my hot head on your gentle bosom, and your soothing hand on my fierce heart. ”

“ People control their countenances, but the hand is under no such restraint. It relaxes and becomes listless when the spirit is low and dejected; the muscles tighten when the mind is excited or the heart glad; and permanent qualities stand written on it all the time.
As there are many beauties of the face, so the beauties of the hand are many. Touch has its ecstasies. The hands of people of strong individuality and sensitiveness are wonderfully mobile. In a glance of their finger-tips they express many shades of thought. ”

“ And I have already written in the book 'Tola'at Yaakov' that there are ten fingers in the hand of a person corresponding to the higher wisdoms, as the hands with their fingers are the instruments of action to serve the soul with them. ”

“ Have you ever stopped to think of another matter: that all things about us, except the things that live, have been made by hands? And of the things that live very many are cared for by the hands. These thoughts will suggest something to us. Those things which are good and beautiful suggest noble use of the hands; while those which are of no service, harmful and destructive, show an ignoble use. But noble and ignoble use of the hands is only another evidence of thought. Thought that is pure in the heart guides the hands to beautiful ends. ”

“ It really is a good deal as if we were born like a dog or a horse, with head, body, and legs, but no hands, and had to make our hands for ourselves. How we should work in such a case, building our fingers, shaping our thumbs, and in every way getting the best possible sort of hands to use thereafter. ”

“ Great care should be given to freeing the hands and fingers. Because the hand is in such constant communication with the brain, the tension of the entire body often seems to be reflected there. Sometimes it is even necessary to train the hand to some extent in the earliest lessons. ”

“ Chirology is a fifth work which I bequeath to my successors, for I am contented here to make known but the elements of this interesting science.
The hand is the essential organ of touch. Touch is the sense which very nearly takes the place of all the others, and which alone is indispensable. Since the hand alone can carry out all that a man desires, it is to an extent action itself. The sum total of our vitality passes through it; and men of powerful intellects are usually remarkable for their shapely hands, perfection in that respect being a distinguishing trait of their high calling. ”

“ So you, who are untrained of touch, do not recognize a hand by the grasp; and so, too, any description I might give would fail to make you acquainted with a friendly hand which my fingers have often folded about, and which my affection translates to my memory. I cannot describe hands under any class or type; there is no democracy of hands. Some hands tell me that they do everything with the maximum of bustle and noise. Other hands are fidgety and unadvised, with nervous, fussy fingers which indicate a nature sensitive to the little pricks of daily life. ”

“ But the arms and hands are all the finer machineries or inventions which are wielded directly by the arms and hands of the soul; they are the pen and the sword; the instrument of many strings; strength and manipulation in all their bearings ”

“ But see what you have to avoid, what to observe, and what to fear. It happens that, in the human body, or in any other body, some member may be cut off, hand, finger, or foot. Does the soul follow it when cut off? ”

“ Look where we will, we find the hand in time and history, working, building, inventing, bringing civilization out of barbarism. The hand symbolizes power and the excellence of work. The mechanic’s hand, that minister of elemental forces, the hand that hews, saws, cuts, builds, is useful in the world equally with the delicate hand that paints a wild flower or molds a Grecian urn, or the hand of a statesman that writes a law. ”

“ How that little useless hand would shrink from the touch of the gaunt, horny, clay-coloured, begrimed workman's hand, which hard, unremitting labour has changed into a kind of hoof. Some hands are coy, others paddle you indecently; the grip of some is hypocritical, and not what it pretends to be; there is the velvety, the unctuous, the priestly, the humbug's hand ”

“ What the mind conceives the hands put into execution, and what the heart wills the hand makes possible. Upon the palm are found more or less indications of the physical and mental attitudes of men—their appetites, instincts, and ambitions. ”

“ Like all the organs of our senses, the hands are the instrument of wickedness to sinful man; his sense of touch is the inlet of evil. How refined that sense in the adroit pickpocket, but to what an ill purpose is it devoted! How dexterous are the hands of the shoplifter, but to what a wretched course have they been trained! The hand grasps the pen; every stroke is guided by its delicate sense of touch; it obeys the mind ”

“ We could almost say, forget the hands except to keep them clean, including the nails, cordial and helpful. One hand may rest easily in the other. Study repose of attitude here as well as in the rest of the body. ”

“ By what half-development of human power has the left hand been neglected? When we arrive at the acme of civilization shall we not all be ambidextrous, and in our hand-to-hand contests against difficulties shall we not be doubly triumphant? It occurs to me, by the way, that when my teacher was training my unreclaimed spirit, her struggle against the powers of darkness, with the stout arm of discipline and the light of the manual alphabet, was in two senses a hand-to-hand conflict. ”

“ For this reason the hands were attached to the body; for though we can count up very many uses in daily life for which these skilfully contrived and helpful instruments, our hands, that easily follow every art and every operation, alike in war and peace [11] , are serviceable, yet nature added them to our body pre-eminently for the sake of reason. ”

“ These are they who begin, well, but cease before they are perfect.—In India, there are also men who possess six hands. They are without clothes, but are extremely hairy, and dwell in rivers. (115) These are the laborious of the world.—There are men who have six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot. ”

“ The eyes being of small use, he must touch with his hands. Those hands are the most distinctive feature of his person; they are full of expression; tenderly groping hands, that hesitate and fumble in wistful fashion like the feelers of some sensitive creature of night. There is trouble, too, in that obese and sluggish body; trouble to which the unhealthy complexion testifies. ”

“ Somehow, from seeing the people walk upon their hands, I had expected to see them perform their tasks with their feet and it came as something of a surprise to see these fellows using their hands like ordinary mortals. ”

“ Every one should have a share of that responsibility, and they cannot throw that responsibility off; for upon my head devolves the responsibility of directing my hands and my feet and other members of my body in their exercises. It is equally the duty of every other member of the body to administer to the head. The hands have to feel the head, and the head has to be properly guarded and shielded, that it may be active and the brain vigorous, that every movement may be wisely directed and every energy of the body directed in proper channels.
Our God deals with us as a people. ”

“ The human hand is not only the symbol of the intelligent artificer, “the hand of the master,” the sign and epitome of the lord and ruler; it is the instrument of the will alike for good and evil deeds. The idea of it as the active participator in every act embodies itself in all vocabularies. The imperial mandate, the lordly manumission, the skilled manufacturer, the handy tool, the unhandy workman, the left-handed stroke, the handless drudge, with other equally familiar terms, all refer to the same ever-ready exponent of the will ”

“ One finds himself frequently touched by hands, or something having the form of hands, during dark seances, or under circumstances which do not permit us to see these forms; but I have seen these hands. ”

“ The bronzed hands of toil, the opaque hands of idleness, differing even as life and death, the dear, remembered, cordial hands of one's youth,—shall they not have-19- their laureate also in the commentator that is to be, this new philosopher in trifles, this student of the furthest and subtlest bodily activities, and chronicler, as it were, in extremis?
The hand betrays the heart ”

“ The word “hand” means to hold or seize and is to man what the claw is to the bird, fin to fish, and hoof to horse. The hand is marvelously made with 27 bones, 8 of which are in the wrist, 5 form the palms, and 14 the bones or phalanges, or fingers. The hand was made for work, as proved by anatomy and Scripture—“Go to work”; “Work earnestly with both hands”; “Handsome is that handsome does”; and black or white hands are fine which do good work. ”

“ The word hand has come to be often used in a symbolic sense in many expressive phrases possessing a social and moral significance: "Take heed that the hand of the Lord does not fall upon you;" "Pilate washed his hands;" "to put oneself into another's hands;" ”

“ The eyes, the hands, the feet, the stomach, and all the organs and members of the body serve one another just as the mental faculties do, just as men in various offices do. They constitute a little kingdom of uses. ”

“ With the hands we describe, and point out all circumstances of time, place and manner of what we relate; we excite the passions of others, and soothe them: we approve and disapprove, permit or prohibit, admire or despise. The hands serve us instead of many sorts of words, and where the language of the tongue is unknown, that of the hands is understood, being universal and common to all nations.
The legs advance, or retreat, to express desire, or aversion, love or hatred, courage or fear, and produce exultation, or leaping in sudden joy ”

“ It is the hand that binds me to the world of men and women. The hand is my feeler with which I reach through isolation and darkness and seize every pleasure, every activity that my fingers encounter. With the dropping of a little word from another’s hand into mine, a slight flutter of the fingers, began the intelligence, the joy, the fullness of my life. Like Job, I feel as if a hand had made me, fashioned me together round about and molded my very soul. ”

“ But speaking generally, people with this type of hand rarely accumulate as much wealth as those possessing the Square Hand.
The knotted or jointed fingers give carefulness and detail in work or study. They arrest the impulse of the brain, and so acquire time for thought and reflection.
The Philosophic Hand is one of the highest developments of the mental side of the human family. ”

“ It is an error to suppose these actions are essentially distinguished from the voluntary movement of the hands. We have acquired a power of definite direction in the movements of the hands, which renders them obedient to our will ”

“ We have eyes, to see what needs to be done, and ears, to hear what we are told to do. We have two hands, with ten fingers, which makes it easy for us to handle different objects; and they must be taught to be skilful. ”

“ Then, mechanically, as he always did when studying people's hands, he looked at his own: his father's hands, but still boy's hands, though they were already becoming manlier, short and broad, white and strong, hands that would take a close, steady grip of things. ”

“ Any widely manifested difference in the sensitiveness of one of the hands, apart from its habitual use in all ordinary manipulation, and especially among uncultured races, would assuredly seem to indicate some congenital distinction leading to the preferential use of the right hand. ”

“ How constantly the hand aids us in explaining or enforcing a thought! We affirm a fact by placing the hand as if we would rest it firmly on a body; we deny by a gesture putting the false or erroneous proposition away from us ”

“ None of you will be the worse of thinking of that hand as His who makes, supports, moves, and governs all things,—that hand which, while it wheels the rolling worlds, gathers the lambs with his arm, carries them in his bosom, and gently leads those that are with young, and which was once nailed for "our advantage on the bitter cross." ”

“ An important distinction is also pointed at between the hands and the fingers, likewise between warring and fighting, to lead us to reflect further on the distinct principles from which we are to combat, viz. the principles of heavenly love and charity in the will, which are here called my hands, and the principles of heavenly truth and knowledge in the understanding, which are called my fingers ”

“ The expressions of the hands are manifold. By different attitudes and motions, the hands express desire, hope, fear: they assist us in promising, in inviting, in keeping one at a distance: they are made instruments of threatening, of supplication, of praise, and of{122} horror: they are employ’d in approving, in refusing, in questioning; in showing our joy, our sorrow, our doubts, our regret, our admiration. These gestures, so obedient to passion, are extremely difficult to be imitated in a calm state. ”

“ The hands work and the mind works. Neither can rest and accomplish the needs, and while the hands iron and bake and wash, 65 the mind is occupied on what the hungry mouths demand, and how an old coat or vest or an under garment can be made into an article of service. ”