Interest

“ Interest and aims, concern and purpose, are necessarily connected. Such words as aim, intent, end, emphasize the results which are wanted and striven for; they take for granted the personal attitude of solicitude and attentive eagerness. Such words as interest, affection, concern, motivation, emphasize the bearing of what is foreseen upon the individual's fortunes, and his active desire to act to secure a possible result. They take for granted the objective changes. But the difference is but one of emphasis; the meaning that is shaded in one set of words is illuminated in the other. ”

“ But the young man turned and followed with an interest independent of fair features or becoming raiment—an interest which had its rise in a determination to solve a problem, or at any rate to silence a doubt. ”

“ What will be will be well, for what is is well,
To take interest is well, and not to take interest shall be well. ”

“ Thus their principle is interest or pleasure; and when they say that they act from principle, how can we believe them, unless we see that they do it against interest? A proof which they rarely give us! ”

“ How can you expect to obtain that which will interest every one, when you do not know what it is in which every one takes an interest? Go, find out this, and then return to me, and I will see what can be done. ”

“ Let us look then at life just as it is. Here we find ourselves involved with one another in the most complex relations—economic, political, social, domestic, and the rest; and about and in these relations centres the interest of our life, whether it be pleasurable or painful, empty or full, or whatever its character. ”

“ This term interest, which commonly implies little more than our property, is sometimes put for utility in general, and this for happiness; insomuch, that, under these ambiguities, it is not surprising we are still unable to determine, whether interest is the only motive of human action, and the standard by which to distinguish our good from our ill. ”

“ what disputing of prices, what reckonings of interest,—and all to form the Hand of the mind ;—to instruct us that "good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be executed!" ”

“ The summit or sum of these states of mind we happily express with the word interest. For in reality the feeling of self appears between the various stages of the process of apperception (inter esse) ; with one's whole soul does one contemplate the object of attention. If we regard the acquired knowledge as the objective result of apperception, interest must be regarded as the subjective side. ”

“ You have an original viewpoint; you write with a sense of direction, and you pack in human interest—human interest's always good. And you know the values of words."
"When you're paying three dollars and eighty cents an inch for space you do think about them!" ”

“ An occupation, employment, pursuit, business is often referred to as an interest. Thus we say that a man's interest is politics, or journalism, or philanthropy, or archaeology, or collecting Japanese prints, or banking. ”

“ At this time, too, interest is stirred to attempt an understanding of the 'reason for things'—the mind endeavors to arrive at some law or principle beneath the varied course of life and action in the world. ”

“ The great means of progress, for individuals, for nations, and for the race at large, is the multiplication of Objects of interest. The indulgence of the passions is the characteristic of men and societies who have but one occupation and a single interest; while the passions cause comparatively little trouble where the intellect is active, and the life diversified with objects. ”

“ Professor Albion Small, whose methodology will be indicated in Chapter XXVII, has modified, corrected, and refined Ratzenhofer’s theory of interests. “In the beginning were interests,” says Professor Small.XXI-8 An “interest” is defined as an unsatisfied capacity, an unrealized condition of the organism, a tendency securing satisfaction of an unsatisfied capacity.XXI-9 In its subjective phase an interest is a desire, and in its objective phase, a want. An interest is developed when the individual knows something, feels something, or wills something. ”

“ Is it political duties, the affairs of state, economic problems, some adjustment of our relations that shall lighten and relieve the wrongs and misery everywhere apparent; is the interest in intellectual pursuits and art (except in a dilettante way dictated for a season by fashion) in books, in the wide range of mental pleasures which make men superior to the accidents of fortune? ”

“ In any work there is possible, first, more or less of the workman's interest—an interest not merely in a conventional standard of excellence in the finished result but also in betterment of the standard and in a corresponding heightened excellence of technique and spirit in the execution.49 These interests, without reference to the useful result and "for their own sake" (i.e., for the workman's sake, in ways not specifiable in advance) , may command a share of one's available time, strength, and resources. ”

“ The great requisite, it should appear then, for the prosperous management of ordinary business, is the want of imagination, or of any ideas but those of custom and interest on the narrowest scale:—and as the affairs of the world are necessarily carried on by the common run of its inhabitants, it seems a wise dispensation of Providence that it should be so. ”

“ Some interest we should have—even worldly prudence counsels this much—as far remote as possible from our leading interest; and beyond that, some book belonging to the world's great spiritual literature on which we may daily feed. ”

“ As to the sweetness of labor and fulfilled claims; the interest of inward and outward activity; the impersonal delights of life as a perpetual discovery; the dues of courage, fortitude, industry, which it is mere baseness not to pay toward the common burden ”

“ This interest, which is often exalted in us so as to become a want, is the explanation of many of our fancies for flowers and for animals, our preference for gardens laid out in the natural style, our love of walks, of the country and those who live there, of a great number of objects proceeding from a remote antiquity, etc. It is taken for granted that no affectation exists in the matter, and moreover that no accidental interest comes into play. ”

“ The Value of a Strong Interest.—Nor are we to look upon these transitory interests as useless. They come to us not only as a race heritage, but they impel us to activities which are immediately useful, or else prepare262 us for the later battles of life. ”

“ A knowledge of the real things in the objective world about us and the laws that govern them in their inter-relations is of practical [Pg vii] value to every man, whatever his calling may be. Not only will it be of value practically, but it will also be a constant source of interest and pleasure. ”

“ He will watch, with care and interest, the operation of the moral and intellectual causes which he sets in operation, and find, as he accomplishes his various objects with increasing facility and power, that he will derive a greater and greater pleasure from his work. ”

“ The real meaning of the interest theory, at least as I have to understand it, is simply (1) that the natural child or the natural man always has something to do, and (2) that education should promote that something. It is far from meaning that there should be no compulsion or discipline, no pain or self-denial. ”

“ In truth, there is much in his notes that is trivial, even much that might be called worthless. But there is a great deal that will be of immense interest, dealing as it does with some of the most important social events of the day. ”

“ I judge of the value of human pursuits by their bearing upon human interests—in other words, by their utility; but I should like that we should quite clearly understand what it is that we mean by this word "utility." ”

“ Desires and Interests.—These complexes of thinking, feeling, and willing make up the conscious desires and interests that mould the individual life. Through the processes of attention to the stimuli that act upon human nature, discrimination between them, association of [346] impressions and ideas that come from present and past experience, and deliberate judgments of value, the mind moves to action for the satisfaction of personal desires and interests. ”

“ Every man is to be considered in two capacities, the private and public; as designed to pursue his own interest, and likewise to contribute to the good of others. ”

“ Though there may be many who will be unable to appreciate the endeavors of the society, I can, as far as I am concerned, assure your Excellency that I can estimate at their true value all great and noble 376ideas, as well as those who labor for the accomplishment of such ideas, and so I follow these endeavors with the warmest interest. ”

“ A natural interest is also awakened by what is strange, mysterious, and even frightful, but these kinds of interest concern us from a speculative rather than a pedagogical point of view. We are seeking for those interests which contribute to a normal and permanent mental action. ”

“ The sources of interest therefore are varied and productive. Any one of the six is unlimited in extent and variety. Together they constitute a boundless field for a proper cultivation of the emotional as well as intellectual nature of man. ”

“ I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being. Those interests, I contend, authorise the subjection of individual spontaneity to external control, only in respect to [Pg 20] those actions of each, which concern the interest of other people. ”

“ There is, evidently, that much method. We may also, further, note that the body of the book is taken up with such themes as interest men who are between these two extremes: occupations, business, politics, and, as men speak, religion. ”

“ Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest. ”

“ The affairs of life embrace a multitude of interests, and he who reasons on any one of them, without consulting the rest, is a visionary unsuited to control the business of the world. ”

“ In this discussion I have constantly spoken of Duties as more important than Interests; but these in the end will be found to agree. The energy by which men prosper is fortified by nothing so much as by the lofty spirit which scorns to prosper through abandonment of duty. ”

“ One must consider what an overwhelming preponderance of the most tenacious energies and most concentrated interests of a society must be absorbed between material cares and the solicitude of the affections. ”

“ Interests are directed less toward specific objects than toward the ends which this or that particular object at one time or another embodies. Interests imply, therefore, the existence of means and a consciousness of the distinction between means and ends. ”

“ Our interests, furthermore, are possibly as numerous as our reflex arcs. Each may, and most do, constitute distinct and independent valuations of their objects, to which they respond, and each, with these objects, remains an irreducible system. ”

“ Other interests that have once been held in higher esteem appear by comparison to have fallen into abeyance, -- religious devotion, political prestige, fighting capacity, gentility, pecuniary distinction, profuse consumption of goods. ”

“ We get professions, corporations, institutions, and classes corresponding to all these different activities; men, that is to say, who have passions, ambitions, desires, needs, and interests, and who quickly come into conflict with one another. ”

“ Many different interests are concerned, and it is often extremely difficult to disentangle them. Three such interests stand out very clearly: the true æsthetic one, the purely commercial one, and the sociological one. ”

“ his greatest and highest interests have been, are, and will be, directed by reason throughout the course of his life. ”

“ You will hear, that the first duty is to get land and money, place and name. 'What is this Truth you seek? what is this Beauty?' men will ask, with derision. If, nevertheless, God have called any of you to explore truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. ”