Irreverence

“ It signifies a solemn regard paid the persons of men of gravity, of religion, and of authority. By these qualifications men are entitled to it. But when the pride and craft of men who have no real gravity, no real religion, or a foolish one, and only a pretended or an absurd authority, would annex reverence only to grave or grotesque names, it becomes as ridiculous to men of good sense, as it seems awful to such as have none. Reverence belongs only to reverend qualities and reverend actions. ”

“ Revenge from some baneful corner shall level a tale of dishonour at thee, which no innocence of heart or integrity of conduct shall set right.—The fortunes of thy house shall totter,—thy character, which led the way to them, shall bleed on every side of it,—thy faith questioned,—thy works belied,—thy wit forgotten,—thy learning trampled on. ”

“ It is impudence and imposture to demand singular and vast respect to small and common things. Superior virtue and capacity, publick actions and services done to mankind; a generous and benevolent heart, and greatness of mind, are the true objects and sources of reverence. But to claim reverence to prating, to cuts, and colours, and postures, is stupid, ridiculous and saucy. ”

“ XLIII.
“O Haydn,” begg’d I, “say not this. Here speaks
The same rebellion that was once my own.
We must not judge for self, but reverence
The words of men ordain’d to teach the world;
The words of men so learnèd in the truth;
The words of councils fill’d with just such men.—
No reverence have you for authority?” ”

“ If life had not to finish, in fulfilment of a solemn, universal, and inevitable decree, the constraint that I have put upon myself might at length become oppressive, and my yoke prove somewhat heavy. But all that will finish soon, for all undertakings come to an end. ”

“ A barren vengeance that would be, defeating its own object. No, there must be something at the bottom of it, some mischief, some wickedness. ’Tis my lord that’s meant, without question, and in that case I have a right, a duty, to perform in being present. But how to penetrate such perfidy, supposing it to exist? ”

“ When I look back at this period of my life, though it must be with a feeling of disapprobation—and when I coldly say disapprobation, I insinuate remorse—let me confess that I still do so with an undeniable leaven of envy; envy at the lawless liberty I enjoyed, not only with regard to my actions, but to my conscience; revelling in a deficiency of forethought and blindness of consequences, as truly delightful for the present, as overwhelming and deplorable for the future. ”

“ Through it, no doubt, I was drawn by shadows—attracted by the unexplainable—blown by any wind of irresponsibility. This anarchy at least opened out strange vistas of romance to the imaginative soul. It is odd to live apart from, and independent of, the voice of duty. ”

“ Why should a stern, condemning voice declare in recesses of my soul, 'You could and should resist'? For years I have been daily yielding to temptation, and conscience as often pronounces sentence against me. ”

“ The truth is, that from head to foot you are in a state of insurrection, and yet presume to value yourself on your obedience, affirming in proof of it that you furnish a nose to smell for me whenever I desire. ”

“ It is not a name, however awful, nor an office, however important, that ought to bring, or can bring, reverence to the man who possesses them, if he act below them, or unworthily of them. Folly and villainy ought to have no asylum ”

“ If there are inconveniences, and what is called ruin in the way, because we have so enervated and maimed ourselves, yet it would be like dying of perfumes to sink in the effort to reattach the deeds of every day to the holy and mysterious recesses of life. ”

“ Would I could foresee a term to our misery!—Who but yourself shall find a remedy for our misfortunes? Shall we delay, until time brings to light that which is now a secret, and the affront we have received entail on us a shame more intolerable than death itself? ”

“ However ridiculous and pernicious we must admit the vulgar accessories of this creed to be, there is a certain analogy, not wholly absurd, between the consequences resulting to an individual during life from the virtuous or vicious, prudent or imprudent, conduct of his external actions, to those consequences which are conjectured to ensue from the discipline and order of his internal thoughts, as affecting his condition in a future state. ”

“ It benumbed the will, one’s very being became dissolved in it and acquired disgust for life and action. Of what use could it be to will anything, do anything, when you totally resigned yourself to the caprices of an unknown almighty power? ”

“ Thou still with tyrants in succession curst, The last invaders trampling on the first; Nor fondly hope for some reverse of fate, Virtue herself would now return too late. Not half thy course of misery is run, Thy greatest evils yet are scarce begun. ”

“ Whatever complaint I have made against my Fate is sufficient complaint. Know this, that true justice goeth from heart to heart [16] ; for thy sake will I die, I shall become the prey of ravens! [17] But as long as I live I shall weep and suffer enough for thee, too. ”

“ If these Impressions were Inbred, and the Errors purely their Own, it would be a Point, not only of Good Nature, but of Common Justice, and Humanity, to have a Tenderness for People under an Invincible Mistake: But you have Started the Strongest Argument in the World, against your self here, by Enforcing the Necessity of Clearing the Stage of the Seditious Oracles, that Inspire These Desperate Resolutions. ”

“ Fate, which for thirty years forced my inclinations, for thirty others has seemed to oppose them; and this continued opposition, between my situation and inclinations, will appear to have been the source of enormous faults, unheard of misfortunes, and every virtue except that fortitude which alone can do honor to adversity. ”

“ We deny, therefore, that the labours and sorrows of the present life, the loss of such joys as are left to us at its close, and the dreadful agonies and terrors with which death is often attended, have the nature of a penalty. ”

“ It must be confessed, that through the corruption of our depraved nature, and that power, which self-will has, since the Fall, usurped in the soul, we must necessarily break through a great many obstacles. ”

“ I must be pardoned for giving these distressing details; but how otherwise can I depict the misery, moral and physical, which we are enduring? And with it all, I dare not venture to hope that we have reached the climax of our sufferings. ”

“ Are we intelligible? Will those possessed by present tell us whether any bondage, any Bastille, can suggest ideas of more frightful tyranny, misery, than the cruel present, which clings to us, and cannot be removed. ”

“ At length her virtuous resistance so inflamed this wretched being, that not being able to gratify his desires in the manner he wished, he formed the most diabolical plan of vengeance that ever entered the human mind. ”

“ To crush out fanaticism, and to reverence the infinite, such is the law. ”

“ Unreason and injustice at the top, unreason and injustice at the heart and at the bottom, unreason and injustice from beginning to end—if it ever has an end—how should poor Rick, always hovering near it, pluck reason out of it? ”

“ I will not, I cannot rise till you have heard me. Have I not used every other means? have I not employed every other form of entreaty without avail? and I now kneel at your feet to beseech you to spare yourself and me misery interminable. ”

“ Are there, infinitely varying with each individual, inbred forces of Good and Evil in all of us, deep down below the reach of mortal encouragement and mortal repression—hidden Good and hidden Evil, both alike at the mercy of the liberating opportunity and the sufficient temptation? ”

“ May I not revive a creature whose wickedness may involve mankind in misery? And what if my experiment should fail, and if the moment when I expect my rash wishes to be accomplished, the hand of Almighty vengeance should strike me to the earth, and heap molten fire on my brain to punish my presumption! ”

“ How frightful a thing it is to consider what—under an overruling hand and will omnipotent—may be the consequences of the smallest deed we do. The consequences immediate, proximate, future! How many lives, what an amount of misery, how much damnation, may depend upon a light word, an idle jest, a sportive trick! ”

“ Such lapses on the part of men professing to lead others demand heavy penalties. I feared to lose my life, therefore my life must go. Nothing short of this would reinstate me in my own eyes, or give to my repentance that stern and absolute quality which the nature of my sin imperatively demands. ”

“ In order to illustrate the nature of evils of this class, I may take two instances—cruelty and lasciviousness. That these are great intrinsic evils, we may, I think, easily assure ourselves, by imagining the state of a man, whose mind is solely occupied by either of these passions, in their worst form. ”

“ But where reverence is, there is fear; for he who has a feeling of reverence and shame about the commission of any action, fears and is afraid of an ill reputation. ”

“ Then comes a pause, during which he is thinking—we will not say 'too precisely on the event,' but taking his account with consequences: the result appears in the uttered conviction that the extreme possible consequence, death, is a good and not an evil. Throughout, observe, how here, as always, he generalizes, himself being to himself but the type of his race. ”

“ Lastly, there is often an imperious something, which eludes me—a brutal overmastering power thrusting me back into myself, so to speak, and commanding my nerves and muscles—evil actions or words I regret, a cuff or a curse. ”

“ Here at present I felt afresh—for I had felt it again and again—how my equilibrium depended on the success of my rigid will, the will to shut my eyes as tight as possible to the truth that what I had to deal with was, revoltingly, against nature. I could only get on at all by taking “nature” into my confidence and my account, by treating my monstrous ordeal as a push in a direction unusual, of course, and unpleasant, but demanding, after all, for a fair front, only another turn of the screw of ordinary human virtue. ”

“ Why should we fluster ourselves, why wax so hot, when time thus brings its inevitable revenges? Composed in mind, let us pursue our own unruffled course, with calm assurance that justice will at length prevail. ”

“ He thought that the evils inseparably annexed to our condition, such as death, sickness, and the loss of those tenderly beloved, were trials sufficient, without our unnecessarily increasing the load by fictitious ones—clearly the result of our follies, contentions, and prejudices. ”

“ Nor will a serious or philosophic mind be displeased with such an interlude, which may serve as a temporary resting post to the weary traveler who has trodden over the field of carnage, until the soul is sickened by a view of the absurdity and cruelty of his own species. ”

“ You are conquered from within, and that is the irretrievable defeat. When you are conquered from without, you can continue to resist and hope for revenge. Your ruin is within you. The necessary consequences of your crimes and your errors are at hand in spite of your efforts to prevent them, and with amazement you see the beginning of your downfall. ”

“ After all, if the old order crumbled, was it not because of its own weakness? Was not the fact of its decay the sign of some secret disintegration, of rottenness at the core? And if the new spirit could destroy, perhaps it could build as well. ”

“ Individuals fall from one extreme into another, from the extreme of rude excess, lawlessness, barbarism, and self-will, into the renunciation of all things without exception, the conquest of all desires. ”

“ So, when, in refraining from any evil action, his end is merely to avoid civil and social penalties, such as punishment for violation of law, or the loss of character and standing in society, then, his ends being merely natural and worldly, such refraining does not make the man spiritual, nor is he any better at heart ”

“ Various causes of misunderstanding will, of course, arise among them from time to time, and every trifling quarrel is continued and inflamed by their amazing and persevering efforts to revenge themselves, which appears to be with them considered a matter of duty. ”

“ There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments—there are consequences. ”

“ Even in the first moments of angry surprise and revolt, that sense is quickened; we rebel, not against an inanimate world or an impersonal law, but against a Living and Personal Being, whom we acknowledge as the Arbiter of our destinies, and whose wisdom and love and power we affect for the time to question, but cannot really gainsay. The whole of our experience tends to this end—to the continual rousing of our spiritual consciousness. ”

“ In vain will the Gentiles of this generation attempt to reform themselves, or others, or to obtain what they have lost, so long as this sentence stands written by the authority of the Holy Spirit. "If ye continue in his goodness, otherwise thou shalt be cut off." ”