Need

“ The need may not have been more than blindly felt, but the necessities of the ages have, nevertheless, been supplied as they have arisen. In this, almost more than in anything else, the thinking man sees an ordered scheme of existence which, in other directions, the brutalities and injustices of an imperfect world would seem to deny. ”

“ The religious interest, on the other hand, centres about the sense of need, or, if it is successful in finding this need satisfied, it centres about the knowledge of that which has delivered the needy from their danger. ”

“ It's not a question of absolute power or divine right—simply that my people come first, even before myself; my own world is part of me, and I am part of it by nature and instinct. Its needs are my needs. When my people are hungry, I feel the pangs. ”

“ Our present state, like his, is God's appointment, and only for a season; and the discipline of sorrow and conflict may be no less needful for us than it was for him, and the result no less a blessing.
How much worldly good is necessary for any of us? how much wealth, honor, happiness? Most of our wants are artificial and unreal. We create them, or imagine them, and then complain that they are not supplied. Our first needs—our only absolute needs—are food and raiment ”

“ What people need and what they want may be very different. ”

“ We need examples of people who, leaving Heaven to decide whether they are to rise in the world, decide for themselves that they will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek—not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity; making the first of possessions, self-possession; and honouring themselves in the harmless pride and calm pursuits of peace. ”

“ Thus we meet with a fundamental philosophy of life in which it is not the satisfaction of needs, appetites, and desires, but the opposite theory which is thought to lead to welfare. Renounce what you want; do what you do not want to do; pursue what is repugnant ”

“ This need of the immaterial is the most deeply rooted of all needs. One must have bread; but before bread, one must have the ideal. ”

“ On the other hand, they need food and other necessities of ordinary life, and for these things are dependent on the living. Hence the desirableness of securing their good will by showing them respect and supplying their needs, or else of somehow getting rid of them. ”

“ By needs I mean longings, especially for things the failure to obtain which is accompanied by pain; such are the desires, for instance, love; also those which arise in bodily sufferings and dangers, for when a man is in pain or danger he desires something. That is why those who help a man who is poor or an exile, even if the service be ever so small, are regarded with favor owing to the urgency and occasion of the need ”

“ Observing their moods, their vanities, their sanities, their affectional needs, I have seen how absolutely impossible it is to balance up the socalled needs of life in any satisfactory manner, or to establish an order which, however seemingly secure for the time being, will not in the end dry rot or decay. ”

“ Is it well, is it favorable to the development of the individual and his happiness, and to the development and happiness of society, that man should have a multitude of needs, and bend his energies to their satisfaction? ”

“ We need nothing beyond our own experience and the slightest knowledge of other hearts to know how shallow and one-sided a view of life that is which sees only the joy and forgets the sorrow, which ignores the night and thinks only of the day; which, looking out on nature, is blind to the pain and agony, the horror and the death, which are as real parts of it as brightness and beauty, love and life. Every little valley that lies in lovely loneliness has its scenes of desolation, and tempest has broken over the fairest scenes. Every river has drowned its man. ”

“ Whatever difference there might be in the things to be undertaken for supplying your respective needs, you would conduct yourselves in the same free and happy way as when you first set out. And the fruits of your toil and skill, and of your way of life, would soon be comfort for all such as the few have by the woe of the many now. ”

“ God, knowing our needs, built our house for our needs—not as one man may build for another, but as no man can build for himself. For our comfort, education, training, he has put into form for us all the otherwise hidden thoughts and feelings of our heart. ”

“ In things that concern the body, such as food, drink, clothing, habitation, servants, you must only accept what is absolutely needful. But all that makes for show or luxury, you must utterly proscribe. ”

“ There needs, however, it appears to me, something still before our charity shall be effectual for good. The feeling is there, the conscience is there, but there is wanting the wise thought and the resolute, because educated, will. ”

“ Other elements of that force are the physical needs; the push and play of passions ingrained in human nature; the inherited bias; the strength of habits formed before childhood had begun to reflect,—the thousand forces which blend with reason and choice to make up our destiny. ”

“ Yes, and moreover, this great body of enthusiastic demanders are no mere poor and helpless people, ignorant fisher-peasants, half-mad monks, scatter-brained sansculottes—none of those, in short, the expression of whose needs has shaken the world so often before, and will do yet again. ”

“ At its best it is practical, ethical, social, pragmatic, altruistic, humanitarian. Now all these things are good, are especially needed at the present day, are part of the divine Will or they would not have become so dominant in humanity. ”

“ “The fewer one’s comforts, the fewer one’s needs; and the fewer one’s needs, the greater one’s happiness.” ”

“ Every one now seems to learn with satisfaction that society is beginning [pg 140] to adapt the individual to the general needs, and that it is at the same time the happiness and sacrifice of each one to consider himself as a useful member and instrument of the whole. ”

“ Duties relating to the acquisition of external things.—Work.—The necessity of procuring the things needful to life imposes on us a fundamental obligation, which continues even when the want is met: it is the obligation of work. ”

“ And, finally, we have the fact that a great many of our present needs are transformed desires. The working man of to-day counts as needs, as do we all more or less, a number of things that began as pure desires. ”

“ Step by step, as the human race has advanced in civilization, its needs have become more numerous and more varied. Purely material requirements being satisfied, other and higher demands arise. The spiritual and social aspirations make their appearance. ”

“ I believe we are all in danger of accumulating—it may be from thoughtlessness, or from pressure of occupation—things which would be useful to others, while not needed by ourselves, and the retention of which entails loss of blessing. ”

“ From the death of the old the new proceeds, And the life of truth from the rot of creeds On the ladder of God, which upward leads, The steps of progress are human needs. ”

“ Our First Principle interprets it as the reason of humanity organizing and instituting its needs and ideals in its onward stumbling to and fro between its own true character and its passing caricature. ”

“ Why must we act? So far as the coarse and immediate needs of the individual are concerned, it is easy to answer these questions, but the more we enter upon the more important and more subtle domains of action, the more does the problem become uncertain and the more arbitrary its solution. ”

“ A State, I said, arises, as I conceive, out of the needs of mankind; no one is self-sufficing, but all of us have many wants. ”

“ Nothing would prove more disastrous to our ideas, we contended, than to neglect the effect of the internal upon the external, of the psychologic motives and needs upon existing institutions. ”

“ By the little which can thus satisfy the needs of the human spirit we can measure the extent of its loss. ”

“ But grant him riches, your demand is o'er;
'No—shall the good want health, the good want power?'
Add health, and power, and every earthly thing.
'Why bounded power? why private? why no king?'
Nay, why external for internal given?
Why is not man a god, and earth a Heaven?
Who ask and reason thus, will scarce conceive
God gives enough, while he has more to give:
Immense the power, immense were the demand;
Say, at what part of nature will they stand?
What nothing earthly gives, or can destroy,
The soul's calm sunshine, and the heart-felt joy,
Is virtue's prize: A better would you fix? ”

“ But each of these parties must of necessity take in, in some measure, the principles of the other. Each wishes to cover the whole ground; to hold fast and to advance. Only, one lays the emphasis on keeping, and the other on advancing. I too think the musts are a safe company to follow, and even agreeable. But if we are Whigs, let us be Whigs of nature and science, and so for all the necessities. Let us know that, over and above all the musts of poverty and appetite, is the instinct of man to rise, and the instinct to love and help his brother. ”

“ Hitherto the life-blood has been gradually chilling in your veins, as you sat aloof within your circle of gentility, while the rest of the world was fighting out its battle with one kind of necessity or another. Henceforth you will at least have the sense of natural and healthy effort for a purpose, and of lending your strength—be it great or small—to the united struggle of mankind. ”

“ That which we bestow on fortune, the duties of a charge, the good offices expected from our station, the care of the body, and attention to dress; that which we give to friendship, society, recreation, and custom, all appear essential and indispensable: we even dare not encroach upon or limit these; we carry them beyond the bounds even of reason and necessity; and as life is too short, and our days too rapid to suffice for all, whatever we retrench is from the cares of our salvation: in the multiplicity of our occupations we are sure to sacrifice those which we ought to bestow on eternity. ”

“ But apart from that altogether, let me just remind you, in half a dozen sentences, of the various limitations or fences which hedge up our lives on every side. There are the obligations which we owe, and the relations in which we stand, to the outer world, the laws of physical life, and all that touches the external and the material. There are the relations in which we stand, and the obligations which we owe, to ourselves. ”

“ To come back home after every stage of life’s journeying with a wider horizon—more in sympathy with men and nature, knowing ever more of the righteous and [73] eternal laws which govern them, and of the righteous and loving will which is above all, and around all, and beneath all, this must be the end and aim of all of us, or we shall be wandering about blind-fold, and spending time and labor and journey-money on that which profiteth nothing. ”

“ And besides, if you retrench from that moment all you are under the necessity of allowing to the indispensable necessities of the body, to the duties of your station, to unexpected events, and the inevitable complaisances due to society, what remains for yourself, for God, and for eternity? And are we not worthy of pity; we, who know not how to employ the little which remains to us, and who fly to the assistance of a thousand artifices to abridge its duration? ”

“ Now necessity, in both these senses, has universally, tho' tacitely, in the schools, in the pulpit, and in common life, been allow'd to belong to the will of man, and no one has ever pretended to deny, that we can draw inferences concerning human actions, and that those inferences are founded on the experience'd union of like actions with like motives and circumstances. ”

“ I have been several times asked, during my sojourn among you, what are the sources of compassion, of sympathy, of humanity, of charity with us, if we have not only no want, or fear of want, but not even any economic inequality. ”

“ To fulfil the poorest necessities of our being, we must be his children in brain and heart, in body and soul and spirit, in obedience and hope and gladness and love—his out and out, beyond all that tongue can say, mind think, or heart desire. ”

“ Whatever branch of life and knowledge and activity you devote yourself to, it is essential to will, not to wish for, mind, but to will, something useful and noble, and that is enough. Everywhere there is now a want, and ever will be a want, of good, stout-hearted workers. ”

“ The idea of necessity is obtained by our experience of the connection between objects, the uniformity of the operations of nature, the constant conjunction of similar events, and the consequent inference of one from the other. Mankind are therefore agreed in the admission of necessity, if they admit that these two circumstances take place in voluntary action. Motive is to voluntary action in the human mind what cause is to effect in the material universe. ”

“ Crowning these and transcending them in importance are the supreme sentiments and ideals of life, which cannot properly be regarded as habits; they are sympathy, love, faith, reverence for religious convictions, and the ideal of freedom or liberty.
Society itself could not endure but for the stability which habits afford. ”

“ And the shock of having to transvalue all the accepted values, of having, in a world organized on the basis of fear, to conceive of a world organized on the basis of good will, made him a thinker in his own right. ”

“ Let those who would study well this social question, or who in public trusts are charged with its solution, be most careful here. Every motive in the minds of these people, whether of instinct, desire, or duty, must be addressed. ”