Rite of passage

“ Every act is preceded and given birth to by a thought, the act repeated forms the habit, the habit determines the character, and character determines the life, the destiny,—a most significant, a most tremendous truth: thought on the one hand, life, destiny, on the other. ”

“ They say to you, oh Poet, ‘Perfect those gifts of your higher nature—yet be not of them vainglorious, since, humanly speaking, they are not yours, but lent for a purpose, and the brief space of earth-life.’ Look upon every beautiful thought, every gift of expression, as the direction of One who has dowered you with the possibility of opening other eyes to the beauty, and other minds to the understanding of such expression. ”

“ Are the spell and the life of each path we pursue; ”

“ Our truest steps are human still, —To walk unswerving were divine! Truants from love, we dream of wrath; —Oh, rather let us trust the more! Through all the wanderings of the path, We still can see our Father's door! ”

“ As the passage of numberless ages in slumberless song.
Dawn, roused by the lark, would be surely as dark in her sight
As her measureless measure of shadowless pleasure was bright.
Noon, gilt but with glory of gold, would be hoary and grey
In her eyes that had gazed on the depths, unamazed with the day.
Night hardly would seem to make darker her dream never done,
When it could but withhold what a man may behold of the sun. ”

“ We enter at once into the spirit and meaning of the author—we are introduced at once to the prominent characters—and we go with them at once, heart and hand, in the various and spirit-stirring adventures which befall them. ”

“ Enter Quince for the Prologue.
Prologue.
If we offend, it is with our good will.
That you should think, we come not to offend,
But with good will. To show our simple skill,
That is the true beginning of our end. ”

“ Will you go hence with sealed lips, go out to a dark uncertain future, submit yourself to strangers, work your way up with much toil and weariness of spirit, perhaps perish in the vain struggle, while, if you will, you may be master here on the land which belongs to you of right? ”

“ Others apart sat on a hill retired, In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high Of providence, fore-knowledge, will, and fate, Fixed fate, free-will, fore-knowledge absolute, And found no end, in wandering mazes lost. ”

“ To Letters do we look now for the guidance and direction which the very closeness of the emotion taking us by the heart makes necessary. Shall not the Thing more and more, as we compose ourselves to literature, assume the honour, the hesitation, the leisure, the reconciliation of the Word? ”

“ Moreover, entrance and exit, descent and ascent, are characteristics of bodies and not of spirits—that is to say, sensible realities enter and come forth, but intellectual subtleties and mental realities, such as intelligence, love, knowledge, imagination and thought, do not enter, nor come forth, nor descend, but rather they have direct connection. ”

“ When they who go before
Go furnished—or because their span was brief,
When in the acquist of what is life’s true gage,
Truth, knowledge, and that other worthiest lore,
They had fulfilled already a long age. ”

“ Why have not I the courage, then, to endure this time of trial they call ‘life,’ which I have wished to consider the end, but which is only a road leading to the end—a road perilous, rough, and wearing? The shortest is the one I consider the best; and he who travels over it most rapidly, has he not found true happiness? ”

“ And in those clothes perhaps you'd prate,
Couldst thou but speak or meditate,
Oh, but times then were better still.
'Tis fate's old witticism ill.
So, it may be a better fate
When hearts will cease to meditate. ”

“ If the book of fate, dear lady, could be laid open before your eyes, it would appear to you only full of darkness and contradictions, unless you could perceive all the myriads of fine links and intricate threads which unite event and event together. ”

“ If we would have our resolutions take effect, we must take heed unto our ways, set a watch before the door of our lips, and examine the motions that arise in our heart, whence they come, and whither they go; whether it be pride or passion, or any corrupt humour, that prompteth us to any design, and whether God will be pleased with it? ”

“ Where are the truths so venerable and commanding, as to impart their own sublimity to every mode of expression by which they are conveyed; and which, in whatever scene they have habitually occupied the thoughts, consecrate every object which it presents to our senses, and the very ground we have been accustomed to tread? ”

“ It may be, for what thou knowest, the mother of wisdom and of great works, it is the dread of the horror of the night that makes the pilgrim hasten on his way. When thou feelest it nigh, let thy safety word be ‘Onward!’ If thou tarry, thou art overwhelmed. Courage! Build great works ”

“ So, when you see any of the brute creation, you will lift up your thoughts to God, Who gives them sensation and powers of movement, saying—"O Thou First Mover, Who, moving all things, art Thyself unmoved by any, how do I exult in Thy stability and firmness!" ”

“ And, if any of the serious poets, as they are termed, who write tragedy, come to us and say― 'O strangers, may we go to your city and country or may we not, and shall we bring with us our poetry―what is your will about these matters?'―how shall we answer the divine men? ”

“ This look of hers, which you have caught on your canvases, and all the other great beacon-lights of human expression, stand of course for the inner energies of our lives, the leading forces of our characters. But, as ages pass, human life changes ”

“ If we could only note the first coming into the mind of a thought that changes life and re-forms character—supposing that every act and every new departure has this subtle beginning—we might be less the sport of circumstances than we seem to be. ”

“ Action is here the executed will, which as such is at the same time recognized, recognized, that is, not merely in its origin and point of departure from the soul-life, but also in respect to its ultimate purpose. ”

“ The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have lived. Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not. ”

“ If thou canst, answer me. If thou hast so much strength and spirit left thee, and art not quite spent with the distemper and the dispute, set thy words in order, and they shall have their due consideration." Those that can speak reason will hear reason. ”

“ What that sensitive mind, and tender conscience, and loving heart, and religious soul, went through even in a few hours, under a situation so sudden and tremendous, is perhaps beyond the power of words to paint. ”

“ The signs for the wayfarer in divine Science lie in meekness, in unselfish motives and acts, in shuffling off scholastic rhetoric, in ridding the thought of effete doctrines, in the purification of the affections and desires. ”

“ “It ain’t the roads we take; it’s what’s inside of us that makes us turn out the way we do.” ”

“ In writing a life, if one could present all sides of it, and not merely one phase—the good and the bad of it, the joys and the sorrows, the moments of strength and of weakness, of wisdom and of folly, of misery and of pure delight—what a picture! ”

“ My days are bound each to each not by 'natural piety' (or not, let me say, by natural piety alone) but by pedestrian enthusiasm. The memory of school days, if one may trust to the usual reminiscences, generally clusters round a flogging, or some solemn words from the spiritual teacher instilling the seed of a guiding principle of life. ”

“ This was the experience, then, of ‘distinct pre-eminence’ in whose recollection his mind was ‘nourished and invisibly repaired.’ It is in such a moment that the soul’s strength is shown; when common objects evoke what he calls the imagination, the reality, of which they are a suggestion. ”

“ Is it not moving to think of all the millions of men who for eighteen hundred years have read this parable, philosophers and peasants, in every climate, and now are we reading it to-day! Is it not moving—nay, awful—to think of all the good it has done, of the sweet stream of tenderness, broad and deep, which has flowed down from it through all history? ”

“ This historic value of the tales, however, great as it is to the student of manners, is secondary to their poetic value, which lies in the sentiment, feeling, and pathos with which the experience of life embodied in them, the workings of simple human nature, in however debased surroundings, is set forth. ”

“ One of my objects, then, is to awaken that better nature which is slumbering within you, only now and then rousing itself to do some deed which should be the character of all your actions—for your own sake I have come. ”

“ But, before you permit such a presumption, be sure that you have resisted all the temptations in your own path, and have performed all the duties which belong to the sphere Providence has assigned to you. Here we are at the close of our day's journey, and my admonition comes in very well, like the moral at the end of a tale ”

“ These poems are marked by real beauty of thought and singular felicity of phrase and fancy. They are “footsteps”—glimpses, as it were, of the poet’s mental state at various stages of his life journey. They are grave and gay—and through them all runs a bright and hopeful philosophy. ”

“ My good tutor, to whom the most ordinary circumstances often inspired admirable maxims, rose and said with unction and gravity:
“What does it matter whose hand knocks so violently at closed doors for a vulgar, perhaps ridiculous, reason? Do not let us seek to know, and consider them as knocking on the door of our hardened and corrupted souls. At each knock let us say to ourselves: This one is to give us notice to amend and think on the salvation we neglect in the turmoil of our pleasures, that other one is to remind us of eternity. ”

“ I have convinced myself, and I hold—in view of the rapid movement of the soul, its vivid memory of the past and its prophetic knowledge of the future, its many accomplishments, its vast range of knowledge, its numerous discoveries —that a nature embracing such varied gifts cannot itself be mortal. ”

“ This is both the cause and the proof of their election to eternal life.
If you will take the pains to look into a dictionary for the word walk, you will find that it means: To conduct one's self; to order one's life. ”

“ All beauties of language, all flights of poetry, all particular scenes and speeches, powerful and impressive as they may be, are merely subordinate. No character, how exquisitely or elaborately soever conceived and finished, is drawn for itself ”

“ Thought cherished in the mind becomes earnest; then expressed in words, it becomes poetry. The feelings move inwardly, and are embodied in words. When words are insufficient for them, recourse is had to sighs and exclamations. ”

“ The language of the ancient orator concerning his art may be applied to life, that not only its greatness, but its enjoyment, consists in action—action—ACTION. The feelings, for instance, may become so morbidly sensitive, as to give an appearance of weakness to the whole character ”

“ The driver replied, "I am the means and not the end. I am the food and not the life. Stand by yourself, as that boy has stood. I cannot save you. For poetry is a spirit; and they that would worship it must worship in spirit and in truth." ”

“ Is there aught that shall long remain, Pain, or peril, or pleasure, Pleasure, or peril, or pain? Shall we labour or take our leisure, And who shall inherit treasure, If the measure with which we measure Is meted to us again? ”

“ What is of interest here is not such a motive as possible expression for a view of the world belonging to a more primitive stage in the phase of development, but it is this episode as one of the poetical motives of a novel. ”

“ He has imparted to a solemn scene sufficient movement and variety of action, without detracting from its dignity and pathos; he has kept the expression of each head true to the traditional character, without exaggeration, without effort. ”

“ Every word of the uttered line of poetry, viewed in its reference to the other words, or to previous and later experiences, is present in its own place in the series, is over and done with before later events can come, or when they are present, and is not yet when the former events of the succession are present. ”