Sane

“ When we come to examine in detail what is the sane mind in the sane body, the final test of completeness seems to be a security of distinction between what we have professed and what we have done; what we have aimed at and what we have achieved ”

“ And, again, “as long as the highest level of thought is intact, so that we can and do recognise that our mistakes are mistakes and our disorders, whether of mind or conduct, are disorders, so long sanity is unaffected, and our mistakes and disorders are sane. ”

“ To abstain from all attempts at peering into that obscurity is more perhaps than can be asked of mortals. The less of such peerings we indulge in, however, surely the better, because the saner, because, also, the more trustful. ”

“ Even when a lunatic is telling one in fervid language how she has been deprived of her children, or the outrages that have been perpretrated on herself, her eye is never even moist. The ready gush of tears which accompanies the plaint of the sane woman contrasts with the dry-eyed appeal of the lunatic. ”

“ The sage has conquered passion, and has come to lasting peace. As the mighty mountain remains unmoved by the turbulent ocean that beats round its base, so the mind of the sage, towering in lofty virtue, remains unshaken by the tempests of passion which beat unceasingly upon the shores of life. Good and wise, he is evermore happy and serene; transcendently virtuous, he lives in beatific bliss. ”

“ Thou art the main-spring, the vital secret, the fountain-source, of our existence. What is life but a genial current of joy and grace that wells up incessantly from Thy centred self? Thou art the life, the inner vitality, of our senses. ”

“ Sir, I know it as though it were written in a book: your life has been one long calculation—your sympathy or kindness a calculated thing. Good-nature, emotion you may have had, but never the divine thing by which the world is saved. ”

“ They reckon up several sorts of pleasures, which they call true ones; some belong to the body, and others to the mind. The pleasures of the mind lie in knowledge, and in that delight which the contemplation of truth carries with it; to which they add the joyful reflections on a well- spent life, and the assured hopes of a future happiness. ”

“ The manner in laughter, in tears, in irony, in indignations and enthusiasms, in judgments--and even in love. The manner in which, as in the features and character of a human face, the inner truth is foreshadowed for those who know how to look at their kind. ”

“ If we are noted for anything, it is for modest contentment, unassuming virtue, and cheerful candor—just as you see them in me. Each face reflects the genuine emotions and guileless innocence of the heart connected therewith ”

“ All those to whom I looked up, were of opinion that the pleasure of sympathy with human beings, and the feelings which made the good of others, and especially of mankind on a large scale, the object of existence, were the greatest and surest sources of happiness. ”

“ But they whom heaven has either cursed or blessed with minds, over which external circumstances exercise a deeper sway, whose fancies are more vivid, and whose impressions are more acute, require the aid of time to clip the wings of imagination,—to cast a soberer shade over the glowing pictures of hope,—and to teach the art of reducing an ideal standard of felicity and virtue, to one less romantic, but more practical. ”

“ Kindness and warm affection, clearness of moral vision, and purity of heart, with a lively relish for quiet intellectual pleasures, for society and books adapted to refine, improve and elevate, were among the characteristics common to them all. ”

“ The gentle spirit, with its vein of tender pessimism, in puzzled revolt against the wrongness and cruelty of a shadowy world, the brooding thought too whimsical to be bitter, the fancy too refined to be boisterously merry—all these conspired to fascinate us as we came to perceive and appreciate them beneath the rather stiff little verses. ”

“ A feeling of moral health, of tranquillity, of undefined languor, creeps over him by degrees. It is an expansion of the heart, an elevation of the mind, an effort of the soul, of which no physical feeling, how delicious soever it may be, can impart the least idea. He feels himself softly soaring in a heavenly sphere; he seems to rise to an immeasurable height. ”

“ O cleanse thou me from my secret faults! thou hast proved my heart, thou hast visited me in the night, thou hast tried me and shalt find nothing. [12] And the more we thus get to keep innocency, the more we wonderfully find joy and peace. O how plentiful is thy goodness which thon hast laid up for them that fear thee! thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the provoking of men. [13] Thou wilt show me the path of life, in thy precence is the fulness of joy, at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. ”

“ I repeat it, I distinctly believe this elusive, thrilling gladness-element of mind and nerve, is the joy-power, the intellectual vigor of that Vital One, the being whom we call God; who is the breath of our lives, and of whom we are competent to know more and more eternally. ”

“ Sanity, which combines with reason and judgment a comprehensive sympathy for every unit of the human race in its struggle upward from the brute period to the highest realisation of intellectual and spiritual worth. ”

“ If you have any sensibility or imagination, this will establish such an intercourse between you and the Supreme Being, as will be of infinite consequence to you in life. It will communicate an habitual cheerfulness to your tempers, give a firmness and steadiness to your virtue, and enable you to go through all the vicissitudes of human life with propriety and dignity. ”

“ To a frame of mind naturally strong and contemplative, but rendered by extraordinary events sceptical and intensely thoughtful, he unites an undeviating love of rectitude, a disposition of the gentlest [393] kind, feelings the most delicate and pure, and a sensibility painfully alive to the smallest deviation from virtue or propriety of conduct. ”

“ Grind the seeds of wisdom fine,
Till no mind be wise as mine,
At my wit in smiting
Men will smile delighting.
'Tis not too quick for craft, or
Not too keen for laughter.’
Wise for love's sweet sake to be
Surely is no vanity. ”

“ The most sincere would be what I desire for myself whilst I continue in this world, which is health and quietness. This I pray God grant you in the largest portion, and life as long as you shall desire it! ”

“ Blind, and suffering without hope, and almost without intermission, I may give this testimony, which from me will not appear suspicious. There is something in the world better than sensual enjoyments, better than fortune, better than health itself—it is devotion to knowledge. ”

“ True sensibility, the sensibility which is the auxiliary of virtue, and the soul of genius, is in society so occupied with the feelings of others, as scarcely to regard its own sensations. With what reverence have I looked up at my uncle, the dear parent of my mind! ”

“ Life is made up of trifles, and our greatest happiness often depends upon a word, the glance of an eye, the tone of the voice, or what is more expressive, but more indescribable still, the manner. What a boon, a pleasure, and a blessing are pleasant manners! ”

“ In the sphere of ethics that which awakens the most pleasant feeling is consequently to be esteemed as the greatest good. Emotional reactions are classified as pleasant or gentle, harsh, and mean. The end of pleasant emotion is pleasure ”

“ Their remarks to us are instinct with the freshness—the actuality—of to-day. Whether as happy, noisy schoolboys and girls, or as men and women of the fashionable world bent on pursuit of pleasure or of learning, to us they are emphatically alive. ”

“ When the Virtue of Rectitude is fully practised, acquired, and comprehended, so that all temptation to untruthfulness and insincerity has ceased, then is the heart made purer and nobler, then is character strengthened, and knowledge enlarged, and life takes on a new meaning and a new power. ”

“ While I am in a spasm of comparative serenity, I will declare and affirm that you are and always have been one of the kindest, brightest, and most agreeable of men; that you never said to me a word of compliment, or silliness, or impatience, or anything that wounded me,—and Heaven knows you have said bad things enough,—and this you may cut out, and show to men and angels when we come to blows. ”

“ O ye simple ones understand wisdom, and ye fools be of an understanding heart; hear, for I will speak of excellent things, and the opening of my lips shall be right things: Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors: For whoso findeth me findeth life. ”

“ Then the pains of sense are found salutary when they take away the beliefs of pleasure in sense, and transplant your affections from sense to Soul, where the creations of God are found good, rejoicing the heart. ”

“ Humility, patience, meekness, benignity, bearing one another's burden, condescension, softness of heart, cheerfulness, cordiality, compassion, forgiving injuries, simplicity, candour—all, in short of that sort of little virtues. They, like unobtrusive violets, love the shade ”

“ They were eyes that could look you to the core with intelligence and then rest upon you from the outside with sympathy for all that he had seen to be human in you whether of strength or of weakness—but never of meanness. ”

“ Yet the soul craves and feels herself fit for something better, a wisdom that shall look upon the myriad ways in which men seek their common end—the development and elevation of their natures,—with calmness, as the Eternal does. ”

“ Lovely indeed is that grace of manner, that perfect ease and refinement which 77 so many attempt to acquire, and for which it is to be feared so much too often is renounced—the native vigour of mind, the blush of indignant and offended integrity, the open candour of truth, and all the long list of modest unassuming virtues, known only to a new and unsullied heart. ”

“ And when the soul has gone toward full-orbed splendor and stands forth clothed with full manhood the sage condenses the wisdom of a thousand volumes into four maxims, "Act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never." ”

“ We see, therefore, from this view of our internal feelings, that no scenes of misery ought to be exhibited which are not connected with the display of some moral excellence, or agreeable quality. If fortitude, power, and strength of mind are called forth, they produce the sublime feelings of wonder and admiration: if the softer qualities of gentleness, grace, and beauty, they inspire love and pity. The management of these latter emotions is our present object. ”

“ You must also be serious. You must forget yourself in your ideas. Your personal qualities—the vigour of your temperament, the manly independence of your nature, the tenderness of your heart—these facts are impertinent. ”

“ But for you that fear the Lord in sincerity, I have nothing but good and comfortable words: may your souls ever live. What condition can you devise wherein there will not be matter of joy unspeakable to you. O beloved, know your own happiness, and live in that holy admiring, adoring, praising of your gracious God, that becomes the people of his praise. ”

“ By these qualities, accompanied with great sweetness of manners, he acquired the love and esteem of all good men, in a degree which perhaps very few have experienced; and after passing an active life with the uniform testimony of a good conscience, he became an eminent example of its influence, in the cheerfulness and serenity of his latest age. ”

“ Be this the moral, then. In chaste and warm affections, humble wishes, and honest toil for some useful end, there is health for the mind, and quiet for the heart, the prospect of a happy life, and the fairest hope of heaven. ”

“ My heart bleeds when I contemplate the sufferings endured by the millions now dead; of those who lived when the world appeared to be insane; when the heavens were filled with an infinite Horror who snatched babes with dimpled hands and rosy cheeks from the white breasts of mothers, and dashed them into an abyss of eternal flame. ”

“ You need to know, therefore, what qualities predominate in your character, and in the predominance of which your true happiness consists. If your qualities are chiefly animal, the essence of which is to eat and drink, you will day and night seek after these things. If your qualities are of the ferocious kind, the essence of which is to tear and rend, to injure and destroy, you will act accordingly. ”