Self-culture

“ Self-culture had given him self-control and a sane and tranquil spirit. It saved him alike from the foolish pride that sometimes accompanies success, and from the arbitrariness that is often mistaken for strength. ”

“ The manners of society at large are but the reflex of the manners of our collective homes, neither better nor worse. Yet, with all the disadvantages of ungenial homes, men may practice self-culture of manner as of intellect, and learn by good examples to cultivate a graceful and agreeable behavior towards others. Most men are like so many gems in the rough, which need polishing by contact with other and better natures, to bring out their full beauty and lustre. ”

“ Culture has created the individual for the sole purpose of maintaining its continuity. Every time you condemn anger, that strengthens and fortifies the movement of your culture and your value system. Every time you praise the Lord, you are maintaining and perpetuating that self. Culture has created you and me for the sole purpose of maintaining its status quo. ”

“ But the proper instinct of self-culture cares not so much to reap all that those various forms of genius can give, as to find in them its own strength. The demand of the intellect is to feel itself alive. ”

“ And even though self-culture may not bring wealth, it will at all events give one the companionship of elevated thoughts. A nobleman once contemptuously asked of a sage, “What have you got by all your philosophy?” “At least I have got society in myself,” was the wise man’s reply.
But many are apt to feel despondent, and become discouraged in the work of self-culture, because they do not “get on” in the world so fast as they think they deserve to do. Having planted their acorn, they expect to see it grow into an oak at once. ”

“ The grand doctrine, that every human being should have the means of self-culture, of progress in knowledge and virtue, of health, comfort, and happiness, of exercising the powers and affections of a man—this is slowly taking its place as the highest social truth. That the world was made for all, and not for a few; that society is to care for all, that no human being shall perish but through his own fault ”

“ From all quarters of the globe questions come to us; not perhaps expressed in the same direct fashion as the one above, but showing an eagerness in some way to develop latent faculty, to improve the whole nature. What, then, is self-culture? ”

“ The rigid system of self-culture which she pursued through her life was the outgrowth of her ambition and of her intense interest in things, an interest which we have noticed as being one of the leading elements in her happiness. Reading, study, conversation, observation, writing, travel, were in turns employed in her course of self-discipline. ”

“ It is no wonder that a mind ages if it has never taken life seriously, never consolidated itself to individual and definite being through education and self-culture, through a deepening of morality, and has gained for itself no content of lasting worth. ”

“ All culture, therefore, of the mind and the heart must begin with self-culture— with that rudimentary self-culture to which we give the name of self-recognition— not merely self-consciousness but self-recognition—' self-reverence," as Tennyson has it; that appreciation of the real value of the rich possibilities of the individual. And there it is that self-culture begins; and it goes through the various processes of study, of meditation, of devotion, of company, of service, and so on, till it again culminates in what we call self-realisation— not self-sufficiency but self-realisation ”

“ And as good behavior is the root of good manners, so self-control is the root of all true self-culture. We hear a great deal now-a-days about culture, cultured people, cultivated society, etc., and it is a good and natural wish to possess culture and to be classed among cultured people. Intelligence and good manners are the only passport into the charmed circle. ”

“ For instance, there is moral self-culture—physical self-culture—æsthetic self-culture—which, with other kinds of self-culture, should be zealously sought. But these subjects are exhaustively dealt with from time to time by writers in The Girl’s Own Paper, so that our special work lies in the treatment of “culture” in its more usual acceptation—the cultivation of the intellect. And if our title seems rather like a vast floating garment, too voluminous for the slight form it enfolds, it must be remembered that culture is generally understood in the sense we have indicated. ”

“ Self-culture also implies suitable efforts to expand and strengthen the intellect by reading, by reflection, and by writing down your thoughts. The strength and vigor given to the mind by self-culture is not materially different from that expressed by the term education in its broad and comprehensive meaning. Intellect being the crowning glory and chief attribute of man, there can be no nobler aim to set before one's self than that of expanding and quickening all of its powers. ”

“ As one devoted to self-culture in its noblest form, who ornamented society by his imposing and graceful bearing, who electrified audiences with the splendor of his rhetoric, and lured scholars to his presence by the fame of his acquirements ”

“ If you find that you cannot relish or fix your mind upon standard works of history biography, travel, or any of the many excellent books written to bring scientific knowledge within the comprehension of the general reader, then you may conclude rightly that your mind is in a very uncultivated state.
Your own efforts and determination—in other words, your power of self-control—alone can effect anything worthy in self-culture. ”

“ Information and discipline may be drawn from other sources, but that culture which means the enrichment and unfolding of a man's self is largely developed by familiarity with those ultimate conclusions of man about himself which are the deposit of all that he has thought, suffered, wrought, and been,—those deep deposits of truth silently formed in the heart of the race in the long and painful working out of its life, its character, and its destiny. ”

“ The same low idea of self-culture is but too prevalent in other classes, and is encouraged by the false views of life which are always more or less current in society. But to regard self-culture either as a means of getting past others in the world, or of intellectual dissipation and amusement, rather than as a power to elevate the character and expand the spiritual nature, is to place it on a very low level. To use the words of Bacon, “Knowledge is not a shop for profit or sale, but a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man’s estate.” ”

“ Circumstances may afford a standing-place, but self-reliance alone can give the leverage power. We must learn that character and worth consists in doing, not in possessing. Not resting, not having, not being simply, but growing and becoming, is the true character of self-culture. ”

“ The work of life, so far as the individual is concerned, and that to which the scholar is particularly called, is Self-Culture, [Pg 149] the perfect unfolding of our individual nature. To this end above all others, the art of which I speak directs our attention and points our endeavor. There is no man, it is presumed, to whom this object is wholly indifferent, who would not willingly possess this too, along with other prizes, provided the attainment of it were compatible with personal ease and worldly good. But the business of self-culture admits of no compromise. ”

“ All culture is, in a large degree, self-culture. Our teachers are only helps. They can teach us, but they can not learn us. We must do our own learning. Wealth can not buy it, nor luxurious surroundings impart it ”

“ The only way to develop self is to make it become objective; the only way to accomplish this is to surrender the interests of the personal self. Self-culture reverses the process and attempts to employ self-objectification or knowledge as a mere means to the satisfaction of these personal interests. ”

“ Then, too, science and philosophy will again resume their places at the feet of the [Pg 15] master-principle in our nature, until again driven away, by new disagreements, to return again by the discovery of a finer harmony.
Self-culture will never supersede worship, more than golden lamps burning fragrant oils will ever supersede the sun; more than digging and hoeing and planting will supersede sunshine and rain from heaven. Self-culture? ”

“ For it brings the touch of the great world, it adds to College life, so splendid in its opportunities of self-culture in body and mind, its reminder of the great human needs which, after all, all self-culture should help to serve. ”

“ If we are apt to identify individuality with the inner side alone, with capacity apart from its surroundings, a little reflection will show the error. Even the most devoted adherent of "self-culture" would not hold that a gift could be developed, or a disposition manifested, in isolation from all exterior circumstances. ”

“ In what sense is "self-alienation" in any degree "necessary to self-knowledge," or, which is more to the purpose, self-culture, because the end of liberal education, as President Eliot says, is "not knowledge but power"? The true condition of culture is self-activity, and how far is this determined by that "self-alienation" which consists in projecting one's self into the idioms of a dead language? ”

“ As a matter of possibility, most men may attain in a considerable degree to the power of self-rule by judicious self-culture: and in the education of the young, more particularly in home education, a very high standard in this respect may be attained. ”

“ They miss their aim, too, these philanthropists and sentimentalists of our day, who are always chattering to one about one’s duty to one’s neighbour. For the development of the race depends on the development of the individual, and where self-culture has ceased to be the ideal, the intellectual standard is instantly lowered, and, often, ultimately lost. ”

“ I believe, as I stated just now, that the tendency to the higher culture of the present age will manifest itself in the improvement of the next generation, as well as of our own; and it is in that hope that I have been encouraged on this and other occasions to do what I could for the promotion of that desire for self-culture, of which I see so many hopeful manifestations at the present day. ”

“ The same strong susceptibilities which make the personal impulses vivid and powerful, are also the source from whence are generated the most passionate love of virtue, and the sternest self-control. It is through the cultivation of these, that society both does its duty and protects its interests: not by rejecting the stuff of which heroes are made, because it knows not how to make them. A person whose desires and impulses are his own—are the expression of his own nature, as it has been developed and modified by his own culture—is said to have a character. ”

“ It is by close examination of our own nature and its workings, perhaps, that we are most likely to solve the enigma of our being. The word spiritual surely has a meaning; it suggests self-culture not only for the present but for a higher state. ”

“ And here we find, as one of the chief motives in such a conflict, the motive of regard for the continuous self. It is not always a ruling motive. It is best that it should be so. The object of education and self-culture is to make it so. But at any rate it is a motive, and a strong one. ”

“ To come to an intense self-consciousness of these qualities, to feel them in the work of these masters, and to search for them everywhere among the lesser artists and thinkers who are trying to express the soul of this hot chaos of America,—this will be the attainment of culture for us. ”

“ This kind of self-culture also calls forth power and cultivates strength. The solution of one problem helps the mastery of another; and thus knowledge is carried into faculty. Our own active effort is the essential thing; and no facilities, no books, no teachers, no amount of lessons learnt by rote will enable us to dispense with it. ”

“ At the same time, the unbounded scope and the vast diversity of things knowable and worthy to be known are adapted to stimulate self-culture, and in that same proportion to invest human life with a higher dignity, a larger intrinsic value, and a more enduring influence.
Section III. Self-Control. A man must be either self-governed, or under a worse government than his own. God governs men, only by teaching and helping them to govern themselves. ”

“ The heart searcheth after the means of improvement and progress: and they are found near to us; in the lowly duties of common life, in the opportunities of a [445] day, in the necessity which our uniform experience presents, for acting from principle if we would act aright. Self-culture, in all its highest and most comprehensive processes, is the condition by which Christian elements of character are to be acquired. ”

“ We find no basis for a firm State-power in our ordinary selves; culture suggests one to us in our best self.
It cannot but acutely try a tender conscience to be accused, in a practical country like ours, of keeping aloof from the work and hope of a multitude of earnest-hearted men, and of merely toying with poetry and aesthetics. ”

“ It is a treatise, in two chapters, on politics and morals, rising gradually from the government of oneself to the government of a family, thence to the government of a province, and finally to the control of the affairs of an empire. Its leading principle is self-improvement, self-culture. In one of the sections an eulogium is bestowed upon the beauty of virtue as a means of self-enjoyment. ”

“ An analogous branch of self-culture is that which seeks to provide some healthy aliment for the waking hours of the night, when time seems so unnaturally prolonged, and when gloomy thoughts and exaggerated and distempered views of the trials of life peculiarly prevail. ”