Side

“ I know that admittedly there are two sides to every question; but each side sees inevitably its own point of view; occasionally one may obtain an imperfect view of the other side; but it is given only to the largest vision to see both sides clearly. ”

“ When I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. ”

“ Side by side, yet wholly independent the one of the other, his faith in Divine guidance, his reverence for God, his New England land-hunger, his greed for wealth, his lust for power, had grown and were growing with every new opportunity. ”

“ Every fact is related on one side to sensation and, on the other, to morals. The game of thought is, on the appearance of one of these two sides, to find the other; given the upper, to find the under side. ”

“ Almost certainly the existence side by side of two peoples, speaking each its own tongue, and occupying towards each other the position intellectually and politically of superior and inferior, had much to do with it. ”

“ Such an abstract general statement of the results of our definition of what it is to be, may well be illustrated, however, through an approach to the whole matter of the unity of Being from another side, namely, from the more empirical side. ”

“ Man, we say, has two sides, the specialist side where he must have subordination, and the social side where he must have equality. ”

“ On the other side there must needs be another folk, with another tongue, other manners, other polities, and if not another creed, yet surely with other, and utterly different, conceptions of the universe, and of man’s business therein. ”

“ It is curious what patches of hardness and tenderness lie side by side in men’s dispositions. ”

“ It was as sharp, the question, as a knife in his side, but the answer hung fire still and seemed to lose itself in the vague darkness to which the thin admitted dawn, glimmering archwise over the whole outer door, made a semicircular margin, a cold silvery nimbus that seemed to play a little as he looked—to shift and expand and contract. ”

“ The most fundamental division which rhetoric considers is the division made by the difference between two intentions men have in writing: instruction and delight—to convey the truth or to create beauty. ”

“ It must be clear, that so far as our one side goes, it is a very good side, and cannot be improved. Ought we not to be extremely careful how we touch it? I am going to ask presently why we should touch it? ”

“ But there is one thing which we are responsible for, and that is for our sympathies, for the manner in which we regard it, and for the tone in which we discuss it. What shall we say, then, with regard to it? On which side shall we stand? ”

“ Confronted by the existing order and the ordinary prose of life they appear before us as individuals with personal aims of love, honour, ambition, and ideals of world reform, ideals in the path of which that order presents obstacles on every side. ”

“ We can define the Other, the true Being, as that which, if present to us in this moment, would end our conflict. In so far it seems something desirable and desired, — an object of longing. On the other hand, we may, and often do, regard Being as that in terms of which our ideas are to be controlled, set right, or, if necessary, wholly set aside as useless. In so far Being appears as a sort of fate, or perhaps as a supreme authority, which judges our ideas and which may thwart them. ”

“ Such a crowd of worshippers, swarming into the pews like bees, filling all the aisles, running over at the door like berries heaped too full in the measure,—some kneeling on the steps, some standing on the side-walk, hats off, heads down, lips moving, some looking on devoutly from the other side of the street! ”

“ You see it's most out of the way of the masters, who all live on the other side, and don't come by here after first lesson or callings-over. That's when the fights come off. And all this part where we are is the little-side ground, right up to the trees ”

“ However firmly thou holdest to thy opinions, if truth appears on the opposite side, throw down thy arms at once. ”

“ Who that has been on the Pampas but can picture to himself this party as it left the little mud-hut on the plain? The cumbrous, oscillating galera, with its shaggy, straggling four-in-hand,—the caracoling Gaucho couriers,—the negro pricking on behind,—the tall grass rolling out on every side,—the muddy pool that forms the watering-place for beasts and men scattered over a hundred miles of brookless plain,—the great sun streaming up from the herbage just in front, awakening the voices of a million insects and the carols of unnumbered birds in the thickets here and there! ”

“ The White Pine is a tree that harmonizes with all situations, rude and cultivated, level and abrupt. On the side of the mountain it adds grandeur to the declivity, and gives a look of sweeter tranquillity to the green pastoral meadow. It yields a darker frown to the projecting cliff, and a more awful uncertainty to the mountain-pass or the hollow ravine. Amid desolate scenery it spreads a cheerfulness that detracts nothing from its power over the imagination, while it relieves it of its terrors by presenting a green bulwark to defend us from the elements. ”

“ Each side of the long valley is a continuous ridge, which offers it a high, wooded horizon, and through the middle of it there flows a charming stream, wandering, winding and doubling, smothered here and there in rushes, and spreading into lily-coated reaches, beneath the clear shadow of tall, straight, light-leaved trees. ”

“ “and if the balance must incline, let it be on the side of the people. ”

“ In circles highly civilised the great things, the real things, the hard, the cruel and even the tender things, the true elements of any tension and true facts of any crisis, have ever, for the outsider’s, for the critic’s use, to be translated into terms—terms in the distinguished name of which, terms for the right employment of which, more than one situation of the type I glance at had struck me as all irresistibly appealing. ”

“ Everything has two sides—the outside that is ridiculous, and the inside that is solemn.” ”

“ We have long struggles with ourself, of which the outcome is one of our actions; they are, as it were, the inner side of human nature. This inner side is God's; the outer side belongs to men. ”

“ Having, by these divisions, given an order and arrangement to our objects, we may now apply ourselves to consider, with the more accuracy, their qualities and relations. The first circumstance that strikes my eye, is the great resemblance betwixt our impressions and ideas in every other particular, except their degree of force and vivacity. ”

“ What will people think?—What will happen in the future?—and so on, and so forth.’
‘And what about the vital considerations?’
‘What do you call vital?’ I asked in my turn. ”

“ Entering an assembly of philosophers who were debating the matter, he cast a severed human head at the feet of his opponents and asked them to determine its zenith, explaining that its body was hanging by the heels outside. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The windows in the living room of the gray house are wide open, patiently exchanging the tainted inner atmosphere of liquor and smoke for the fresh drowsiness of the late hot dusk. There are dying flower scents upon the air, so thin, so fragile, as to hint already of a summer laid away in time. But August is still proclaimed relentlessly by a thousand crickets around the side-porch, and by one who has broken into the house and concealed himself confidently behind a bookcase, from time to time shrieking of his cleverness and his indomitable will. ”

“ And besides—this, remember, is the place and the moment of perfectly open talk—I think that all ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind. ”

“ It’s well known there’s always two sides, if no more; ”

“ “Most true points are fine points. There never was a dispute between mortals where both sides hadn't a bit of right. ”

“ To consider the world in its length and breadth, its various history, the many races of man, their starts, their fortunes, their mutual alienation, their conflicts; and then their ways, habits, governments, forms of worship; ”

“ How natural the transition from the theory which assigns 'to the one the supremacy of the head, to the other that of the heart'—to that further division which attributes to the one Reason, to the other Faith. ”

“ The famous Gorge of Gando, at this stage of the road, renews the sombre horrors of the Via Mala. The hills close together above your head, and the daylight filters down their corrugated sides from three inches of blue. The mad torrent of the Dauria, roaring through the straitened vale, fills it forever with a sounding din, as—to compare poetry to prose—a railway train a tunnel. Emerging from the Gorge of Gando, you fairly breathe Italian air. The gusts of a mild climate come wandering along the road to meet you. ”

“ Each is right from his own particular point of view, and this point of view is the determining factor in the life of each. It determines as to whether it is a life of power or of impotence, of peace or of pain, of success or of failure. ”

“ Why need you choose so painfully your place, and occupation, and associates, and modes of action, and of entertainment? Certainly there is a possible right for you that precludes the need of balance and wilful election. For you there is a reality, a fit place and congenial duties. Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right, and a perfect contentment. ”

“ How much wider is the whole circle of heaven than thyself?—Wider than thou canst express.
“Among ourselves also, how vast the difference we may observe in men’s degrees of power! To you and me, and many another like us, many things are impossible which are quite easy to others. ”

“ I am asking you to look up, not back, nor away among the long dead years for any cause or ideal. I am asking you to search for your leader among your contemporaries, not satisfied until you find him, not limited in your devotion when you have found him, taking his cause to be yours. ”

“ For we are all born to be fellow-workers, as the feet, the hands, and the eyelids; as the rows of upper and under teeth: for such therefore to be in opposition, is against nature."—He saith, "It is high time for thee to understand true nature, both of the world, whereof thou art a part, and of that Lord and Governor of the world, from whom, as a channel from the spring, thou thyself didst flow. ”

“ In the first place, then, we have this abstract case: the power of representation and will are present, a sphere of action is present, and a free way opened from the soul to the world, from the world to the soul. ”

“ On the surface of things there is discord, confusion and want of adaptation; but dig down, first to the centre of the world, and then to the centre of your own nature, and you will find a most wonderful correspondence, a most beautiful harmony, between the two—the world made for the hero and the hero made for the world. ”

“ Thus, from all quarters and sources—the far-off Past, the far-away Pacific, the verse of the poet, the legend of history, the cell of the mad-house, the congregation of transported criminals, the experience of daily life, the universal heart of man—ascends spontaneous tribute to that law according to which we respond to the sentiments by which we are addressed, whether of love or hate, of confidence or distrust. ”

“ The reverent eye which sees the vastness of the plan, the multitude of its agents, aiding and seconding it consciously and unconsciously, recognizes it, and the supreme object of its workings, Love, infinite Love. ”