Yea and nay

“ Persons whose yea is unvaryingly yea, and whose nay is unvaryingly nay, generally resort to no form of oath or imprecation to gain credence to their statements, for their truthfulness is seldom called in question—at least, where they are well known. ”

“ He felt her so strong and salient under his hand—so strong, so full-budded, so hopeful of fruit—that despair of her loss seized him again, terrible rage. He sickened, while in her the warm blood leaped. He wanted everything; she, nothing in the world. He, the king of men, was the bond; she, the cast-off minion, she, this Jehane Saint-Pol, was the free. So God, making war upon the great, rights the balances of this world. ”

“ In the Transvaluation of all Values, in an emancipation from all moral values, in a saying of yea, and in an attitude of trust, to all that which hitherto has been forbidden, despised, and damned. This yea-saying book projects its light, its love, its tenderness, over all evil things, it restores to them their soul, their clear conscience, and their superior right and privilege to exist on earth. [Pg 93] Morality is not assailed, it simply ceases to be considered. ”

“ The way was through a pebbly waste of beach and salt-grass, and a sea-scrub of grey bushes. A mile to their left the rocks began, spurs of the mountains; the shrubs became stunted trees; the rocks climbed, the trees with them; then the forest rose, first sparsely, then thick and dark; lastly, into the deep blue of the sky soared the toothed ridges, grey, scarred, and splintry. Scurrying horsemen, on beasts incredibly sure of foot, hung on the edge of these fastnesses, yelling, whirling their lances, white-clad, swarthy and hoarse. ”

“ Dazzling snow-curtains, black hanging-woods, sheer walls of granite, frame it in: looking up on all sides you see the soaring pikes; and deep under a coffer-lid of blue it lies, greener than an emerald, a valley of easy sleep. There in the great chambers young men lie dreaming of women, and sleek boys stand about the doorways with cups of madness held close to their breasts. ”

“ They define unhappily by negation, that which in its essential nature is strongly affirmative, that which has the spirit of the 'Everlasting Yea' in it as fully as any belief which has ever been formulated by or promulgated among men. It is most unfortunate that the creeds and principles which are most 68closely related to the political and industrial, as well as to the spiritual progress of mankind, have by accident, as it were, assumed this negative shape in their proclamation of themselves to the world. It is their aspect to their opponents which has become their definition ”

“ I fancy you will smile at such a profound remark; nevertheless, many act as if they never knew it, both in uttering these monosyllables themselves and in interpreting them as uttered by others. Young ladies, for example, when the question, as it is called, par excellence (as if it were more important than the whole catechism together) is put to them, often say ‘no’ when they really mean ‘yes.’ It is a singular happiness for them that the young gentlemen to whom they reply in this contradictory sort of way have a similar incapacity of understanding ‘yes’ and ‘no;’ nay, a greater ”

“ Howland, do you understand the importance of the word No?"
"I think I do, father," Thomas replied. "But is there not danger of my using it too often and thus becoming selfish in all my feelings, and consequently unwilling to render benefits to others?"
"Certainly there is, Thomas. The legitimate use of this word is to resist evil. To refuse to do a good action is wrong." "If any one asks me, then, to do him a favor or kindness, I should not, on any account, say, no." ”

“ In later years, when they were both grey-haired men whose Yea or No was of some weight in the world—one speaking with the great and open voice of the Press, the other working subtly, dumbly, secretly—their motives may have clashed once more, their souls may have met and touched, as it were, over the heads of the People, but they never looked into each other's eyes again. ”

“ When the time comes, if ever it should, that you have to say 'Yes' or 'No' to a challenge to fight, say 'No' if you can—only take care you make it plain to yourself why you say 'No.' It's a proof of the highest courage, if done from true Christian motives. ”

“ I grant that there are a thousand conventional cases in which ‘yes’ means ‘no,’ and ‘no’ means ‘yes;’ and they are so ridiculously common that every one is supposed, in politeness, not to mean what he says, or, rather, is not doubted to mean the contrary of what he says. ”

“ I turned from him somewhat disdainfully: but, instantly recollecting myself, I stepped back, and apologized for the harsh manner into which I had been betrayed by his abrupt address, vehement expostulation, and the previous irritated state of my mind.
'I acknowledge,' said I, 'the disinterestedness of your proposal, and the distinction which it implies. Will you allow my own wounded feelings to be an excuse for the too little consideration with which I have treated your's? Can you forgive me?' added I, in a conciliating tone, holding out my hand. ”

“ We do not square with the moral code of the good among you, nor with the caprice and devilment of the bad; and so away with us! I am 'cruel' to you, forsooth, because I tell you that you no longer love a worthless profligate, who sports with your peace and your honour at the bidding of a wanton! ”

“ And if I did not reject you, as you say--if I accepted this love, this compensating truth and loyalty, which you offer me, what should I be, Laurence Alsager, but her compeer? Have you thought of that? Have you remembered that there is a law in marriage apart from and above all feeling? Have you considered what she who breaks that law is, in the sight of God, in the unquenchable light of her own conscience, though her conduct were as pure from stain as the ermine of a royal robe? I am speaking, not chilly, chilling moralities, but immortal, immutable truth. ”

“ Nay, let the poor rogues have their forecastle jests: they cannot help 'em in a fight, scarce when a ship's sinking.
Man. Damn their untimely jests! a servant's jest is more sauciness than his counsel. ”

“ A jay's gifts, and instincts, and feelings, and interests, cover the whole ground. A jay hasn't got any more principle than a Congressman. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive, a jay will betray ”

“ What materials does this stubborn mechanism of the mind offer to the wise and benevolent legislator!
'Had I, you tell me, "worshipped at the altar of reason, but half as assiduously as I have sacrificed at the shrine of illusion, my happiness might have been enviable." But do you not perceive, that my reason was the auxiliary of my passion, or rather my passion the generative principle of my reason? Had not these contradictions, these oppositions, roused the energy of my mind, I might have domesticated, tamely, in the lap of indolence and apathy. ”

“ I have, however, been at no pains to separate my own beliefs from those of the peasantry, but have rather let my men and women, dhouls and faeries, go their way unoffended or defended by any argument of mine. ”

“ At sight of her, Jeannie flushed, paled, trembled, and then stammered out, "Surely you are not angry at my little joke!"
"Joke!" said Norah. "Do you call it a jest to trifle with the purest, holiest feelings that God has given us the power to entertain one towards another? Is it a jest to bring a man to your feet, to induce him to lay bare his heart, to offer you his affection, to devote all that is best in him, and all that he has to your service, and then to mock him? ”

“ In such and similar cases, in which your sincerity is unjustly assailed, when no other way more prompt or more efficacious presents itself, and when it is not enough to say, 'I do not know,' let such persons be met openly with a downright resolute 'No' without thinking upon anything else. For such a 'No' is conformable to the universal opinion of men, who are the judges of words, and who certainly have not placed upon them obligations to the injury of the Human Republic, nor ever entered into a compact to use them in behalf of rascals, spies, incendiaries, and thieves. ”

“ But if one set up a will of his own—rebelled in his feelings against a union with each other and with his legitimate head also, he might pity the folly of that rebellious one, but could not love him as those who rebelled not. ”

“ This subject, however, is too serious to admit of a jest even between two persons who understand, so well as you and I do, the secret cipher by which each other’s outward style of jest is to be gravely interpreted into the irony which says one thing and means another. My dear boy, you are very young; you are wandering about in a very strange manner, and may, no doubt, meet with many a pretty face by the way, with which you may fancy that you fall in love. ”

“ I believe that there is a man to whom she would not say 'No,' were he to ask the question I never dared to put into words. Not, mind you, that she would, even by a look, do aught to draw a man on for the sake of a petty triumph, or even betray her real feelings unsought. ”

“ No one of us ought to issue vetoes to the other, nor should we bandy words of abuse. We ought, on the contrary, delicately and profoundly to respect one another’s mental freedom: then only shall we bring about the intellectual republic ”

“ Hay was truth telling, sympathetic, a peacemaker, a resolute opponent of gossip and scandal of every kind, a woman who minded her own business and was only mildly insistent that others should do likewise. ”

“ To deny oneself is to deny God, after whose image one is made.”
“A pretty conceit,” said Ned; “but it spells degeneracy.”
“Ay, monsieur; and to the very foundations—as far back as the garden of Paradise.”
“What! You would revert to primitive conditions?”
“To the very ‘naked and unashamed’—but applying to that state the influence of long traditions of gentle manners. We will admit the happiness of the community to be the first consideration, and reconstruct upon a basis of nature.” ”

“ If she was bent on leaving him, he was determined to oppose her to the utmost, to exert every art, every argument he could devise to induce her to alter her decision,—to see the thing from his point of view,—to be reasonable. ”

“ Some men are constitutionally incapable of saying no: but the Minister conveys it thus—'The answer to the question is in the negative.' That means 'no.' Can you discover it to mean anything less, or anything more except that the speaker is a pompous person?—which was no part of the information demanded. ”

“ If those who are molested by scruples wish to know whether they have consented to a suggestion or not, especially in thoughts, they should see whether, during the temptation, they have always had a lively love to the virtue opposed to the vice in respect of which they were tempted, and hatred to that same vice, and this is mostly a good proof that they have not consented. ”

“ Because I have come into my strength,
And words obey my call.'
That had she done so who can say
What would have shaken from the sieve?
I might have thrown poor words away
And been content to live. ”

“ But her right shall no longer be denied; for you yourself have avowed the truth to me. You must now resign her share to her." "Sire," she says, "if I uttered a foolish and thoughtless word, you ought not to take me up in it. ”

“ Yaé, with her distorted little soul, was thinking that it must be worth the years of slavery and the humiliation of disease to have that one day of complete triumph, to be the representative of Beauty upon earth, to feel the admiration and the desire of that vast concourse of men rising round one's body like a warm flood. ”

“ Sometimes it is best to say 'Yes' when people ask you to do certain things, and sometimes a flat-footed 'No' is the thing. Remember that if you agree with everybody who expresses an opinion, you have the respect of nobody. ”

“ For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law, are a law unto themselves; which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing, or else excusing one another. ”

“ But he is not sound—his opinions are loose, and he only respects and patronizes Divine Truth as what has approved itself to so many good, great, and beloved human creatures. It is not denial—it is patronage. ”

“ It is hard to find any one phrase that characterizes these consequences better than the ordinary agreement-formula—just such consequences being what we have in mind when we say that our ideas ‘agree’ with reality. ”

“ I ventured less than, already, I should have liked to venture; yet I none the less seemed to see her try on me the effect of the intimation that I was going far. "Is it your wish," she inquired with much nobleness, "to confront me, to my confusion, with my inconsistency?" Her nobleness offered itself somehow as such a rebuke to my mere logic that, in my momentary irritation, I might have been on the point of assenting to her question. ”

“ Many are the men who have puzzled long and painfully over the motives of a woman's 'No.' Yet in nine cases out of ten a woman says 'No' merely because she feels herself on the brink of saying 'Yes'. In other words,
It is often mistrust of herself that leads many a woman to refuse it will the lips the consent that is fluttering at her heart. ”