His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. You appear to be astonished, he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it. To forget it! You see, he explained, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones. But the Solar System! I protested. What the deuce is it to me? he interrupted impatiently: you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.
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No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad.
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We have our little theory on all human and divine things. Poetry, the workings of genius itself, which, in all times, with one or another meaning, has been called Inspiration, and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is no longer without its scientific exposition. The building of the lofty rhyme is like any other masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of its rise, height, decline and fall -- which latter, it would seem, is now near, among all people.
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Happy are the people whose annals are blank in history books
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Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacle s, discouragement s, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.
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To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not God made visible if we will open our minds and our eyes.
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The cut of a garment speaks of intellect and talent and the color of temperament and heart.
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Long stormy spring-time, wet contentious April, winter chilling the lap of very May; but at length the season of summer does come.
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A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.
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Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice; but only accident here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.
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Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, and its power of endurance - the cheerful man will do more in the same time, will do it; better, will preserve it longer, than the sad or sullen.
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In a symbol there is concealment and yet revelation: here therefore, by silence and by speech acting together, comes a double significance. In the symbol proper, what we can call a symbol, there is ever, more or less distinctly and directly, some embodiment and revelation of the Infinite; the Infinite is made to blend itself with the Finite, to stand visible, and as it were, attainable there. By symbols, accordingly, is man guided and commanded, made happy, made wretched.
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To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.
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There are good and bad times, but our mood changes more often than our fortune.
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A person who is gifted sees the essential point and leaves the rest as surplus.
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Enjoy things which are pleasant that is not the evil it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is.
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What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.
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Long stormy spring-time, wet contentious April, winter chilling the lap of very May but at length the season of summer does come.
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Old age is not a matter for sorrow. It is matter for thanks if we have left our work done behind us.
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The fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself.
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True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt; its essence is love. It issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper.
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The three great elements of modern civilization, Gun powder, Printing, and the Protestant religion.
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The true university of these days is a collection of books.
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The history of the world is but the biography of great men.
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A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder.
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In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment.
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A person with half volition goes backwards and forwards, but makes no progress on even the smoothest of roads.
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Endurance is patience concentrated.
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Laughter is the cipher key wherewith we decipher the whole man
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Oh, give us the man who sings at his work.
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