"Oh! what a vile and abject thing is man unless he can erect
himself above humanity." Here is a read more

"Oh! what a vile and abject thing is man unless he can erect
himself above humanity." Here is a bon mot and a useful desire,
but equally absurd. For to make the handful bigger than the
hand, the armful bigger then the arm, and to hope to stride
further than the stretch of our legs, is impossible and
monstrous. . . . He may lift himself if God lend him His hand of
special grace; he may lift himself . . . by means wholly
celestial. It is for our Christian religion, and not for his
Stoic virtue, to pretend to this divine and miraculous
metamorphosis.

A song to the oak, the brave old oak,
Who hath ruled in the greenwood long;
Here's read more

A song to the oak, the brave old oak,
Who hath ruled in the greenwood long;
Here's health and renown to his broad green crown,
And his fifty arms so strong.
There's fear in his frown when the Sun goes down,
And the fire in the West fades out;
And he showeth his might on a wild midnight,
When the storms through his branches shout.

Besides that, when elsewhere the harvest of wheat is most
abundant, there it comes up less by one-fourth than read more

Besides that, when elsewhere the harvest of wheat is most
abundant, there it comes up less by one-fourth than what you have
sowed. There, methinks, it were a proper place for men to sow
their wild oats, where they would not spring up.
[Lat., Post id, frumenti quum alibi messis maxima'st
Tribus tantis illi minus reddit, quam obseveris.
Heu! istic oportet obseri mores malos,
Si in obserendo possint interfieri.]

'Tis thus the mercury of man is fix'd,
Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd.

'Tis thus the mercury of man is fix'd,
Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix'd.

The oaks with solemnity shook their heads;
The twigs of the birch-trees, in token
Of warning, nodded,--and read more

The oaks with solemnity shook their heads;
The twigs of the birch-trees, in token
Of warning, nodded,--and I exclaim'd:
"Dear Monarch, forgive what I've spoken!"

The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.

The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.

Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.

Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.

The great world's altar stairs
That slope through darkness up to God.

The great world's altar stairs
That slope through darkness up to God.