Society and the World

Among such persons are those women who transform themselves into just that function of a man that is but weakly developed in him, and then become his purse, or his politics, or his social intercourse. Such beings maintain themselves best when they insert themselves in an alien organism; if they do not succeed they become vexed, irritated, and eat themselves up.

A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

In some families, please is described as the magic word. In our house, however, it was sorry.

One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

I seem to have been like a child playing on the sea shore, finding now and then a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered before me.

The passions that motivate you may change, but it is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.

A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her imagination, and then they both speak of it as an affair of “the heart.”

It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.

Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.

Money … is none of the wheels of trade: it is the oil which renders the motion of the wheels more smooth and easy.

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning, concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning, concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

Custom, then, is the great guide of human life.

Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees That half a proper gardener’s work is done upon his knees.

Once more upon the waters, yet once more! And the waves bound beneath me as a steed That knows his rider!

He turn’d him right and round about Upon the Irish shore; And gae his bridle reins a shake, With adieu forevermore, And adieu forevermore!

Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow; The rest is all but leather or prunella.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay; Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade; A breath can make them, as a breath has made; But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride, When once destroy’d, can never be supplied.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay; Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade; A breath can make them, as a breath has made; But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride, When once destroy’d, can never be supplied.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay; Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade; A breath can make them, as a breath has made; But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride, When once destroy’d, can never be supplied.

Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.

We enact many laws that manufacturecriminals, and then a few that punish them.

 

I am in fact a Hobbit (in all but size). I likegardens, trees, and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking; I like, and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humor (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome); I go to bed late and get up late (when possible). I do not travel much.