The Buddhist, who thanks no man, who says “Do not flatter your benefactors,” but who, in his conviction that every good deed can by no possibility escape its reward, will not deceive the benefactor by pretending that he has done more than he should, is a Transcendentalist.
The philanthropists inquire whether Transcendentalism does not mean sloth: they had as lief hear that their friend is dead, as that he is a Transcendentalist; for then is he paralyzed, and can never do anything for humanity.
The boxer’s ring is the enjoyment of the part of society whose animal nature alone has been developed.
We fetch fire and water, run about all day among the shops and markets, and get our clothes and shoes made and mended, and are thevictims of these details, and once in a fortnight we arrive perhaps at a rational moment.
All forms of government symbolize an immortal government, common to all dynasties and independent of numbers, perfect where two men exist, perfect where there is only one man.
The piety of the Hebrew prophets purges their grossness. The circumcision is an example of the power of poetry to raise the low and offensive.
We denote this primary wisdom as Intuition, whilst all later teachings are tuitions.
A man in a cave or in a camp, a nomad, will die with no more estate than the wolf or the horse leaves.
I look on Sculpture as history. I do not think the Apollo and the Jove impossible in flesh and blood. Every trait the artist recorded in stone, he had seen in life, and better than his copy.
The statue is then beautiful when it begins to be incomprehensible, when it is passing out of criticism, and can no longer be defined by compass and measuring-wand, but demands an active imagination to go with it, and to say what it is in the act of doing.
The god or hero of the sculptor is always represented in a transition from that which is representable to the senses, to that which is not.
A right rule for a club would be, Admit no man whose presence excludes any one topic. It requires people who are not surprised andshocked, who do and let do, and let be, who sink trifles, and know solid values, and who take a great deal for granted.
It is always a practical difficulty with clubs to regulate the laws of election so as to exclude peremptorily every social nuisance. Nobody wishes bad manners. We must have loyalty and character.
Popularity is for dolls.
Everything that is popular, it has been said, deserves the attention of philosophers: and this is for the obvious reason, that although it may not be of any worth in itself, yet it characterizes the people.
Nobody is glad in the gladness of another, and our system is one of war, of an injurious superiority. Every child of the Saxon race is educated to wish to be first. It is our system; and a man comes to measure his greatness by the regrets, envies, and hatreds of his competitors.
It is easy to carp at colleges, and the college, if he will wait for it, will have its own turn. Genius exists there also, but will not answer a call of a committee of the House of Commons. It is rare, precious, eccentric, and darkling.
Oxford is a little aristocracy in itself, numerous and dignified enough to rank with other estates in the realm; and where fame and secular promotion are to be had for study, and in a direction which has the unanimous respect of all cultivated nations.
The university must be retrospective. The gale that gives direction to the vanes on all its towers blows out of antiquity.
A Gothic cathedral affirms that it was done by us and not done by us.