In vain men try. They can never find in creatures sincere affection, perfect joy, or true peace.--BL. HENRY SUSO.
The check upon this free play of self-assertion, or natural liberty, which is the necessary condition for the origin of human society, is the product of organic necessities of a different land from those upon which the constitution of the hive depends. One of these is the mutual affection of parent and offspring, intensified by the long infancy of the human species. But the most important is the tendency, so strongly developed in man, to reproduce in himself actions and feelings similar to, or correlated with, those of other men. Man is the most consummate of all mimics in the animal world; none but himself can draw or model; none comes near him in the scope, variety, and exactness of vocal imitation; none is such a master of gesture; while he seems to be impelled thus to imitate for the pure pleasure of it. And there is no such another emotional chameleon. By a purely reflex operation of the mind, we take the hue of passion of those who are about us, or, it may be, the complementary colour. It is not by any conscious "putting one's self in the place" of a joyful or a suffering person that the state of mind we call sympathy usually arises; indeed, it is often contrary to one's sense of right, and in spite of one's will, that "fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind," or the reverse. However complete may be the indifference to public opinion, in a cool, intellectual view, of the traditional sage, it has not yet been my fortune to meet with any actual sage who took its hostile manifestations with entire equanimity. Indeed, I doubt if the philosopher lives, or ever has lived, who could know himself to be heartily despised by a street boy without some irritation. And, though one cannot justify Haman for wishing to hang Mordecai on such a very high gibbet, yet, really, the consciousness of the Vizier of Ahasuerus, as he went in and out of the gate, that this obscure Jew had no respect for him, must have been very annoying.
If you seek warmth of affection from a similar motive to that from which cats and dogs and slothful persons hug the fire, you are on the downward road.
Simplicity is in the intention, purity in the affection; simplicity turns to God, purity unites with and enjoys him.
God sometimes bestows gifts just that love may have something to renounce. The things that He puts into our hands are possibly put there that we may have the opportunity of showing what is in our heart. Oh, that there were in us a fervor of love that would lead us to examine everything that belongs to us, to ascertain how it might be made a means of showing our affection to Christ!--_George Bowen._
To those to whom we owe affection, let us be dumb until we are strong, though we should never be strong.
Have I begun this path of heavenly love and knowledge now? Am I progressing in it? Do I feel some dawnings of the heavenly light, earnests and antepasts of the full day of glory? Let all God's dealings serve to quicken me in my way. Let every affection it may please Him to send, be as the moving pillar-cloud of old, beckoning me to move my tent onward, saying, "Arise ye and depart, for this is not your rest." Let me be often standing now on faith's lofty eminences, looking for "the day of God"--the rising sun which is to set no more in weeping clouds. Wondrous progression! How will all earth's learning, its boasted acquirements and eagle-eyed philosophy sink into the lispings of very infancy in comparison with this manhood of knowledge! Heaven will be the true "_Excelsior_," its song, "_a song of degrees_," Jesus leading His people from height to height of glory, and saying, as He said to Nathaniel, "_Thou shalt see GREATER things than these!_"--_Macduff._
Books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal.
There was tremendous affection in Billy's eyes, or at least they held a tremendous offer of affection, a tremendous willingness to find whomever he was talking to bright and witty and better than most
The individual loves and hatreds, which sum up existence and life, are the brood of Eros; for hatred is only love in some form, crossed and thwarted, and always in nature so much hostility, so much affection of some kind is there.
Right is more beautiful than private affection, and is compatible with universal wisdom.
'T is the curse of service, Preferment goes by letter and affection, And not by old gradation, where each second Stood heir to the first.
Where love reigns, disturbing jealousy doth call himself affection's sentinel.
Mendico ne parentes quidem amici sunt=--To a beggar not even his own parents show affection.
Keep you in the rear of your affection, / Out of the shot and danger of desire.
When the soul breathes through a man's intellect, it is genius; when it breaks through his will, it is virtue; when it flows through his affection, it is love.
To which we may add this other Aristotelian consideration, that he who confers a benefit on any one loves him better than he is beloved by him again.
In the exact proportion in which men are bred capable of warm affection, common-sense, and self-command, and are educated to love, to think, and to endure, they become noble, live happily, die calmly, are remembered with perpetual honour by their race, and for the perpetual good of it.
Whatever it is that enables a soul, whom God designs to bless, to stand out against Him, God will touch. It may be the pride of wealth, or of influence, or of affection; but it will not be spared--God will touch it. It may be something as _natural_ as a sinew; but if it robs a man of spiritual blessing God will touch it. It may be as _small_ a thing as a sinew; but its influence in making a man strong in his resistance of blessing will be enough to condemn it--and God will touch it. And beneath that touch it will shrink and shrivel, and you will limp to the end of life.
Our virtues are dearer to us the more we have had to suffer for them. It is the same with our children. All profound affection admits a sacrifice.
The world is a forest of verdant possibility. No one person controls my happiness. No one person is the source of my joy. I am rooted in universal flow. My needs for love and affection are met by many sources. I am blessed by the ability to receive love through many channels. I open my heart to the love that is offered to me by multiple sources. My heart is a mountain meadow fed by many streams.
Jealousy is a painful passion; yet without some share of it, the agreeable affection of love has difficulty to subsist in its full force and violence.
Grief is only the memory of widowed affection.
Pity shapes not into syllogisms; / Nor can affection ape philosophy.
Do you know what makes the prison disappear? Every deep, genuine affection. Being friends, being brothers, loving, that is what opens the prison, with supreme power, by some magic force. Without these one stays dead. But whenever affection is revived, there life revives.
Love is the most easy and agreeable, and gratitude the most humiliating, affection of the mind.
When a husband is embraced without affection, there must be some reason for it.
Thus each degree of good fortune which raises us in the world removes us further from truth, because we fear most to wound those whose affection is most useful, and whose dislike is most dangerous. A prince may be the by-word of all Europe, yet he alone know nothing of it. I am not surprised; to speak the truth is useful to whom it is spoken, but disadvantageous to those who speak it, since it makes them hated. Now those who live with princes love their own interests more than that of the prince they serve, and thus they take care not to benefit him so as to do themselves a disservice.
Few natures can preserve through years the poetry of the first passionate illusion. That can alone render wedlock the seal that confirms affection, and not the mocking ceremonial that consecrates its grave.--_Bulwer-Lytton._
Universal love is a glove without fingers, which fits all hands alike, and none closely; but true affection is like a glove with fingers, which fits one hand only, and sits close to that one.
You say to me-wards your affection 's strong; Pray love me little, so you love me long.
Why political intellectuals, do you incline towards the proletariat? In commiseration for what? I realize that a proletarian would hate you, you have no hatred because you are bourgeois, privileged, smooth-skinned types, but also because you dare not say that the only important thing there is to say, that one can enjoy swallowing the shit of capital, its materials, its metal bars, its polystyrene, its books, its sausage pâtés, swallowing tonnes of it till you burst – and because instead of saying this, which is also what happens in the desires of those who work with their hands, arses and heads, ah, you become a leader of men, what a leader of pimps, you lean forward and divulge: ah, but that’s alienation, it isn’t pretty, hang on, we’ll save you from it, we will work to liberate you from this wicked affection for servitude, we will give you dignity. And in this way you situate yourselves on the most despicable side, the moralistic side where you desire that our capitalized’s desire be totally ignored, brought to a standstill, you are like priests with sinners, our servile intensities frighten you, you have to tell yourselves: how they must suffer to endure that! And of course we suffer, we the capitalized, but this does not mean that we do not enjoy, nor that what you think you can offer us as a remedy – for what? – does not disgust us, even more. We abhor therapeutics and its vaseline, we prefer to burst under the quantitative excesses that you judge the most stupid. And don’t wait for our spontaneity to rise up in revolt either.
The heart of a woman is never so full of affection that there does not remain a little corner for flattery and love.--_Mauvaux._
Four sweet lips, two pure souls, and one undying affection,--these are love's pretty ingredients for a kiss.--_Bovée._
Cunning signifies especially a habit or gift of overreaching, accompanied with enjoyment and a sense of superiority. It is associated with small and dull conceit, and with an absolute want of sympathy or affection. It is the intensest rendering of vulgarity, absolute and utter.--_Ruskin._
Cari sunt parentes, cari liberi, propinqui, familiares; sed omnes omnium caritates, patria una complexa est=--Dear are our parents, dear our children, our relatives, and our associates, but all our affections for all these are embraced in our affection for our native land.
Den Menschen Liebe, den Gottern Ehrfurcht=--To men, affection; to gods, reverence.
You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange.
Credula res amor est=--Love is a credulous affection.
To be an enthusiast is to be the worthiest of affection, the noblest and the best that a mortal can be.
Just as I think it would be a mistake to confound the science, morality, with the affection, religion; so do I conceive it to be a most lamentable and mischievous error, that the science, theology, is so confounded in the minds of many--indeed, I might say, of the majority of men.
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Entire affection hateth nicer hands.
Every gift which is given, even though it be small, is in reality great if it be given with affection.
What will not woman, gentle woman, dare, / When strong affection stirs her spirit up?
The fourteenth of February is a day sacred to St. Valentine! It was a very odd notion, alluded to by Shakespeare, that on this day birds begin to couple; hence, perhaps, arose the custom of sending on this day letters containing professions of love and affection.--_Noah Webster._
The affection of young ladies is of as rapid growth as Jack's beanstalk, and reaches up to the sky in a night.
'Tis the curse of service; preferment goes by letter and affection, not by the old gradation where each second stood heir to the first.
There are different degrees in this dislike to the truth, but it may be said that all have it in some degree, for it is inseparable from self-love. This false delicacy causes those who must needs reprove others to choose so many windings and modifications in order to avoid shocking them. They must needs lessen our faults, seem to excuse them, mix praises with their blame, give evidences of affection and esteem. Yet this medicine is always bitter to self-love, which takes as little as it can, always with disgust, often with a secret anger against those who administer it.
Ownership by delegation is a contradiction in terms. When men say, for instance (by a false metaphor), that each member of the public should feel himself an owner of public property—such as a Town Park—and should therefore respect it as his own, they are saying something which all our experience proves to be completely false. No man feels of public property that it is his own; no man will treat it with the care of the affection of a thing which is his own; still less can a man express himself through the use of a thing which is not his own, but shared in common with a mass of other men. [ The Restoration of Property . New York: Sheed and Ward, 1936, p. 24.]
Then let thy love be younger than thyself, Or thy affection cannot hold the bent.
Life is short, even for those who live a long time, and we must live for the few who know and appreciate us, who judge and absolve us, and for whom we have the same affection and indulgence. The rest I look upon as a mere crowd, lively or sad, loyal or corrupt, from whom there is nothing to be expected but fleeting emotions, either pleasant or unpleasant, which leave no trace behind them. We ought to hate very rarely, as it is too fatiguing; remain indifferent to a great deal, forgive often and never forget.
Patri? pietatis imago=--The image of his filial affection.
~Forgetfulness.~--There is nothing, no, nothing, innocent or good that dies and is forgotten: let us hold to that faith or none. An infant, a prattling child, dying in the cradle, will live again in the better thoughts of those that loved it, and play its part through them in the redeeming actions of the world, though its body be burnt to ashes, or drowned in the deep sea. Forgotten! Oh, if the deeds of human creatures could be traced to their source, how beautiful would even death appear! for how much charity, mercy, and purified affection would be seen to have their growth in dusty graves!--_Dickens._
Thus love is the most easy and agreeable, and gratitude the most humiliating, affection of the mind: we never reflect on the man we love without exulting in our choice, while he who has bound us to him by benefits alone rises to our ideas as a person to whom we have in some measure forfeited our freedom.--_Goldsmith._
You realize that trying to keep your distance from me will not lessen my affection for you. All efforts to save me from you will fail.
He that purposes to be happy by the affection or acquaintance of the best, the greatest man alive, will always find his mind unsettled and perplexed.
I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it.
Certain it is that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as that of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition; but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express.
You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection
The choicest thing this world has for a man is affection.
Give me but / Something whereunto I may bind my heart; / Something to love, to rest upon, to clasp / Affection's tendrils round.
The best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from unmarried or childless men, which, both in affection and means, have married and endowed the public.
In spite of all his faults, there is no creature worthier of affection than man.
Woman alone knows true loyalty of affection.
Private self-regard must have been wholly subordinated to, if not entirely cast out by, a higher principle of action and a purer affection before a man can become either truly moral or religious.
You accuse woman of wavering affection. Blame her not; she is but seeking a constant man.
Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature. Simplicity is in the intention, purity in the affection; simplicity turns to God; purity unites with and enjoys Him.
You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
La clemence des princes n'est souvent qu'une politique pour gagner l'affection des peuples=--The clemency of princes is often only a political man?uvre to gain the affections of their subjects.
It is difficult to feel deep veneration and great affection for one and the same person.
A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
The virtuous man, from his justice and the affection he hath for mankind, is the dispeller of sorrow and pain.
What will not woman, gentle woman dare, When strong affection stirs her spirit up?
Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. And then there are books like An Imperial Affliction, which you can't tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like betrayal
There are few sensations more pleasant than that of wondering. We have all experienced it in childhood, in youth, in manhood, and we may hope that even in our old age this affection of the mind will not entirely pass away. If we analyse this feeling of wonder carefully, we shall find that it consists of two elements. What we mean by wondering is not only that we are startled or stunned--that I should call the merely passive element of wonder. When we say 'I wonder' we confess that we are taken aback, but there is a secret satisfaction mixed up with our feeling of surprise, a kind of hope, nay, almost of certainty, that sooner or later the wonder will cease, that our senses or our mind will recover, will grapple with these novel expressions or experiences, grasp them, it may be, know them, and finally triumph over them. In fact we wonder at the riddles of nature, whether animate or inanimate, with a firm conviction that there is a solution to them all, even though we ourselves may not be able to find it. Wonder, no doubt, arises from ignorance, but from a peculiar kind of ignorance, from what might be called a fertile ignorance; an ignorance which, if we look back at the history of most of our sciences, will be found to have been the mother of all human knowledge.
Ou sont les neiges d'antan?=--Where is the snow of last year? _F. Villons._ [Greek: ou toi synechthein alla symphilein ephyn]--I am here not for mutual hatred, but for mutual affection.
Entire affection hateth nicer hands.
Private affection bereaves us easily of a right judgment.
~Affection.~--None of the affections have been noted to fascinate and bewitch, but love and envy.--_Bacon._
It is very sweet to note that a voice from heaven said to John, "Write." Does not that voice come to us? Are there not those who would taste the joys of heaven if we wrote them words of forgiveness and affection? Are there not others who would dry their tears if we would remind them of past joys, when we were poor as they are now? Nay, could not some, who read these plain words, place inside the envelope something bearing their signature which would make the widow's heart dance for joy?
Nine times out of ten it is over the Bridge of Sighs that we pass the narrow gulf from youth to manhood. That interval is usually occupied by an ill-placed or disappointed affection. We recover and we find ourselves a new being. The intellect has become hardened by the fire through which it has passed. The mind profits by the wrecks of every passion, and we may measure our road to wisdom by the sorrows we have undergone.
He only is great of heart who floods the world with a great affection. He only is great of mind who stirs the world with great thoughts. He only is great of will who does something to shape the world to a great career; and he is greatest who does the most of all these things, and does them best.
Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.
Among all the many kinds of first love, that which begins in childish companionship is the strongest and most enduring; when passion comes to unite its force to long affection, love is at its spring-tide.--_George Eliot._
I cannot speak of my own knowledge, but I have every reason to believe that I came into this world a small reddish person, certainly without a gold spoon in my mouth, and in fact with no discernible abstract or concrete "rights" or property of any description. If a foot was not set upon me at once, as a squalling nuisance, it was either the natural affection of those about me, which I certainly had done nothing to deserve, or the fear of the law which, ages before my birth, was painfully built up by the society into which I intruded, that prevented that catastrophe. If I was nourished, cared for, taught, saved from the vagabondage of a wastrel, I certainly am not aware that I did anything to deserve those advantages. And, if I possess anything now, it strikes me that, though I may have fairly earned my day's wages for my day's work, and may justly call them my property--yet, without that organization of society, created out of the toil and blood of long generations before my time, I should probably have had nothing but a flint axe and an indifferent hut to call my own; and even those would be mine only so long as no stranger savage came my way.
Power is the finest token of affection.
There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection</p> increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the
circumstances can the food be omitted.
-- Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour
We may not return the affection of those who like us, but we always respect their good judgement.