Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish. And yet it also pleases me and seems right that what is of value and wisdom to one man seems nonsense to another.
Why so pale and wan, fond lover? Prithee, why so pale? Will, when looking well can't move her, Looking ill prevail? Prithee, why so pale?
In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed and the boldest staggered.
Vanity is so anchored in the heart of man that a soldier, a soldier's servant, a cook, a porter brags and wishes to have his admirers. Even philosophers wish for them. Those who write against it want to have the glory of having written well; and those who read it desire the glory of having read it. I who write this have perhaps this desire, and perhaps those who will read it...
The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be; / The devil was well, the devil a monk was he.
Abraham took nothing for himself, but only for his servants; so the just man takes for himself nothing of the world, nor of the applause of the world, but only for his passions, which he uses as their master, saying to the one, 'Go,' and to another, 'Come.' _Sub te erit appetitus tuus._ The passions thus subdued are virtues. God himself attributes to himself avarice, jealousy, anger; and these are virtues as well as kindness, pity, constancy, which are also passions. We must treat them as slaves, and leaving to them their food hinder the soul from taking any of it. For when the passions gain the mastery they are vices, then they furnish nutriment to the soul, and the soul feeds on it and is poisoned.
In writing readily, it does not follow that you write well; but in writing well, you must be able to write readily.
Thou mayest as well expect to grow stronger by always eating, as wiser by always reading.
Thus would I double my life's fading space; For he that runs it well, runs twice his race.
A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well
This is the first condition of a living morality as well as of vital religion, that the soul shall find a true centre out from and above itself, round which it shall revolve.
The one thing that can never be told is the last notion of the President, for his notions grow like a tropical forest. So in case you don't know, I'd better tell you that he is carrying out his notion of concealing ourselves by not concealing ourselves to the most extraordinary lengths just now. … He said that if you didn't seem to be hiding nobody hunted you out. Well, he is the only man on earth, I know; but sometimes I really think that his huge brain is going a little mad in its old age. For now we flaunt ourselves before the public. … They say we are a lot of jolly gentlemen who pretend they are anarchists.
Like an arrow shot From a well-experienc'd archer hits the mark His eye doth level at.
A well lettered man is so because he is well natured, and just as the cause is more admirable than the effect, so is a good disposition, unlettered, more praiseworthy than a well lettered man who is without natural disposition.
There is a certain generation of painters who, owing to the scantiness of their studies, must needs live up to the beauty of gold and azure, and with supreme folly declare that they will not give good work for poor payment, and that they could do as well as others if they were well paid. Now consider, foolish people! Cannot such men reserve some good work and say, "This is costly; this is moderate, and this is cheap work," and show that they have work at every price?
The actual well seen is the ideal.
He's well worth= (deserving of) =sorrow that buys it with his ain siller.
There is in the heart of woman such a deep well of love that no age can freeze it.
We take a great deal for granted in this world, and expect that everything, as a matter of course, ought to fit into our humours, wishes, and wants; it is often only when danger threatens that we awake to the discovery that the guiding reins are held by one whom we had well-nigh forgotten in our careless ease.
A Moment's Halt--a momentary taste Of BEING from the Well amid the Waste-- And, Lo! the phantom Caravan has reach'd The NOTHING it set out from. Oh, make haste!
The reason of this is that small birds being without down cannot support the intense cold of the high altitudes in which the vultures and eagles or and other great birds, well supplied with down and clothed with many kinds of feathers, [fly]. Again, the small birds, having delicate and thin wings, support themselves in the low air, which is denser, and they could not bear up in the rarer air, which affords slighter resistance.
You know perfectly well that if ever you really want to, you can come back to me," he said without the slightest trace of irony and cynicism, and left.
Nothing truly can be made mine own but what I make mine own by using well.
The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough. Poverty is its ornament. It does not need plenty, and can very well abide its loss.
To examine ourselves is good; but useless unless we also examine Environment. To bewail our weakness is right, but not remedial. The cause must be investigated as well as the result. And yet, because we never see the other half of the problem, our failures even fail to instruct us. After each new collapse we begin our life anew, but on the old conditions; and the attempt ends as usual in the repetition--in the circumstances the inevitable repetition--of the old disaster. Natural Law, Environment, p. 265.
The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.
Tam Marti quam Mercurio=--As much for Mars as for Mercury; as well qualified for war as for business.
In democratic countries as well as elsewhere most of the branches of productive industry are carried on at a small cost by men little removed by their wealth or education above the level of those whom they employ. These manufacturing speculators are extremely numerous; their interests differ; they cannot therefore easily concert or combine their exertions. On the other hand, the workmen have always some sure resources which enable them to refuse to work when they cannot get what they conceive to be the fair price of their labor. In the constant struggle for wages that is going on between these two classes, their strength is divided and success alternates from one to the other. It is even probable that in the end the interest of the working class will prevail, for the high wages which they have already obtained make them every day less dependent on their masters, and as they grow more independent, they have greater facilities for obtaining a further increase of wages. I shall take for example that branch of productive industry which is still at the present day the most generally followed in France and in almost all the countries of the world, the cultivation of the soil. In France most of those who labor for hire in agriculture are themselves owners of certain plots of ground, which just enable them to subsist without working for anyone else. When these laborers come to offer their services to a neighboring landowner or farmer, if he refuses them a certain rate of wages they retire to their own small property and await another opportunity. [ Democracy in America, Volume II , pp. 189-190.]
There is endless backwoodsman's work yet to be done. If "those also serve who only stand and wait," still more do those who sweep and cleanse; and if any man elect to give his strength to the weeder's and scavenger's occupation, I remain of the opinion that his service should be counted acceptable, and that no one has a right to ask more of him than faithful performance of the duties he has undertaken. I venture to count it an improbable suggestion that any such person--a man, let us say, who has well-nigh reached his threescore years and ten, and has graduated in all the faculties of human relationships; who has taken his share in all the deep joys and deeper anxieties which cling about them; who has felt the burden of young; lives entrusted to his care, and has stood alone with his dead before the abyss of the eternal--has never had a thought beyond negative criticism. It seems to me incredible that such an one can have done his day's work, always with a light heart, with no sense of responsibility, no terror of that which may appear when the factitious veil of Isis--the thick web of fiction man has woven round nature--is stripped off.
Every individual colour makes on men an impression of its own, and thereby reveals its nature to the eye as well as the mind.
Woman, sister! there are some things which you do not execute as well as your brother, man; no, nor ever will. Pardon me, if I doubt whether you will ever produce a great poet from your choirs, or a Mozart, or a Phidias, or a Michael Angelo, or a great philosopher, or a great scholar. By which last is meant, not one who depends simply on an infinite memory, but also on an infinite and electrical power of combination; bringing together from the four winds, like the angel of the resurrection, what else were dust from dead men's bones, into the unity of breathing life. If you can create yourselves into any of these grand creators, why have you not?--_De Quincey._
Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of
History needs distance, perspective. Facts and events which are too well attested cease, in some sort, to be malleable.--_Joubert._
I have observed a gardener cut the outward rind of a tree (which is the surtout of it), to make it bear well: and this is a natural account of the usual poverty of poets, and is an argument why wits, of all men living, ought to be ill clad. I have always a sacred veneration for any one I observe to be a little out of repair in his person, as supposing him either a poet or a philosopher; because the richest minerals are ever found under the most ragged and withered surfaces of the earth.--_Swift._
Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.
It is not the reading of many books that is necessary to make a man wise and good, but the well-reading of a few.
In the good as well as in the evil of life, less depends upon what befalls us than upon the way in which we take it.
_The arrangement._--I might well have taken this discourse in some such order as the following: To show the vanity of every state of life, to show the vanity of ordinary lives, and then the vanity of philosophic lives, sceptics, stoics; but the order would not have been kept. I know a little what it is, and how few people know it. No human science can keep it. Saint Thomas did not keep it. Mathematics keep it, but these are useless by reason of their depth.
Empfindliche Ohren sind, bei Madchen so gut als bei Pferden, gute Gesundheitszeichen=--In maidens as well as in horses, sensitive ears are signs of good health.
Bene merenti bene profuerit, male merenti par erit=--To a well-deserving man God will show favour, to an ill-deserving He will be simply just.
Whose well-taught mind the present age surpast.
We wound our modesty and make foul the clearness of our deservings when of ourselves we publish them.
It is well to be weary and harassed by the useless search after the true good, that we may stretch our arms to the Redeemer.
The only faith that wears well, and holds its colour in all weathers, is that which is woven of conviction, and set with the sharp mordant of experience.
~Libels.~--Undoubtedly the good fame of every man ought to be under the protection of the laws, as well as his life and liberty and property. Good fame is an outwork that defends them all and renders them all valuable. The law forbids you to revenge; when it ties up the hands of some, it ought to restrain the tongues of others.--_Burke._
To carry out a well-devised plan in war is more effectual than strokes and thrusts.
No other has recognised that man is of all creatures the most excellent. Some, having apprehended the reality of his excellence, have blamed as mean and ungrateful the low opinion which men naturally have of themselves, and others, well aware how real is this vileness, have treated with haughty ridicule those sentiments of greatness which are no less natural to man.
If I ventured to speak of God's purpose at all, I should say, that it is not God's purpose to win only the spiritually gifted, the humble, the tender hearted, the souls that are discontented with their own shortcomings, the souls that find happiness in self-sacrifice--those are His already--but to win the intellectually gifted, the wise, the cultivated, the clever, or better still, to win them both. It would be an evil day for Christianity if it could no longer win the intellectually gifted, the wise, the cultivated, the clever, and it seems to me the duty of all who really believe in Christ to show that Christianity, if truly understood, can win the highest as well as the humblest intellects.
There are sins of omission as well as those of commission.--_Madame Deluzy._
Defer not the least virtue; life's poor span / Make not an ell, by trifling in thy woe. / If thou do ill, the joy fades, not the pains; / If well, the pain doth fade, the joy remains.
E buon comprare quando un altro vuol vendere=--It is well to buy when another wishes to sell.
A babe in a house is a well-spring of pleasure.
After all, one travels in order for things to happen and change; otherwise you might as well stay at home.
The will therefore is depraved. If the members of natural and civil communities tend towards the well-being of the body, the communities themselves should tend to the welfare of another more general body of which they are members. We should therefore look to the whole. We are therefore born unjust and depraved.
Property should be in a general sense common, but as a general rule private…. In well-ordered states, although every man has his own property, some things he will place at the disposal of his friends, while of others he shares the use of them. [ The Politics. ]
Speak gently! 't is a little thing Dropp'd in the heart's deep well; The good, the joy, that it may bring Eternity shall tell.
Let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this precept well to heart: "Do the duty which lies nearest thee," which thou knowest to be a duty! Thy second duty will already have become clearer.
Pence well-spent are better than pence ill-spared.
We are often surprised at the outward calmness of men who are called upon to do unpleasant and most trying deeds; but could we have seen them in secret, we should have known the moral preparation which they underwent before coming out to be seen by men. Be right in the sanctuary, if you would be right in the market-place. Be steadfast in prayer, if you would be calm in affliction. Start your race from the throne of God itself, if you would run well, and win the prize.--_Joseph Parker._
All truths are not to be repeated, still it is well to hear them.--_Mme. du Deffaud._
Isaac dwelt there, and made the well of the living and all-seeing God his constant source of supply. The usual tenor of a man's life, the _dwelling_ of his soul, is the true test of his state. Let us learn to live in the presence of the living God. Let us pray the Holy Spirit that this day, and every other day, we may feel, "Thou God seest me." May the Lord Jehovah be as a well to us, delightful, comforting, unfailing, springing up unto eternal life. The bottle of the creature cracks and dries up, but the well of the Creator never fails. Happy is he who dwells at the well, and so has abundant and constant supplies near at hand! Glorious Lord, constrain us that we may never leave Thee, but dwell by the well of the living God!--_Spurgeon._
The religious persecution of the ages has been done under what was claimed to be the command of God. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do to their fellows, because it always coincides with their own desires.
Nous desirerions peu de choses avec ardeur, si nous connaissions parfaitement ce que nous desirons=--We should desire few things with eagerness if we well knew the worth of what we are striving for.
There are some trifles well habited, as there are some fools well clothed.
Defend me, common sense, say I, / From reveries so airy, from the toil / Of dropping buckets into empty wells, / And growing old with drawing nothing up.
who you want to meet and we’ll bring him to you.’ ‘Abraham is a hostage,’ Satyrus said. ‘You can’t bring him out of Athens, and I need to see him.’ His captains looked at him with something like suspicion. ‘I’m going to Athens,’ he insisted. ‘Without your fleet?’ Sandokes asked. ‘Haven’t you got this backward, lord? If you must go, why not lead with a show of force?’ ‘Can you go three days armed and ready to fight?’ Satyrus asked. ‘In the midst of the Athenian fleet? No. Trust me on this, friends. And obey – I pay your wages. Go to Aegina and wait.’ Sandokes was dissatisfied and he wasn’t interested in hiding it. ‘Lord, we do obey. We’re good captains and good fighters, and most of us have been with you a few years. Long enough to earn the right to tell you when you are just plain wrong.’ He took a breath. ‘Lord, you’re wrong. Take us into Athens – ten ships full of fighting men, and no man will dare raise a finger to you. Or better yet, stay here, or you go to Aegina and we’ll sail into Athens.’ Satyrus shrugged, angered. ‘You all feel this way?’ he asked. Sarpax shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Aekes and Sandokes have a point, but I’ll obey you. I don’t know exactly what your relationship with Demetrios is, and you do.’ He looked at the other captains. ‘We don’t know.’ Sandokes shook his head. ‘I’ll obey, lord – surely I’m allowed to disagree?’ Satyrus bit his lip. After a flash of anger passed, he chose his words carefully. ‘I appreciate that you are all trying to help. I hope that you’ll trust that I’ve thought this through as carefully as I can, and I have a more complete appreciation of the forces at work than any of you can have.’ Sandokes didn’t back down. ‘I hope that you appreciate that we have only your best interests at heart, lord. And that we don’t want to look elsewhere for employment while your corpse cools.’ He shrugged. ‘Our oarsmen are hardening up, we have good helmsmen and good clean ships. I wager we can take any twenty ships in these waters. No one – no one with any sense – will mess with you while we’re in the harbour.’ Satyrus managed a smile. ‘If you are right, I’ll happily allow you to tell me that you told me so,’ he said. Sandokes turned away. Aekes caught his shoulder. ‘There’s no changing my mind on this,’ Satyrus said. Sandokes shrugged. ‘We’ll sail for Aegina when you tell us,’ Aekes said. Satyrus had never felt such a premonition of disaster in all his life. He was ignoring the advice of a god, and all of his best fighting captains, and sailing into Athens, unprotected. But his sense – the same sense that helped him block a thrust in a fight – told him that the last thing he wanted was to provoke Demetrios. He explained as much to Anaxagoras as the oarsmen ran the ships into the water. Anaxagoras just shook his head. ‘I feel like a fool,’ Satyrus said. ‘But I won’t change my mind.’ Anaxagoras sighed. ‘When we’re off Piraeus, I’ll go off in Miranda or one of the other grain ships. I want you to stay with the fleet,’ Satyrus said. ‘Just in case.’ Anaxagoras picked up the leather bag with his armour and the heavy wool bag with his sea clothes and his lyre. ‘Very well,’ he said crisply. ‘You think I’m a fool,’ Satyrus said. ‘I think you are risking your life and your kingdom to see Miriam, and you know perfectly well you don’t have to. She loves you. She’ll wait. So yes, I think you are being a fool.’ Satyrus narrowed his eyes. ‘You asked,’ Anaxagoras said sweetly, and walked away. 3 Attika appeared first out of the sea haze; a haze so fine and so thin that a landsman would not even have noticed how restricted was his visibility.
To love means to open ourselves to the negative as well as the positive — to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as to joy, fulfillment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible before.
It is not well to be thought of as one who meekly submits to insolence and
(Professor of law emeritus at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles). Consider the Constitution. What we have here is a grim reminder that the liberties protected by the Bill of Rights are not neatly divisible into “property rights” and “personal liberties.” Even where the invasion is “only” of one’s property rights, it often implicates violation of other rights as well, even the right to life itself. Here is an object lesson that where one category of fundamental constitutional rights is not secure from governmental overreaching, neither are the others. All of which brings to mind the insight of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who observed in 1972 that “the dichotomy between personal liberties and property rights is a false one. Property does not have rights. People have rights. In fact, a fundamental interdependence exists between the personal right to liberty and the personal right in property. Neither could have meaning without the other.” And if that is not enough, reflect on the fact that there are no societies in the world where a high degree of personal and political liberty does not correlate strongly with economic liberty. There may well be a moral in that too. [“Rule of Law,” The Wall Street Journal, August 25, 1993, p. A9.]
Observe always that everything is the result of a change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and to make new ones like them.
In reading the Report made by M. de Quatrefages in 1859, it is exceedingly interesting to observe that his elaborate study of the Pébrine forced the conviction upon his mind that, in its mode of occurrence and propagation, the disease of the silkworm is, in every respect, comparable to the cholera among mankind. But it differs from the cholera, and so far is a more formidable malady, in being hereditary, and in being, under some circumstances, contagious as well as infectious.
Leave well alone.
It suffices not to perform good works; we must do them well, in imitation of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it is written, "He doeth all things well."--ST. VINCENT DE PAUL.
There is a Sunday conscience as well as a Sunday coat; and those who make religion a secondary concern put the coat and conscience carefully by to put on only once a week.
Il conduit bien sa barque=--He manages his affairs well.
Every man who would do anything well must come to us from a higher ground.
_The reason of effects._--It is owing to the weakness of man that so many things are esteemed beautiful, as to be well skilled in playing the lute.
Bene qui latuit, bene vixit=--Well has he lived who has lived well in obscurity.
Bien sabe el sabio que no sabe, el nescio piensa que sabe=--The wise man knows well that he does not know; the ignorant man thinks he knows.
There is a plan, it seems to me, that reaches out of the electron to the rim of the universe and what this plan may be or how it came about is beyond my feeble intellect. But if we are looking for something on which to pin our faith — and, indeed, our hope — the plan might well be it. I think we have thought too small and have been too afraid.
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large -- I contain multitudes.