"Thou who art the greatest of kings, and to whom God has given a power so extended that thou art renowned among all people, art the golden head of the image which thou hast seen.
What man had ever so great renown! The whole Jewish people foretold him before his coming. The Gentile world worships him after his coming. The two worlds, Gentile and Jewish, regard him as their centre.
Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.
Perfection consists in renouncing ourselves, in carrying our cross, and in following Jesus Christ. Now, he who renounces himself most perfectly carries his cross the best and follows nearest to Jesus Christ is he who never does his own will, but always that of God.--ST. VINCENT DE PAUL.
King Stephen was a worthy peere, His breeches cost him but a croune; He held them sixpence all too deere, Therefore he call'd the taylor loune. He was a wight of high renowne, And those but of a low degree; Itt 's pride that putts the countrye doune, Then take thine old cloake about thee.
Peace hath her victories, / No less renown'd than war.
If the blind acceptance of authority appears to him in its true colours, as mere private judgment _in excelsis_ and if he have the courage to stand alone, face to face with the abyss of the eternal and unknowable, let him be content, once for all, not only to renounce the good things promised by "Infallibility," but even to bear the bad things which it prophesies; content to follow reason and fact in singleness and honesty of purpose, wherever they may lead, in the sure faith that a hell of honest men will, to him, be more endurable than a paradise full of angelic shams.
Talents angel-bright, if wanting worth, are shining instruments in false ambition's hand, to finish faults illustrious, and give infamy renown.
Self-will never will be satisfied, though it should have power for all it would; but we are satisfied from the moment we renounce it. Without it we cannot be discontented, with it we cannot be content.
What a wretched thing is all fame! A renown of the highest sort endures, say for two thousand years. And then? Why then a fathomless eternity swallows it.
What part then had he in all this renown? Never man had more glory, never man more ignominy. All this renown was for our sakes, to enable us to recognise him, he took none of it for himself.
It is far from universally true that to get a thing you must aim at it. There are some things which can only be gained by renouncing them.
Bonne renommee vaut mieux que ceinture doree=--A good name is worth more than a girdle of gold.
Thou must renounce; thou must abstain! is the eternal song which sounds in the ears of every one, which every hour is singing to us all our life long.
It is a ridiculous thing to consider that there are people in the world who, having renounced all the laws of God and nature, have yet made laws for themselves which they exactly obey, as, for instance, the soldiers of Mahomet, thieves, heretics, etc., and thus logicians....
Worldly renown is naught but a breath of wind, which now comes this way and now comes that, and changes name because it changes quarter.
Our sacrifices are rarely of an active kind; we, as it were, abandon what we give away. It is not from resolution, but despair, that we renounce our property.
As I stood behind the coffin of my little son the other day, with my mind bent on anything but disputation, the officiating minister read, as a part of his duty, the words, "If the dead rise not again, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." I cannot tell you how inexpressibly they shocked me. Paul had neither wife nor child, or he must have known that his alternative involved a blasphemy against all that was best and noblest in human nature. I could have laughed with scorn. What! because I am face to face with irreparable loss, because I have given back to the source from whence it came, the cause of a great happiness, still retaining through all my life the blessings which have sprung and will spring from that cause, I am to renounce my manhood, and, howling, grovel in bestiality? Why, the very apes know better, and if you shoot their young the poor brutes grieve their grief out and do not immediately seek distraction in a gorge.
Mieux vaut un bon renom, que du bien plein la maison=--Better a good name than a house full of riches.
Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote, / And think they grow immortal as they quote.
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._
Semper honos, nomenque tuum, laudesque manebunt=--Thy honour, thy renown, and thy praises shall live for ever.
Short is my date, but deathless my renown.
If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.
Fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium, et ingens / Gloria Teucrorum=--We Trojans are no more; Ilium is no more, and the great renown of the Teucri.
I renounce the friend who eats what is mine with me, and what is his own by himself.
Men more easily renounce their interests than their tastes.
Da du Welt nicht kannst entsagen, / Erobre dir sie mit Gewalt=--Where thou canst not renounce the world, subdue it under thee by force.
Helen Keller, who lost both her sight and hearing in childhood but became a renowned activist and author, said that there is no such thing as a secure life. “It does not exist in nature … Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” Risk, then, is not just part of life. It is life. The place between your comfort zone and your dream is where life takes place. It’s the high-anxiety zone, but it’s also where you discover who you are. Karl Wallenda, patriarch of the legendary high-wire-walking family, nailed it when he said: “Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.
The true Christian is not obliged to renounce the things of this world or to lessen his natural abilities. On the contrary, inasmuch as he incorporates them into his normal life in a disciplined manner, he develops and perfects them; he thereby ennobles the natural life itself, supplying efficacious values to it not only of the spiritual and eternal world but also of the material and earthly world.
Despite his titles, power, and pelf, / The wretch concentred all in self, / Living, shall forfeit fair renown, / And, doubly dying, shall go down / To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, / Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.
Christ, the Spirit of Christ, interpenetrating ours, sweetens, purifies, transforms all. This only can eradicate what is wrong, work a chemical change, renovate and regenerate, and rehabilitate the inner man. Will-power does not change men. Time does not change men. Christ does. The Greatest Thing in the World.
You will hear every day the maxims of a low prudence. You will hear, that the first duty is to get land and money, place and name. "What is this Truth you seek? What is this Beauty?" men will ask, with derision. If, nevertheless, God have called any of you to explore truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. When you shall say, "As others do, so will I. I renounce, I am sorry for it, my early visions; I must eat the good of the land, and let learning and romantic expectations go, until a more convenient season." — then dies the man in you; then once more perish the buds of art, and poetry, and science, as they have died already in a thousand thousand men. The hour of that choice is the crisis of your history; and see that you hold yourself fast by the intellect. … Bend to the persuasion which is flowing to you from every object in Nature, to be its tongue to the heart of man, and to show the besotted world how passing fair is wisdom.
Breathes there the man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd As home his footsteps he hath turn'd From wandering on a foreign strand? If such there breathe, go, mark him well! For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,-- Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.[488-2]
We are not content with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being, we wish to live an imaginary life in the idea of others, and to this end we strive to make a show. We labour incessantly to embellish and preserve this imaginary being, and we neglect the true. And if we have either calmness, generosity, or fidelity, we hasten to let it be known, that we may attach these virtues to that imaginary being; we would even part with them for this end, and gladly become cowards for the reputation of valour. It is a great mark of the nothingness of our own being that we are not satisfied with the one without the other, and that we often renounce one for the other. For he would be infamous who would not die to preserve his honour.
The True that is identical with the Divine can never be directly known by us; we behold it only in reflexion= (_Abglanz_), =in example, in symbol, in individual and related phenomena; we perceive it as incomprehensible life, which yet we cannot renounce the wish to comprehend. This is true of all the phenomena of the conceivable world.
Peace hath her victories No less renown'd than war.
Some for renown, on scraps of learning dote, And think they grow immortal as they quote.
Kannst du nicht der Welt entsagen, / Winkt das Gluck dir nimmer zu=--If thou canst not renounce the world, the genius of happiness never salutes thee.
To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For him who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man's nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts.
Enthusiasm flourishes in adversity, kindles in the hour of danger, and awakens to deeds of renown.
Yet what man ever had less enjoyment of his renown! Of thirty-three years he spent thirty in retirement. For three years he passed as an impostor, the priests and rulers rejected him, his friends and kinsmen despised him. At the end he died, betrayed by one of his own disciples, denied by another, abandoned by all.
To think of the part one little woman can play in the life of a man, so that to renounce her may be a very good imitation of heroism, and to win her may be a discipline!--_George Eliot._
Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.
Learning is the source of renown, and the fountain of victory in the senate.
"Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies."
Man, if he is to remain man, must advance by way of consciousness. There is no road leading backward. … We can no longer veil reality from ourselves by renouncing self-consciousness without simultaneously excluding ourselves from the historical course of human existence.
A flippant, frivolous man may ridicule others, may controvert them, scorn them; but he who has any respect for himself seems to have renounced the right of thinking meanly of others.--_Goethe._
This civil war between reason and passion divides those who desire peace into two sects, the one, of those who would renounce their passions and become gods, the other, of those who would renounce their reason and become brute beasts.--Des Barreaux.--But neither has succeeded, and reason still exists, to condemn the baseness and injustice of the passions, and to trouble the repose of those who give themselves over to their sway, and the passions are still vigorous in those who desire to renounce them.
Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem=--Indescribable, O Queen, is the grief you bid me renew.
The sounds of the nouns are mostly unbound. In town a noun might wear a gown, or further down, might dress a clown. A noun that's sound would never clown, but unsound nouns jump up and down. The sound of a noun could distrub the plowing, and then, my dear, you'd be put in the pound. But please don't let that get you down, the renown of your gown is the talk of the town. -- A. Nonnie Mouse
A priest advised Voltaire on his death bed to renounce the devil. Replied Voltaire, "This is no time to make new enemies."
One evening he spoke. Sitting at her feet, his face raised to her, he allowed his soul to be heard. "My darling, anything you wish, anything I am, anything I can ever be... That's what I want to offer you -- not the things I'll get for you, but the thing in me that will make me able to get them. That thing -- a man can't renounce it -- but I want to renounce it -- so that it will be yours -- so that it will be in your service -- only for you." The girl smiled and asked: "Do you think I'm prettier than Maggie Kelly?" He got up. He said nothing and walked out of the house. He never saw that girl again. Gail Wynand, who prided himself on never needing a lesson twice, did not fall in love again in the years that followed. -- Ayn Rand, "The Fountainhead"
There once was a man who went to a computer trade show. Each day as he entered, the man told the guard at the door: "I am a great thief, renowned for my feats of shoplifting. Be forewarned, for this trade show shall not escape unplundered." This speech disturbed the guard greatly, because there were millions of dollars of computer equipment inside, so he watched the man carefully. But the man merely wandered from booth to booth, humming quietly to himself. When the man left, the guard took him aside and searched his clothes, but nothing was to be found. On the next day of the trade show, the man returned and chided the guard saying: "I escaped with a vast booty yesterday, but today will be even better." So the guard watched him ever more closely, but to no avail. On the final day of the trade show, the guard could restrain his curiosity no longer. "Sir Thief," he said, "I am so perplexed, I cannot live in peace. Please enlighten me. What is it that you are stealing?" The man smiled. "I am stealing ideas," he said. -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"
6:4. Now giants were upon the earth in those days. For after the sons of God went in to the daughters of men, and they brought forth children, these are the mighty men of old, men of renown.
Ah whence, deceitful deity! thy wish Now to ensnare me? Wouldst thou lure me, say, To some fair city of Mæonian name Or Phrygian, more remote from Sparta still? Hast thou some human favorite also there? Is it because Atrides hath prevailed To vanquish Paris, and would bear me home Unworthy as I am, that thou attempt'st Again to cheat me? Go thyself--sit thou Beside him--for his sake renounce the skies; Watch him, weep for him; till at length his wife He deign to make thee, or perchance his slave. I go not (now to go were shame indeed) To dress his couch; nor will I be the jest Of all my sex in Ilium. Oh! my griefs Are infinite, and more than I can bear.
I write a few lines in haste to say that I am safe--and well advanced on my voyage. This letter will reach England by a merchantman now on its homeward voyage from Archangel; more fortunate than I, who may not see my native land, perhaps, for many years. I am, however, in good spirits: my men are bold and apparently firm of purpose, nor do the floating sheets of ice that continually pass us, indicating the dangers of the region towards which we are advancing, appear to dismay them. We have already reached a very high latitude; but it is the height of summer, and although not so warm as in England, the southern gales, which blow us speedily towards those shores which I so ardently desire to attain, breathe a degree of renovating warmth which I had not expected.
Him answer'd, bolder now, but still discrete, Telemachus. For Pallas had his heart With manly courage arm'd, that he might ask From Nestor tidings of his absent Sire, And win, himself, distinction and renown.
"A year ago I was myself intensely miserable, because I thought I had made a mistake in entering the ministry: its uniform duties wearied me to death. I burnt for the more active life of the world--for the more exciting toils of a literary career--for the destiny of an artist, author, orator; anything rather than that of a priest: yes, the heart of a politician, of a soldier, of a votary of glory, a lover of renown, a luster after power, beat under my curate's surplice. I considered; my life was so wretched, it must be changed, or I must die. After a season of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief fell: my cramped existence all at once spread out to a plain without bounds--my powers heard a call from heaven to rise, gather their full strength, spread their wings, and mount beyond ken. God had an errand for me; to bear which afar, to deliver it well, skill and strength, courage and eloquence, the best qualifications of soldier, statesman, and orator, were all needed: for these all centre in the good missionary.
To him Gerenian Nestor thus replied. Illustrious Agamemnon, King of men! Deep-planning Jove the imaginations proud Of Hector will not ratify, nor all His sanguine hopes effectuate; in his turn He also (fierce Achilles once appeased) Shall trouble feel, and haply, more than we. But with all readiness I will arise And follow thee, that we may also rouse Yet others; Diomede the spear-renown'd, Ulysses, the swift Ajax, and the son Of Phyleus, valiant Meges. It were well Were others also visited and call'd, The godlike Ajax, and Idomeneus, Whose ships are at the camp's extremest bounds. But though I love thy brother and revere, And though I grieve e'en thee, yet speak I must, And plainly censure him, that thus he sleeps And leaves to thee the labor, who himself Should range the host, soliciting the Chiefs Of every band, as utmost need requires.
"I... you," he began joyfully. "You cannot tell how I... he always spoke so enthusiastically of you, Colia here; I liked his enthusiasm. I was not corrupting him! But I must leave him, too--I wanted to leave them all--there was not one of them--not one! I wanted to be a man of action--I had a right to be. Oh! what a lot of things I wanted! Now I want nothing; I renounce all my wants; I swore to myself that I would want nothing; let them seek the truth without me! Yes, nature is full of mockery! Why"--he continued with sudden warmth--"does she create the choicest beings only to mock at them? The only human being who is recognized as perfect, when nature showed him to mankind, was given the mission to say things which have caused the shedding of so much blood that it would have drowned mankind if it had all been shed at once! Oh! it is better for me to die! I should tell some dreadful lie too; nature would so contrive it! I have corrupted nobody. I wanted to live for the happiness of all men, to find and spread the truth. I used to look out of my window at the wall of Meyer's house, and say to myself that if I could speak for a quarter of an hour I would convince the whole world, and now for once in my life I have come into contact with... you--if not with the others! And what is the result? Nothing! The sole result is that you despise me! Therefore I must be a fool, I am useless, it is time I disappeared! And I shall leave not even a memory! Not a sound, not a trace, not a single deed! I have not spread a single truth!... Do not laugh at the fool! Forget him! Forget him forever! I beseech you, do not be so cruel as to remember! Do you know that if I were not consumptive, I would kill myself?"
16:15. But trusting in thy beauty, thou playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and thou hast prostituted thyself to every passenger, to be his.
But other thoughts Minerva's mind employ'd Jove's daughter; ev'ry wind binding beside, She lull'd them, and enjoin'd them all to sleep, But roused swift Boreas, and the billows broke Before Ulysses, that, deliver'd safe From a dire death, the noble Chief might mix With maritime Phæacia's sons renown'd.
He stood erect, and to the Greeks he cried. Friends! Chiefs and senators of Argos' host! Discern I sole the steeds, or also ye? The horses, foremost now, to me appear Other than erst, and I descry at hand A different charioteer; the mares of late Victorious, somewhere distant in the race Are hurt; I plainly saw them at the first Turning the goal, but see them now no more; And yet with eyes inquisitive I range From side to side the whole broad plain of Troy. Either the charioteer hath slipp'd the reins, Or rounded not successfully the goal Through want of guidance. Thrown, as it should seem, Forth from his seat, he hath his chariot maim'd, And his ungovern'd steeds have roam'd away. Arise and look ye forth yourselves, for I With doubtful ken behold him; yet the man Seems, in my view, Ætolian by descent, A Chief of prime renown in Argos' host, The hero Tydeus' son, brave Diomede,
"Villager," retorted the man, "I ought not be a grave-digger. My father was a porter at the Prytaneum [Town-Hall]. He destined me for literature. But he had reverses. He had losses on 'change. I was obliged to renounce the profession of author. But I am still a public writer."
Laertes' progeny, for wiles renown'd! Disclose thyself to thy own son, that, death Concerting and destruction to your foes, Ye may the royal city seek, nor long Shall ye my presence there desire in vain, For I am ardent to begin the fight.
Thus far thy toils are finish'd. Now attend! Mark well my words, of which the Gods will sure Themselves remind thee in the needful hour. First shalt thou reach the Sirens; they the hearts Enchant of all who on their coast arrive. The wretch, who unforewarn'd approaching, hears The Sirens' voice, his wife and little-ones Ne'er fly to gratulate his glad return, But him the Sirens sitting in the meads Charm with mellifluous song, while all around The bones accumulated lie of men Now putrid, and the skins mould'ring away. But, pass them thou, and, lest thy people hear Those warblings, ere thou yet approach, fill all Their ears with wax moulded between thy palms; But as for thee--thou hear them if thou wilt. Yet let thy people bind thee to the mast Erect, encompassing thy feet and arms With cordage well-secured to the mast-foot, So shalt thou, raptur'd, hear the Sirens' song. But if thou supplicate to be released, Or give such order, then, with added cords Let thy companions bind thee still the more. When thus thy people shall have safely pass'd The Sirens by, think not from me to learn What course thou next shalt steer; two will occur; Delib'rate chuse; I shall describe them both. Here vaulted rocks impend, dash'd by the waves Immense of Amphitrite azure-eyed; The blessed Gods those rocks, Erratic, call. Birds cannot pass them safe; no, not the doves Which his ambrosia bear to Father Jove, But even of those doves the slipp'ry rock Proves fatal still to one, for which the God Supplies another, lest the number fail. No ship, what ship soever there arrives, Escapes them, but both mariners and planks Whelm'd under billows of the Deep, or, caught By fiery tempests, sudden disappear. Those rocks the billow-cleaving bark alone The Argo, further'd by the vows of all, Pass'd safely, sailing from Ææta's isle; Nor she had pass'd, but surely dash'd had been On those huge rocks, but that, propitious still To Jason, Juno sped her safe along. These rocks are two; one lifts his summit sharp High as the spacious heav'ns, wrapt in dun clouds Perpetual, which nor autumn sees dispers'd Nor summer, for the sun shines never there; No mortal man might climb it or descend, Though twice ten hands and twice ten feet he own'd, For it is levigated as by art. Down scoop'd to Erebus, a cavern drear Yawns in the centre of its western side; Pass it, renown'd Ulysses! but aloof So far, that a keen arrow smartly sent Forth from thy bark should fail to reach the cave. There Scylla dwells, and thence her howl is heard Tremendous; shrill her voice is as the note Of hound new-whelp'd, but hideous her aspect, Such as no mortal man, nor ev'n a God Encount'ring her, should with delight survey. Her feet are twelve, all fore-feet; six her necks Of hideous length, each clubb'd into a head Terrific, and each head with fangs is arm'd In triple row, thick planted, stored with death. Plunged to her middle in the hollow den She lurks, protruding from the black abyss Her heads, with which the rav'ning monster dives In quest of dolphins, dog-fish, or of prey More bulky, such as in the roaring gulphs Of Amphitrite without end abounds. It is no seaman's boast that e'er he slipp'd Her cavern by, unharm'd. In ev'ry mouth She bears upcaught a mariner away. The other rock, Ulysses, thou shalt find Humbler, a bow-shot only from the first; On this a wild fig grows broad-leav'd, and here Charybdis dire ingulphs the sable flood. Each day she thrice disgorges, and each day Thrice swallows it. Ah! well forewarn'd, beware What time she swallows, that thou come not nigh, For not himself, Neptune, could snatch thee thence. Close passing Scylla's rock, shoot swift thy bark Beyond it, since the loss of six alone Is better far than shipwreck made of all.