The Philosophy of Human Nature

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Getz & Buck, 1851 - Conduct of life - 447 pages

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Page 273 - How could communities, Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from dividable shores, The primogenitive and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels, But by degree, stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untune that string, And, hark! what discord follows; each thing meets In mere oppugnancy...
Page 272 - And posts, like the commandment of a king, Sans check, to good and bad : But when the planets In evil mixture, to disorder wander, What plagues, and what portents ! what mutiny ! What raging of the sea ! shaking of earth ! Commotion in the winds ! frights, changes, horrors Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity and married calm of states Quite from their fixture...
Page 402 - One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart-burnings which spring from these misrepresentations: they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.
Page 88 - The school-boy whips his taxed top — the beardless youth manages his taxed horse, with a taxed bridle on a taxed road ; — and the dying Englishman pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per cent. into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent.
Page 128 - I have seen all the works that are done under the sun ; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
Page 273 - And make a sop of all this solid globe : Strength should be lord of imbecility, And the rude son should strike his father dead : Force should be right ; or rather, right and wrong — Between whose endless jar justice resides — Should lose their names, and so should justice too. Then everything includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appetite ; And appetite, an universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, Must make perforce an universal prey, And last eat up himself.
Page 210 - Farewell the tranquil mind ! Farewell content ! Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars, That make ambition virtue ! O, farewell ! Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, The royal banner ; and all quality. Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war ! And O, you mortal engines, whose rude throats The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit, Farewell ! Othello's occupation's gone ! lago.
Page 314 - I can only say, that there is not a man living, who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it ; but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by legislative authority ; and this, as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting.
Page 88 - Taxes on the sauce which pampers man's appetite, and the drug that restores him to health ; on the ermine which decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal ; on the poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice; on the brass nails of the coffin, and the ribands of the bride.
Page 314 - I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law.

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