Quotes
Quotes about Men
The prevailin' weakness of most public men is to Slop over. G. Washington never slopt over.
His eyes
All radiant with glad surprise,
Looked forward through the Centuries
And saw the seeds which sages cast
In the world's soil in cycles past
Spring up and blossom at the last;
Saw how the souls of men had grown,
And where the scythes of Truth had mown
Clear space for Liberty's white throne;
Saw how, by sorrow tried and proved,
The blackening stains had been removed
Forever from the land he loved;
Saw Treason crushed and Freedom crowned,
And clamorous Faction, gagged and bound,
Gasping its life out on the ground.
Ah! what if some unshamed iconoclast
Crumbling old fetish raiments of the past,
Rises from dead cerements the Christ at last?
What if men take to following where He leads,
Weary of mumbling Athanasian creeds?
Now such an one for daughter Creon had
As maketh wise men fools and young men mad.
All creeds and opinions are nothing but the mere result of chance and temperament.
If there be no nobility of descent, all the more indispensable is it that there should be nobility of ascent,--a character in them that bear rule so fine and high and pure that as men come within the circle of its influence they involuntarily pay homage to that which is the one pre-eminent distinction, the royalty of virtue.
So long as faith with freedom reigns
And loyal hope survives,
And gracious charity remains
To leaven lowly lives;
While there is one untrodden tract
For intellect or will,
And men are free to think and act,
Life is worth living still.
Beauty vanishes like a vapor,
Preach the men of musty morals.
Wide open and unguarded stand our gates,
Named of the four winds, North, South, East and West;
Portals that lead to an enchanted land...
Here, it is written, Toil shall have its wage
And Honor honor, and the humblest man
Stand level with the highest in the law.
Of such a land have men in dungeons dreamed
And with the vision brightening in their eyes
Gone smiling to the fagot and the sword.
O Liberty, white Goddess! is it well
To leave the gates unguarded? On thy breast
Fold Sorrow's children, soothe the hurts of Fate,
Lift the down-trodden, but with hand of steel
Stay those who to thy sacred portals come
To waste the gifts of Freedom.
Now landsmen all, whoever you may be,
If you want to rise to the top of the tree
If your soul is n't fettered to an office stool
Be careful to be guided by this golden rule:
Stick close to your desks and never go to sea
And you all may be Rulers of the Queen's Navee.
The Law is the true embodiment
Of everything that's excellent.
It has no kind of fault or flaw,
And I, my Lords, embody the Law.
My object all sublime
I shall achieve in time--
To let the punishment fit the crime.
At the door of life by the gate of breath,
There are worse things waiting for men than death.
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no man lives forever,
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
Though our works
Find righteous or unrighteous judgment, this
At least is ours, to make them righteous.
My loss may shine yet goodlier than your gain
When Time and God give judgment.
Is not Precedent indeed a King of men?
It is long since Mr. Carlyle expressed his opinion that if any poet or other literary creature could really be "killed off by one critique" or many, the sooner he was so despatched the better; a sentiment in which I for one humbly but heartily concur.
The tadpole poet will never grow into anything bigger than a frog; not though in that stage of development he should puff and blow himself till he bursts with windy adulation at the heels of the laureled ox.
We live, but a world has passed away
With the years that perished to make us men.
He were n't no saint--but at jedgment
I'd run my chance with Jim.
'Longside of some pious gentlemen
That would n't shook hands with him.
He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing--
And went for it thar and then;
And Christ ain't a-going to be too hard
On a man that died for men.
The most frightful idea that has ever corroded human nature--the idea of eternal punishment.
For there be women, fair as she,
Whose verbs and nouns do more agree.
My argument is that War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading.
Their hearts and sentiments were free, their appetites were hearty.
