Mainsprings of Men

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C. Scribner's sons, 1925 - Labor - 313 pages
 

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Page 223 - Oh that I knew where I might find him ! that I might come even to his seat ! I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.
Page 175 - Leans for all pleasure on another's breast. Hence ostentation here, with tawdry art, Pants for the vulgar praise which fools impart ; Here vanity assumes her pert grimace...
Page 303 - Little remains : but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things ; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself...
Page 71 - But och ! it hardens a' within, And petrifies the feeling! To catch dame Fortune's golden smile, Assiduous wait upon her; And gather gear by every wile That's justified by honour; Not for to hide it in a hedge, Nor for a train attendant; But for the glorious privilege Of being independent.
Page 167 - So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first, maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation.
Page 174 - So blest a life these thoughtless realms display ; Thus idly busy rolls their world away : Theirs are those arts that mind to mind endear, For...
Page 142 - If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you." So I dined upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.
Page 142 - I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we may not eat you.
Page 211 - The essence of this bliss was to walk by yourself in the black night; the slide shut, the top-coat buttoned; not a ray escaping, whether to conduct your footsteps or to make your glory public: a mere pillar of darkness in the dark; and all the while, deep down in the privacy of your fool's heart, to know you had a bull's-eye at your belt, and to exult and sing over the knowledge.
Page 212 - For to miss the joy is to miss all. In the joy of the actors lies the sense of any action. That is the explanation, that the excuse. To one who has not the secret of the lanterns the scene upon the links is meaningless. And hence the haunting and truly spectral unreality of realistic books.

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