To rescue from oblivion even a fragment of a language which men have used and which is in danger of being lost, that is to say, one of the elements, whether good or bad, which have shaped and complicated civilization, is to extend the scope of social observation and to serve civilization.
I had a very pleasant evening, however, though you will probably find out that there was no particular reason for it; but I do not think it worth while to wait for enjoyment until there is some real opportunity for it.
The malignant deity criticism dwelt on the top of a snowy mountain in nova zembla: momus found her extended in her den upon the spoils of numberless volumes half devoured. At her right hand sat ignorance, her father and husband, blind with age; at her left, pride, her mother, dressing her up in the scraps of paper herself had torn. There was opinion, her sister, light of foot, hoodwinked and headstrong, yet giddy and perpetually turning. About her played her children, noise and impudence, dulness and vanity, positiveness, pedantry, and ill manners.
What are you boys doing with my company?
I know a man, and I just want to talk about him a minute, and maybe you will discover who I'm talking about as I go down the way because he was a great one. And he just went about serving. He was born in an obscure village, the child of a poor peasant woman. And then he grew up in still another obscure village, where he worked as a carpenter until he was thirty years old. Then for three years, he just got on his feet, and he was an itinerant preacher. And he went about doing some things. He didn't have much. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never owned a house. He never went to college. He never visited a big city. He never went two hundred miles from where he was born. He did none of the usual things that the world would associate with greatness. He had no credentials but himself.
People are often unable to do anything, imprisoned as they are in I don't know what kind of terrible, terrible, oh such terrible cage.
The balance between good and evil, and the choices we make between them, are probably the single most important aspects of shaping our personalities and humanity.
My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength.
You must listen all the time or you lost contact.
I can choose. I have to choose. I have to make my mind up whom I will take into my arms, to whom I will lose myself, whom I will treat as that vis-a-vis, that face into which I look, which I lovingly touch with my fingering gaze, from whom I accept being who I am as a gift.