Self-culture: An Address Introductory to the Franklin Lectures, Delivered at Boston, September, 1838Dutton and Wentworth, printers, 1838 - 81 páginas |
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Términos y frases comunes
ardent spirits awaken bear beauty bring called character cheering common condition conscience crime cultivate culture DAVID KIMBALL dignity disinterested divine drudgery duty earnest earth faithfully feel fellow creatures fluence force of thought Franklin Lectures give grand grandeur greatest grow growth hear higher highest human human nature idea idea of Perfection Impartial individual Infi influence institutions intel intellectual and moral intelligence interest JONATHAN PHILLIPS justice living look manual labor mass means of improvement means of self-culture ment mind multitude munity narrow nature ourselves outward party passion perfection pleasure poor precious present progress proportion provement purpose of self-culture race religion religious principle rich schools self-improvement sider social society soul tinguished tions toil trade true truth ture unfold universe UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA vast amount virtue WALTER CHANNING wants wealth whole WILLIAM E worth zens
Pasajes populares
Página 40 - It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds, and these invaluable means of communication are in the reach of all. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours.
Página 26 - The greatest truths are wronged if not linked with beauty, and they win their way most surely and deeply into the soul when arrayed in this their natural and fit attire. Now no man receives the true culture of a man, in whom the sensibility to the beautiful is not cherished ; and I know of no condition in life from which it should be excluded.
Página 7 - ... common to all men ; for no thought can measure its grandeur. It is the image of God, the image even of his infinity, for no limits can be set to its unfolding. He who possesses the divine powers of the soul is a great being, be his place what it may. You may clothe him with rags, may immure him in a dungeon, may chain him to slavish tasks. But he is still great.
Página 41 - ... shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated man though excluded from what is called the best society in the place where I live. To make this means of culture effectual, a man must select good books, such as have been written by rightminded and strong-minded men, real thinkers, who instead of diluting by repetition what others say, have something to say for themselves, and write to give relief to full, earnest souls ; and these works must not be skimmed...
Página 80 - I could speak with an awakening voice to the people, of their wants, their privileges, their responsibilities. I would say to them, You cannot, without guilt and disgrace, stop where you are. The past and the present call on you to advance. Let what you have gained be an impulse to something higher. Your nature is too great to be crushed. You were not created what you are, merely to toil, eat, drink and sleep, like the inferior animals.
Página 25 - ... feelings, and so akin to worship, that it is painful to think of the multitude of men as living in the midst of it, and living almost as blind to it, as if, instead of this fair earth and glorious sky, they were tenants of a dungeon. An infinite joy is lost to tho world by the want of culture of this spiritual endowment. Suppose that I were to visit a cottage...
Página 40 - God be thanked for books ! They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levellers. They give to all who will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence of the best and greatest of our race.
Página 8 - ... dungeon, may chain him to slavish tasks. But he is still great. You may shut him out of your houses; but God opens to him heavenly mansions. He makes no show indeed in the streets of a splendid city ; but a clear thought, a pure affection, a resolute act of a virtuous will have a dignity of quite...
Página 70 - It is the man who determines the dignity of the occupation, not the occupation which measures the dignity of the man.
Página 42 - ... established machinery, for the sake of torturing every man into one rigid shape, called perfection. As the human countenance, with the same features in us all, is diversified without end in the race, and is never the same in any two individuals, so the human soul, with the same grand powers and laws, expands into an infinite variety of forms, and would be wofully stinted by modes of culture requiring all men to learn the same lesson, or to bend to the same rules.