Though a woman tempted man to eat, my dear Longfellow," said Holmes, "you never hear of Eve having to do with his drinking, for he took to that of his own notion."
Imagine! It is the real power of a book--not what is on the page, but what happens when a reader takes the pages in, makes it part of himself. That is the definition of literature.
When they dreamed of turning iron and metal into gold, they called it alchemy. The much more far-fetched dream of turning bound sheafs of plain paper into fortunes, they call publishing.
Every scientific truth goes through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with the Bible. Second, they say it has been discovered before. Last, they say they always believed it.
Books do pretend ...but squeezed in between is even more that is true--without what you may call the lies, the pages would be too light for the truth, you see?
There was still the temptation to believe the world was a mere trap for human sin. But sin, the way he saw it, was only the failure of an imperfectly made being to keep a perfect law.
They always blamed my reading, you know, for my having fewer friends than my brother and for my weak eyes, never thinking that because I had weak eyes and because I was shy, having a book at the ready rescued me.
An obscure character by the name of Belial. He is interpreted as a minion of the devil by some scholars, but that is wrong. It is ignorance. The name means, literally speaking, 'one who cannot be yoked,' and it is really every one of us who takes control of our own destiny while others blow in the wind. We may be punished for it, but we would never do it another way. We are all Belials.
Money is good, but it is not all about a man. You will have successes and reversals, but remember it is your reaction to each of them that counts for your character.
Dante's Hell is part of our world as much as part of the underworld, and shouldn't be avoided, Lowell said, but rather confronted. We sound the depths of Hell very often in this life.
'Till America has learned to love literature not as an amusement, not as a mere doggerel to memorize in a college room, but for its humanizing and ennobling energy, my dear reverend president, she will not have succeeded in that high sense which alone makes a nation out of a people. That which raises it from a dead name to a living power.'
Sepa que cuando soy amigo de un hombre lo soy para siempre, y es muy dificil hacerme volver atras. Y aunque un hombre pueda gozar siendo mi enemigo, no puede convertirme a mi en el suyo mientras yo no quiera. Buenas tardes.
I was looking for something else in books. I could not really say what, but I think I can say why: a notion started in my own brain was probably wrong, but an answer read in a work of literature would be right. That was my conviction at nineteen, and only in later years would I come to trust myself over a book.
On the trees were no longer only leaves but brown fruits, on the bushes no longer blossoms but clusters of red berries. And the wind had a rough manliness in its voice - the tone not of a lover but of a husband.
The books do pretend, Mr. Branagan. Surely. But that is not all. Novels are filled with lies, but squeezed in between is even more that is true--without what you may call the lies, the pages would be too light for the truth, you see?
In fact, the laboratory may be the greatest friend to dumb animals. As science advances, the lives of animals will improve as we depend less and less on their labor and no longer ignore their conditions in order to improve ours. You know, there is much to learn from animals if we are ever to be truly industrial creatures. The beaver is the finest builder of bridges and the silkworm a better weaver than any man or woman. God gave industry pe..
You have never fought for anything in your life. You write poems and articles about slavery and the murder of Indians and hope something will change. You fight what does not come near your door, professors. You've inherited everything in your lives and do not know what it is to cry for your bread! Well, with what other expectations did I come to this country? What should I complain of? The greatest bard had no home but exile. One day to com..
Remember that only when past genius is transmitted into a present power shall we meet the first truly american poet. And somewhere, born to the streets rather than the athenaeum, we will come upon the first true reader. The spirit of the american is suspected to be timid, imitative, tame -- the scholar decent, indolent, complaisant. The mind of our country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself. Without action, the scholar is not y..
The force of Dante's poetry resonated most in those who did not confess the Catholic faith, for believers would inevitably have quibbles with Dante's theology. But for those most distant theologically, Dante's faith was so perfect, so unyielding, that a reader found himself compelled by the poetry to take it all to heart.
Recall that when the first presses produced copies of the Bible, the scribes who had to spend years at a time on the same work, just as it had been done for centuries, streamed out from the monasteries with quills raised in the air, decrying the work of the devil. When one of the pioneering tradesmen printed certain words in red ink to emphasize them, it was proof that he had used his own blood. That was why the printers' assistants began t..
Survival here means simply an incomplete death, not a partial life -- to be trapped in a gap between the living and the dead. If I had a thousand tongues, I would not try to describe the agony!
When they dreamed of turning iron and metal into gold, they called it alchemy. The much more far-fetched dream of turning bound sheafs of plain paper into fortunes, they call publishing,