The Works of William E. Channing, D. D.American Unitarian association, 1866 |
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Passatges populars
Pàgina 378 - 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.
Pàgina 366 - ... the beautiful is not cherished ; and I know of no condition in life from which it should be excluded. Of all luxuries, this is the cheapest and most at hand ; and it seems to me to be most important to those conditions, where coarse labor tends to give a grossness to the mind. From the diffusion of the sense of beauty in ancient Greece, and of the taste for music in modern Germany, we learn that the people at large may partake of refined gratifications, which have hitherto been thought to be...
Pàgina 379 - Nothing can supply the place of books. They are cheering or soothing companions in solitude, illness, affliction. The wealth of both continents would not compensate for the good they impart. Let every man, if possible, gather some good books under his roof, and obtain access for himself and family to some social library. Almost any luxury should be sacrificed to this.
Pàgina 17 - A slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry and his labor. He can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire anything but what must belong to his master.
Pàgina 366 - ... outward creation is intimately related to the lovely, grand, interesting attributes of the soul. It is the emblem or expression of these. Matter becomes beautiful to us, when it seems to lose its material aspect, its inertness, finiteness and grossness, and by the ethereal lightness of its forms and motions seems to approach spirit ; when it images to us pure and gentle affections ; when it spreads out into a vastness which is a shadow of the Infinite ; or when in more awful shapes and movements...
Pàgina 365 - In looking at our nature, we discover, among its admirable endowments, the sense or perception of beauty. We see the germ of this in every human being : and there is no power which admits greater cultivation : and why should it not be cherished in all ? It deserves remark, that the provision for this principle is infinite in the universe. There is but a very minute portion of the creation which we can turn into food and clothes, or gratification for the body ; but the whole creation may be used to...
Pàgina 366 - ... exquisite workmanship, and that I were to learn, that neither man, woman, nor child ever cast an eye at these miracles of art, how should I feel their privation ; how should I want to open their eyes, and to help them to comprehend and feel the loveliness and grandeur which in vain courted their notice ? But every husbandman is living in sight of the works of a diviner Artist ; and how much would his existence be elevated, could he see the glory which shines forth in their forms, hues, proportions,...
Pàgina 365 - ... 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...
Pàgina 331 - Dancing is an amusement, which has been discour* aged in our country by many of the best people, and not without reason. Dancing is associated in their minds with balls ; and this is one of the worst forms of social pleasure. The time consumed in preparation for a ball, the waste of thought upon it, the extravagance of dress, the late hours, the exhaustion of strength, the exposure of health, and the languor of the succeeding day, — these and other evils, connected with this amusement, are strong...
Pàgina 22 - The equality of nature makes slavery a wrong. Nature's seal is affixed to no instrument by which property in a single human being is conveyed. 4. That a human being cannot be justly held and used as property, is apparent from the very nature of property. Property is an exclusive right. It shuts out all claim but that of the possessor. What one man owns, cannot belong to another. What, then, is the consequence of holding a human being as property ? Plainly this. He can have no right to himself. His...