Sociology

"Thus does the Muse herself move men divinely inspired, and through them thus inspired a Chain hangs together of others inspired divinely likewise."

"He raised a mortal to the skies; She drew an angel down."

"Si possem sanior essem. Sed trahit invitam nova vis; aliudque Cupido, Mens aliud."

"Even here Thy strong magnetic charms I fed, And pant and tremble like the amorous steel. To lower good, and beauties less divine, Sometimes my erroneous needle does incline; But yet (so strong the sympathy) It turns, and points again to Thee."

"You've got to save your own soul first, and then the souls of your neighbors if they will let you; and for that reason you must cultivate, not a spirit of criticism, but the talents that attract people to the hearing of the Word."

"The very room, coz she was in, Seemed warm f'om floor to ceilin'."

"So when a great man dies, For years beyond our ken, The light he leaves behind him lies Upon the paths of men."

"Our life's a flying shadow, God the pole, The needle pointing to Him is our soul."

"Spontaneously to God should turn the soul, Like the magnetic needle to the pole; But what were that intrinsic virtue worth, Suppose some fellow, with more zeal than knowledge, Fresh from St. Andrew's College, Should nail the conscious needle to the north?"

"Lay ye down the golden chain From Heaven, and pull at its inferior links Both Goddesses and Gods."

"Nor ease nor peace that heart can know, That like the needle true, Turns at the touch of joy or woe; But turning, trembles too."

"A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump."

"Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent, All are needed by each one; Nothing is fair or good alone."

"O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self. In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge man's search To vaster issues."

"Blessed influence of one true loving human soul on another."

"Be a pattern to others, and then all will go well; for as a whole city is affected by the licentious passions and vices of great men, so it is likewise reformed by their moderation."

"The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green."

"God in making man intended by him to reduce all His Works back again to Himself."

"Example, whether it be good or bad, has a powerful influence."

"Thou wert my guide, philosopher, and friend."

"If the nose of Cleopatra had been shorter, the whole face of the earth would have been changed."

"No star ever rose or set without influence somewhere."

"No life Can be pure in its purpose or strong in its strife And all life not be purer and stronger thereby."

"The Nobel Prize confers on an individual an authority which in economics no man ought to possess. This does not matter in the natural sciences. Here the influence exercised by an individual is chiefly an influence on his fellow experts; and they will soon cut him down to size if he exceeds his competence. But the influence of the economist that mainly matters is an influence over laymen: politicians, journalists, civil servants and the public generally. There is no reason why a man who has made a distinctive contribution to economic science should be omnicompetent on all problems of society — as the press tends to treat him till in the end he may himself be persuaded to believe."

"The task of the political philosopher can only be to influence public opinion, not to organize people for action. He will do so effectively only if he is not concerned with what is now politically possible but consistently defends the "general principles which are always the same." In this sense I doubt whether there can be such a thing as a conservative political philosophy. Conservatism may often be a useful practical maxim, but it does not give us any guiding principles which can influence long-range developments."

"The growth of ideas is an international process, and only those who fully take part in the discussion will be able to exercise a significant influence."

"In the last resort, the conservative position rests on the belief that in any society there are recognizably superior persons whose inherited standards and values and position ought to be protected and who should have a greater influence on public affairs than others."

"The serene, silent beauty of a holy life is the most powerful influence in the world, next to the might of the Spirit of God."

"Every word, thought, and deed has its influence upon the destiny of man. Every life, well spent or ill spent, bears with it a long train of consequences, extending through generations yet unborn."

"To get good is animal; to do good is human; to be good is Divine. The true use of a man's possessions is to help his work; and the best end of all his work is to show us what he is. The noblest workers of our world bequeath us nothing so great as the image of themselves. Their task, be it ever so glorious, is historical and transient; the majesty of their spirit is essential and eternal."

"No fountain is so small but that heaven may be imaged in its bosom."

"What we do is transacted on a stage of which all the universe are spectators. What we say is transmitted in echoes that will never cease. What we are is influencing and acting on the rest of mankind. Neutral we cannot be. Living, we act; and dead, we speak; and the whole universe is the mighty company forever looking, forever listening, and all nature the tablets, forever recording the words, the deeds, the thoughts, the passions of mankind."

"If you had the seeds of a pestilence in your body, you would not have a more active contagion than you have in your tempers, tastes, and principles. Simply to be in this world, whatever you are, is to exert an influence—-an influence, too, compared with which mere language and persuasion are feeble."

"My heart is feminine, nor can forget— To all, except one image, madly blind; So shakes the needle, and so stands the pole, As vibrates my fond heart to my fix'd soul."

"The Bible calls the good man's life a light; and it is the nature of light to flow out spontaneously in all directions, and fill the world unconsciously with its beams. So the Christian shines it would say, not so much because he will, as because he is a luminous object. Not that the active influence of Christians is made of no account in the figure, but only that this symbol of light has its propriety in the fact that their unconscious influence is the chief influence, and has the precedence in its power over the world. The outward endeavors made by good men or bad to sway others, they call their influence; whereas it is, in fact, but a fraction, and, in most cases, but a very small fraction of the good or evil that flows out of their lives."

"Whose powers shed round him in the common strife, Or mild concerns of ordinary life, A constant influence, a peculiar grace."

"Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves Of their bad influence, and their good receives."

"It is very true that I have said that I considered Napoleon's presence in the field equal to forty thousand men in the balance. This is a very loose way of talking; but the idea is a very different one from that of his presence at a battle being equal to a reinforcement of forty thousand men."

"I thank God that if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is said to be able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit, which would drag angels down."

"I am a part of all that I have met."

"Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong—these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history."

"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it."

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

"History is a pageant, not a philosophy."

"Happy is the nation without a history."

"If you don't know history, it's as if you were born yesterday. If you were born yesterday, then any leader can tell you anything."

"The greater part of what passes for diplomatic history is little more than the record of what one clerk said to another clerk."

"It is always a part of the misfortunes of the vanquished that their portraits are painted and their history written by the victors."

"Those old credulities, to nature dear, Shall they no longer bloom upon the stock Of History."

"We have been taught, inside the classroom and outside of it, that there exists an entity called the West, and that one can think of this West as a society and civilization independent of and in opposition to other societies and civilizations [i.e. the East]. Many of us even grew up believing that this West has [an autonomous] genealogy, according to which ancient Greece begat Rome, Rome begat Christian Europe, Christian Europe begat the Renaissance, the Renaissance the Enlightenment, the Enlightenment political democracy and the industrial revolution. Industry, crossed with democracy, in turn yielded the United States, embodying the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness... [This is] misleading, first, because it turns history into a moral success story, a race in time in which each [Western] runner of the race passes on the torch of liberty to the next relay. History is thus converted into a tale about the furtherance of virtue, about how the virtuous [i.e. the West] win out over the bad guys [the East]."