Idle Thoughts Of An Idle Fellow Quotes

Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.

It is so pleasant to come across people more stupid than ourselves. We love them at once for being so.

It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch one another and find sympathy. We differ widely enough in our nobler qualities. It is in our follies that we are at one.

Life is a thing to be lived, not spent; to be faced, not ordered. Life is not a game of chess, the victory to the most knowing; it is a game of cards, one's hand by skill to be made the best of.

If there is one person I do despise more than another, it is the man who does not think exactly the same on all topics as I do...

Being poor is a mere trifle. It is being known to be poor that is the sting.

Idling has always been my strong point.

What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading "the best hundred books," you may take this for half an hour. It will be a change.

Soon after the completion of his college course, his whole nature was kindled into one intense and passionate effervescence of romantic passion. His hour came,—the hour that comes only once; his star rose in the horizon,—that star that rises so often in vain, to be remembered only as a thing of dreams; and it rose for him in vain. To drop the figure,—he saw and won the love of a high-minded and beautiful woman, in one of the northern states, and they were affianced. He returned south to make arrangements for their marriage, when, most unexpectedly, his letters were returned to him by mail, with a short note from her guardian, stating to him that ere this reached him the lady would be the wife of another. Stung to madness, he vainly hoped, as many another has done, to fling the whole thing from his heart by one desperate effort. Too proud to supplicate or seek explanation, he threw himself at once into a whirl of fashionable society, and in a fortnight from the time of the fatal letter was the accepted lover of the reigning belle of the season; and as soon as arrangements could be made, he became the husband of a fine figure, a pair of bright dark eyes, and a hundred thousand dollars; and, of course, everybody thought him a happy fellow. The married couple were enjoying their honeymoon, and entertaining a brilliant circle of friends in their splendid villa, near Lake Pontchartrain, when, one day, a letter was brought to him in that well-remembered writing. It was handed to him while he was in full tide of gay and successful conversation, in a whole room-full of company. He turned deadly pale when he saw the writing, but still preserved his composure, and finished the playful warfare of badinage which he was at the moment carrying on with a lady opposite; and, a short time after, was missed from the circle. In his room,alone, he opened and read the letter, now worse than idle and useless to be read. It was from her, giving a long account of a persecution to which she had been exposed by her guardian's family, to lead her to unite herself with their son: and she related how, for a long time, his letters had ceased to arrive; how she had written time and again, till she became weary and doubtful; how her health had failed under her anxieties, and how, at last, she had discovered the whole fraud which had been practised on them both. The letter ended with expressions of hope and thankfulness, and professions of undying affection, which were more bitter than death to the unhappy young man. He wrote to her immediately: I have received yours,—but too late. I believed all I heard. I was desperate. I am married, and all is over. Only forget,—it is all that remains for either of us." And thus ended the whole romance and ideal of life for Augustine St. Clare. But the real remained,—the real, like the flat, bare, oozy tide-mud, when the blue sparkling wave, with all its company of gliding boats and white-winged ships, its music of oars and chiming waters, has gone down, and there it lies, flat, slimy, bare,—exceedingly real. Of course, in a novel, people's hearts break, and they die, and that is the end of it; and in a story this is very convenient. But in real life we do not die when all that makes life bright dies to us.

If you are foolish enough to be contented, don't show it, but grumble with the rest; and if you can do with a little, ask for a great deal. Because if you don't you won't get any.

To be misunderstood is the shy man's fate on every occasion; and whatever impression he endeavors to create, he is sure to convey its opposite.

اننى أحب الكسل عندما لا يصح أن أكون كسولا ، لا عندما يكون الكسل هو الشئ الوحيد أمامى

Swearing relieves the feelings - that is what swearing does. I explained this to my aunt on one occasion, but it didn't answer with her. She said I had no business to have such feelings.

Ambition is only vanity ennobled.

إنا لا نصاب بالحب مرتين. إن كيوبيد لا يطلق سهمين على نفس القلب. وصيفات الحب هن صديقات العمر: الإحترام والإعجاب والحنان، أما مولاهن العلوي في موكبه الملكي فلا يزورنا إلا مرة يمضي بعدها. فقد نميل إلى شخص، وقد نتعلق بشخص، وقد نولع بهذا أو ذاك، لكنا لا نحب مرة ثانية، إن الحب كالألعاب النارية لا يومض في السماء إلا مرة.

وحدى أنا الآن الطريق مظلم مظلم أتعثر لا أعرف كيف و لا أهتم الطريق على ما يبدو يقود إلى لا مكان ، ليس ثمة ضوء يرشدنى لكن الصباح جاء أخيرا جاء ووجدت انى كبرت و أصبحت نفسى

The truth is, we each of us have an inborn conviction that the whole world with everybody and everything in it, was created as a sort of necessary appendage to ourselves.

Speak truth, and right will take care of itself.

I like idling when I ought not to be idling; not when it is the only thing I have to do. Thatis my pig-headed nature. The time when I like best to stand with my back to the fire, calculating how much I owe, is when my desk is heaped highest with letters that must be answered by the next post. When I like to dawdle longest over my dinner is when I have a heavy evening's work before me. And if, for some urgent reason, I ought to be up particularly early in the morning, it is then, more than at any other time, that I love to lie an extra half-hour in bed. Ah! how delicious it is to turn over and go to sleep again: "just for five minutes." Is there any human being, I wonder, besides the hero of a Sunday-school "tale for boys," who ever gets up willingly?

يا أيها الززمن ادفع بيديك هذة الذكريات المرة عن قلوبنا المثقلة بالهموم

Love is like the measles; we all have to go through it. Also like the measles, we take it only once. One never need be afraid of catching it a second time.

الأطفال يوفرن لنا البسمة فى دراما الحياة الثقيلة

I do like cats. They are so unconsciously amusing. There is such a comic dignity about them, such a "How dare you!" "Go away, don't touch me" sort of air.

It must be eight years since I last saw Joseph Taboys. How pleasant it would be to meet his jovial face again, to clasp his strong hand, and to hear his cheery laugh once more! He owes me 14 shillings, too.

To tell you the truth - mind, this is strictly between ourselves, please; I shouldn't like your wife to know I said it - the women folk don't understand these things; but between you and me, you know, I think it does a man good to swear.

One example of a solid but inexplicable fact, ruling all human affairs - your fireworks won't go off while the crowd is around.

نجتث الحشائش السامة لا الأزهار من حديقة الذكريات

It is only the first baby that takes up the whole of a woman's time.Five or six do not require nearly so much attention as one.

Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen. ― Jerome K. Jerome, Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. (Mondial October 19, 2005) Originally published 1886.

Affection will burn cheerily when the white flame of love is flickered out. Affection is a fire that can be fed from day to day and be piled up ever higher as the wintry years draw nigh.

One of the problems of social life is to know what to say to one another when we meet; every man and woman's desire is to appear sympathetic and clever, and this makes conversation difficult, because, taking us all round, we are neither sympathetic nor clever.

But we are so blind to our own shortcomings, so wide awake to those of others. Everything that happens to us is always the other person's fault.

Oh, give me back the good old days of fifty years ago," has been the cry ever since Adam's fifty-first birthday.

أكثر الظلال كآبة ظلال أنفسنا نحنت الميتة

Idling has always been my strong point. I take no credit to myself in the matter-it is a gift.

I had a tame rat when I was a boy, and I loved that animal as only a boy would love an old water-rat

لماذ نبدد العزم و الحياة نفكر فيما كان مفروضا أن يكون و ننسى ما يرقد أمامنا مما قد يكون .. تضيع منا الفرص بينما نجلس نندب حظا ضاع فلا ننتبه الى القادم من هناءة لأن سعادة أفلتت منا يوما ما

Young ladies take their notions of our sex from the novels written by their own, and compared with the monstrosities that masquerade for men in the pages of that nightmare literature, Phytagoras' plucked bird and Frankenstein's demon were fair average specimens of humanity. In these so-called books, the chief lover, or Greek god, as he is admiringly referred to -by the way, they do not say which "Greek god" it is that the gentleman bears such a striking likeness to; it might be hump-backed Vulcan, or double-faced Janus, or even driveling Silenus. He resembles the whole family of them, however, in being a blackguard, and perhaps this is what is meant.

A woman never thoroughly cares for her lover until he has ceased to care for her; and it is not until you have snapped your fingers in Fortune's face and turned on your heel that she begins to smile upon you.

We shall never be content until each man makes his own weather and keeps it to himself.

متاعبنا موجعة حقا .. كم يبدو الفجر بعيدا إذا لم نستطع النوم .. آه من تلك الليالى الكالحة عندما نتقلب فى الفراش من الحمى و الألم

ما الحياة إلا شظايا حطام إذا أنت التفت يوما خلفك و تأملتها

تبدا مع كل ثانية حياة جديدة لنا ، دعنا نتجه إليها فى حبور نلاقيها ، دعنا نشق طريقنا نحوها ، أعيننا إلى الأمام تجاهها لا إلى الخلف

A boy's love comes from a full heart; a man's is more often the result of a full stomach.

There is no pathos in real misery, no luxury in real grief.

По океана на Живота всеки трябва сам да направлява кормилото си; никой не може да ни помогне и да ни даде съвет, защото никой не знае, нито е знаел пътя на тази безбрежна шир. Защото океанът на Живота е много дълбок и никой човек не познава силните течения под неговата слънчева повърхност.

Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They form a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted against, and they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent, audience for the active spirits of the age to play before.

We want everything. All the happiness that earth and heaven are capable of bestowing. Creature comforts, and heart and soul comforts also; and, proud-spirited beings that we are, we will not be put off with a part. Give us only everything, and we will be content. And, after all, Cinderella, you have had your day. Some little dogs never get theirs. You must not be greedy. You have KNOWN happiness. The palace was Paradise for those few months, and the Prince's arms were about you, Cinderella, the Prince's kisses on your lips; the gods themselves cannot take THAT from you.

It all comes of being so attractive, as the old lady said when she was struck by lightning.

It is in the petty details, not in the great results, that the interest of existence lies.

تحس أنك شخص محطم مسحوق ، و تتمنى أن يأخذك الله إلى سماواته و يريحك

لا تأتى الكآبة إلا فى المساء ، فنحن لا نستطيع فى وجود الشمس أن نجلس لنتنهد و نعبس بينما العالم ينطلق مفعما بالحياة فى الظلام تفكر فى هذا العالم الفارغ الذى نحيا به

ثمة حزن جليل يسود .. ثمة سلام هائل يغلفنا .. فى ضوئه تتضاءل هموم يومنا و تغدو تافهة

يا لكآبة ساعة تنطفئ فيها شمعة الحب و تخبو نار العاطفة فإذا بكل يتلمس طريقه فى فجر الحياة البارد القاسى يود لو يشعلها

كالصقيع القاتل فوق قلوبنا

هم معنا فى أفراحنا يهزجون إذا نسعد يكتئبون اذا نكتئب و يحزنون إذا نحن أصبنا باسى

دعونى أصبح فراشة !

عن الكآبة تصبح غبيا ضجرا أخرق ميالا للبكاء مشاكسا مؤذيا لنفسك فإذا ما تمكنت منك النوبة فلن تستطيع أن تفعل شيئا ، و لا أن تفكر فى شئ ، لكنك ستحس فى نفس الوقت بضرورة أن تقوم بعمل ما

There are various methods by which you may achieve ignominy and shame. By murdering a large and respected family in cold blood and afterward depositing their bodies in the water companies' reservoir, you will gain much unpopularity in the neighborhood of your crime, and even robbing a church will get you cordially disliked, especially by the vicar. But if you desire to drain to the dregs the fullest cup of scorn and hatred that a fellow human creature can pour out for you, let a young mother hear you call dear baby "it.

All the hate and scorn and love of a deep nature, such as the shy man is ever cursed by, fester and corrupt within, instead of spending themselves abroad, and sour him into a misanthrope and cynic.

إنا لا نصاب بالحب مرتين .. إن كيوبيد لا يطلق سهمين على نفس القلب ، وصيفات الحب هن صديقات العمر الاحترام و الاعجاب و الحنان اما مولاهن العلوى فى موكبة الملكى فلا يزورنا إلا مرة .. يمضى بعدها فلقد نميل إلى شخص و قد نتعلق بشخص و قد نولع أيما ولع بهذا او بذاك ، لكنا لا نحب مرة ثانية ان الحب كالألعاب النارية لا يومض فى السماء إلا مرة

No, we never sicken with love twice. Cupid spends no second arrow on the same heart. Love's handmaids are our life-long friends. Respect, and admiration, and affection, our doors may always be left open for, but their great celestial master, in his royal progress, pays but one visit and departs. We like, we cherish, we are very, very fond of--but we never love again.

Memory is a rare ghost-raiser. Like a haunted house, its walls are ever echoing to unseen feet. Through the broken casements we watch the flitting shadows of the dead, and the saddest shadows of them all are the shadows of our own dead selves.

موكب الحياة هذا المجنون لا يكف أبدا عن الحركة

كان الكسل دائما هو ميزتى ، أنا لا أنسب لنفسى فضلا فى هذا الموضوع ، انه موهبة لا يمتلكها إلا القلائل

الطقس كالحكومة دائما على خطأ فى الصيف نقول انه خانق و فى الشتاء نقول انه قاتل و فى الربيع و الخريف نجد عيبه فى أنه لا هذا و لا ذاك

ان مشاكل الحياة اليومية المتكررة تسبب غضبا لابد أن يجد له مخرجا و إلا يتقيح بداخلنا

أنا لك طول العمر سنمضى سويا فى هذا العالم ، سيقف كل منا إلى جانب الآخر ، أليس كذلك ؟

انه يتحرك فى العالم لكنه لا يختلط به

دعنا ننفض ايدينا من ذاك الندم و ذلك الشوق العقيم إلى أيام مضت لن تعود أبدا ، العمل أمامنا لا خلفنا ، شعارنا إلى الأمام

حسنا لن أقوم بأى عمل الليلة ، و سأستيقظ مبكرا .. هكذا يكون قرارى الحاسم الذى لا رجعة فيه عندئذ .. فإذا ما حل الصباح ، قل حماسى للفكرة ، و رأيت أنه كان من الواجب أن أتم العمل فى الليلة الماضية

A vida funciona segundo o princípio dos pratos da balança, e a felicidade que alcançamos numa vertente da vida perdemos na vertente contrária. À medida que as nossas posses aumentam, o mesmo sucede com os nossos desejos; e estamos sempre a meio caminho entre aquelas e estes. Quando residimos numas águas-furtadas, ficamos felizes ao saborear uma ceia de peixe-frito com cerveja preta. Quando moramos num primeiro andar, só um jantar requintado no Continental nos pode proporcionar a mesma satisfação.

In my youth, the question chiefly important to me was—What sort of man shall I decide to be? At nineteen one asks oneself this question; at thirty-nine we say, “I wish Fate hadn’t made me this sort of man.

A solemn sadness reigns. A great peace is around us. In its light our cares of the working day grow small and trivial, and bread and cheese—ay, and even kisses—do not seem the only things worth striving for. Thoughts we cannot speak but only listen to flood in upon us, and standing in the stillness under earth's darkening dome, we feel that we are greater than our petty lives. Hung round with those dusky curtains, the world is no longer a mere dingy workshop, but a stately temple wherein man may worship, and where at times in the dimness his groping hands touch God's.

I look in the glass sometimes at my two long, cylindrical bags (so picturesquely rugged about the knees), my stand-up collar and billycock hat, and wonder what right I have to go about making God's world hideous. Then wild and wicked thoughts come into my heart. I don't want to be good and respectable. (I never can be sensible, I'm told; so that don't matter.) I want to put on lavender-colored tights, with red velvet breeches and a green doublet slashed with yellow; to have a light-blue silk cloak on my shoulder, and a black eagle's plume waving from my hat, and a big sword, and a falcon, and a lance, and a prancing horse, so that I might go about and gladden the eyes of the people. Why should we all try to look like ants crawling over a dust-heap? Why shouldn't we dress a little gayly? I am sure if we did we should be happier. True, it is a little thing, but we are a little race, and what is the use of our pretending otherwise and spoiling fun? Let philosophers get themselves up like old crows if they like. But let me be a butterfly.

It always has been and always will be the same. The old folk of our grandfathers' young days sang a song bearing exactly the same burden; and the young folk of to-day will drone out precisely similar nonsense for the aggravation of the next generation. "Oh, give me back the good old days of fifty years ago," has been the cry ever since Adam's fifty-first birthday. Take up the literature of 1835, and you will find the poets and novelists asking for the same impossible gift as did the German Minnesingers long before them and the old Norse Saga writers long before that. And for the same thing sighed the early prophets and the philosophers of ancient Greece. From all accounts, the world has been getting worse and worse ever since it was created. All I can say is that it must have been a remarkably delightful place when it was first opened to the public, for it is very pleasant even now if you only keep as much as possible in the sunshine and take the rain good-temperedly.

Yet there is no gainsaying but that it must have been somewhat sweeter in that dewy morning of creation, when it was young and fresh, when the feet of the tramping millions had not trodden its grass to dust, nor the din of the myriad cities chased the silence forever away. Life must have been noble and solemn to those free-footed, loose-robed fathers of the human race, walking hand in hand with God under the great sky. They lived in sunkissed tents amid the lowing herds. They took their simple wants from the loving hand of Nature. They toiled and talked and thought; and the great earth rolled around in stillness, not yet laden with trouble and wrong. Those days are past now. The quiet childhood of Humanity, spent in the far-off forest glades and by the murmuring rivers, is gone forever; and human life is deepening down to manhood amid tumult, doubt, and hope. Its age of restful peace is past. It has its work to finish and must hasten on. What that work may be—what this world's share is in the great design—we know not, though our unconscious hands are helping to accomplish it. Like the tiny coral insect working deep under the dark waters, we strive and struggle each for our own little ends, nor dream of the vast fabric we are building up for God.

No,” Jack said after a moment. “That is not how it works. With all due respect,” he remarked, managing to convey no respect whatsoever, “you wouldn’t know whether or not he was decent. You couldn’t, in fact. You play cards with him, maybe drink or make idle conversation. He has no power over you to be anything other than decent. It’s his wife and servants who know the truth. You would likely have thought your brother-in-law a decent fellow had you met him at your club.

I attribute the quarrelsome nature of the Middle Ages young men entirely to the want of the soothing weed.

Ne, kdepak, milé dámy, vy buďte vždy sentimentální a soucitné, jako jste dnes – buďte konejšivým máslem našemu suchému, okoralému chlebu.

I like idling when I ought not to be idling; not when it is the only thing I have to do.

Love is too pure a light to burn long among the noisome gases that we breathe, but before it is choked out we may use it as a torch to ignite the cozy fire of affection.

It is wonderful what an insight into domestic economy being really hard up gives one.

It is a most remarkable thing. I sat down with the full intention of writing something clever and original; but for the life of me I can't think of anything clever and original--at least, not at this moment.

To be amiable and cheerful is a good religion for a work-a-day world. We are so busy not killing, not stealing, not coveting our neighbour's wife, we have not the time to be even just to one another for the little while we are together here.

And who would not risk its terrors to gain its raptures? Ah, what raptures they were! The mere recollection thrills you. How delicious it was to tell her that you loved her, that you lived for her, that you would die for her! How you did rave, to be sure, what floods of extravagant nonsense you poured forth, and oh, how cruel it was of her to pretend not to believe you! '''In what awe you stood of her! How miserable you were when you had offended her! And yet, how pleasant to be bullied by her and to sue for pardon without having the slightest notion of what your fault was! How dark the world was when she snubbed you, as she often did, the little rogue, just to see you look wretched; how sunny when she smiled! How jealous you were of every one about her! How you hated every man she shook hands with, every woman she kissed—the maid that did her hair, the boy that cleaned her shoes, the dog she nursed—though you had to be respectful to the last-named! How you looked forward to seeing her, how stupid you were when you did see her, staring at her without saying a word! How impossible it was for you to go out at any time of the day or night without finding yourself eventually opposite her windows!

But if we look a little deeper we shall find there is a pathetic, one might almost say a tragic, side to the picture. A shy man means a lonely man—a man cut off from all companionship, all sociability. He moves about the world, but does not mix with it. Between him and his fellow-men there runs ever an impassable barrier—a strong, invisible wall that, trying in vain to scale, he but bruises himself against. He sees the pleasant faces and hears the pleasant voices on the other side, but he cannot stretch his hand across to grasp another hand. He stands watching the merry groups, and he longs to speak and to claim kindred with them. But they pass him by, chatting gayly to one another, and he cannot stay them. He tries to reach them, but his prison walls move with him and hem him in on every side. In the busy street, in the crowded room, in the grind of work, in the whirl of pleasure, amid the many or amid the few—wherever men congregate together, wherever the music of human speech is heard and human thought is flashed from human eyes, there, shunned and solitary, the shy man, like a leper, stands apart. His soul is full of love and longing, but the world knows it not. The iron mask of shyness is riveted before his face, and the man beneath is never seen. Genial words and hearty greetings are ever rising to his lips, but they die away in unheard whispers behind the steel clamps. His heart aches for the weary brother, but his sympathy is dumb. Contempt and indignation against wrong choke up his throat, and finding no safety-valve whence in passionate utterance they may burst forth, they only turn in again and harm him. All the hate and scorn and love of a deep nature such as the shy man is ever cursed by fester and corrupt within, instead of spending themselves abroad, and sour him into a misanthrope and cynic.

SELF-HELP FOR FELLOW REFUGEES If your name suggests a country where bells might have been used for entertainment, or to announce the entrances and exits of the seasons and the birthdays of gods and demons, it's probably best to dress in plain clothes when you arrive in the United States. And try not to talk too loud. If you happen to have watched armed men beat and drag your father out the front door of your house and into the back of an idling truck, before your mother jerked you from the threshold and buried your face in her skirt folds, try not to judge your mother too harshly. Don't ask her what she thought she was doing, turning a child's eyes away from history and toward that place all human aching starts. And if you meet someone in your adopted country and think you see in the other's face an open sky, some promise of a new beginning, it probably means you're standing too far. Or if you think you read in the other, as in a book whose first and last pages are missing, the story of your own birthplace, a country twice erased, once by fire, once by forgetfulness, it probably means you're standing too close. In any case, try not to let another carry the burden of your own nostalgia or hope. And if you're one of those whose left side of the face doesn't match the right, it might be a clue looking the other way was a habit your predecessors found useful for survival. Don't lament not being beautiful. Get used to seeing while not seeing. Get busy remembering while forgetting. Dying to live while not wanting to go on. Very likely, your ancestors decorated their bells of every shape and size with elaborate calendars and diagrams of distant star systems, but with no maps for scattered descendants. And I bet you can't say what language your father spoke when he shouted to your mother from the back of the truck, "Let the boy see!" Maybe it wasn't the language you used at home. Maybe it was a forbidden language. Or maybe there was too much screaming and weeping and the noise of guns in the streets. It doesn't matter. What matters is this: The kingdom of heaven is good. But heaven on earth is better. Thinking is good. But living is better. Alone in your favorite chair with a book you enjoy is fine. But spooning is even better.

Telaş günümüzün vebasıdır. Bu ihtiyar kürekçinin, diğer kayıkları geçmek gibi bir derdi yoktur ve onu geçen diğer kayıkları da umursamaz. Nehirdeki kayıkların arkasından süzülüp gider. En arkada kalmak bazı insanları sinirlendirir fakat bizim ihtiyar bu durumdan hiç gocunmaz. Hayattaki hırslara karşı tutumumuz konusunda güzel bir ders olmalı bu bize.

My mladíci, dokud si nevsuneme ruce do kapes, se zpravidla necítíme ve své kůži. Jsme rozpačití a podráždění. Připadáme si, jak by si bez skládacího cylindru na hlavě připadal lev salónů, pokud si lze něco takového vůbec představit. Když si však ruce do kapes kalhot vsuneme, a v pravé nahmatáme drobné mince a v levé svazek klíčů, s přehledem se popasujeme i s poštovní úřednicí.

Idle, she writes, to imagine falling in love as a correspondence of minds, of thoughts,; it is a simultaneous firing of two spirits engaged in the autonomous act of growing up. And the sensation is of something having noiselessly exploded inside each of them. Around this event, dazed and preoccupied, the lover moves examining her or her own experience; her gratitude alone, stretching away towards a mistaken donor, creates the illusion that she communicates with her fellow, but this is false. The loved object is simply one that has shared an experience at the same moment of time, narcissistically; and the desire to be near the beloved object is at first not due to the idea of possessing it, but simply to let the two experiences compare themselves, like reflections in different mirrors. All this may precede the first look, kiss, or touch; precede ambition, pride or envy; precede the first declarations which mark the turning point--for from here love degenerates into habit, possession, and back to loneliness.

Не стоит огульно осуждать тщеславие. Лучше употребить его на благо общества. Ведь и честь - не что иное, как высшая форма тщеславия. Не только у франтов и щеголих встречаем мы инстинкт самолюбования. Есть тщеславие павлина, и есть тщеславие орла. Снобы тщеславны. Но ведь тщеславны и герои. Будем настолько тщеславны, чтобы никогда не унизиться до мелкого, подлого поступка. Настолько тщеславны, чтобы вытравить в себе мещанский эгоизм и тупую зависть. Настолько тщеславны, чтобы никогда не произнести жестокого слова, никогда не совершить жестокого поступка.

Must we believe those who tell us that a hand foul with the filth of a shameful life is the only one a young girl cares to be caressed by? That is the teaching that is bawled out day by day from between those yellow covers. Do they ever pause to think, I wonder, those devil's lady-helps, what mischief they are doing crawling about God's garden, and telling childish Eves and silly Adams that sin is sweet, and that decency is ridiculous and vulgar? How many an innocent girl do they not degrade into an evil-minded woman? To how many a weak lad do they not point out the dirty by-path as the shortest cut to a maiden's heart? It is not as if they wrote of life as it really is. Speak truth, and right will take care of itself. But their pictures are coarse daubs painted from the sickly fancies of their own diseased imaginations. We want to think of women not--as their own sex would show them--as Loreleis luring us to destruction, but as good angels beckoning us upward. They have more power for good or evil than they dream of. It is just at the very age when a man's character is forming that he tumbles into love, and then the lass he loves has the making or marring of him. Unconsciously he molds himself to what she would have him, good or bad. I am sorry to have to be ungallant enough to say that I do not think they always use their influence for the best. . . . And yet, women, you could make us so much better, if you only would. It rests with you more than with all the preachers, to roll this world a little nearer heaven. Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. It is you who must wake it to noble deeds. You must be worthy of knightly worship. You must be higher than ourselves. [1886]

Dear Friend: Are you a Christian? What have you done to-day for Christ? Are the friends with whom you have been talking traveling toward the New Jerusalem? Did you compare notes with them as to how you were all prospering on the way? Is that stranger by your side a fellow-pilgrim? Did you ask him if he would be? Have you been careful to recommend the religion of Jesus Christ by your words, by your acts, by your looks, this day? If danger comes to you, have you this day asked Christ to be your helper? If death comes to you this night, are you prepared to give up your account? What would your record of this last day be? A blank? What! Have you done nothing for the Master? Then what have you done against Him? Nothing? Nay, verily! Is not the Bible doctrine, 'He that is not for me is against me?'  "Remember that every neglected opportunity, every idle word, every wrong thought of yours has been written down this day. You can not take back the thoughts or words; you can not recall the opportunity. This day, with all its mistakes, and blots, and mars, you can never live over again. It must go up to the judgment just as it is. Have you begged the blood of Jesus to be spread over it all? Have you resolved that no other day shall witness a repeatal of the same mistakes? Have you resolved in your own strength or in His?

had imbibed a prejudice against my uncle’s favorite slave. There was something crawling in his servility; for though outdoor slavery does not dishonor, domestic service too often debases. I felt a sentiment of pity for those slaves who toiled in the scorching sun, with scarcely a vestige of clothing to hide their chains; but I despised this idle serf, with his garments ornamented with gold lace and adorned with bells Besides, the dwarf never made use of his influence with his master to ameliorate the condition of his fellow-sufferers; on the contrary, I heard him once, when he thought that he and his master were alone, urge him to increase his severity toward his ill-fated comrades.

I can understand the ignorant masses loving to soak themselves in drink—oh, yes, it's very shocking that they should, of course—very shocking to us who live in cozy homes, with all the graces and pleasures of life around us, that the dwellers in damp cellars and windy attics should creep from their dens of misery into the warmth and glare of the public-house bar, and seek to float for a brief space away from their dull world upon a Lethe stream of gin. But think, before you hold up your hands in horror at their ill-living, what "life" for these wretched creatures really means. Picture the squalid misery of their brutish existence, dragged on from year to year in the narrow, noisome room where, huddled like vermin in sewers, they welter, and sicken, and sleep; where dirt-grimed children scream and fight and sluttish, shrill-voiced women cuff, and curse, and nag; where the street outside teems with roaring filth and the house around is a bedlam of riot and stench. Think what a sapless stick this fair flower of life must be to them, devoid of mind and soul. The horse in his stall scents the sweet hay and munches the ripe corn contentedly. The watch-dog in his kennel blinks at the grateful sun, dreams of a glorious chase over the dewy fields, and wakes with a yelp of gladness to greet a caressing hand. But the clod-like life of these human logs never knows one ray of light. From the hour when they crawl from their comfortless bed to the hour when they lounge back into it again they never live one moment of real life. Recreation, amusement, companionship, they know not the meaning of. Joy, sorrow, laughter, tears, love, friendship, longing, despair, are idle words to them. From the day when their baby eyes first look out upon their sordid world to the day when, with an oath, they close them forever and their bones are shoveled out of sight, they never warm to one touch of human sympathy, never thrill to a single thought, never start to a single hope. In the name of the God of mercy; let them pour the maddening liquor down their throats and feel for one brief moment that they live!

Najednou nechci být dobrý a ctihodný. (Prý nikdy ctihodný být ani nemohu, takže na tom ani nezáleží.) Chci si obléct levandulové punčochy s červenými sametovými rajtkami a k tomu zelený dublet se žlutými pruhy, na rameno si zavěsit světlemodrý hedvábný plášť a za klobouk vetknout černé orlí péro, a také mít velký meč a jestřába a kopí a skotačícího koně, abych mohl jezdit mezi lidi a těšit jejich zraky. Proč bychom se měli všichni snažit vypadat jako mravenci ploužící se přes hromadu mouru? Proč bychom se nemohli oblékat trochu živěji? Jsem přesvědčený, že kdybychom to udělali, byli bychom šťastnější. Ano, je to banalita, ale my jsme banální rasa, a k čemu je dobré předstírat něco jiného a být za kazisvěty? Ať se jako havrani oblékají filozofové, pokud se jim chce. Mně však dovolte být motýlem.

Když se mladík z dvanáctého století zamiloval, neudělal tři kroky nazpět, nezadíval se jí do očí a neřekl jí, že je pro tento svět příliš krásná. Řekl, že vyjde ven a zjistí, jak se věci mají. A pokud venku potkal nějakého muže a rozbil mu hlavu, dokázalo se tím, že jeho dívka – dívka toho prvního mladíka – je opravdu hezká. Pokud mu však rozbil hlavu ten druhý – myslím tomu prvnímu mladíkovi –, pak jeho dívka – nikoliv tedy dívka toho druhého chlapíka, nýbrž dívka toho, který… Podívejte, pokud mladík A rozbil hlavu mladíkovi B, pak dívka mladíka A je opravdu hezká; ale pokud mladík B rozbil hlavu mladíkovi A, pak dívka mladíka A hezká není a hezká je dívka mladíka B. Takovým způsobem provozovali uměleckou kritiku. V dnešní době si zapálíme dýmku a necháme dívky, aby si to mezi sebou vyřídily samy.

Maggie felt an unexpected pang. She had thought beforehand chiefly at her own deliverance from her teasing hair and teasing remarks about it, and something also of the triumph she should have over her mother and her aunts by this very decided course of action; she didn't want her hair to look pretty,–that was out of the question,–she only wanted people to think her a clever little girl, and not to find fault with her. But now, when Tom began to laugh at her, and say she was like an idiot, the affair had quite a new aspect. She looked in the glass, and still Tom laughed and clapped his hands, and Maggie's cheeks began to pale, and her lips to tremble a little. "Oh, Maggie, you'll have to go down to dinner directly," said Tom. "Oh, my!" ...But Maggie, as she stood crying before the glass, felt it impossible that she should go down to dinner and endure the severe eyes and severe words of her aunts, while Tom and Lucy, and Martha, who waited at table, and perhaps her father and her uncles, would laugh at her; for if Tom had laughed at her, of course every one else would; and if she had only let her hair alone, she could have sat with Tom and Lucy, and had the apricot pudding and the custard! What could she do but sob? She sat as helpless and despairing among her black locks as Ajax among the slaughtered sheep. Very trivial, perhaps, this anguish seems to weather-worn mortals who have to think of Christmas bills, dead loves, and broken friendships; but it was not less bitter to Maggie–perhaps it was even more bitter–than what we are fond of calling antithetically the real troubles of mature life. "Ah, my child, you will have real troubles to fret about by and by," is the consolation we have almost all of us had administered to us in our childhood, and have repeated to other children since we have been grown up. We have all of us sobbed so piteously, standing with tiny bare legs above our little socks, when we lost sight of our mother or nurse in some strange place; but we can no longer recall the poignancy of that moment and weep over it, as we do over the remembered sufferings of five or ten years ago. Every one of those keen moments has left its trace, and lives in us still, but such traces have blent themselves irrecoverably with the firmer texture of our youth and manhood; and so it comes that we can look on at the troubles of our children with a smiling disbelief in the reality of their pain. Is there any one who can recover the experience of his childhood, not merely with a memory of what he did and what happened to him, of what he liked and disliked when he was in frock and trousers, but with an intimate penetration, a revived consciousness of what he felt then, when it was so long from one Midsummer to another; what he felt when his school fellows shut him out of their game because he would pitch the ball wrong out of mere wilfulness; or on a rainy day in the holidays, when he didn't know how to amuse himself, and fell from idleness into mischief, from mischief into defiance, and from defiance into sulkiness; or when his mother absolutely refused to let him have a tailed coat that "half," although every other boy of his age had gone into tails already? Surely if we could recall that early bitterness, and the dim guesses, the strangely perspectiveless conception of life, that gave the bitterness its intensity, we should not pooh-pooh the griefs of our children.

Как это ни печально, но тщеславие - вот истинная сила, движущая колесницу человечества, и не что иное, как лесть, смазывает бегущие колеса. Если вы хотите завоевать любовь и уважение в этом Мире - льстите людям. Льстите высшим и низшим, богатым и бедным, глупым и умным, и тогда у вас все пойдет как по маслу. Хвалите у одного человека добродетели, у другого - пороки. Восхваляйте каждого за все качества, какие у него есть, но в особенности за те, которых у него нет и в помине. Восторгайтесь красотой урода, остроумием дурака, воспитанностью грубияна, и вас будут превозносить до небес за светлый ум и тонкий вкус. Лестью можно покорить всех без исключения. Что касается любви, то без лести она просто немыслима. Беспрерывно накачивайте человека самообожанием, и то, что перельется через край, достанется на вашу долю. Скажите любимой девушке, что она - настоящий ангел, более настоящий, чем любой ангел в раю; что она - богиня, но только более изящная, величественная и божественная, чем обыкновенная богиня;,что она красивее Венеры, обольстительнее Парфенопеи, короче говоря, более достойна любви, более привлекательна и блистательна, чем любая другая женщина, которая когда-либо жила, живет или будет жить на этом свете, - и этим вы произведете самое благоприятное впечатление на ее доверчивое сердечко. Милая наивная девушка! Она поверит каждому вашему слову. Нет ничего легче, чем обмануть женщину... этим путем. Теперь представьте себе человека, который, объясняясь в любви, принципиально ни на шаг не отступает от правды, не говорит ни одного комплимента, не позволяет себе никакого преувеличения и щепетильно придерживается фактов. Представьте себе, что он восхищенно смотрит в глаза своей возлюбленной и тихо шепчет ей, что она далеко не безобразна, не хуже многих других девушек. Представьте себе дальше, как он, разглядывая ее маленькую ручку, приговаривает, что она какого-то буроватого цвета и покрыта красными жилками. Прижимая-девушку к своему сердцу, он объясняет ей, что носик у нее хотя и пуговкой, но симпатичный, и что ее глаза насколько он может судить - кажутся ему соответствующими среднему стандарту, установленному для органов зрения. Может ли подобный поклонник выдержать сравнение с человеком, который скажет той же девушке, что лицо ее подобно только что распустившейся пунцовой розе, что волосы ее сотканы из залетного солнечного луча, что он пленен ее улыбкой и что глаза ее - две вечерние звезды. Есть много разных способов льстить, и, конечно, надо умеючи пользоваться ими, в зависимости от лица, с которым вы имеете дело.