Golden Lives: Biographies for the Day

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Strahan, 1873 - 414 Seiten
 

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Seite 92 - As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.
Seite 5 - But facts were important to me, and saved me. I could trust a fact, and always cross-examined an assertion. So when I questioned Mrs. Marcet's book by such little experiments as I could find means to perform, and found it true to the facts as I could understand them, I felt that I had got hold of an anchor in chemical knowledge, and clung fast to it.
Seite 301 - All this will, I am afraid, appear tolerably weak to the reader, and somewhat more than tolerably tedious. Let him remember, however, that the only merit to which I lay claim in the case is that of patient research — a merit in which whoever wills may rival or surpass me ; and that this humble faculty of patience, when rightly directed, may lead to more extraordinary developments of idea than even genius itself.
Seite 38 - We may be sure of facts, but our interpretation of facts we should doubt. He is the wisest philosopher who holds his theory with some doubt; who is able to proportion his judgment and confidence to the value of the evidence set before him, taking a fact for a fact, and a supposition for a supposition; as much as possible keeping his mind free from all source of prejudice, or where he cannot do this (as in the case of a theory) remembering that such a source is there.
Seite 79 - In fitting aptest words to things, Or voice the richest-toned that sings, Hath power to give thee as thou wert ? I care not in these fading days To raise a cry that lasts not long, And round thee with the breeze of song To stir a little dust of praise. Thy leaf has perish'd in the green, And, while we breathe beneath the sun, The world which credits what is doiie Is cold to all that might have been.
Seite 65 - My wits are getting blunted by the monotony and ugliness of this place. I can almost imagine — difficult as it is' — the awful effect upon a human mind of never seeing anything but the meanest and vilest of men and man's works, and of complete exclusion from the sight of God and his works — a position in which the villager never is, and freedom from which ought to give him a higher moral starting-point than the Gibeonite of a large town.
Seite 12 - ... whole mind ; you have converted me from one erroneous way, let me hope you will attempt to correct what others are wrong Again and again I attempt to say what I feel, but I cannot. Let me, however, claim not to be the selfish being that wishes to bend your affections for his own sake only. In whatever way I can best minister to your happiness, either by assiduity or by absence, it shall be done. Do not injure me by withdrawing your friendship, or punish me for aiming to be more than a friend...
Seite 4 - I entered the shop of a bookseller and bookbinder at the age of 13, in the year 1804, remaining there eight years, and during the chief part of the time bound books. Now it was in those books, in the hours after work, that I found the beginning of my philosophy. There were two that especially helped me, the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica,' from which I gained my first notions of electricity, and Mrs.
Seite 35 - Drawing me towards him, he said eagerly, ' Look there, Tyndall, that was my working-place. I bound books in that little nook.' A respectable-looking woman stood behind the counter : his conversation with me was too low to be heard by her, and he now turned to the counter to buy some cards as an excuse for our being there. He asked the woman her name — her predecessor's name — his predecessor's name. ' That won't do,' he said, with good-humoured impatience ; ' who was his predecessor ? '

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