I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men read more

I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping stones
Or their dead selves to higher things.

"Oh! what a vile and abject thing is man unless he can erect
himself above humanity." Here is a read more

"Oh! what a vile and abject thing is man unless he can erect
himself above humanity." Here is a bon mot and a useful desire,
but equally absurd. For to make the handful bigger than the
hand, the armful bigger then the arm, and to hope to stride
further than the stretch of our legs, is impossible and
monstrous. . . . He may lift himself if God lend him His hand of
special grace; he may lift himself . . . by means wholly
celestial. It is for our Christian religion, and not for his
Stoic virtue, to pretend to this divine and miraculous
metamorphosis.

Gard'ner, for telling me these news of woe,
Pray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow.

Gard'ner, for telling me these news of woe,
Pray God the plants thou graft'st may never grow.

What? Was man made a wheel-work to wind up,
And be discharged, and straight wound up anew?
read more

What? Was man made a wheel-work to wind up,
And be discharged, and straight wound up anew?
No! grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne'er forgets;
May learn a thousand things, not twice the same.

It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long read more

It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it falls and die that night--
It was the plant and flower of Light.

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.

You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was.

You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was.

In a narrow circle the mind contracts.
Man grows with his expanded needs.
[Ger., Im engen Kreis read more

In a narrow circle the mind contracts.
Man grows with his expanded needs.
[Ger., Im engen Kreis verengert sich der Sinn.
Es wachst der Mensch mit seinen grossern Zwecken.]

Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.

Man seems the only growth that dwindles here.