
“The call to religion is not a call to be better than your fellows, but to be better than yourself.”
Source: Life Thoughts (1858), p. 18
Life Without and Life Within (1859), A Greeting
Context: Thoughts which come at a call
Are no better than if they came not at all
Neither flower nor fruit,
Yielding no root
For plant, shrub, or tree.
“The call to religion is not a call to be better than your fellows, but to be better than yourself.”
Source: Life Thoughts (1858), p. 18
Section 1.9 <!-- p. 28 -->
The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)
Context: My husband is my most ruthless critic. … Sometimes he will say, "It's been said better before." Of course. It's all been said better before. If I thought I had to say it better than anyone else, I'd never start. Better or worse is immaterial. The thing is that it has to be said; by me; ontologically. We each have to say it, to say it in our own way. Not of our own will, but as it comes through us. Good or bad, great or little: that isn't what human creation is about. It is that we have to try; to put it down in pigment, or words, or musical notations, or we die.
In George R. R. Martin & Gardner Dozois (eds.) Rogues (p. 245)
Short fiction, A Year and a Day in Old Theradane (2014)
“I came from nothing; but from where
Come these undying thoughts I bear?”
Opening lines of Song of Derivations" https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-song-of-derivations/"A. In Poems (London: John Lane, 1896) this poem is titled "The Modern Poet: A Song of Derivations". In later editions of Poems, it is titled "A Poet's Fancies VIII: A Song of Derivations".
“Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be executed.”
In this story, humans have by the early 21st century explored the Solar System and sent not just one but two crewed ships to Alpha Centauri … despite which the characters moan endlessly about the dire state of the space program. “Eyes of Amber” would be another example of the Rusting Bridges [Rule]: No matter how much the space program you actually have has achieved, whether it’s first contact with aliens or trips to nearby stars, it can never have achieved as much as the space programs you can imagine would have achieved in its place, given that imaginary programs aren’t limited by issues of politics, funding, or engineering.
Review of “Eyes of Amber”, by Joan D. Vinge (as anthologized in New Women of Wonder, edited by Pamela Sargent http://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/yet-more-sf-about-women-by-women, 2015
2010s