“Every man has some peculiar train of thought which he falls back upon when he is alone. This, to a great degree, moulds the man.”
Dugald Stewart; reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 581
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Dugald Stewart 6
Scottish philosopher and mathematician 1753–1828Related quotes
§ III
1910s, At the Feet of the Master (1911)
“Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends.”
Part 1, Chapter 11 (page 35)
Notes from Underground (1864)
Context: Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has others which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But finally there are still others which a man is even afraid to tell himself, and every decent man has a considerable number of such things stored away. That is, one can even say that the more decent he is, the greater the number of such things in his mind.
“Man has to suffer. When he has no real afflictions, he invents some.”
“When fear has seized upon the mind, man fears that only which he first began to fear.”
Ubi intravit animos pavor, id solum metuunt, quod primum formidare cœperunt.
IV, 16, 17.
Historiarum Alexandri Magni Macedonis Libri Qui Supersunt, Book IV
The Functions of Criticism at the Present Time (1864)
Source: The Task (1785), Book IV, The Winter Evening, Line 788.
"American Poetry", p. 367
The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays (1962)
4 Burr. Part IV., 2379.
Dissenting in Millar v Taylor (1769)
Hyperion http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5436, Bk. III, Ch. IV (1839).
Variant: Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.
Context: "Ah! this beautiful world!" said Flemming, with a smile. "Indeed, I know not what to think of it. Sometimes it is all gladness and sunshine, and Heaven itself lies not far off. And then it changes suddenly; and is dark and sorrowful, and clouds shut out the sky. In the lives of the saddest of us, there are bright days like this, when we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms and kiss it. Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths nor in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad."