“Happiness is to have a little string onto which things will attach themselves.”
Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer
Monday 20 April 1925
A Moment's Liberty (1990)
“Heroes have filled the zodiac of beneficent labors, and then given up their mortal part to the fire without a murmur. Sages and lawgivers have bent their whole nature to the search for truth, and thought themselves happy if they could buy, with the sacrifice of all temporal ease and pleasure, one seed for the future Eden. Poets and priests have strung the lyre with heart-strings, poured out their best blood upon the altar which, reare'd anew from age to age, shall at last sustain the flame which rises to highest heaven. What shall we say of those who, if not so directly, or so consciously, in connection with the central truth, yet, led and fashioned by a divine instinct, serve no less to develop and interpret the open secret of love passing into life, the divine energy creating for the purpose of happiness; — of the artist, whose hand, drawn by a preexistent harmony to a certain medium, moulds it to expressions of life more highly and completely organized than are seen elsewhere, and, by carrying out the intention of nature, reveals her meaning to those who are not yet sufficiently matured to divine it; of the philosopher, who listens steadily for causes, and, from those obvious, infers those yet unknown; of the historian, who, in faith that all events must have their reason and their aim, records them, and lays up archives from which the youth of prophets may be fed. The man of science dissects the statement, verifies the facts, and demonstrates connection even where he cannot its purpose·”
Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "Heroes have filled the zodiac of beneficent labors, and then given up their mortal part to the fire without a murmur. S…" by Margaret Fuller?
Margaret Fuller116
American feminist, poet, author, and activist 1810–1850Related quotes
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) German philosopher
Source: The Characteristics of the Present Age (1806), p. 168
“This is an age in which one cannot find common sense without a search warrant.”
George Will (1941) American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author
Column, May 9, 1996, "FDR's memorial hides character" http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1996-05-09/news/1996130096_1_memorial-felix-frankfurter-cigarette-holder at baltimoresun.com <br class="br">1990s
T.S. Eliot book The Waste Land
Variant: The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Source: The Waste Land (1922)
José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader
On El Poema de Niágara of Pérez Bonalde (1883)
“The Bards also, who by the praises of their verse transmit to distant ages the fame of heroes slain in battle, poured forth at ease their lays in abundance.”
Vos quoque qui fortes animas, belloque peremptas
Laudibus in longum vates dimittitis aevum,
Plurima securi fudistis carmina, Bardi.
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus book Pharsalia
Book I, line 447 (tr. J. D. Duff).
Pharsalia
“This little composition, which is, alas, the last mortal sin of my old age.”
Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) Italian composer
Cette petite composition qui est, hélas, le dernier péché mortel de ma vieillesse.
Introductory note to the Petite Messe Solennelle. Translation from Justin Wintle (ed.) Makers of Nineteenth Century Culture (2002) vol. 2, p. 527.
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Variant translation: I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves — such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine. The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Without the sense of fellowship with men of like mind, of preoccupation with the objective, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific research, life would have seemed to me empty. The ordinary objects of human endeavor — property, outward success, luxury — have always seemed to me contemptible.
1930s, Mein Weltbild (My World-view) (1931)
Context: I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves — this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts — possessions, outward success, luxury — have always seemed to me contemptible.