“The sense that a man is serving a Higher than himself, with a service which will become ever more and more perfect freedom, evokes more profound, more humbling, more exalted emotions than any thing else in the world can do. The spirit of man is an instrument which cannot give out its deepest, finest tones, except under the immediate hand of the Divine Harmonist.”

—  John Campbell Shairp

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 127.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The sense that a man is serving a Higher than himself, with a service which will become ever more and more perfect free…" by John Campbell Shairp?
John Campbell Shairp photo
John Campbell Shairp 14
British writer 1819–1885

Related quotes

Thomas Carlyle photo

“A man perfects himself by work much more than by reading.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1860s, On The Choice Of Books (1866)

Emil M. Cioran photo

“The lover who kills himself for a girl has an experience which is more complete and much more profound than the hero who overturns the world.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

All Gall Is Divided (1952)

Robert M. Pirsig photo

“Between the subject and the object lies the value. This Value is more immediate, more directly sensed than any 'self' or any 'object' to which it may be later assigned.”

Robert M. Pirsig book Lila: An Inquiry into Morals

Lila (1991)
Context: Between the subject and the object lies the value. This Value is more immediate, more directly sensed than any 'self' or any 'object' to which it may be later assigned. It is more real than the stove. Whether the stove is the cause of the low quality or whether possibly something else is the cause is not yet absolutely certain. But that the quality is low is absolutely certain. It is the primary empirical reality from which such things as stoves and heat and oaths and self are later intellectually constructed.

John Donne photo

“It is too little to call man a little world, except God, man is a diminutive to nothing. Man consists of more pieces, more parts, than the world; than the world doth, nay, than the world is.”

John Donne (1572–1631) English poet

IV. Mediscque Vocatur The physician is sent for
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)

Arthur Stanley Eddington photo

“Natural law is not applicable to the unseen world behind the symbols, because it is unadapted to anything except symbols, and its perfection is a perfection of symbolic linkage. You cannot apply such a scheme to the parts of our personality which are not measurable by symbols any more than you can extract the square root of a sonnet.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Source: Science and the Unseen World (1929), Ch. V, p.53

Bill Clinton photo

“A man is more than the sum of all the things he can do.”

Bill Clinton My Life

Source: My Life

Oscar Wilde photo

“The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man’s intelligence.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

Source: The Soul of Man Under Socialism

Tom Clancy photo

“People live longer today than they ever have. They live happier lives, they have more knowledge, they have more information. All this is the result of communications technology and the tools with which man has equipped himself. How is any of that bad?”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

1990s, Schafer interview (1995)

David O. McKay photo

“Freedom of choice is more to be treasured than any possession earth can give.”

David O. McKay (1873–1970) President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

LDS General Conference Report (April 1950) page 32

Jean de La Bruyère photo

“Criticism is often not a science; it is a craft, requiring more good health than wit, more hard work than talent, more habit than native genius. In the hands of a man who has read widely but lacks judgment, applied to certain subjects it can corrupt both its readers and the writer himself.”

Jean de La Bruyère book Les Caractères

La critique souvent n'est pas une science; c'est un métier, où il faut plus de santé que d'esprit, plus de travail que de capacité, plus d'habitude que de génie. Si elle vient d'un homme qui ait moins de discernement que de lecture, et qu'elle s'exerce sur de certains chapitres, elle corrompt et les lecteurs et l'écrivain.
Aphorism 63
Les Caractères (1688), Des Ouvrages de l'Esprit

Related topics