“But in life, as we are cognizant of it, mental development can go but a little way. The mind hardly begins to awake ere the bodily powers decline — it but becomes dimly conscious of the vast fields before it, but begins to learn and use its strength, to recognize relations and extend its sympathies, when, with the death of the body, it passes away. Unless there is something more, there seems here a break, a failure. Whether it be a Humboldt or a Herschel, a Moses who looks from Pisgah, a Joshua who leads the host, or one of those sweet and patient souls who in narrow circles live radiant lives, there seems, if mind and character here developed can go no further, a purposelessness inconsistent with what we can see of the linked sequence of the universe.”

—  Henry George, book Progress and Poverty

Progress and Poverty (1879)

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 "But in life, as we are cognizant of it, mental development can go but a little way. The mind hardly begins to awake ere…" by Henry George?
Henry George photo
Henry George61
American economist 1839–1897

Related quotes

Mooji photo

“It is time to leave behind childish attitudes and begin to pay a little more attention to what is really here. This is a time-body, a mortal body, but an immortal presence is moving in it. While the body is still warm, use this bodily life to rediscover your timeless Being.”

Mooji (1954) Jamaican spiritual teacher

Greater than Sky, Vaster than Space, (2018), Introduction

John Campbell Shairp photo

“Were it not well, then, to begin with the substance, to learn to apprehend the reality of that kingdom which is all around us now, whether we recognize it or not, — to take our aims and endeavors into it, that they may be made part of it, however small, — to surrender ourselves to it, that our lives may do something towards its advancement, and that we may become fellow-workers, however humble, with all the wise and good who have gone before us, and with Him who made them what they are?”

John Campbell Shairp (1819–1885) British writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 269.

Eckhart Tolle photo

“In most cases, we cannot begin to understand what role a seemingly senseless event may have within the totality of the cosmos but recognizing its inevitability within the vastness of the whole can be the beginning of an inner acceptance of what is and thus a realignment with the wholeness of life.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: Stillness Speaks (2003), Ch 10

Koichi Tohei photo

“Mind and body were originally one. Do not think that the power you have is only the power you ordinarily use and moan that you have little strength. The power you ordinarily use is like the small visible segment of an iceberg. When we unify our mind and body and become one with the universe, we can use the great power that is naturally ours.”

Koichi Tohei (1920–2011) Japanese aikidoka

4 : Unification of mind & body
Ki Sayings (2003)

Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“One shall be born from small beginnings which will rapidly become vast. This will respect no created thing, rather will it, by its power, transform almost every thing from its own nature into another.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

"Of fire"
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XX Humorous Writings

Cornell Woolrich photo

“You see, this would be a death by the imagination. And though the imagination feeds on phantoms, it needs a premise in reality to begin with. Then it can go on from there under its own power.”

Cornell Woolrich (1903–1968) American author and screenwriter

Luther Burbank photo

“Look at the material on which to draw. Here is the North, powerful, virile, aggressive, blended with the luxurious, ease-loving, more impetuous South. Again you have the merging of a cold phlegmatic temperament with one mercurial and volatile. Still again the union of great native mental strength, developed or undeveloped, with bodily vigor, but with inferior mind. See, too, what a vast number of environmental influences have been at work in social relations, in climate, in physical surroundings. Along with this we must observe the merging of the vicious with the good, the good with the good, the vicious with the vicious.”

Luther Burbank (1849–1926) American botanist, horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science

p, 125
The Training of the Human Plant (1907)

“O that we may all be living in such a state of preparedness, that, when summoned to depart, we may ascend the summit whence faith looks forth on all that Jesus hath suffered and done, and exclaiming, " We have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord," lie down with Moses on Pisgah, to awake with Moses in paradise.”

Henry Melvill (1798–1871) British academic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 181.

“When a view attains wide popularity and seems obviously beyond question, its decline has usually begun or will begin very soon.”

Lancelot Law Whyte (1896–1972) Scottish industrial engineer

Essay on Atomism: From Democritus to 1960 (1961)
Context: Dogmatism in science is usually mistaken, because the conviction of certainty expresses a psychological compulsion, never any truly compelling reasons or facts. When a view attains wide popularity and seems obviously beyond question, its decline has usually begun or will begin very soon.<!--p.21

Related topics