Trees and Other Poems (1914), Delicatessen
Context: O Carpenter of Nazareth,
Whose mother was a village maid,
Shall we, Thy children, blow our breath
In scorn on any humble trade?
Have pity on our foolishness
And give us eyes, that we may see
Beneath the shopman's clumsy dress
The splendor of humanity!
Source: The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse
The Divine Image, st. 3
1780s, Songs of Innocence (1789–1790)
To a Louse, st. 8 (1786) http://www.poetry-online.org/burns_to_a_louse.htm
“There are well-dressed foolish ideas just as there are well-dressed fools.”
As quoted in The Cynic's Breviary : Maxims and Anecdotes from Nicolas de Chamfort (1902) as translated by William G. Hutchison, p. 37
“There are well-dressed foolish ideas just as there are well-dressed fools.”
Sometimes attributed to Ackerman this actually originates with Nicolas Chamfort, as quoted in The Cynic's Breviary : Maxims and Anecdotes from Nicolas de Chamfort (1902) as translated by William G. Hutchison, p. 37
Misattributed
“We see our better selves in the eyes of those who love us.”
Variant: Our hearts, they need a mirror, Tessa. We see our better selves in the eyes of those who love us.
Source: Clockwork Princess
Pages 12-13
Other writings, The Nature of the Judicial Process (1921)
Context: There is in each of us a stream of tendency, whether you choose to call it philosophy or not, which gives coherence and direction to thought and action. Judges cannot escape that current any more than other mortals. All their lives, forces which they do not recognize and cannot name, have been tugging at them — inherited instincts, traditional beliefs, acquired convictions; and the resultant is an outlook on life, a conception of social needs. … In this mental background every problem finds it setting. We may try to see things as objectively as we please. None the less, we can never see them with any eyes except our own.
