Tusculan Disputations ...

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Little, Brown, 1886 - 331 pages
 

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Page 36 - Like to a light fast lock'd in lanthorn dark, Whereby by night our wary steps we guide In slabby streets, and dirty channels mark, Some weaker rays through the black top do glide," And flusher streams, perhaps, from horny side ; But when we've...
Page 36 - And flusher streams perhaps through the horny side. But when we 've passed the peril of the way, Arrived at home, and laid that case aside, The naked light how clearly doth it ray, And spread its joyful beams as bright as summer's day ! "Even so, the soul in this contracted state, Confined to these straight instruments of sense, More dull and narrowly doth operate ; At this hole hears, the sight must ray from thence, Here tastes, there smells. But when...
Page 36 - Confined to these straight instruments of sense, More dull and narrowly doth operate; At this hole hears, — the sight must ray from thence, — Here tastes, there smells: but when she's gone from hence. Like naked lamp she is one shining sphere, And round about has perfect cognoscence; Whate'er in her horizon doth appear, She is one orb of sense, all eye, all airy ear.
Page 37 - ... reverencing him as a god, because they have been freed by him from the severest tyranny, from unceasing terror, from fear by day and by night. From what terror? From what fear? What old woman is so far demented as to fear what you perhaps might have dreaded, if you had been entirely ignorant of natural science, — "The lofty temples by the Acheron, The pallid forms that wander on its hanks, The clouds and darkness ever resting there?
Page 84 - Midas, and gave him this gift in return for his liberation — the knowledge that far the best thing for man is not to be born ; the next best, to die as soon as possible.
Page 137 - The seeds of virtues are connatural to our constitutions, and were they suffered to come to maturity, would naturally conduct us to a happy life ; but now, as soon as we are born and received into the world, we are instantly familiarized to all kinds of depravity and wrong opinions; so that -we may be said almost to suck in error with our nurse's milk.
Page 36 - Like to a light fast locked in lantern dark, Whereby by night our wary steps we guide In slabby streets, and dirty channels mark, Some weaker rays through the black top do glide, And flusher streams perhaps from horny side. But when we Ve passed the peril of the way...
Page 39 - ... has no body. Dicaearchus, indeed, and Aristoxenus, because they found it difficult to understand the being and nature of the soul, said that there was no soul at all Undoubtedly it is the highest possible exercise of our powers for the soul itself to see the soul, and this is the peculiar meaning of the precept of Apollo in which he admonishes every one to know himself; for he does not, I suppose, bid us to know our limbs, or stature, or form. We are not bodies, nor am I, while I am saying these...
Page 158 - ... present with him, and who is not afflicted with such cowardice of thoughts as to be in constant alarms lest he should lose his possessions, which would be an intolerable grievance. But let us not only admire but imitate that temper of mind in Anaxagoras, which made him express himself in these words upon the death of his son : — I knew that I had begotten a mortal.
Page 49 - ... singular, apart from all usual and known natures ; so that whatsoever it be that feels, and knows, and lives, and acts, is heavenly and divine, and for that reason it is by necessity eternal. Nor can God himself, who is understood by us. be understood in any other way except as an intelligence independent and free, separate from all mortal admixture, perceiving and moving all things, having in itself eternal motion.

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