There is a certain distance at which each person whom we know is naturally placed from us. It varies with each, and we must not attempt to alter it. We may clasp him who is close, and we are not to pull closer him who is more remote.
Many people would be much better if they would let themselves be as good as they really are. They seem to take delight in making themselves less.
We are much misled by characters in fiction or on the stage, for they are always more consistent than men and women in real life. Real men and women are seldom controlled for twenty-four hours by the same motives or principles. If my friend is mean to-day, let me not doubt his generosity to-morrow. Let me joyously believe in it when the morrow comes.
What a pest is the re-appearance in us of discarded conclusions! It would be of service if we could keep a register of those things which, after careful examination, we have determined to be false.
Acting from the strongest motives, even if they are bad, is perhaps not so dangerous as acting from none. The evils which arise through deeds done from conspicuous motives attract attention, but the vast sum of misery caused by mere idle, irresolute swaying hither and thither passes unnoticed.
Pig-headedness is often a sign of weakness of will. The pig-headed person knows he is weak, and to convince himself and others of his resolution holds to any chance purpose with tenacity. The less reasonable the purpose is, the more obstinately he clings to it, because, by so doing, he shows as he thinks his strength of volition.
If we desire peace we must get beyond the notion of personality. Nothing of any value is bound up with it: it is an illusion.
Intense feeling gives intellectual precision. The man who feels profoundly the beauty of a cloud is the man who can describe it. But the first effect of intense feeling is often to break up false precision. The ideas of God, life, personality, right and wrong, are examples.
The blue sky is more beautiful because we know it is not painted opacity, but transparent.
The slowness of the change in the sky is exquisite, the dying out of the light in the clouds after sunset. The quiet abiding of the grey cloud as darkness thickens is wonderful.