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Our life's a flying shadow, God the pole,
The needle pointing to Him is our soul.
Author: Unattributed Author
Source: on a slab in Bishop Joceline's crypt in Glasgow cathedral
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God in making man intended by him to reduce all His Works back
again to Himself.
Author: Matthew Barker
Source: Natural Theology (p. 85)
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A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.
Author: Bible
Source: Galatians (ch. V, v. 9)
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Their poison is like the poison of a serpent; they are like the
deaf adder that stoppeth her ear;
Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never
so wisely.
Author: Bible
Source: Psalms (ch. LVIII, v. 4-5)
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My heart is feminine, nor can forget--
To all, except one image, madly blind;
So shakes the needle, and so stands the pole,
As vibrates my fond heart to my fix'd soul.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Don Juan (canto I, st. 196)
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The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water
flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
Author: Thomas Carlyle
Source: Essays--Varnhagen von Ense's Memoirs
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Be a pattern to others, and then all will go well; for as a whole
city is affected by the licentious passions and vices of great
men, so it is likewise reformed by their moderation.
Author: Thomas Carlyle
Source: Essays--Varnhagen von Ense's Memoirs
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He raised a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down.
Author: John Dryden
Source: Alexander's Feast (l. 169)
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Blessed influence of one true loving human soul on another.
Author: George Eliot (pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans Cross)
Source: Janet's Repentance (ch. XIX)
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O may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
For miserable aims that end with self.
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge man's search
To vaster issues.
Author: George Eliot (pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans Cross)
Source: O May I Join the Choir Invisible
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Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy like to thy neighbor's creed has lent,
All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Source: Each and All
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Ah, who could have ever foretold that that little retrousse nose
would change the laws of an empire.
[Fr., Ah, qui jamais autoir pu dire
Que ce petit nez retrousse
Changerait les lois d'un empire.]
Author: Charles Simon Favart
Source: Les Trois Sultanes
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Nor ease nor peace that heart can know,
That like the needle true,
Turns at the touch of joy or woe;
But turning, trembles too.
Author: Frances McCartney Fulke-Greville
Source: Prayer for Indifference
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People are submissive to power, and few of them can be influenced
by doctrines of righteousness.
Author: Frances McCartney Fulke-Greville
Source: Prayer for Indifference
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Lay ye down the golden chain
From Heaven, and pull at its inferior links
Both Goddesses and Gods.
Author: Homer ("Smyrns of Chios")
Source: The Iliad (bk. 8), (Cowley's translation)
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Spontaneously to God should turn the soul,
Like the magnetic needle to the pole;
But what were that intrinsic virtue worth,
Suppose some fellow, with more zeal than knowledge,
Fresh from St. Andrew's College,
Should nail the conscious needle to the north?
Author: Thomas Hood
Source: Poem addressed to Rae Wilson
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So when a great man dies,
For years beyond our ken,
The light he leaves behind him lies
Upon the paths of men.
Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Source: Charles Sumner (st. 9)
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The very room, coz she was in,
Seemed warm f'om floor to ceilin'.
Author: James Russell Lowell
Source: The Biglow Papers (second series, The Courtin', st. 6)
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No life
Can be pure in its purpose or strong in its strife
And all life not be purer and stronger thereby.
Author: Lord Lytton (Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton) ("Owen Meredith")
Source: Lucile (pr. II, canto VI, st. 40)
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No star ever rose or set without influence somewhere.
Author: Lord Lytton (Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton) ("Owen Meredith")
Source: Lucile (pt. II, canto VI)
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You've got to save your own soul first, and then the souls of
your neighbors if they will let you; and for that reason you must
cultivate, not a spirit of criticism, but the talents that
attract people to the hearing of the Word.
Author: George MacDonald
Source: The Marquis of Lossie (ch. XXVII)
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Even here Thy strong magnetic charms I feel,
And pant and tremble like the amorous steel.
To lower good, and beauties less divine,
Sometimes my erroneous needle does incline;
But yet (so strong the sympathy)
It turns, and points again to Thee.
Author: John Norris of Bemerton
Source: Aspiration
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If it were in my power, I would be wiser; but a newly felt power
carries me off in spite of myself; love leads me one way, my
understanding another.
[Lat., Si possem sanior essem.
Sed trahit invitam nova vis; aliudque Cupido,
Mens aliud.]
Author: Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)
Source: Metamorphoses (VII, 18)
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If the nose of Cleopatra had been shorter, the whole face of the
earth would have been changed.
Author: Blaise Pascal
Source: Thoughts (ch. VIII, 29)
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By the golden chain Homer meant nothing else than the sun.
Author: Plato
Source: in Kircher's "Magnes Sive de Arte Magnetica"
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It is easier to influence strong than weak characters in life.
Author: Margot Asquith
Source: None
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Influencing people is dangerous. Their acts and thoughts become your illegitimate children. You can't get away from them and Heaven knows what they mayn't grow up into.
Author: Elizabeth Bibesco
Source: None
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