Empirical science is apt to cloud the sight, and, by the very knowledge of functions and processes, to bereave the student of themanly contemplation of the whole.
If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
Flowers so strictly belong to youth, that we adult men soon come to feel, that their beautiful generations concern not us: we havehad our day; now let the children have theirs. The flowers jilt us, and we are old bachelors with our ridiculous tenderness.
Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances: it was somebody's name, or he happened to be there at right time, or it was so then, and another day it would have been otherwise. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
Every young man is prone to be misled by the suggestions of his own ill-founded ambition which he mistakes for the promptings of asecret genius, and thence dreams of unrivaled greatness.
In Haydn's oratorios, the notes present to the imagination not only motions, as, of the snake, the stag, and the elephant, but colors also; as the green grass.