A Sketch of Ancient Philosophy from Thales to Cicero

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University Press, 1904 - Philosophy, Ancient - 254 pages

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Page 167 - Of old hast THOU laid the foundation of the earth : And the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but THOU shalt endure : Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment ; As a vesture shalt THOU change them, and they shall be changed : But THOU art the same, And thy years shall have no end.
Page 174 - Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep. A loftier Argo cleaves the main, Fraught with a later prize; Another Orpheus sings again, And loves, and weeps, and dies. A new Ulysses leaves once more Calypso for his native shore.
Page 76 - ... in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in another, or at one time or in one relation or at one place fair, at another time or in another relation or at another place foul, as if fair to some and foul to others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, or existing in any other being, as for example, in an animal, or in heaven, or...
Page 173 - The world's great age begins anew, The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn: Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam, 5 Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
Page 76 - But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty — the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life — thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine?
Page 175 - ALL work, even cotton-spinning, is noble ; work is alone noble : be that here said and asserted once more. And in like manner too, all dignity is painful ; a life of ease is not for any man, nor for any god. The life of all gods figures itself to us as a Sublime Sadness, — earnestness of Infinite Battle against Infinite Labour. Our highest religion is named the
Page 174 - Saturn and Love their long repose Shall burst, more bright and good Than all who fell, than One who rose, Than many unsubdued: Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, But votive tears and symbol flowers. Oh, cease! Must hate and death return? Cease! Must men kill and die? Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn Of bitter prophecy. 40 The world is weary of the past, Oh, might it die, or rest at last! ([ LINES: "WHEN THE LAMP IS SHATTERED...
Page 205 - ... trampling on them with his horses, had the light taken from him and shed forth his soul from his dying body. The son of the Scipios, thunderbolt of war, terror of Carthage, yielded his bones to earth just as if he were the lowest menial. Think too of the inventors of all sciences and graceful arts, think of the companions of the Heliconian maids ; among whom Homer bore the sceptre without a peer, and he now sleeps the same sleep as others.
Page 76 - And the true order of going or being led by another to the things of love, is to use the beauties of earth as steps along which he mounts upwards for the sake of that other beauty, going from one to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is.
Page 79 - I have known many of them, and can tell you, that no one who had taken up in youth this opinion, that the Gods do not exist, ever continued in the same until he was old; the two other notions certainly do continue in some cases, but not in many; the notion, I mean, that the Gods exist, but take no heed of human things, and the other notion that they do take heed of them, but are easily propitiated with sacrifices and prayers.

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