On the Study of Words |
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acquainted adduced affirm altogether Anglo-Saxon applied ARSENE HOUSSAYE bear Ben Jonson birth bring called Christian Christology church Cicero claim classical Latin clinamen curious declare derived distinction divine doubt early employed England English etymology evil example existence express fact faith French French language German German tribes gnostic Greek language guage heart heathen hitherto honor human ILIADS instance instruction invented Jeremy Taylor knowledge labor land language Latin Latin language lecture less lively Louis the Fourteenth manner means properly merely mind moral multitude nation never Norman observe oftentimes once originally ourselves perceive perhaps person plainly possess present Quintilian regard Roman roundhead Saxon scripture seek sense shire signify sought speak spelling spirit synonyms things thought and feeling tion tongue trace tribes true truth Tusc usage utterance witness writer
Popular passages
Page 87 - To chase these pagans, in those holy fields, Over whose acres walked those blessed feet, Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nailed, For our advantage, on the bitter cross.
Page 24 - And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
Page 146 - To write just treatises requireth leisure in the writer, and leisure in the reader ; . . . which is the cause which hath made me choose to write certain brief notes set down rather significantly than curiously, which I have called Essays. The word is late, but the thing is ancient.
Page 60 - Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil ; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness ; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter...
Page 31 - Hardly any original thoughts on mental or social subjects ever make their way among mankind or assume their proper importance in the minds even of their inventors, until aptly selected words or phrases have as it were nailed them down and held them fast.
Page 33 - The mighty moral instincts which have been working in the popular mind have found therein their unconscious voice ; and the single kinglier spirits, that have looked deeper into the heart of things, have oftentimes gathered up all they have seen into some one word, which they have launched upon the world, and with which they have enriched it forever — making, in that new word, a new region of thought, to be henceforward, in some sort, the common heritage of all.
Page 34 - And for all these reasons far more and mightier in every way is a language than any one of the works which may have been composed in it. For that work, great as it may be, is but the embodying of the mind of a single man, this of a nation. The Iliad is great, yet not so great in strength or power or beauty as the Greek language. Paradise Lost is a noble possession for a people to have inherited, but the English tongue is a nobler heritage yet.
Page 147 - rationalists ' in the time of the Commonwealth, who called themselves such exactly on the same grounds as those who in later times have challenged the name. Thus, one writing the news from London among other things mentions :* " There is a new sect sprung up among them [the Presbyterians and Independents], and these are the Rationalists, and what their reason dictates them in Church or State stands for good, until they be convinced with better ; " with more to the same effect.
Page 76 - Here is the explanation of the assertion just now made — namely, that we might almost reconstruct our history, so far as it turned upon the Norman conquest, by an analysis of our present language, a mustering of its words in groups, and a close observation of the nature and character of those which the two races have severally contributed to it. Thus we should confidently conclude that the Norman was the ruling race, from the noticeable fact that all the words of dignity, state, honour, and pre-eminence,...
Page 21 - Romans among whom they established themselves by their independence, their love of freedom, their scorn of a lie : they had, in short, the virtues which belong to a conquering and dominant race in the midst of an inferior and conquered one. And thus it came to pass that by degrees the name "frank...