Elevation Quotes - Page 3

• To view an object in the proper light we must stand away from it. The study of the classical literatures gives the aloofness which cultivates insight. In learning to live with peoples and civilizations that have long ceased to be alive, we gain a vantage point, acquire an enlargement and elevation of thought, which enable us to study with a more impartial and liberal mind the condition of the society around us.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Light, Views, Civilization

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• I love to consider an Infidel, whether distinguished by the title of deist, atheist, or free-thinker, by three different lights, in his solitude, his afflictions, and his last moments.... [In these situations such people show themselves] in solitude, incapable or rapture or elevation, ... in distress, [with] a halter or a pistol the only refuge [they] can fly to, ... [and liable to conversion] at the approach of death.

  Richard Steele

  Atheist, Light, People

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• There is no such sense of solitude as that which we experience upon the silent and vast elevations of great mountains. Lifted high above the level of human sounds and habitations, among the wild expanses and colossal features of Nature, we are thrilled in our loneliness with a strange fear and elation – an ascent above the reach of life's expectations or companionship, and the tremblings of a wild and undefined misgivings.

  Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  Loneliness, Expectations, Solitude

  Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (2015). “The Haunted Baronet”, p.52, 谷月社

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• Let woman then go on-not asking favors, but claiming as a right the removal of all hindrances to her elevation in the scale of being-let her receive encouragement for the proper cultivation of all her powers, so that she may enter profitably into the active business of life.

  Lucretia Mott

  Encouragement, Justice, Diversity

  Lucretia Mott (1850). “Discourse on Woman”, p.19

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• And now that we have returned to the desultory life of the plain, let us endeavor to import a little of that mountain grandeur into it. We will remember within what walls we lie, and understand that this level life too has its summit, and why from the mountain-top the deepest valleys have a tinge of blue; that there is elevation in every hour, as no part of the earth is so low that the heavens may not be seen from, and we have only to stand on the summit of our hour to command an uninterrupted horizon.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Wall, Lying

  Henry David Thoreau (1992). “The Essays of Henry David Thoreau”, p.103, Rowman & Littlefield

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• To disarm while being best armed, out of an elevation of sensibility-that is the means to real peace.

  Ben Macintyre

  Real, Mean, Sensibility

  Ben Macintyre (2013). “Forgotten Fatherland: The search for Elisabeth Nietzsche”, p.195, A&C Black

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• In its broad sense, civilization means not only comfort in daily necessities but also the refining of knowledge and the cultivation of virtue so as to elevate human life to a higher plane... It refers to the attainment of both material well-being and the elevation of the human spirit, [but] since what produces man's well-being and refinement is knowledge and virtue, civilization ultimately means the progress of man's knowledge and virtue.

  Fukuzawa Yukichi

  Mean, Men, Civilization

  "An encouragement of learning". Book by Fukuzawa Yukichi and Obata Tokujirō, 1872-1876.

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• To be sane, he held, was either to be sedated by melancholy or activated by hysteria, two responses which were 'always and equally warranted for those of sound insight'. All others were irrational, merely symptoms of imaginations left idle, of memories out of work. And above these mundane responses, the only elevation allowable, the only valid transcendence, was a sardonic one: a bliss that annihilated the universe with jeers of dark joy, a mindful ecstasy. Anything else in the way of 'mysticism' was a sign of deviation or distraction, and a heresy to the obvious. (“The Medusa”)

  Thomas Ligotti

  Memories, Dark, Hysteria

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• What is a staircase, but a corridor improved by elevation?

  Catherine Gilbert Murdock

  Staircases, Corridors

  Catherine Gilbert Murdock (2009). “Princess Ben”, p.86, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• For there was a conspiracy of dullness in the world, a universal plan to shut out the resurgences of spirit which might interfere with clockwork. Better to keep your elevation unseen until it is higher than strangers' hands can reach to pull you down to their level.

  Tennessee Williams

  Hands, Unseen, World

  Tennessee Williams (1994). “Collected Stories”, p.128, New Directions Publishing

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• The first step in the elevation of women under all systems of religion is to convince them that the great Spirit of the Universe is in no way responsible for any of these absurdities.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Way, Firsts, Steps

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• I always say people would rather be nice than right. I like to be nice too, but come on. People frequently ask me, what is my definition of politically correct. My answer is always the same: the elevation of sensitivity over truth. People would rather be nice than right, rather be sensitive than true. Well, being nice and sensitive are important, but they're not more important than being right; they're not more important than the truth.

  Bill Maher

  Nice, People, Important

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• History has scarcely deigned to notice [Libius Severus's] birth, his elevation, his character, or his death.

  Edward Gibbon

  Character, Birth

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• Charles Dickens' creation of Mr. Pickwick did more for the elevation of the human race - I say it in all seriousness - than Cardinal Newman's Lead Kindly Light Amid the Encircling Gloom. Newman only cried out for light in the gloom of a sad world. Dickens gave it.

  Stephen Leacock

  Light, Race, World

  Stephen Leacock (2012). “Feast of Stephen”, p.111, McClelland & Stewart

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• Climate change is not a major issue because it will cause sea level rises or temperature increases, since we know how to live at higher elevations and regulate the temperature within our homes. It is a major issue because ecosystems are finding it difficult to adapt to the rapidity of the climate and environmental changes and are dying off, thereby accelerating the species extinction that is already underway due to our consumption habits.

  Shailesh Rao

  Nature, Home, Sea

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• The barbarians of Germany had felt, and still dreaded, the arms of the young Caesar; his soldiers were the companions of his victory; the grateful provincials enjoyed the blessings of his reign; but the favourites, who had opposed his elevation, were offended by his virtues; and they justly considered the friend of the people as the enemy of the court.

  Edward Gibbon

  Grateful, Blessing, History

  Edward Gibbon (2008). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.396, Cosimo, Inc.

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• When I was growing up, we learned our history almost as lives of the saints. And it came as a shock, "Oh, Jefferson had slaves?" It always comes as a shock to us that elevation to the White House didn't somehow cleanse them of all their deep character flaws.

  Harry Shearer

  Growing Up, Character, White

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• It's just strange to think that so much of our enjoyment from sports comes from the elevation of arbitrary differences.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Sports, Thinking, Differences

  "Usain Bolt, a Collapse, and an Epic Beer Mile". Interview with Nicholas Thompson, www.newyorker.com. August 27, 2015.

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• The history of the universe and nature is being told to us by the stars, by the Earth, by the uprising and elevation of the mountains, by the animals, the woods and jungles, and by the rivers. Our task is to know how to listen and interpret the messages that are sent to us. The original peoples knew how to read every movement of the clouds, the meaning of the winds, and they knew when violent downpours were coming... We have forgotten all that.

  Leonardo Boff

  Stars, Animal, Rivers

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• Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences progress in even greater extent and depth, and the human mind widen itself as much as it desires: beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity, as it shines forth in the Gospels, it will not go.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Bible, Shining, Mind

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• We do not see and estimate the relative importance of objects so easily and clearly from the level or the waving land as from the elevation of a lone peak, towering above the plain; for each looks through his own mist.

  Albert Pike

  Land, Looks, Levels

  Albert Pike “Morals and Dogma : Scottish Rite in Freemasonry”, Lulu.com

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• Tracing the progress of mankind in the ascending path of civilization, and moral and intellectual culture, our fathers found that the divine ordinance of government, in every stage of the ascent, was adjustable on principles of common reason to the actual condition of a people, and always had for its objects, in the benevolent councils of the divine wisdom, the happiness, the expansion, the security, the elevation of society, and the redemption of man. They sought in vain for any title of authority of man over man, except of superior capacity and higher morality.

  William M. Evarts

  Father, Men, Divine Wisdom

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• There is no real elevation of mind in a contempt of little things; it is, on the contrary, from too narrow views that we consider those things of little importance which have in fact such extensive consequences.

  Francois Fenelon

  Real, Views, Mind

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• The art which is grand and yet simple is that which presupposes the greatest elevation both in artist and in public.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Art, Artist, Simple

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• And this is the mission of the church--not civilization, but salvation--not better laws, purer legislation, social elevation, human equality and liberty, but first, the "kingdom of God and His righteousness;" regenerated hearts, and all other things will follow.

  Abbott Eliot Kittredge

  Heart, Law, Civilization

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