Is Life Worth Living?

Front Cover
Chatto & Windus, 1879 - Ethics - 328 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 191 - Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine ; Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine! Lo ! thy dread empire, Chaos ! is restored ; Light dies before thy uncreating word ; Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall, And universal darkness buries all.
Page 86 - This is life to come, Which martyred men have made more glorious For us who strive to follow. May I reach That purest heaven, be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty — Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense. So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world.
Page 159 - While all melts under our feet, we may well catch at any exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge that seems by a lifted horizon to set the spirit free for a moment, or any stirring of the senses, strange dyes, strange colours, and curious odours, or work of the artist's hands, or the face of one's friend.
Page 119 - A fixed figure for the time of scorn To point his slow unmoving finger at ! Yet could I bear that too ; well, very well : But there, where I have garner'd up my heart, Where either I must live, or bear no life ; The fountain from the which my current runs, Or else dries up ; to be discarded thence...
Page 173 - Why, so can I ; or so can any man : But will they come, when you do call for them ? Glend.
Page ix - For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts ; even one thing befalleth them : as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath ; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast : for all is vanity. All go unto one place ; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.
Page 50 - Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to could be completely effected at this very instant; would this be a great joy and happiness to you ?' And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered,
Page 315 - Behold, I go forward, but he is not there ; and backward, but I cannot perceive him : on the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him : he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him : but he knoweth the way that I take : when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.
Page 257 - Think (he used to say) of a being who would make a Hell — who would create the human race with the infallible foreknowledge, and therefore with the intention, that the great majority of them were to be consigned to horrible and everlasting torment.
Page 86 - 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.

Bibliographic information