CHOW 2 Study Guide Quotes Test 2

“Such was the condition of nascent man; such was the life of an

animal limited at first to mere sensation; and scarcely profiting from the gifts

bestowed on him by nature, let alone was he dreaming of wrestling

anything from her.” (133)

The example of the savages, who have almost always been found at this point of

development, appears to confirm that the human race was made to remain there

always; to confirm that this state was the true youth of the world, and that all

subsequent progress has been so many steps in appearance toward the

improvement of the individual, but so many steps in reality toward the

decrepitude of the species. [….][…]

so long as they applied themselves only to work that one person could

accomplish alone and to arts that did not require the collaboration of several hands,

they lived as free, healthy, good and happy men so far as they could be

according to their nature and they continued to enjoy among themselves the

sweetness of independent intercourse; but from the instant one man needed the

help of another, and it was found to be useful for one man to have provisions

enough for two, equality disappeared, property was introduced, work became

necessary, and vast forests were transformed into pleasant fields which had to be

watered with the sweat of men, and where slavery and misery were soon seen to

germinate and flourish with the crops

The first man who, having enclosed a piece of lands, thought of saying,

‘This is mine’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true

founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders, how much

misery and horror the human race would have been spared if someone had

pulled up the stakes and filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellow men:

‘Beware of listening to this impostor. You are lost if you forget that the

fruits of the earth belong to everyone and that the earth itself belongs to no

One!’”

Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men - Rosseau

“Fix your eyes on nature, follow the path traced by her” (144).

“In this condition, nature, who does everything for the best…” (148).

Emile- Rosseau

PAGE 35

I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its

origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity; the emotion is contemplated till, by

a species of reaction, the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred

to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and

does itself actually exist in the mind.

PAGE 33

The principle object, then, proposed in these poems was to choose incidents and

situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as

was possible in a selection of language really used by men, and at the same time

to throw over them a certain coloring of the imagination, whereby ordinary things

should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect…

Preface to Lyrical Ballads- Wordsworth

Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination

of the will. A man cannot say, “I will compose poetry.” The greatest poet even

cannot say it: for the mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible

influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness: this power

arises from within, like the colour of a flower which fades and changes as it is

developed, and the conscious portions of our natures are unprophetic either of its

approach or its departure….

[….]

Poetry… differs in this respect from logic, that it is not subject to the control of

the active powers of the mind, and that its birth and recurrence have no necessary

connection with the consciousness or will….

[….]

Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

[….]

Poetry [….] subdues to union under its light yoke, all irreconcilable things. It

transmutes all it touches, and every form moving within the radiance of its

presence is changed by wondrous sympathy to an incarnation of the spirit which it

Breathes….

A Defense of Poetry- Shelley

“Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions [i.e. sensory perceptions]

without concepts are blind. Hence it is just as necessary that we make our

concepts sensible (i.e. that we add the object to them in intuition) as it is necessary

that we make our intuitions understandable (i.e. that we bring them under

concepts). Moreover, this capacity and this ability cannot exchange their

functions. The understanding cannot intuit anything, and the senses cannot think

anything. Only from their union can cognition arise. (PAGES 26D-26E)

“The situation here is the same as was that of Copernicus when he first thought of

explaining the motions of celestial bodies. Having found it difficult to make

progress there when he assumed that the entire host of stars revolved around the

spectator, he tried to find out by experiment whether he might not be more

successful if he had the spectator revolve and the stars remain at rest. Now, we can

try a similar experiment in metaphysics, with regard to our intuition [i.e.

perception] of objects.” (PAGE 26B)

“Thus reason must indeed approach nature in order to be instructed by it; yet it must

do so not in the capacity of a pupil who lets the teacher tell him whatever the

teacher wants, but in the capacity of an appointed judge who compels the

witnesses to answer the questions that he puts to them” (PAGE 26A)

“The starry heavens above me and the moral law within me” (internal and external and the proper relation between the 2)

Critique of Pure Reason-Immanuel Kant

“Many important observations suggest themselves upon the social condition of the

Anglo-Americans, but there is one which takes precedence of all the rest. The

social condition of the Americans is eminently democratic; this was its character at

the foundation of the Colonies, and is still more strongly marked at the present day.

I have stated in the preceding chapter that great equality existed among the

emigrants who settled on the shores of New England. The germ of aristocracy was

never planted in that part of the Union. The only influence which obtained there

was that of intellect; the people were used to reverence certain names as the

emblems of knowledge and virtue. Some of their fellow citizens acquired a power

over the rest which might truly have been called aristocratic, if it had been capable

of transmission from father to son….”

“Of the Uses Which The Americans Make of Public Associations in Civil Life”

“Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form

associations. They have not only commercial and manufacturing companies, in

which all take part, but associations of a thousand other kinds, religious, moral,

serious, futile, general or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans make

associations to give entertainments, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct

churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner

They found hospitals, prisons, and schools. If it is proposed to inculcate some truth

or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form a

society. Wherever at the head of some new undertaking you see the government in

France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find

an association. [….]

I am aware that many of my countrymen are not in the least embarrassed by

This is difficult. They contend that the more enfeebled and incompetent the citizens

become, the more able and active the government ought to be rendered in order

that society at large may execute what individuals can no longer accomplish. They

I believe this answers the whole difficulty, but I think they are mistaken.

A government might perform the part of some of the largest American

companies, and several states, members of the Union, have already attempted it;

but what political power could ever carry on the vast multitude of lesser

undertakings which the American citizens perform every day, with the assistance

of the principle of association?”

Democracy in America- De Tocqueville

PAGE 304

“I wanted to live deep and such out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and

Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave

close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms. If it proved to be

mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its

meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able

to give a true account of it on my next excursion.”

PAGE 305

And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of

one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one

vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western

Railroad, or one may dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter—we

never need to read another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the

principle, what do you care for a thousand instances and applications? To a

philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old

women over their tea.

PAGE 307-8

Yet I experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most innocent

and encouraging companionship may be found in any natural object, even for the

poor misanthrope and most melancholy man. There can be no very black

melancholy to him who lives in the midst of nature and has his senses still. There

was never yet such a storm but it was music to a healthy and innocent ear.

[….]

In the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly

sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of

the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and

unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made

the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant, and I have never

thought of them since….

PAGE 304

“For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it [life],

whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is

the chief end of man here to ‘glorify God and enjoy him forever.’”

Walden- Thoreau

“I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which governs least’; and I

I would like to see it acted up more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it

finally amounts to this, which also I believe — ‘That government is best which

governs not at all’; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of

government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most

governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The

objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many

and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing

government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The

government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to

execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people

can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a

few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the

people would not have consented to this measure.”

PAGE 322

The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to—for I will

cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I…—is still an impure one:

to be strictly just, it must have the same sanction and consent of the governed. It

can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it. The

progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a

Democracy is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.

Resistance to Civil Government- Thoreau

A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,

Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,

I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,

Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,

A reminiscence sing

Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking- Whitman

I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –

The Stillness in the Room

Was like the Stillness in the Air –

Between the Heaves of Storm –

The Eyes around – had wrung them dry –

And Breaths were gathering firm

For that last Onset – when the King

Be witnessed – in the Room –

I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away

What portions of me be

Assignable – and then it was

There interposed a Fly –

With Blue – uncertain stumbling Buzz –

Between the light – and me –

And then the Windows failed – and then

I could not see to see –

I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died- Dickenson