More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
THE RAVEN A CHRISTMAS TALE, TOLD BY A SCHOOL-BOY TO HIS LITTLE BROTHERS AND SISTERS by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1798)
Which was hardly Miranda's style, but it was a comfortable assumption for a New Atlantan woman to make.
'The superior man is correctly firm, and not firm merely,'
Judge put his thumb and fingertips together and tapped them lightly against the tabletop several times.
This was an ancient gesture in China. The story was that one of the early Emperors liked to dress as a commoner and travel about the Middle Kingdom to see how the peasants were getting along. Frequently, as he and his staff were sitting about the table in some inn, he would pour tea for everyone. They could not kowtow to their lord without giving away his identity, so they would make this gesture, using their hand to imitate the act of kneeling. Now Chinese people used it to thank each other at the dinner table. From time to time, Judge Fang caught himself doing it, and thought about what a
...more
black cap embroidered with a unicorn, which in most company would probably be lumped in with rainbows and elves but here would be understood for what it was, an ancient symbol of acuity.
back then, if things got bad where you were, you just got up and went until things got better.
(Many paleontologists have been baffled to find tic-tac-toe games littering prehistoric excavations and have chalked it up to the local workers they hire to do their digging and hauling.)
“Let every man consider virtue as what devolves on himself. He may not yield the performance of it even to his teacher.' I wish you good fortune, Magistrate.”
As the Master had said, The mechanic, who wishes to do his work well, must first sharpen his tools. When you are living in any state, take service with the most worthy among its great officers, and make friends of the most virtuous among its scholars.
hypocrisy was deemed the worst of vices,”
“It was all because of moral relativism. You see, in that sort of a climate, you are not allowed to criticise others—after all, if there is no absolute right and wrong, then what grounds is there for criticism?”
people are naturally censorious and love nothing better than to criticise others' shortcomings.
even if there is no right and wrong, you can find grounds to criticise another person by contrasting what he has espoused with what he has actually done.
Virtually all political discourse in the days of my youth was devoted to the ferreting out of hypocrisy.
In an era when everything can be surveiled, all we have left is politeness.
The ancients who wished to demonstrate illustrious virtue throughout the kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families.
Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extention of knowledge lay in the investigation of things. . . . From the Son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides.
“Why aren't you an Atlantan?” “Because I don't want to live that way. All the people in Dovetail like to make beautiful things. To us, the things that the Atlantans do—dressing up in these kinds of clothes, spending years and years in school—are irrelevant. Those pursuits wouldn't help us make beautiful things, you see. I'd rather just wear my blue jeans and make paper.” “But the M.C. can make paper,” Nell said. “Not the kind that the Atlantans like.” “But you make money from your paper only because the Atlantans make money from working hard,” Nell said. Rita's face turned red
fracas
“the difference between ignorant and educated people is that the latter know more facts. But that has nothing to do with whether they are stupid or intelligent. The difference between stupid and intelligent people—and this is true whether or not they are well-educated—is that intelligent people can handle subtlety. They are not baffled by ambiguous or even contradictory situations—in fact, they expect them and are apt to become suspicious when things seem overly straightforward.
“Elizabeth is a Duke's granddaughter, accustomed to having her way, and has no natural reticence; she surges to the fore and claims the goal as her birthright,” Finkle-McGraw explained. “But she has not really thought about what she is doing.”
“The secret passage is found by Nell, but she is cautious and patient. Elizabeth is taken aback by her early impulsiveness—she feels foolish and perhaps even a bit sullen. Fiona—” “Fiona sees a magical gateway to an enchanted kingdom, no doubt,”
“I am inclined to believe that, in this case, keeping her in ignorance is a very wise policy,”
It's the only punishment that seems to sink in—we employ it with some frequency.” “Then perhaps it is not sinking in as well as you suppose,”
