The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
Thomas CarlyleRead
Why did not somebody teach me the constellations, and make me at home in the starry heavens, which are always overhead, and which I don't half know to this day?
Interpretation
The quote expresses a yearning for knowledge about the constellations and a desire for connection with the universe.
In this quote, Thomas Carlyle reflects on a missed opportunity for education regarding the constellations. He laments not having been taught about the stars above, suggesting a deeper longing for understanding and connection with the natural world, which he feels remains elusive despite its constant presence.
In practice
A teacher might use this quote to inspire students to learn about astronomy.
The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
Thirty millions, mostly fools.
There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.
For the superior morality, of which we hear so much, we too would desire to be thankful: at the same time, it were but blindness to deny that this superior morality is properly rather an inferior criminality, produced not by greater love of Virtue, but by greater perfection of Police; and of that far subtler and stronger Police, called Public Opinion.
Enjoying things which are pleasant; that is not the evil; it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is.
Clean undeniable right, clear undeniable might: either of these once ascertained puts an end to battle. All battle is a confused experiment to ascertain one and both of these.
Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.
I'd like to see animals removed from the entertainment business. Chimpanzees and apes won't perform unless you beat them. Circuses keep elephants in chains 90 percent of the time. Elephants need freedom of movement. In circuses, they live in cramped quarters, which is not the life intended for them by nature. Some are beaten daily, forced to do ridiculous tricks and robbed of every shred of dignity.
Harry looked down and saw deep green mountains and lakes, coppery in the sunset.
Apparently there is a great discovery or insight which our culture is deliberately designed to suppress, distort, and ignore. That is that nature is some kind of minded entity. That nature is not simply the random flight of atoms through electromagnetic fields. Nature is not the empty, despiritualized , lumpen matter that we inherit from modern physics. But it is instead a kind of intelligence, a kind of mind.
Nature is probably quite indifferent to the aesthetic preferences of mathematicians.
Men need to know the elemental challenges that sea and mountains present. They need to know what it is to be alive and to survive when great storms come. They need to unlock the secrets of streams, lakes, and canyons and to find how these treasures are veritable storehouses of inspiration. They must experience the sense of mastery of adversity. They must find a peak or a ridge that they can reach under their own power alone.
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