As men neither fear nor respect what has been made contemptible, all honor to him who makes oppression laughable as well as detestable. Armies cannot protect it then; and walls which have remained impenetrable to cannon have fallen before a roar of laughter or a hiss of contempt.

Edwin Percy Whipple

Categorized in : Army Laughter Wall

Cheerfulness in most cheerful people is the rich and satisfying result of strenuous discipline.

Edwin Percy Whipple

motivational-sports discipline happiness

A large portion of human beings live not so much in themselves as in what they desire to be. They create what is called an ideal character, in an ideal form, whose perfections compensate in some degree for the imperfections of their own.

Edwin Percy Whipple

perfection desire character

Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time.

Edwin Percy Whipple

inspirational life book

The universal line of distinction between the strong and the weak is that one persists; the other hesitates, falters, trifles, and at last collapses or "caves in.

Edwin Percy Whipple

perseverance caves strong

Nothing really succeeds which is not based on reality; sham, in a large sense, is never successful. In the life of the individual, as in the more comprehensive life of the State, pretension is nothing and power is everything.

Edwin Percy Whipple

honesty successful reality

What does competency in the long run mean? It means to all reasonable beings, cleanliness of person, decency of dress, courtesy of manners, opportunities for education, the delights of leisure, and the bliss of giving.

Edwin Percy Whipple

opportunity running mean

God is glorified, not by our groans, but by our thanksgivings.

Edwin Percy Whipple

funny-thanksgiving thanksgiving thankful

Humor implies a sure conception of the beautiful, the majestic and he true, by whose light it surveys and shape s their opposites. It is a humane influence, softening with mirth the ragged inequities of existence, prompting tolerant views of life, bridging over the space which separates the lofty from the lowly, the great from the humble.

Edwin Percy Whipple

humor humble beautiful

Pretension is nothing; power is everything.

Edwin Percy Whipple

pretension power

A man of letters is often a man with two natures,--one a book nature, the other a human nature. These often clash sadly.

Edwin Percy Whipple

men two book

Whenever you find humour, you find pathos close by its side.

Edwin Percy Whipple

pathos humour sides

Books -lighthouses erected in the great sea of time -books, the precious depositories of the thoughts and creations of genius -books, by whose sorcery times past become time present, and the whole pageantry of the world's history moves in solemn procession before our eyes, -these were to visit the firesides of the humble and lavish the treasures of the intellect upon the poor.

Edwin Percy Whipple

time book moving

True wisdom, indeed, springs from the wide brain which is fed from the deep heart; and it is only when age warms its withering conceptions at the memory of its youthful fire, when it makes experience serve aspiration, and knowledge illumine the difficult paths through which thoughts thread their way into facts,--it is only then that age becomes broadly and nobly wise.

Edwin Percy Whipple

wise spring memories

What a man does with his wealth depends upon his idea of happiness. Those who draw prizes in life are apt to spend tastelessly, if not viciously; not knowing that it requires as much talent to spend as to make.

Edwin Percy Whipple

knowing men ideas

God is glorified, not by our groans, but our thanksgivings; and all good thought and good action claim a natural alliance with good cheer.

Edwin Percy Whipple

alliances cheer action

Genius is not a single power, but a combination of great powers. It reasons, but it is not reasoning; it judges, but it is not judgment; imagines, but it is not imagination; it feels deeply and fiercely, but it is not passion. It is neither, because it is all.

Edwin Percy Whipple

passion imagination judging

Cervantes shrewdly advises to lay a bridge of silver for a flying enemy.

Edwin Percy Whipple

flying bridges enemy

A thought embodied and embrained in fit words walks the earth a living being.

Edwin Percy Whipple

fit walks earth

Men educate each other in reason by contact or collision, and keep each other sane by the very conflict of their separate hobbies. Society as a whole is the deadly enemy of the particular crotchet of each, and solitude is almost the only condition in which the acorn of conceit can grow to the oak of perfect self-delusion.

Edwin Percy Whipple

self perfect men

But the conceit of one's self and the conceit of one's hobby are hardly more prolific of eccentricity than the conceit of one's money. Avarice, the most hateful and wolfish of all the hard, cool, callous dispositions of selfishness, has its own peculiar caprices and crotchets. The ingenuities of its meanness defy all the calculations of reason, and reach the miraculous in subtlety.

Edwin Percy Whipple

hobbies peculiar self