Every generation is a secret society and has incommunicable enthusiasms, tastes, and interests which are a mystery both to its predecessors and to posterity. John Jay Chapman More Quotes by John Jay Chapman More Quotes From John Jay Chapman All progress is experimental. John Jay Chapman progress work People get so in the habit of worry that if you save them from drowning and put them on a bank to dry in the sun with hot chocolate and muffins they wonder whether they are catching cold. John Jay Chapman worry happiness people If American politics does not look to you like a joke, a tragic dance; if you have enough blindness left in you, on any plea, on any excuse, to vote for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party (for at present machine and party are one), or for any candidate who does not stand for a new era, -- then you yourself pass into the slide of the magic-lantern; you are an exhibit, a quaint product, a curiosity of the American soil. You are part of the problem. John Jay Chapman magic party curiosity The world values the seer above all men, and has always done so. Nay, it values all men in proportion as they partake of the character of seers. The Elgin Marbles and a decision of John Marshall are valued for the same reason. What we feel in them is a painstaking submission to facts beyond the author's control, and to ideas imposed on him by his vision. So with Beethoven's Symphonies, with Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations - with any conceivable output of the human mind of which you approve. You love them because you say, These things were not made, they were seen. John Jay Chapman character men ideas Attack another's rights and you destroy your own. John Jay Chapman liberty rights One of the deepest impulses in man is the impulse to record, - to scratch a drawing on a tusk or keep a diary, to collect sagas and heap cairns. This instinct as to the enduring value of the past is, one might say, the very basis of civilization. John Jay Chapman men civilization past There are plenty of people to whom the crucial problem of their lives never get presented in terms that they can understand. John Jay Chapman society problem people Our goodness comes solely from thinking on goodness; our wickedness from thinking on wickedness. We too are the victims of our own contemplation. John Jay Chapman wickedness victim thinking Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same - hardihood. Give them raw truth. John Jay Chapman squash hate america Too much agreement kills the chat. John Jay Chapman too-much agreement A magazine or a newspaper is a shop. Each is an experiment and represents a new focus, a new ratio between commerce and intellect. John Jay Chapman ratios magazines focus It is three and a half hours long, four characters wide and a cesspool deep. John Jay Chapman three character long I want to find someone on the earth so intelligent that he welcomes opinions which he condemns. John Jay Chapman intelligent earth want If any of you ... have a mind to make himself heard a mile off, you must make a bonfire of your reputations, and a close enemy of most men who would wish you well. John Jay Chapman mind men enemy As for boredom ... I notice that it leaves me as soon as I am doing something that has got to be done. John Jay Chapman leaving-me boredom done Nothing is more injurious to the character and to the intellect than the suppression of a generous emotion. John Jay Chapman emotion happiness character Politics is organized hatred, that is unity. John Jay Chapman unity politics hatred You cannot criticize the New Testament. It criticizes you. John Jay Chapman new-testament criticize society When a man talks with absolute sincerity and freedom he goes on a voyage of discovery. The whole company has shares in the enterprise. John Jay Chapman goes-on discovery men The men and woman who make the best boon companions seem to have given up hope of doing something else...some defect of talent or opportunity has cut them off from their pet ambition and has thus left them with leisure to take an interest in their lives of others. Your ambition may be, it makes him keep his thoughts at home. But the heartbroken people - if I may use the word in a mild, benevolent sense - the people whose wills are subdued to fate, give us consolation, recognition, and welcome. John Jay Chapman heartbroken ambition home
