Arthur Lynch: Pessimism is a product of our civilization. It is not na...

The only atheism is the denial of truth.

Arthur Lynch

denial atheism

The future seems a little gloomy! Go to bed early, sleep well, eat moderately at breakfast; the future looks brighter. The world's outlook may not have changed, but our capacity for dealing with it has. Happiness, or unhappiness, depends to some extent on external conditions, but also, and in most cases chiefly, on our own physical and mental powers. Some people would be discontented in Paradise, others ... are cheerful in a graveyard.

Arthur Lynch

optimism sleep people

Those who have suffered, who have known poverty or oppression, are generally the most prone to kindness. Perhaps it is well to endure some misery if only to learn this lesson.

Arthur Lynch

lessons suffering kindness

Life is magical. There is something wonderful in being alive, in having within one's self all sorts of possibilities.

Arthur Lynch

alive self life

Life asks for a preparation as complete as we can afford; the great contest should be fought with spirit but with good temper always; we should never think the game lost while it is still going; and finally we should have the satisfaction of quitting the field able to say: I did my best.

Arthur Lynch

should-have life thinking

So this is happiness, that journeyman.

Arthur Lynch

happiness

Some people would be discontented in Paradise, others ... are cheerful in a graveyard.

Arthur Lynch

cheerful optimism people

The test of education, apart from the accomplishments that secure places in an artificial system, should be this: Let the man be thrown naked on an unknown shore, and be forced to win his way amidst a new people. It may then be of little use to play cricket or to mishandle Tschaikowsky on a piano, but good physique, intelligence, and will power make their way infallibly.

Arthur Lynch

winning education men

Wit is something more than a gymnastic trick of the intellect; true wit implies a beam of thought into the essence of a question, a flash that lights up a situation. Wit suggests the delicate but delightful play of a rapier in the hands of a master.

Arthur Lynch

light essence hands

Vanity is easily forgiven, for we are all vain, and even as we laugh at the weakness of others we feel that their vanity has touched the responding chord of our own.

Arthur Lynch

vanity weakness laughing

There are tides of justice surging to the unknown shores of right; Stars of truth that seek a setting in the dark, untutored night.

Arthur Lynch

stars truth dark

Pessimism is carefully cultivated in some intellectual circles, as if it were a precious plant that the human race could not afford to lose.

Arthur Lynch

circles intellectual race

True love survives all shocks: an affection originally produced by admiration for unusual beauty may not only survive the loss of that beauty, but may become more intense if the beauty has changed into ugliness through causes that bind the lovers together in tender associations.

Arthur Lynch

together loss love

Yet as I cast my eye over the whole course of science I behold instances of false science, even more pretentious and popular than that of Einstein gradually fading into ineptitude under the searchlight; and I have no doubt that there will arise a new generation who will look with a wonder and amazement, deeper than now accompany Einstein, at our galaxy of thinkers, men of science, popular critics, authoritative professors and witty dramatists, who have been satisfied to waive their common sense in view of Einstein's absurdities.

Arthur Lynch

eye witty science

A disbelief in God does not result in a belief in nothing; disbelief in God usuallyresults in a belief in anything.

Arthur Lynch

atheism atheist doe

We must rejoice when love is great, and pardon its excess, for love is the staff of life, and life without love is life in vain.

Arthur Lynch

excess love life

Tact is not a small thing; in the battle of life it is more powerful than a bludgeon.

Arthur Lynch

battle powerful life

Children should not be coddled in their intellectual training any more than in their physical; and though the studies should be made interesting the interest should arise out of the studies themselves. We have bred a generation that cannot digest anything intellectual but tablets of peptonized food. One sees that in the popular papers with their brevity, still increasing in brevity as far as brevity can increase, and in the capacity for thought of our rulers.

Arthur Lynch

education children interesting

Compromise cannot be allowed in cases where the exact truth is ascertainable.

Arthur Lynch

truth-is cases compromise

The accumulation of facts, even if interesting in themselves, should not constitute the main part of education; these facts, whether they be of classical learning or knick-knacks of history, will be of little use unless the mind has been trained to see them in proper perspective.

Arthur Lynch

perspective education interesting

Pessimism is a product of our civilization. It is not natural to the savage; he feels pain, or discomfort, and suffers from these palpable conditions, but when he recovers from wounds he forgets the torments, and when he is well fed he is joyous in the light of day.