The thing that is incredible is life itself. Why should we be here in this sun-illuminated universe? Why should there be green earth under our feet?

Edwin Markham

Categorized in : Feet Earth Literature

There is a destiny That makes us brothers None goes his way alone All that we send into the lives of others Comes back into our own.

We all are blind until we seeThat in the human planNothing is worth the making ifIt does not make the man. Why build these cities gloriousIf man unbuilded goes?In vain we build the world, unlessThe builder also grows.

And when he fell in whirlwind, he went downAs when a lordly cedar, green with boughs,Goes down with a great shout upon the hills,And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.

The few little years we spend on earth are only the first scene in a Divine Drama that extends into Eternity.

The open street, like the open sea, is an inviting thing to the mind of man. It is one of the few places where all may meet as equals under sun or rain; but only a John Bunyan could adequately portray the danger of the cities with their pitfalls for the young unguarded feet.

man sea sun rain

Force cannot transmit a moral principle: moral ideas can be received only through the reason of the heart.

moral reason heart ideas

'Custom is the great deadener.' There is no doubt that we of the white race are going on obliviously supporting customs that would seem abhorrent and incredible to a higher and more brotherly civilization.

great race doubt white

It is doubtless true that men are bad because they are unhappy. If anyone could give them real happiness, the happiness of brotherhood, they would all want to live the true and brotherly life.

brotherhood happiness men life

Big money is not a good thing for a little soul: it will only ensnare his feet, and he will fall to his ruin. Wealth is safe only for those who have a wealth of wisdom.

good money soul wisdom

Every man on the planet should do some physical work: he should help in the bread-labor of mankind. He should also do some of the intellectual work: he should help in the thought-labor of mankind. In a word, every thinker should work, and every worker should think.

help think man work

Few cities have been more definitely impressed upon the imagination of the world than San Francisco, this gray-hilled city on the peninsula by the hospitable bay, where Saint Francis protects the ships as he protected the birds of Assisi.

birds city imagination world

We have ground for believing that a noble form of socialism existed among the prehistoric and primitive people on this planet, the people that broke into restless groups after the ancient Deluge and went wandering over the globe. For we find a socialist tendency in all the barbaric tribes of earth.

find socialism earth people

Spain held the doctrine (and was right in holding it) that every human enterprise should stand on two pillars - the temporal and the spiritual. To depend upon one of these pillars alone is to call down final failure upon any undertaking.

alone down failure spiritual

In my boyhood, cattle-raising ran almost neck and neck with grain-raising. In my secluded little valley in the Suisun Hills, the rodeo was the most exhilarating spectacle in the round year.

valley round little year

Bierce radiates brilliancy, and perhaps no other man of letters ever had a more ready command of condensed expression. For him, each word has its unique place in the peerage of words, and he would not use a word out of place any sooner than he would thrust an ape into a captain's saddle.

words place man unique

Use and beauty - these should be the ends of all human effort. But the competitive struggle swings us away from this high ground and plunges us into a quagmire fight for cheap goods and cheap labor.

fight effort struggle beauty

Greed and Gain, grim guardians of the great god Mammon, continually cry in the ears of the poor, 'Give us your little ones!' And forever do the poor push out their little ones at the imperious ukase, feeding the children to a blind Hunger that is never filled.

great cry god children

Is it not a grotesque civilization which sends missionaries across the sea to save the souls of the heathen, and yet permits conditions at home that debauch the children at our very doors?

sea home doors children