text,updated_at,metaphor,created_at,context,theme,reviewed_on,dictionary,comments,provenance,id,work_id
"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.",2011-04-25 01:48:16 UTC,"""My own mind is my own church.""",2011-04-25 01:48:16 UTC,The Author's Profession of Faith,"",,"","",Reading,18344,6833
"While I am writing this there are accidentally before me some proposals for a declaration of rights by the Marquis de la Fayette (I ask his pardon for using his former address, and do it only for distinction's sake) to the National Assembly, on the 11th of July, 1789, three days before the taking of the Bastille, and I cannot but remark with astonishment how opposite the sources are from which that gentleman and Mr. Burke draw their principles. Instead of referring to musty records and mouldy parchments to prove that the rights of the living are lost, ""renounced and abdicated for ever,"" by those who are now no more, as Mr. Burke has done, M. de la Fayette applies to the living world, and emphatically says: ""Call to mind the sentiments which nature has engraved on the heart of every citizen, and which take a new force when they are solemnly recognised by all:--For a nation to love liberty, it is sufficient that she knows it; and to be free, it is sufficient that she wills it."" How dry, barren, and obscure is the source from which Mr. Burke labours! and how ineffectual, though gay with flowers, are all his declamation and his arguments compared with these clear, concise, and soul-animating sentiments! Few and short as they are, they lead on to a vast field of generous and manly thinking, and do not finish, like Mr. Burke's periods, with music in the ear, and nothing in the heart.
(p. 207)",2011-05-19 20:08:06 UTC,"""Call to mind the sentiments which nature has engraved on the heart of every citizen, and which take a new force when they are solemnly recognised by all.""",2011-05-19 20:07:58 UTC,Part One,"",,Writing,"",Reading,18432,6855
"As wise men are astonished at foolish things, and other people at wise ones, I know not on which ground to account for Mr. Burke's astonishment; but certain it is, that he does not understand the French Revolution. It has apparently burst forth like a creation from a chaos, but it is no more than the consequence of a mental revolution priorily existing in France. The mind of the nation had changed beforehand, and the new order of things has naturally followed the new order of thoughts. I will here, as concisely as I can, trace out the growth of the French Revolution, and mark the circumstances that have contributed to produce it.
(p. 238)",2011-05-19 20:08:58 UTC,"""It has apparently burst forth like a creation from a chaos, but it is no more than the consequence of a mental revolution priorily existing in France.""",2011-05-19 20:08:58 UTC,Part One,"",,"","",Reading,18433,6855
"The only signs which appeared of the spirit of Liberty during those periods, are to be found in the writings of the French philosophers. Montesquieu, President of the Parliament of Bordeaux, went as far as a writer under a despotic government could well proceed; and being obliged to divide himself between principle and prudence, his mind often appears under a veil, and we ought to give him credit for more than he has expressed.
(p. 238)",2011-05-19 20:10:15 UTC,"""Montesquieu, President of the Parliament of Bordeaux, went as far as a writer under a despotic government could well proceed; and being obliged to divide himself between principle and prudence, his mind often appears under a veil, and we ought to give him credit for more than he has expressed.""",2011-05-19 20:10:15 UTC,Part One,"",,"","",Reading,18434,6855
"The opinions of men with respect to government are changing fast in all countries. The revolutions of America and France have thrown a beam of light over the world, which reaches into man. The enormous expense of governments has provoked people to think, by making them feel; and when once the veil begins to rend, it admits not of repair. Ignorance is of a peculiar nature: once dispelled, it is impossible to re-establish it. It is not originally a thing of itself, but is only the absence of knowledge; and though man may be kept ignorant, he cannot be made ignorant. The mind, in discovering truth, acts in the same manner as it acts through the eye in discovering objects; when once any object has been seen, it is impossible to put the mind back to the same condition it was in before it saw it. Those who talk of a counter-revolution in France, show how little they understand of man. There does not exist in the compass of language an arrangement of words to express so much as the means of effecting a counter-revolution. The means must be an obliteration of knowledge; and it has never yet been discovered how to make man unknow his knowledge, or unthink his thoughts.
(p. 244)",2011-05-19 20:11:19 UTC,"""The mind, in discovering truth, acts in the same manner as it acts through the eye in discovering objects; when once any object has been seen, it is impossible to put the mind back to the same condition it was in before it saw it.""",2011-05-19 20:11:19 UTC,Miscellaneous Chapter,"",,"","",Reading,18435,6855
"Experience, in all ages, and in all countries, has demonstrated that it is impossible to controul Nature in her distribution of mental powers. She gives them as she pleases. Whatever is the rule by which she, apparently to us, scatters them among mankind, that rule remains a secret to man. It would be as ridiculous to attempt to fix the hereditaryship of human beauty, as of wisdom. Whatever wisdom constituently is, it is like a seedless plant; it may be reared when it appears, but it cannot be voluntarily produced. There is always a sufficiency somewhere in the general mass of society for all purposes; but with respect to the parts of society, it is continually changing its place. It rises in one to-day, in another to-morrow, and has most probably visited in rotation every family of the earth, and again withdrawn.
(p. 277)",2011-05-19 20:25:59 UTC,"""Whatever wisdom constituently is, it is like a seedless plant; it may be reared when it appears, but it cannot be voluntarily produced.""",2011-05-19 20:25:59 UTC,Chapter 3,"",,"","",Reading,18436,6856
"Do we need a stronger evidence of the absurdity of hereditary government than is seen in the descendants of those men, in any line of life, who once were famous? Is there scarcely an instance in which there is not a total reverse of the character? It appears as if the tide of mental faculties flowed as far as it could in certain channels, and then forsook its course, and arose in others. How irrational then is the hereditary system, which establishes channels of power, in company with which wisdom refuses to flow! By continuing this absurdity, man is perpetually in contradiction with himself; he accepts, for a king, or a chief magistrate, or a legislator, a person whom he would not elect for a constable.
(p. 277)",2011-05-19 20:27:41 UTC,"""It appears as if the tide of mental faculties flowed as far as it could in certain channels, and then forsook its course, and arose in others. How irrational then is the hereditary system, which establishes channels of power, in company with which wisdom refuses to flow!""",2011-05-19 20:27:41 UTC,Chapter 3,"",,"","",Reading,18437,6856
"Any person, who has made observations on the state and progress of the human mind, by observing his own, cannot but have observed, that there are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts -- those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking, and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord. I have always made it a rule to treat those voluntary visitors with civility, taking care to examine, as well as I was able, if they were worth entertaining; and it is from them I have acquired almost all the knowledge that I have. As to the learning that any person gains from school education, it serves only, like a small capital, to put him in the way of beginning learning for himself afterwards. Every person of learning is finally his own teacher; the reason of which is, that principles, being of a distinct quality to circumstances, cannot be impressed upon the memory; their place of mental residence is the understanding, and they are never so lasting as when they begin by conception.
(pp. 434-5)",2011-05-19 20:39:54 UTC,"""I have always made it a rule to treat those voluntary visitors [that bolt into the mind of their own accord] with civility, taking care to examine, as well as I was able, if they were worth entertaining; and it is from them I have acquired almost all the knowledge that I have.""",2011-05-19 20:39:54 UTC,"","",,Inhabitants,• INTEREST. Use in ENTRY. Paine works the Lockean distinction between sensation and reflections in terms of personification.,Reading,18438,6833
"I confess, Gentlemen, I should have been glad if I had had an earlier opportunity of knowing correctly the contents of that letter. I should have been glad if I could have had an earlier opportunity also of knowing, which I do not admit at present, that it was genuine and authentic; because I know not only the impression which such a letter must make upon Gentlemen's minds who are the Jury to try the cause, but I feel the impression it necessarily makes upon my own mind: but, as far as nature is able to struggle against any difficulties thrown in, and with my duty to my client, I will exert it in the best manner I am able. I confess I cannot help thinking it would be a great advantage to the public, if the Attorney General is right in his comment upon the book, that by the law of England this book cannot exist, or be circulated, from the matter contained in it. I cannot help thinking he thought it for the interest of his country, and the merits of his prosecution, to read that letter. That letter contained what is wholly foreign to the prosecution before you, and my Lord could not receive it upon any other principle than this, that it admitted the Defendant was the author of it, and might tend to prove quo animo, that book was written by him. Gentlemen, no one fact whatever has been proved by the Attorney General as coming from the Defendant; or are they capable of fastening upon him one act previous to the work before you.
(pp. 34-5)",2013-11-10 18:59:45 UTC,"""I should have been glad if I could have had an earlier opportunity also of knowing, which I do not admit at present, that it was genuine and authentic; because I know not only the impression which such a letter must make upon Gentlemen's minds who are the Jury to try the cause, but I feel the impression it necessarily makes upon my own mind.""",2013-11-10 18:59:45 UTC,"","",,Impressions,"",Searching in ECCO-TCP,23159,7754
"Remember, I am not asking the verdict for him, on any other institution than the law of England. I am not desiring your decision on any other constitution. The policy of Great Britain is not to have a jealousy over her subjects, to know what is for the benefit of the whole community. The subjects of England are affected to whatever is right and honest; and let reason be reason, let truth and falsehood oppose and fight one another, but it is better to pursue this course with respect to Englishmen, which was proposed by Lord Chatham. Do not think they are to be bent to your purpose by a froward conduct.
Be to their faults a little blind;
Be to their virtues very kind:
Let all their thoughts be unconfined,
And clap your padlock on their mind.
(p. 107)",2013-11-10 19:00:52 UTC,"""Let all their thoughts be unconfined, / And clap your padlock on their mind.""",2013-11-10 19:00:52 UTC,"","",,"",Clever quotation of Prior. CROSS-REFERENCE.,Searching in ECCO-TCP,23160,7754