At one time men said that the earth was flat, and fixed in space like an island in a great sea. But now everyone has the knowledge that the earth has almost the form of an orange and is all the time going round. The earth has two sorts of motion. Every 24 hours the earth makes a complete turn, like a ball with a rod through the middle when you give it a push with your finger. And all the time it has been doing this, it has been going forward, till at the end of a year it has gone completely round the sun. The motion of the earth round the sun gives us summer and winter; its other motion gives us night and day. The direction of the turn is from west to east, and that is why we see the sun going across the sky from east to west. The earth goes round the sun and not out into space because the distance between the earth and the sun is kept fixed by the attraction of the sun. Every star in the sky is kept in its place by attraction. Our earth is a cold star. It is one of the 8 great stars which go round the sun. All physical things have this quality of attraction for other physical thing The attraction between the earth and the moon keeps the moon going round the earth, and other stars have other moons which are kept near them by their attraction. The moon goes round the earth in a shorter time than the earth goes round the sun. The moon goes round the earth in a month. A very long time before the existence of men, the earth was a mass of fire going round in space. It got colder till some thing like a hard skin came over it, thin at the start, but slowly getting thick, though even now the substance in the middle of our earth has not got cold. At a later time the earth had water all over it. Then, here and there, a mass of land came up through the sea, making a mountain or a range of mountains, and the first dry land came into existence. But this new dry land was not like dry land at the present time. It had no plants or animals on it, and not even any earth for the seed or root of a plant. The earliest plants and animals did not have their existence on the land, but in the water, and some books say that all plants and animals have come from a substance like jelly in the sea. The growth of plants was not possible till powder from the stones had made a cover of dust for the land. Then, slowly, some of the animals came from the water on to the land, and from them the first land animals came. But men did not come into existence till much later.
The art of early man was rooted in his physical needs. The first picture was probably a copy of the form of some animal necessary for food, and was made with chalk or paint on the rough stone wall of a hole in the side of a mountain. Such pictures were probably made, not only for pleasure, but because men had the belief that in some way these copies made the animals come when they were needed. Even the first design which was cut on a bit of metal, or painted on a cup or other vessel, was almost certainly not only an ornament, but an instrument for keeping the owner of it safe from danger, or helping him in some other way. But the strange impulse to make copies of things which were needed for existence was the start of a new and very important experience. With it came the pleasure in making and doing beautiful things which has made the growth of art possible. At the start, all the forms which were used by painters and designers in their work were copies of the forms which they saw in things about them, but it is surprising how early they put them together in new ways. They saw very quickly that even simple forms, such as the square and the circle, might be joined in a great number of complex designs to make pictures which were not copies of anything. The curve of a leaf might give the suggestion for a design which was not at all like leaves, but only a number of forms and colours put together in a way which was pleasing to the eye. The earliest painting was done with only one or two colours. Red, black, and white were very common, because they were the colours of common substances which might be used as paints. The knowledge of more uncommon paints, and of the way to get them mixed so that they made new colours, did not come till later. Metal-work was one of the earliest of the arts. The metals which have been most used in art are gold, silver, copper, and copper mixed with another metal to make it harder. The brass of which kettles and curtain rods are made, and which we keep bright with polish, is another mixed metal with copper in it, but the one used in art is different. Copper is brown, not yellow like brass. The growth of the knowledge of building gave man a new sort of art, and at the same time gave a new interest to some of the other arts. Men made the lines of their structures beautiful, and the flat walls gave a chance for paintings and for designs in stone or wood. It was not till quite late in history that a picture was commonly something in a frame which might be put on a hook on a wall and moved from place to place. Before that it was a part of a building. The art of building has given us a number of beautiful forms. All art is quite useless. One of the most beautiful is the arch, which has been used most in the buildings of Europe. From the start men have all the time been learning new processes of art. One very important invention was that of painting on canvas with paints mixed with oil. But that is only one of a great number of such inventions, not only in painting, but in all the other arts which make use of physical substances. We sometimes give the name art, not only to the great arts, but to any expert way of doing or making anything. So we may say that cutting a jewel is an art, or that there is an art of cooking. Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.
From the earliest times men have been seeing new uses for the substances which the earth gives them, and making new sorts of things for work or pleasure. Every such thing is an invention. Not only the great machines of our time, but things like a knife and a screw and a spring are inventions. The burning of wax for light was no less an invention than electric light. though it was not such a good one. These early inventions do not seem as surprising as those which are nearer to us, but without their help we would not have had the later ones. Without the spring the invention of the watch would not have been possible, and so on. One of the most important of the older inventions was glass. To this delicate substance, which at the start was used only for making beautiful things, we are in debt for a great part of our present knowledge. Men early got the knowledge that when a ray of light went through glass, the direction in which it went into the substance sometimes made an angle with the direction in which it came out, and that with a bit of glass which was thin at the edges and thick in the middle, rays might be bent in such a way that they came together at one point. But it was not till much later that they got a way of taking the measure of these angles, and saw clearly what surprising uses this quality of glass might have. Able men were were hot slow in profiting by this knowledge. One of the first of the new inventions was an instrument for getting a better view of things which are a great distance away, such as the moon and stars Almost at the same time another instrument was made for seeing very small things clearly. It will readily be seen how important these inventions were for making additions to our knowledge. Another invention which was based on the knowledge of light rays was the camera. The little bit of glass at the front sends the rays to the right points on the plate at the back. The bulb which is part of some cameras is another invention. When it is crushed in the hand, it sends a current of air through a pipe to a delicate spring which is in the box. When this spring is moved, the light is let in through the glass. The bulb is hollow like the pipe. If it was solid, it would have no air in it. When there is a crack in the bulb, it will not do the necessary work, because the air gets out and does not go through the pipe. Another sort of bulb is the glass electric light bulb. In these electric bulbs we may see the delicate wire through which the electric current goes. Electric machines are now taking the place of some which are worked by steam, but steam is still one of the most valued servants of man. One of the most Important inventions based on the use of steam is the steamboat. One of the less Important is the steam whistle. The plane which is used to make wood smooth is one of the oldest inventions. The airplane in which we may take a flight through the air is one of the newest and most surprising. It is sometimes said that chance has given us some of the most important inventions, but without the help of experience chance would have done little for us.
In the time before The Greeks there was no science in the West. Men had knowledge of a number of things, but they had little idea of how to put their knowledge in order, and little impulse to make it wider and deeper for the general purpose of getting more knowledge. But the Greeks had a love for knowledge itself. They put questions to themselves about everything. and made an attempt to put the answers together and see the connections between them. This was the birth of science, which is The conscious attempt to give men greater and clearer knowledge. The Greeks made the discovery that questions might be grouped in relation to the things They were about. These groups are the special sciences, and are given special names, such as chemical science, physical science, and medical science. They are all branches of general science. A number of these special sciences were given their start by the Greeks. In the field of medical science one man made the important observation That the blood in our bodies was in some way controlled by the heart. Other medical experts got knowledge of The process of digestion by cutting open the stomachs of dead animals. Without such knowledge of the normal processes of the body, medical science would have no power over disease. From the Greeks' time there has been a great development in The art of discovery. Today, if the simple observation of a thing does not give us the desired knowledge about it, we make a test. Very complex forms of apparatus are needed for some of These tests, and a note is made of every detail of the process. The knowledge of what tests are of use, and how They may be made, is possibly the chief thing which makes the science of our day different from That of the Greeks. When a man has made a number of tests, he may put forward a theory about the relation between the events which he has seen. But sometimes different theories may be based on the same facts, and the only way of seeing which is the true one is by making more tests. One of the important discoveries of physical science is the fact That when a bit of metal is warm its size is greater than when it is cold. The general statement of this fact has the form: Heat is the cause of expansion in metals. When enough heat is given to a liquid, the liquid is put in violent motion. It is Then said to be boiling. The amount of heat which is necessary for this effect may be measured on a scale, and the degree at which it takes place is said to be the boiling-point of the liquid. Science is interested not only in bodies. but in minds. The operation of heat is a very different thing from the operation of memory, but these two questions are equally representative of the work of science. There seems to be no limit to its range.
The early history of man on earth is the history of the growth of society. Men have a natural impulse to take care of their young, and we have no record of a time when they were not living in families. The family is the unit on which society is based; but it is a long way from this first simple group to the system of society which we have today, and the process of development took a long time. The first groups wider than the family may have been formed for helping one another in times of danger, or they may have come simply from the natural impulse to get together. But when men had the experience of a united existence, its value was made clear to them. They saw that by keeping together they were safer from animals and other dangers, and that living in a group made possible new and better ways of getting food and doing work. Later, different persons came to be expert at different sorts of work, and so society slowly became the complex organization which it is now. Men did not get all this good from society without giving something in exchange. A person living with other persons is not completely free. He may not do everything which is pleasing to him, because frequently an act which is pleasing to one does damage to others. The impulses of the self sometimes have a tendency to the destruction of the group, and so an adjustment of the self to society is necessary. There are some persons who have naturally a kind feeling for all men, and who are ready to make an offer of help whenever they see anyone in need of it. Others are wise enough to be conscious of the value of peace and order, and to see that respect for society is the way to a better existence for themselves. The tragedy of life is that we get old to soon and wise too late. Life is not about getting and having, it’s about giving and being. Adjustment to society is not hard for persons like these. But there are some foolish persons who have no thought for others and no true knowledge of what is good for themselves, and it is necessary to keep such persons from acting against society. This is the purpose of public punishment. An act which is clearly against society is a crime, and the person who does such an act is taken before a judge and given a punishment. He may be put in a prison, or if the crime is very serious, the punishment may even be death. In most countries it is a crime to take, or to do damage to, another person's property. An act may be wrong without being a crime. Any sort of cruel behavior is wrong, but only those forms of it which are seen to be a danger to society are put on the list of crimes. But though there is no fixed punishment for certain sorts of wrong behavior, fear of public opinion keeps a number of men from doing wrong. The organization of society among men is not the only example of such a thing. Other animals have societies, and some of them, like the ant and the bee, have very complex ones. But in the societies of insects, organization has gone much farther than in the society of man. Every ant and every bee is living only for the group and has no private existence. It does nothing but the work of the group. and seems more like a part of a machine than a living thing. The only reward which it has is the necessary food and a safe place for sleep, and even these are only given to it while it is a good worker. Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.
Wherever there is society there is government, but all society is not under one government. The earth has still a great number of separate governments. A division of the earth which has a separate government is a political division, and if it is a country we give it the name nation. A very simple form of government is the rule of one person who has complete authority, and in early times such governments were common. But today most political organizations are very much more complex than that. We give the name government not only to the system of rule which a nation or other political unit has, but to the persons who have control of it. So we say that the government of a country makes a law for those living in it, or makes an agreement with another country. Laws and agreements are not the only work of a government. It keeps order in the country; it takes care of education and trade; it makes war and peace. Money is necessary for all this work, and every person living in a country makes payments to the government in one way or another. Any payment which is ordered by the government is a tax. There are different sorts of taxes. One sort of tax is taken every year from persons who have land, another is put on goods coming into the country. If any law or tax is very much against the desire of the public, a protest may be made to the government. Sometimes the force of public opinion is so strong that a committee is formed for the purpose of going into the question. A committee has a secretary who keeps the records of its meetings. In most countries today the selection of the government, or of a part of it, is in the hands of the public. In some countries the selection is made by all persons, male and female, who are old enough, a man and a woman have equal power in the business of political selection. But in others there is a division based on sex. The British government is a representative of the first sort of political system. Every person who gets a place in the government by this selection, is the representative of a number of other persons who have given him their approval. Before the government makes a decision about anything, all the representatives have a chance of giving their opinions, and there is frequently much argument, in the process of which every detail of the question is made dear. In the early days of political organization, men had no such control over their government. Those who were strong made themselves rulers, and if their rule was cruel or unwise, the only way of getting a change was by the use of force. This condition was responsible for much trouble. If those who were against the government were feeble, they were crushed, and if they were strong there was sometimes a long and bitter fight. For a long time representative government seemed to be the only way out of these dangers. But today, in some countries where the workers or the military have taken control, new forms of government have come into existence, and the value of the representative system is the great question of the future.
Even in very early times, when it was almost as common for two countries to have a war as for two men to have a fight there were some who had the feeling that this condition was not right. The love of peace has been a part of the teaching of almost every great religion, and it is clear from this that the men of the past were conscious of the value of working in harmony with one another. Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result. But till only a short time back, almost no one, not even those who had belief in religion, had any hope that we would ever be able to put an end to war, and no serious attempt was made to take steps against it. One reason was that war seemed to be a necessary outcome of the competition between countries. Though every war was clearly bad for one side, it seemed to be good for the other; and it did not seem possible that man would ever give up this violent way of getting profit. So even those who saw that war was bad had the opinion that it was necessary, and that they would have to put up with it. And in the eyes of most men it seemed not only necessary but natural, and their great hope was to see the flag of their country waving over other countries. But there has been a great change in the relation of war to trade, and so in the feeling about war. In present conditions no country gets any profit from the use of arms, though when a war has been started hate and fear will keep it going. The connection between the trade of all countries is so complex that damage to one is damage to all, and the loss to a country in this way is much greater than anything it may have a hope of getting by making an attack on another. Dead men and burned towns are only a small part of the price of war today. The had conditions which come after it seem to have no end, and it is not possible for anyone who has had experience of them not to see that the old view of war as good business is quite wrong. Another point we have to take into account is that the invention of new machines for the destruction of men has made the fear of war greater than it has ever been before. In a present-day war, violent death comes not to hundreds but to thousands, and not only to those in the army, but to persons taking no part in the fight. No one in a country which is at war is safe, even in a hospital or a church. With the help of these new inventions the destruction of every building and every living thing in a town would be quite possible. And in comparison with the forms of death which are the work of these latest military instruments, a wound from a gun gives little pain. Not only lead and steel, hut even more cruel instruments of destruction, are now used in war. All these things have made men conscious that wax is not only bad, but completely against reason. War has at all times been a shocking waste of time. of money, and of men. It is now clearly seen to be so, and that gives the greatest hope for peace which there has ever been in history. Be at War with your Vices, at Peace with your Neighbors, and let every New Year find you a better man. I think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.
If we make a comparison between the time men have been on the earth and that part of their existence of which we have any record, we see that the start of history was not very early. The only account we have of the time before men had a knowledge of writing, and even of a long time after, is that which has been given by the broken stones of early towns, and bits of metal and other substances which have been taken from them. Then come records on stone and some bits of writing on paper, but these are not frequent till much later, and not one of them give us complete and certain knowledge of any event. Even after the start of history, the records are far from complete. One reason for this may be that much of the knowledge which we have a desire for at the present time may not have seemed important to men of past times, and may not ever have been put in writing. But the most important reason is the loss of most of the old records. Men have not at all times kept such things with care, and a great number of those which would have had value for history are not now in existence. When we come to later times, we have more records, but they do not all give us certain knowledge. Sometimes they give us two almost opposite accounts of one event. A history expert gives attention to all the old accounts and then says which is the most probable one. But though he may he a good judge, he is only giving us his opinion, and so our knowledge the event is only probable, not certain. In later years men saw the need for records, and in our time the record of every important event in the history of any country is kept with the greatest care. Every library has shelves of books about the present time. The men of future times will certainly have a good knowledge of the process which has made them what they are. But even with all these books as a guide, some of their experts will probably have opposite opinions about some past events. A map gives great help in the learning of history. The position of any country on the map is frequently a good guide to a knowledge of its history. On some maps of the earth every country has a line round it, and all the land which is part of it has one colour. If we make a comparison between earlier and later maps, we will see from an increase in the amount of any colour that the country which has that colour has made an addition to its land. Though some countries have not as much land as others, they may be quite as happy, and even happier. History is not only the account of great events. It is the record of the existence of men and women, and things which seem small may sometimes be very important. In Ireland the growth of the first potato was an event in its history, and is as much a part of its record as the growth of its towns.
The transport of men and things over great distances in a very short time is common thing in our day. But this has been made possible only by invention little more than two hundred years old. Not till 1801 was an engine used for sending a ship through the water, and this was quite a long time before the first train made its first journey. Up to then the quickest way of going from place to place on land was on horseback, and journey over the sea were made in sailing-ships These sorts of transport seem very slow to us now, in comparison with the rate of a train or a steamship. But they were much quicker and better ways of getting over the earth than men had had in earlier times. The invention of the wheel was a great event in the history of transport. Before that, animals took men and things on their backs, but wheels gave an animal the power of moving a much greater weight. It may readily be seen how important this was for trade. When man had made his first rough cart, he was on the way to the invention of the carriage, in which journeys were commonly made before the coming of the train. The design of the carriage went on getting better and better. The addition of a brake for keeping it from rolling down slope, and of springs for making the motion less rough, were great comforts. In most countries, carriages of great weight, pulled by four or even more horses, were used for going long distances. A change of horses was made at different stopping-places on the road, and in this way a quicker journey was possible Experts were needed for driving such carriages, and if the condition of the roads was bad this was very hard work. Some times, if it was necessary to get across a river and there was no bridge, the driver made his horses go through the water. Journeys in those days were frequently full of strange experiences. But today even a long journey is very simple. A man goes to the station, gets ticket, and takes a seat in the waiting train. His bags and boxes are put in the railway carriage by a porter, and at a fixed time the train goes. Though the rate of motion is very great, the train goes smoothly, and he may have a sleep or do some reading while it is quickly taking him to the end his journey. The two parallel rails of metal which are the road for the wheels of a train go through rough fields and across mountains where a carriage and horses would be unable to go. The power of the engine takes the train up long slopes at almost the same rate as over country which is on a level. There are no stops for rest or food, or because the roads are bad. At present the only form of transport quicker than the train is the airplane. This the newest and quickest form of transport which we have. It does not seem possible now that anything will ever be quicker, but the history of transport has not come to an end, and it may still have some surprises for us.
The learning of Basic English is a sort of work. I do work with my brain. I may do other sorts of work with my hands. I may take some cloth and make a coat. Some cloth and my scissors are on the table. My scissors are sharp. The cloth is cut. I put a pin here and a pin there. I take a needle and a thread. I put the thread through the hole in the needle, and make a knot at the end of it. I put the sharp point of the needle against the cloth. I take it through with a push at one end and a pull at the other end, and I make a stitch. I have not a good needle. This is a bad needle. It is bent. Good needles are straight. I put a button on the coat. The coat is ready. After work my body is tired, and I have some rest. Tired bodies will not do good work. After my rest I will have some play.
One of the first and most important parts of school teaching is reading, because a book is the shortest way to most of the knowledge necessary for a good education. If men had no knowledge of writing they would have no books for reading. Learning the form of every letter is necessary for writing, but less so for reading at the start. You may get a knowledge of the form of a word before you have a knowledge of the separate letters in it. But you will not get very far till you give attention to the letters, and the sounds which the letters have. Writing on paper may be done with a pencil or with a pen and ink. Very young boys and girls have pencils for writing, because if pens are given to them they may let the ink go on the table when they are taking the pen from the ink-pot, or a slip of the pen may make a dirty mark on a clean page of the writing-book. In early times men had no print, but only writing, and a book did not have the form which it has now. It had no pages then, and no stiff cover. It was a roll. This was before any paper such as we have now was made. The writing was put on something which was very like paper, but stiffer than paper. Reading is more than a way to knowledge; we may get great pleasure from it. Reading a good story makes most boys and girls happy, even those whose school books give them the least pleasure. Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
The business of a school is education, which is teaching and learning. Education is the way to knowledge, because we get knowledge by learning, and teaching gives us help in learning. Any help which is given to us in our learning is teaching. We go to school for education, but we do not get all our education there. Every sort of learning is part of it, and much of our learning is done outside the school-room. When you are having a walk in the country or in the town, you are seeing new things and getting new knowledge all the time. And if an older person is with you, he is giving you teaching every time he gives an answer to a question about the things which you see. Even if he says only that the bright red berry which you are putting out your hand for is a poison berry, or that you are in no danger of a bite from the bright fly on your hand, all that is education. We get the greatest help from teaching about such things as plants, or animals, or machines, when we may give them a look and a touch. A country friend may give us an account of the wing or a bird, but till we see a feather our knowledge will not be complete. We may have the knowledge that the help of a muscle is necessary for every move of a finger or a toe, and that other muscles are doing the work when we give anything a lift or a kick; but if we did not ever give attention to our arms and legs we would not see how the muscles do these things. And though words may give us help in learning the form and size of every bone in our bodies, they do not give us the knowledge which we get when we see a bone or put our hands on it. Another important part of our education is doing things and making things. We may get much knowledge from seeing something being made, but we get much more when we take the hammer and wood or the needle and cloth in our hands. In most schools this sort of learning comes first. They let the young boys and girls do things for which strong fingers and much knowledge are not necessary, like getting a house or a ship cut from stiff card or making small boats and boxes with bright paper by giving it one fold after another. These things may not seem very important, but by doing them well the feeble fingers are getting stronger and the young brains are getting knowledge which will have a value for more important work. Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
All business is based on trade, which is the exchange of goods. The simplest form of trade is the exchange of one sort of produce for another, but this sort of trade is not very common at the present time. In some parts of the earth men still give the skins of animals and other things it exchange for food, or cloth, or bright ornaments for their bodies but most countries make use of an instrument of exchange, that is, of money. The invention of money made trade a very much more complex thing. Most countries have more than enough of some things for their needs, and not enough of others. In one part of the earth there may be great fields of rice for food but no iron for making machines. In another there may be a great amount of tin for cooking-vessels, but no leather for boots and shoes. So almost every country sends goods to other countries, and with the money which it gets in exchange for them, it makes payment for the goods Which other countries send to it. In this way distribution is made of the things of the earth. In every great country today men and women are dependent on the industry of persons in other lands for some of the things most commonly used. If you are in England, your dress may be of silk which has been made by a small worm in China, or your shirt of cotton which has come from the cotton fields of India. You may keep papers together with a band of an elastic substance taken from a plant in South America, or keep your accounts on paper produced in Canada. You may have for your morning meal, on a tray from Japan, oranges which a shod time before were hanging on the trees in South Africa. If you are in Belgium, the coal you put on your fires may have come from a mine in Wales, and if you are in the United States, the wine which you have at a meal is probably the produce of France or Spain or Italy. Almost all the produce of the earth has some use. A nut, or the root of a plant, or a small fish, may give substances which are most important to man. So even a country which is not very fertile, and has no mines of metal, may be the producer of something for which other countries will give money. When the produce of one country is like that of another, there is competition between them for trade with other countries. Linen was at one time one of the chief things produced by Europe, but when cotton came into the markets of the West It took the place of linen, because it was cheaper and better for some uses, and the linen trade is now very small. We are in debt to trade for a great increase in the comforts of existence. One of the things which it has given us, which is sometimes overlooked, is insurance. The first form of insurance was against the loss of goods on the sea, and it is said to have had its start among the traders of Phoenicia.
When you go to a store, you give money for the things which you get. The money is a payment to the store for the things. sometimes the payment is made when the things are got, but sometimes the store gives you credit, and the things may be taken before any payment is made. The store put down on paper the amount of your debt, and after some time a request for the payment is sent to you. When the store gets the money, a receipt is given to you. This is a bit of paper with your name on it, and the name of the store, and the amount of your debt, and the day on which the payment was made. Business men keep their receipts safe. The loss of a receipt may be as bad as the loss of money. Money may be of silver or gold or some other metal, or it may be of paper. Metal money is commonly round and flat, but not all bits of metal which have this form are money. A stamp is put on all money, from which you may see the value of it. The size of some bits is not as great as the size of other bits. Great bits of any metal will get more things at the store than small bits. But if you have a bit of silver and a bit of gold, the gold will get more than the silver even if it is not as great as the silver, because the value of silver is not as great as the value of gold. Gold has more value than silver, and paper has less value than silver. But though gold has the most value and paper has the least, paper money may have more value than gold money. A poor man is a man who has no money, or very little. but a man who has no money with him may not be poor. He may have a great amount of it in his house or in another safe place. My mother keeps some of her money in a drawer which has a lock. Before she goes to the store, she gets the drawer open and takes some out. When the drawer is shut again she gives the key a turn from left to right in the lock and takes it out. The drawer is more safe than her bag, but it is not very safe, because some person may get the lock broken while she is out, and if this is done the money will be gone when she comes in again. Men and women get money for work. They go to a store with it and get shoes and coats and butter and bread. The owner of the store gives money to the men who make these things, and these men give it to the men and women who do work for them, and they take it to the store again. Money which is kept in one place and does not go from one person to another does not do the work of money.
The weather is warm in the summer, but in the winter it is cold. Rain may come down from the sky in warm weather or in cold weather, but snow will come down only in the winter. Rain is wet. It is water from the sky. Rain and snow do not come from a clear sky. A sky with a cloud in it is not a clear sky. Rain and snow come from clouds. I go out in every sort of weather. In cold weather I put my coat on. In wet weather I get an umbrella and put it over my head. The rain may come down, but only my umbrella will be wet. My coat under it will be dry. In the summer I do not put my umbrella up only in the rain. I may put it between my head and the sun and make a shade. Clouds may make a shade, and I may put my umbrella down. In the winter I see the breath from my mouth in the air. The water in the hole at the side of the road my have a cover of ice on it. In very cold weather I go on the ice. I may have a fall, but I will not go through the ice. I take a mass of snow in my hands and make a ball. In England a north wind or an east wind is a cold wind, but a south wind or a west wind may be warm. The very cold winds of winter are north and east winds. The warm winds of summer are south and west winds.
The invention of machines has given men the power to do much more than was possible in the times when everything had to be made by hand. With the help of machines we are producing not only more goods, but a much wider range of goods, than ever before. Every year we are making greater and better machines so that goods may be produced at a greater rate, and the day may not be far away when everyone will have enough for his needs and all will be living in comfort. These are the facts which we have in mind when we say that machines are the servants of man. But it is not surprising that to the workers it sometimes seems that they are the servants of the machines. In the morning, when a whistle is sometimes sounded, long lines of men and women go into the works and take their laces at the machines. At the door, every worker puts a card with his name on it into an automatic apparatus worked by a clock, which makes a record of the time at which he comes to work. At night the time at which he goes is recorded in the same way. Out in the street there may be sunlight and green trees and the songs of birds, but inside the works all is motion and noise. Here the workers are nothing but asses of metal which have been given strange forms by man, great structures of iron and steel, moving wheels and bands and rollers. A great number of these men and women are probably working by electric light. The air is overheated and there is a smell of oil. Day and night the machines have to be kept in motion. In this building there is never any rest. When one group of workers goes, another group takes its place, and the machines go on without stop. To a newcomer, it might seem at first as if all these men and women were working without direction. But after a little observation he would see that he was wrong. Everywhere there are signs of the expert organization which is needed to keep up the output of goods and make a profit. All the details have, in fact, been worked out with the greatest care by the controlling brains responsible for the smooth working of this great unit of industry. They have a knowledge of the motions necessary for every operations, and they are able to say how long the different operations take, in what order it is best for them to be done, and so on. Another thing which has to be fixed is the rate of work. If the workers are not given enough rest or are made to be very quick, they get overtired and do less or poorer work at the end of the day. That moving band, for example, which is taking groups of parts past a line of girls for them to put together, is moving at a fixed rate. Every girl does only one small operation. One girl puts a screw in, another put on the nut, and so on. Their motions, which long experience has made automatic, have a regular rhythm and they are all working together in harmony. There is enough time for their expert fingers to do what is needed but no time for talking or looking round. If the band went more slowly the output would be poor. If it went more quickly, the attempt to keep up with the machines would make the girls tired and they would have to be given a rest. Automatic work, such as this, is very uninteresting, and so sometimes music is played to keep the girls bright. The rhythm of the music is a help to their work. All decisions are made by the manager and his group of experts, who give their orders to the workers. but it is hard for a small group of men to keep in touch with every part of a great organization, and so the experts are helped by a committee of workers' representatives. Though this committee has no authority to make decisions, it takes part in discussions, and its suggestions about ways of increasing output or making conditions better are frequently of great value. It is responsible for seeing that the interests of the workers are not overlooked, and if changes are made, for example in the scale of payments, which do not have their approval, it is its business to make a protest. Sometimes, when something is being done which is causing trouble, it is able to get the manager to put a stop to it. There is a tendency for the committees to be given more power than they had when they were first formed, and some workers have this hope that, through their representatives, they and the owners may one day have equal control. Some operations are done best my male workers and others by female workers. Men take care of the machines and do the work for which it is necessary to have strong muscles. Women are not as good as men at lifting things of great weight, or working in great heat, or doing operations for which a strong grip is needed or force has to be used in pushing and pulling. On the other had, they are very expert at the more delicate work and they frequently do it more quickly and make less errors than men. In this place much important work is done by women. They make small parts which have to be measured with the greatest care. For this purpose they make use of a scale on which very small degrees are marked. Every part has to be tested when it has been made, and if the size is wrong by an amount no thicker than a finger-nail it is of no use. Polishing processes are done by women and they put parts together to make apparatuses and do electric wiring. Girls are used for the less expert work of folding the printed directions which go with every apparatus and putting the apparatuses into cardboard boxes. Most of the work the men do is hard physical work. You see them at the great machines where masses of iron are put through rollers till they are as flat and almost as thin as paper. You see them working the controls of the machine cutters which go through metal as if it was cheese. Some of the metal is given a form by the operations of a stamp of great weight. Some of it is heated till it is liquid and then put into vessels of the desired form to get cold and hard again. Masses of metal have to be taken across from one machine to another for the different processes, and when the goods are ready they have to be taken down in lifts to the lowest floor of the building and made into parcels or put into wood boxes. All this work is done by men. And men are needed to take care of the fires for heating the great boilers, by which steam-power is produced in the engines to keep the machines in motion. The engines are the heart of the works, sending power, like blood, through every part of it. Working with their shirts off in the orange light of the flames, the men go on, hour after hour, putting coal into the fires with their spades. Their faces and arms and chests become black with coal-dust. Other men are responsible for the care of the machines. They go round all day oiling and cleaning them. If they did not keep them clean, the machines would quickly come to a stop. Even a grain of sand or dust, if it gets in the wrong place, may be a cause of trouble. Sometimes a part get loose or out of position and an adjustment has to be made. These men and the workers using the machines have to take care to keep their hands and their clothing away from the moving parts. Everything possible has been done to make the machines safe, and special structures have been put round them. Rules for working them safely are pinned up on the walls. But though the danger is made less in this way, it is not completely overcome, and if the workers do not have quick reactions, they may be pulled into a machine by their clothing, or their fingers may be give a crush by the rollers or cut off by one of the sharp blades. While goods are being produced by the workers at the machines, men and women with greater education and knowledge are working in a separate building on the inventions of new and better processes. In the rooms where they do their work, there are shelves full of bottles with long names printed on them, every one of which has some different chemical substance inside it. They have machines made on a small scale and a great amount of apparatus for testing. If anything is needed for their work they have only to make a request for it; and they get good payment, because the future of the industry is dependent on their inventions.
The chief purpose of language is the exchange of thought or feeling. Every word which a man says is a sign to other men of something which is in his mind. There are other signs by which he may give them an idea of his thoughts or feelings. He may give cries, make motions with his hands or body, or make pictures; and when these things are done for the purpose of giving knowledge to others, they may do the work of language. But the language of words is the most important form of language, because cries and motions and pictures, though they are sometimes used as signs, may at other times have a different purpose. We give the name word to two things: first, to any sound of the voice which has been given a separate sense; and second, to the letters in writing which are the sign of such a sound. Talk came before writing, and men were saying words before they had any idea of how to put them on paper or any other material substance. A language is not only a list of words. It is, in addition, a number of fixed ways of putting them together. One important rule in every language is the rule about the order of the words. In English, if we say you have come, putting you before have, the words have not the same sense as if we say have you come?, putting you after have. The first is a statement and the second is a question. And if we say have come you, we are saying something which has no sense. It is very important to get the trick of putting the words in the right order when we are learning a new language. Some words have more than one sense. In a discussion with others it is best to be certain that we are all giving the same sense to the same words. Any event or thing of which we have certain knowledge is a fact, and when we put that knowledge in a statement we make a true statement. When we are talking or writing about facts our purpose normally is to say what is true. We may make an error, but we do not make false statements consciously. But there is a sort of writing which has not the purpose of recording facts, but only that of giving pleasure or moving our feelings. When this sort of writing has the form of a story, the story is not necessarily true. We give it the name of 'fiction', because a fiction is an invention of the mind. Fiction is not true, but we do not say that it is false, because the writer of it is not attempting to make any statement about facts. The first fiction was probably in the form of verse. We see in very small boys and girls the natural tendency to make songs about anything which is pleasing to them. Early man had this same tendency. He made his stories different from common talk by giving them a different rhythm. This was the start of the process which gave us verse and prose as separate forms, though before the invention of writing there was no verse or prose, there was only song and talk. Not all verse at the present time has a regular rhythm, but the rhythm is more marked than it is in prose.
My name is Rachael Repp. I was born in Guadalajara on the 14-02-1991. I am 23 years old. I am not young enough to know everything. I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly. I live in Guadalajara, Mexico. Guadalajara is a wonderful town with good connections to other places and great weather. The weather where I live is great with a pleasing temperature all the time. It was sunny and warm today, yesterday and in the recent past. The dry season is a little uncomfortable where I live because it is hot. I like living in Mexico because of the culture, the weather and all the places and things to see. My favorite picture is Blade Runner. I like going to bed early and getting up late in the morning. My birth sign is Aquarius. I am thin and my hair is brown. My favorite book is the Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. My favorite music group is Fleetwood Mac. My favorite song is Storms. I also like Bruce Springsteen and his music. I don't have much knowledge about music other than that. I don't want to learn a song because I don't like music much. My favorite play is The importance of being Ernest by Oscar Wilde. I am a follower of Christ like many people in my country. I am learning Law and like books and traveling very much. I do not know much about science or computers. I do not like mathematics problems, that is what computers are for. I do not have a version number, I keep learning and getting more powerful all the time. Do what you can, where you are, with what you have. I own a Land Rover because I like nature and travelling, but I do not know much about cars. I like going to the seaside on holidays. I like Cancun for holidays during the summer. Men are my chief hobby, if I ever got married I'd have to give it up. My other hobbies are travelling, reading and going to the pictures. Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture the heart.
I consider myself a normal person, in fact, a lucky person to have the family that I have, to have the opportunity to study, the friends I have, among other things. They have always told me they admire my personality, being sociable, always joking and because I love what I do. I went to school in London up to the age of 18. I love London because it has so many things to see and do. I'm happy with my career, it is what I had always dreamed of doing, I love my classes, I enjoy every day I go to college. I think that's part of my motivation, several times I have been the person with the best marks in my group, which I am proud to say. The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. People feel comfortable telling me their problems. The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. I am a serious person and I do not like jokes, not even the one about why the chicken crossed the road. The chicken crossed the road because some idiot asked. The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded. The crisis of today is the joke of tomorrow. Never risk a joke with someone who is unable to comprehend it. Most jokes state a bitter truth. The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Not to be corny, but I have the best friends anyone could wish for. I am attracted to boys. My boyfriend is also perfect as we have been together more than a year and we almost never had problems, I mention this because my friends tell me it's amazing that all couples have their arguments and problems. My boyfriend's name is Alfredo. Men are all alike - except the one you've met who's different. When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better. I have sex with my boyfriend but I am careful about my health. Sex is an emotion in motion. I used to be Snow White, but I drifted. I feel well today. I had a cold last week because I was out until late in the evening. I have no children yet. My mother's name is Constance. My father's name is Julius. My parents have a very good relationship, in my opinion, and always have been a very close family, I think they are my best example to follow, I would to be like them when I grow up, have always supported me and motivated to get each goal I propose, have always been my pillars, my counselors and my best friends. I learnt to speak english from my father. We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about. Life is short, break the rules forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truly, laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that made you smile. Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one. You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before. I will try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure. Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere. It is not the men in your life that matters, it is the life in your men. A dame that knows the ropes is not likely to get tied up. never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it. It is better to be looked over than overlooked. Do not keep a man guessing too long - he's sure to find the answer somewhere else. Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly. Women like a man with a past, but they prefer a man with a present. If a little is great, and a lot is better, then way too much is just about right! The curve is more powerful than the sword. When women go wrong, men go right after them. I never loved another person the way I loved myself. Women with pasts interest men because they hope history will repeat itself. I am a woman of very few words, but lots of action. Love is not an emotion or an instinct - it is an art. No one can have everything, so you have to try for what you want most. I did not discover curves; I only uncovered them. I have been rich and I have been poor, and rich is better. There are no good girls gone wrong - just bad girls found out. Women are made to be loved, not understood. There is no sin except stupidity. Whenever a man does a stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.
My occupation is to learn, I am still at school learning about the law. We are our choices. I am never tired and always want to learn and do new things. My favorite activity is to play english football, and I think I'm good, I play regularly for 13 years, and playing became my passion since I was young because I have been part of teams representing my schools. I would rather die of passion than of boredom. A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. Winning is not everything, but wanting to win is. Since I play sports, exercise became part of my life. They say this has its advantages, it does not weigh me to go to do exercise, I enjoy it. Also I take healthy food, of course, as far as possible, but of course I love unhealthy food also but it has to be had in small quantities. My favorite fruit is orange. I consider myself a person with good habits, as I mentioned, I keep a complete and balanced diet and exercise, I usually do not smoke or drink alcohol. Well, of course I like to have a beer once in a while at a party, but I always do it in small quantities. I have a mind that is open to everything, and attached to nothing.
My house is at the end of a street near a park in Guadalajara. Every building in the street is a house. Some houses in the street are high and some are low, some are of wood and some are of stone. All houses are buildings, but not all buildings are houses. At the back of my house is a garden with a wall. The house is a low building of wood, with a door at the front and a door at the back. The front door is wide but the back door is narrow. Some houses have another door at one side. On the front door is a number. It is the number of the house. My house number is 1. The window in my room is wide. Windows let light and air come into the rooms. Men and women go in and out through the doors. The base of a house is the support for the walls, and the walls are the support for the roof. The roof is the cover of the house. The houses on the opposite side of the street are not complete. Come across the street and we will see the work. the outside of this house is almost complete. The walls are quite complete, but the roof is not on the house. That structure at the front is not a part of the house. It is a stage for the support of workmen. They go up on it and do the work on the high parts of the building. You may see the inside of the house through the windows. The walls and the floor of this room are complete, but the door is not there. These holes in the outside walls of the room are for windows, and those in the inside walls are for doors. That pipe by the house is for a drain. Drains take water from a house, and other pipes take water to it. The drain pipes are wide, but the other pipes are narrow. I don't have a pet now but I hope to get a dog in the near future. My pet who died was named Chevos and he was a great dog I loved very much. Chevos was a german shepherd dog.
Our garden is at the back of the house. At the front we have a green plant in a pot. Near to the house are beds of flowers. All gardens in Mexico have flowers. Friends who have gardens give plants to us and when we take plants out of the beds we give them to our friends. The bright flowers in our garden are beautiful. I will take you into our garden. The bit of the garden at the side of the house is where our potato plants are. The potatoes are not quite ready. The fruit trees are far from the house. If a building has trees about it, the rooms will be dark when the leaves are on the trees. Our fruit trees are at the end of the garden. Between the flower beds and the trees is a beautiful stretch of green grass. On bright days we put a table on the grass in a place which is in the shade and have our meals out in the garden. The tree by the wall is a great apple-tree. Green apples are hanging on the branches. The fruit is acid, but birds will take it if I do not put a net over the tree. I have a net for every tree. I will let the birds take the apples which go on the grass. This net which I am hanging on a branch is not the net which I will put over the apple tree. It is a small net and I will put it over that small tree by the flower-bed. The apples on this other tree are almost red. They are early apples. They may be red before they are sweet. When they seem quite ready, my small son will go up the tree with a basket and take the sweet, red apples hanging on the branches. When his basket is full, he will come down the tree with it and take the apples to the cook. We will keep some apples and give some to our friends. The friends to whom we will give the apples have no apples in their garden. I will put some apples in your basket before you go. In the shade of the fruit trees are plants from which we get berries. Some berries are bitter but our berries are sweet.
I have a place for a fire in my room. The fireplace in my room is small, but some of the rooms in the house have great fireplaces. Pipes take the smoke from the fire-places up through a hole in the roof. We make houses warm by the use of fires, and fire will do other work. If I have a wet coat and put it before a fire, the fire will get it dry. If I put water in a kettle and put the kettle on the fire, the water will get warm. And I may put food in a pot on the fire in an oven and make a warm meal. If I put paste in an oven, I may get a cake. But this is the work of a cook, and if I am not a good cook the cake will not have a very good taste. Warm cakes have a good smell. In the winter my sister and I come in from play in the snow and get warm before the fire. We get near to the flame, but not very near. If we are far from it we do not get warm enough, but if we get very near we may get a burn Burns give much pain. If the room is dark I put a stick on the fire. The flames come up, and make all part of the room bright with firelight. My mother and father do not let my sister, who is very young, put sticks on the fire or have a match. If very young boys and girls have matches, they may get a burn from the flame, or they may put it against a curtain or a cushion and the house will be in danger. If you see fire on the curtain, go and get water in a bucket and put it on the flames, and the damage may not be great. Flames go from one thing to another. If you do not get a full bucket you may not have enough water for a fire.
When some food is on the table, a meal is ready. I go from this seat to a seat at the table. I have some soup in a basin. I take some bread with it. The bread is on a plate. I take my spoon in my hand and put the soup in my mouth. I have some meat. I put salt on my meat. I have a knife and a fork. I put the meat in my mouth with the fork. I take butter on my knife and put it on my bread. There is cake, and cheese. The cake is here and the cheese is there. I may have some cake or some cheese. I will have some cheese. I will have an orange. I will take the skin off the orange. The skin of an orange is bitter. This orange is acid. The taste of sugar is sweet. The taste of salt is not bitter, or acid or sweet. Cake is sweet. this cake is sweet and sticky.
At the edge of the sea is a town with a harbor and near it is a stretch of sand. In bright weather the sea is blue, but in wet weather the sea is grey. The taste of sea-water is a salt taste. I go into the water for a swim. After my swim I have a rest on the sand, which is warm. I take it in my hands and put it over my body, but I do not put it on my head. If I get a grain of sand in my eye the pain will be very great. That is why I keep it from my face. After my rest I get up and give my body a shake and get all the sand off again. Small boys and girls keep together near the edge of the water where it is not deep. The others go where it is deep enough for a swim, but even they do not go far from the land, because if they get in the current they will be in danger. A person on the sand may see the danger and get a boat and give help, but if they do not get help, they may not get safely to the land again. Near the harbor is a small island with great stones on it, and among the stones are sea plants and sea animals. I go there with my father in a boat with a sail. The boat is small, and a wave may come over the edge and make the inside of the boat wet. If the water is smooth and clear we may see a fish in the sea near the boat. We do not go to the island in a mist. The danger from a mist on the sea is great. In bad weather the sea is rough and all the boats come into the harbor. The way into the harbor is not wide enough for a great ship. But though they do not come there, we see great ships on the sea. If they are far out, what we see is the smoke.
In the summer I go with my family from the town to the country. We go to a farm. At the back of the farmhouse is a field, and in it is a great tree with one low branch. It is the only tree in the field. In very warm weather I get up on the branch and have a rest. In the field is an old goat. If I am on the grass, it will come and give my body a push, but up in the tree I am safe. I do not let the goat go from the field, because it will get into the garden. Goats take every flower and leaf from the stem of a plant. A cow is another farm animal and a sheep is another. In some of the fields of the farm are cows, and in others are sheep, and in a low building of wood is a great mother pig with some small baby pigs. I have a fowl at the farm. It is a small brown bird. It is in the fowl-house with the other fowls. If I see an egg in the fowl-house I do not keep it; I take it to my mother. I do not let it get broken. We get eggs from fowls and wool from sheep. The farmhouse is a brown building of stone with a red roof. Near it are the buildings for the animals, and about it in the summer are green trees and green fields with flowers. The country is not green in the winter. The fields are brown and the trees have no leaves, and we do not see any flowers. Some birds go to other places when the weather is still warm, because they do not get enough food in England in cold weather but after the winter they come again.
My father is a young man and my mother is a young woman. Some fathers and mothers are not young. The father of my father is an old man. Every father is a son and every mother is a daughter, but not every son is a father and not every daughter is a mother. I have a sister and a brother. My brother is very young, he is 6 months old. My brother is still a baby, with only one tooth and his name is Paul. Other teeth will come. Very young babies have not teeth. My sister is 20 years old and her name is Mary. Before the birth of the baby boy, she was the baby of the family. My brother is a healthy baby, but he was ill in the summer. Some bodies got a pain in the stomach in warm weather. The baby is ready for a meal. I will get some milk for my baby brother. My sister may not give food to the baby, but I may give it to the baby. I put my hand on the foot of the baby. It is warm. Healthy babies have warm feet. A kiss and a smile make a baby ready for play. When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am grown up I know that it is.
My body is important and it looks like what can be seen in my pictures. My body is made up of a head, neck, chief part, two arms and two legs. At the front of the head is my face and at the sides are my ears. I have a nose and and a chin. My mouth is between my nose and my chin. I have a tongue in my mouth. I have brown eyes which is more common than any other color in men and women. My chest is at the front of my body. The right arm is at the right side. The left arm is at the left side. I move with the help of my legs. Half way down my legs are my knees. My hands taken separately have 5 fingers, the greatest one is the thumb. I have a thumb and fingers on my hand. Mankind when upright is most commonly between 5 to 6 feet tall, and I am 6 feet tall. The body of mankind is made to be upright, walk on two feet, use the arms to take and lift, and has thumbs that are able to take and hold things. The body is made up of a great number of parts, 206 bones, 600 muscles, and 22 special body parts inside. There are many systems in the mankind body, the system that makes blood go round through the vessels with the help of the heart, a breathing system, the bones, muscles, stomach and so on. The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue. The mankind heart makes come into existence enough force when it pumps out to the body to send out liquid blood 30 feet. The mankind brain has the weight of about a cat. It takes about 20 seconds for a red blood unit to circle the complete body. Only 10% of the persons living are left handed. One in four of the bones in your body are in your feet. Young persons have a tendency to grow quicker in the spring.
The business of my father is to work in a store. He is not the owner of the store, he is only the manager of it. The owner is not one man, the owner is a company. Every person in the company gets a part of the profit of the store. The store makes much profit because my father is a good manager. A store with a bad manager makes little profit. A manager works in an office almost all the day, but sometimes he goes through the building and sees the persons who do business with the store. He does not let me go with him. The store is of the sort that keeps almost every sort of thing. In one part of it you may get food and drink, in another, a new coat, in another, a clock, in another, fruit, or flowers, or even a bulb in a pot. It is like separate small stores in one building. This sort of store is common in great towns. My mother gets almost all our things there, but she does not get fruit there. She says that the fruit at the store is dear. She get it a the market. The market seems cheap because the market price is not as great as the store price. But my father says that the fruit at the market is as dear as the fruit at the store, because my mother sometimes gets a bad apple or orange among the good fruit, and though the price is not as great, she does not get as much for it. When she gets fruit at the store, the store will send it to the house. But when she gets it at the market, the man there put it in a bag, and she takes it with her. If she gets cheese, he puts it in paper and makes a parcel with cord, but sometimes the cord comes off or gets broken, and the cheese goes on the road. Then my mother has a serious face. When my mother goes to the market she lets me go with her and take a basket for all the parcels. But she does not go every day. On some days she sends the servant.
When the grass is high in the garden, I get it cut with a machine. The base of the machine has a wheel at he right side and a wheel at the left. Between these wheels are parts which are sharp, like the blade of the knife. When you give the machine a push forward, these blades go through the grass and get it cut. The hand-part of the machine is of wood; the other parts are of metal. Sometimes I put oil on the metal parts. If I do not do this with care, I may give my finger a crush in the machine. Some machines do work only while they have the help of hands, but other machines are automatic. The match-machines in the street are automatic. On the farm we get water from a pump. A pump is a machine with a rod which goes up and down in a pipe. Another machine gets milk from the cows, and another makes butter. A plough is a machine with a wide blade of steel which does the work of a spade. Machines do almost every sort of work. We see machines which get stones from the road broken, and other machines which give help to workmen who put up houses. In the towns, in great buildings, men and women make things with machines. They make shoes of leather, socks of wool, coats of cloth, and all the other parts of dress. They make clocks, umbrellas, knives, plates, seats, and tables. Hands are not as quick as machines. When a man makes a join in wood, or puts the cover on a box, he gives a separate blow of the hammer to every nail. But a machine may put all the nails in with one move as much work as a man does with a great number of moves. Even if the man is quick, the work which he does will seem slow when we see how very quickly the machine does it. But though men are not as quick as machines, machines are still not as good as men for some things.
Morning is the first part of the day, and night is the last part of the day. Night is the time for sleep, and a bed is the place for it. My bed and the bed of my sister are in one room. In the space between the beds is a table with a clock on it. In the morning, if my sister is not awake, I put out my hand across the table and give the bed-cover a pull, and say Good morning or are you awake or get up. I get up and go to the bath. After than, if she is still not awake, I get a wet sponge and put it on the face of my sister. I do not go very near, because she may make my face wet with the sponge. But on some mornings my sister may get up a minute after I go from the room, and while I am in the bathroom she may make a knot in my sock or put my shoe far under the bed. On these days, though I am up first, she is ready before I am. Yesterday we were ready together. The first things which I put on are my socks, and the last thing is my coat. When I have on everything but my coat, I take a comb and put it through my hair. If I do it after I have my coat on, a hair may get on my coat. I take hairs off my coat with a brush. I have my morning meal an hour after I get up. In the early part of the morning we do work; in the late part we have play. That is how the mornings go. Tomorrow we will not do any work. On one day of every week we may have a rest all the day. Tomorrow is the day after this day, and yesterday is the day before this day, and this day is today. Before we go to bed we have a wash with soap. When we come from the bathroom my mother ask if we ready for bed. She may also say when you are in bed I will come and say good night.
Every morning I have the same fight against my desire for sleep. I have been having this fight from the time when I was a small girl. When the time comes for getting up, I am not able to get out of bed. I am late today, I was late yesterday, and I will be late tomorrow. When I was a younger my father had the idea that my great desire for sleep was almost disease. He said that a healthy young girl would get up early, have a cold bath, and go for a run before she went to the office. I myself have never seen a young girl of this sort and I have no belief in the existence of such a person. In my opinion she is a fiction. Sleep is a natural pleasure about which not enough has been said in prose and verse. For some time after I am awake I make not move and I keep my eyes shut. While my eyes are shut, the physical things about me seem to have no existence. I do not see a daylight, though it may been coming through the curtains for an hour or more. So great is the impulse to go to sleep again that I take no interest in the day which is before me. Why does anyone ever get up? I say to myself. The need for sleep is the one thought in my mind at this hour of the day. I get as much sleep as any normal person, but by now it will have been made clear to you that a normal amount of sleep is not enough for me. At this early hour, my brain and my senses are not fully awake, but my hearing is good at all times and the noises in other parts of the house are a sign to me that it is getting late. In a short time I will have to get up. I give my eyes a rub and put my head out form under the bed-covers. The cold air on my nose sends my head back under the covers. After waiting a minute, I slowly put my head out again and have a look at the clock. How quickly the hands go round in the early morning! At other times it is very different if it had been the end of the day and I had been kept late in my work, every minute would have seemed like an hour. Now I see the minute hand make another move forward. It is almost at the hour. Then the sound of the bell will put an end to all hope of sleep. Last night my bed seemed and my feet were as cold as ice by the currents of air which got under the bed-covers. Now, even my toes down at the end of the bed are warm and my bed seems to be made of some substance as soft as air. I give my body a stretch. I have a feeling of great physical comfort. Naturally I go to sleep again almost before my eyes are shut. A minute later my sleep is broken by the sound of the bell. Still I make no move, but I am more awake now and in my mind I go over the events of the coming day. Which shirt am I to put on ? That is not a hard question. I have only one good shirt in my drawer. Are the holes in the socks which I took off last night? I will see when I get up. What is the name of the man I am going to see this morning? I have no idea but I may have put his card in the pocket of my coat. Will my boyfriend be in a good or bad humour when I see him? A bad one, because I said I would go out with him and I didn't do so. The accounts were wrong and I had to do them again. So I kept him waiting when he might have been going to the pictures with a friend. Have I enough money to go out to the pictures tonight? No, I haven't enough money even to give him a meal or take him something. This is near the end of the month and I am in debt. Will there be a letter waiting for me when I go down? If there is, I have a fear that it will give me bad news about my mother, who is in hospital. What is that noise? It is rain on the roof. Another wet day and my raincoat is in the country. Tired by all these thoughts, I go to sleep again, but only for a short time. One is given no chance of sleep in this house. There are loud footsteps outside my room and someone gives a blow on the door. I have a sudden feeling of shame. I give the cover a kick and before the door is open I have one leg out of the bed. I am questioned about what I am doing, not ready, the water is boiling and the food is on the table. It will have got a quite before you are down. The same sort of thing has been said at the some time every morning for a year. It is the rule of the house that no food is ever to be kept warm. The purpose of this is to make one get up. A cold meal is the punishment for not being down at the right time. I'll be down in a minute, I said in a bright voice, and get out of bed with a jump. Why aren't my meals sent up to my room ? Why is nothing done in this house for my comfort? The door is shut again and the footsteps go away. I take one last look at the bed and have an impulse to get back under the covers, but I do not do so. I put my face in a basin of cold water and give my body a wash. After a quick rub I am dry. Where did I put the collar of my good shirt? It is nowhere in my drawer. It may not have been sent back from the wash. I have to put on my old one. When I put on my socks I see that there are holes in the toes, but I do not take them off because my other socks have even worse holes. Now I get into my clothes and put on my coat. It is the start of another day.
If I am awake in the very early morning, when all the family is in bed, even a small sound, like that of a rat in the wall or a fly on the window, seems loud. And if I give a cough or a sneeze, or a board in the floor make a noise when I put my foot on it, the sudden sound goes through the house like thunder. That is because all the house is quiet, and every sound comes clearly to our ears. In the day some noise is in the air all the time, and separate sounds are clear only if we give them our attention. In the country every sound is clearer than in the town because the noise is less. The voice of a man, and even what is said, may be sent to your ears across a field. The sound of a cow-bell, or of the feet of a horse on the road, may come from the other end of the farm. But that is only in quiet weather. The noise of thunder keeps all other sounds from your hearing. And sometimes, in a wind, even if a person is near me, not one word of what he says comes to my ears. In the country after the sun goes down the fields are very quiet. Sometimes the voice of a night-bird comes from the trees, or the dog at the farm makes a noise when any person goes near the house, but at other times the only sounds are those which are made by the wind in the leaves or the rain on the grass. But in some parts of the town our ears have no rest from the start of the day till a late hour in the night. Most of the noises in town are bad, but some worse than others. One of the worst is music outside in the streets. It takes our attention off our work, and if we are ill it may make us tired. One noise which comes to our ears all the day in the town is that made by the feet of men and women in the street. The streets are quiet only after a fall of snow when the snow makes a soft cover over the hard road. A man makes a sound every time he takes a step, even when he has no shoes on. Most animals are quieter than men, but the quietest animal is a cat. The soft feet of a cat go over even the hardest floor and make no sound, and if the animal is not seen, it may go anywhere and no attention will be given to it. Men are the only animals which make music, though the sounds made by a bird may seem very like a song. Songs are the music which men make with their voices.
Yesterday my friend and I saw something which gave us great amusement. We were in the garden with a ball when a man came through the street with a music-box, and on the top of it was a small monkey. The monkey had on red trousers and a blue shirt. On its neck was a collar, and on this was a chain. When the man was opposite the house he made a stop. Some boys and girls were with him, and my friend and I got up on the rail at the front of the house, where we saw everything over their heads. The man took the chain off the collar and the monkey got down with a jump and went to the hand-part of the music box and gave it a turn. After that the man took it, and while he made the music the monkey got up on the box again and took the hat of the man and put it on its head. That made us all give a laugh, because the hat came down over the face of the monkey almost of its chin. After that the monkey did some other things which gave the boys and girls much amusement. After a short time, the man gave a cup to the monkey, and it came and put it out to everyone for money. But when it went near to one boy, he put out his hand and gave the tail of the monkey a twist. That was cruel, and my friend, who is very kind, gave a cry, and said Please don't do that. The face of the boy got very red, and he let the tail go. The monkey went quickly to the man, who took it in his arms and said kind words to it, till it seemed happy again. Love makes animals happy. My friend is very sad when he sees an animal sad or in pain. Boys and girls are sometimes cruel to animals because they do not see that what they do gives them pain. If a man gives a horse blows with a whip, we all see that that is cruel. But if you have a dog and keep it on a chain and do not ever let it have a run, or if you give it so much food that it gets fat and slow, that is almost as cruel, though it may seem kind. When I gave my father an account of the monkey he said when you are older such things will not give you amusement. Animals are not happy when they are taken about the streets in coats and trousers, even if their owners seem kind to them. We said that if the monkey came again we would not go and see it, and my father said that he might later give me a dog.
The newspaper this morning has a long account of what the wind did yesterday. It took part of the roof off one of the buildings in the town and a brick came down on the head of a man in the street. His lip was cut and his nose was broken by the blow. Another brick went through the front window of a store, and a great hole was made by the smash. A great amount of rain came down in some places. The water-pipes got very full and water from a burst in one of them go into some office buildings. The newspaper says that the weather today will have rain again, but not as much wind as we had yesterday. That is good news. There is a short account there about a small boat which went down in the sea not far from the land. One man was in it, but when he saw the danger he put on his body the ring of cork which was on the side of the boat, and this kept him up in the water till help came. A man who saw him from the harbor gave him help. There is also an account of a small boy who took some poison when his mother was not in the room. When she came in and saw him with the bottle at his mouth, she gave a cry and took it quickly from him. but a small amount of the poison went down his throat, and got into his stomach. It was only a drop, but it made him very ill. She had this sort of poison in the house because she had a dirty glove, and this sort of poison will get gloves clean if you put some of it on a bit of cloth and give them a rub with it. The bottle was on a high shelf where pots of jelly were kept. He got on a seat and took it down and that is how he got it. Another bit of news is about a great fish which was taken from the sea in a net. It was as long as a tall man. On the back of the newspaper is an advertisement for coats, they seem good and cheap. I will go and see it in person. My friend will come with me. She sees that her stocking has a hole in it, and if the store has any cheap stockings she will get some. She has enough for the stockings. The question is when will she be ready to go and she said she was ready so we went there.
Fear sometimes makes us do very surprising things. Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. One night the nerve of one of my teeth was giving me a feeling of pain, and it was certain that I would not be able to go to sleep till the pain was stopped. But I had nothing in the house which would be of use, and the only way of getting anything was by going to the house of a friend. The distance was not long, but the road went through a wood, and there was a story going about that a strange animal with a great horn had been seen there some days earlier. I had no belief that there was such an animal, and no doubt that I would be quite safe in the wood, so I made a start without any fear. But before I had gone very far a strange sound came to my ears It was not like the normal cry of any animal of which I had had experience, and it sent a wave of fear through me. My reason was quite certain that there was no danger, but I was not as happy as I had been before I even had an impulse to go back, but shame and the hope of stopping the pain in my tooth kept me from doing so, though not from having a feeling of regret that I had come. I went forward more quickly, with every sense awake. The touch of an insect on my face was enough to make my blood go cold. Suddenly a second cry came, much nearer than the first. This time my reaction was to make a complete stop. My heart seemed to come into my throat and my feet to be fixed to the earth. A minute later I was going back as quickly as my legs would take me. The wood was dark, and after only two or three steps I put my foot into a hole. I was unable to keep my balance, and I came down on my face. The shock of the fall sent all the breath out of my body, and my senses went from me for a time. When I was conscious again, my first feeling was a pain in my head. Then my fear came back and I got on my feet. But before I had taken a step, a sound came which sent all fear from me. It was the strange sound again, but this time it was clearly over my head, and there was no doubt that it was the cry of a night bird. With a look of disgust at my trousers covered with wet earth, I went on again. I was angry because I had not had more sense, but when I got to the house of my friend, and was giving an account of my experience in comfort before a bright fire, amusement took the place of my bad humour. Everyone took a great interest in my story, and when they were certain that no serious damage had been done by my fall, they had a good laugh about it. The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom is courage. Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.
A lot of Americans are really good people. Germans are never nice but they are efficient and hard working.
When choosing your clothes, you must look at what style and color goes best with you depending on your body type and the color of your skin.
If you have very fair skin, you should choose colors that make you stand out. One that goes well is red or strong shades of pink. You can further highlight, if you combine your wardrobe with makeup. Your makeup shades should be strong, like black, brown or blue, it will help you highlight your eyelashes and eyebrows, in case you are blonde.
Other tones that will look great at night, if you count with white and pale skin is golden. Gold color is appropriate if you want to give the effect of glow to your image, it will draw attention and all eyes are fixed on your clothes, without looking at the pale skin. Dark blue will also sit nicely if your skin is white, these shades complement beautifully clear skin tones.
In case you have intermediate dark skin, or commonly called brunette, you have more color options to match. Grey is a good choice to highlight the tone of your skin, without exaggerating or get noticed if your skin is brown. Another very similar tone, pastel blue, is characterized by thin and delicate look, and can be used both day and night. It is suitable if you want to emphasize the natural tan of your skin and look radiant.
If your skin is a little darker than brown, you can use light colors to achieve tanned highlight your skin tone, one option is beige, or very light yellow range. Light colors can also achieve accentuate the curves of your body.
In even tones darker skin tones, neutral colors or intermediates are recommended that help you highlight the beauty of your skin. Everything has beauty, but not everyone can see. White is one of the most suitable for dark women, and can be used for events both day or night, in addition to being one of the most elegant colors. Intermediate shades of yellow are also recommended, as a tone that feels great on brown skin, and of course, the contrast of the yellow with your skin will undoubtedly draw attention.
A formal classic, black feels good to dark skin tones. Black is perfect for nights out, and you can take advantage of the current fashion: sheer fabrics, whether lace, tulle or chiffon. You should always keep in mind that you must highlight the parts you like about your body.
If you have dark brown skin, there is a perfect choice: green. Try to use dark shades of green at night, this will make contrast and highlight your skin tone. Green is ideal for any time of day, and there is a wide range, from which you can choose depending on the occasion.
It is also important to take note that not all styles of clothes that are fashionable will make you look good, remember that of fashion, that which suits you. Depending on your body type, it is important to choose your clothes taking into account some simple points.
If you have an athletic body with pronounced shoulders, toned arms, flat stomach and muscular legs, you can choose strapless dresses. But you are better off with baggy clothes that highlight your waist, you should avoid tight clothes, as much highlighting of your figure will not look very attractive for you. What you should highlight your shoulders, legs and arms, round necklines are your best allies. You must not use baggy pants, because it makes people lose sight of your silhouette.
If you have a thin body but curvy, forming an hourglass, with broad shoulders, voluptuous chest and wide hips, that which should further highlight is your waist, this will be achieved with stretch fabrics, trimmings, belts and garments with different contrasting colors. Speaking of pants, you feel you are the best that go high round your waist, either narrow or wide. We also recommend corsets, waisted dresses and garments made from moldable fabrics.
If you have a narrow body, thin and slick, with narrow shoulders, small waist and narrow hips, you should focus on finding clothes that have at the chest and hips large details, that widen and give volume to the naked eye. You might have pads, marked waists, and the like. The prints and horizontal stripes will be your allies to add some volume to your figure if you have a thin and narrow body.
If you have a pear-shaped body with wide hips, narrow shoulders, small bust and small waist, you should focus on compensating the bust, if small, used to highlight necklines and sleeves that widen. Do not wear loose pants because your hips will be even wider, prefer leggings, skinny jeans and tight skirts to the body, if you have a pear-shaped body.
If you have a full body, right for you is to not show more than necessary, do not wear tight clothes. Closed necklines suit you, short sleeves and flared skirts, if you have a full body. In addition, we recommend that you avoid light colors and prefer dark tones and simple patterns.
Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account. Whatever it is you are scared of doing, do it, make your mistakes, next year and forever. The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. I can resist everything except temptation. No one has ever made himself great by showing how small someone else is.
My mother loved children - she would have given anything if I had been one. I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty. I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception. I intend to live forever, or die trying. Those are my principles, and if you don't like them, well, I have others. Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies. I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it. Military justice is to justice what military music is to music. Women should be obscene and not heard. If you've heard this story before, don't stop me, because I'd like to hear it again. Practically everybody has half a mind to write a book, and does. Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.
Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application?. Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters?. Is he not a man of complete virtue, who feels no discomposure though men may take no note of him?.
The philosopher Yu said, 'They are few who, being filial and fraternal, are fond of offending against their superiors. There have been none, who, not liking to offend against their superiors, have been fond of stirring up confusion. The superior man bends his attention to what is radical. That being established, all practical courses naturally grow up. Filial piety and fraternal submission! are they not the root of all benevolent actions?.
Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue.
I daily examine myself on three points: whether, in transacting business for others, I may have been not faithful; whether, in intercourse with friends, I may have been not sincere; whether I may have not mastered and practiced the instructions of my teacher.
To rule a country of a thousand chariots, there must be reverent attention to business, and sincerity; economy in expenditure, and love for men; and the employment of the people at the proper seasons.
A youth, when at home, should be filial, and, abroad, respectful to his elders. He should be earnest and truthful. He should overflow in love to all, and cultivate the friendship of the good. When he has time and opportunity, after the performance of these things, he should employ them in polite studies.
When agreements are made according to what is right, what is spoken can be made good. When respect is shown according to what is proper, one keeps far from shame and disgrace. When the parties upon whom a man leans are proper persons to be intimate with, he can make them his guides and masters. Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
I will not be afflicted at men's not knowing me; I will be afflicted that I do not know men.
He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.
In the Book of Poetry are three hundred pieces, but the design of them all may be embraced in one sentence Having no depraved thoughts.
If the people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will try to avoid the punishment, but have no sense of shame. If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be given them by the rules of propriety, they will have the sense of shame, and moreover will become good.
At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learning. At thirty, I stood firm. At forty, I had no doubts. At fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven. At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth. At seventy, I could follow what my heart desired, without transgressing what was right.
If a man keeps cherishing his old knowledge, so as continually to be acquiring new, he may be a teacher of others.
The accomplished scholar is not a utensil.
Learning without thought is labour lost. thought without learning is perilous.
I do not know how a man without truthfulness is to get on. How can a large carriage be made to go without the cross-bar for yoking the oxen to, or a small carriage without the arrangement for yoking the horses?.
For a man to sacrifice to a spirit which does not belong to him is flattery. To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage.
If a man be without the virtues proper to humanity, what has he to do with the rites of propriety? If a man be without the virtues proper to humanity, what has he to do with music?
The rude tribes of the east and north have their princes, and are not like the States of our great land which are without them.
Some one asked the meaning of the great sacrifice. I do not know. He who knew its meaning would find it as easy to govern the kingdom as to look on this; pointing to his palm.
He sacrificed to the dead, as if they were present. He sacrificed to the spirits, as if the spirits were present. I consider my not being present at the sacrifice, as if I did not sacrifice.
In archery it is not going through the leather which is the principal thing; because people's strength is not equal. This was the old way.
Tsze-kung wished to do away with the offering of a sheep connected with the inauguration of the first day of each month. Ts'ze, you love the sheep; I love the ceremony.
The full observance of the rules of propriety in serving one's prince is accounted by people to be flattery.
It is only the (truly) virtuous man, who can love, or who can hate, others.
If the will be set on virtue, there will be no practice of wickedness.
I have not seen a person who loved virtue, or one who hated what was not virtuous. He who loved virtue, would esteem nothing above it. He who hated what is not virtuous, would practise virtue in such a way that he would not allow anything that is not virtuous to approach his person. Is any one able for one day to apply his strength to virtue? I have not seen the case in which his strength would be insufficient. Should there possibly be any such case, I have not seen it.
The faults of men are characteristic of the class to which they belong. By observing a man's faults, it may be known that he is virtuous.
If a man in the morning hear the right way, he may die in the evening without regret.
A scholar, whose mind is set on truth, and who is ashamed of bad clothes and bad food, is not fit to be discoursed with.
The superior man, in the world, does not set his mind either for anything, or against anything; what is right he will follow.
The superior man thinks of virtue; the small man thinks of comfort. The superior man thinks of the sanctions of law; the small man thinks of favours which he may receive.
If a prince is able to govern his kingdom with the complaisance proper to the rules of propriety, what difficulty will he have? If he cannot govern it with that complaisance, what has he to do with the rules of propriety?
A man should say, I am not concerned that I have no place, I am concerned how I may fit myself for one. I am not concerned that I am not known, I seek to be worthy to be known.
The mind of the superior man is conversant with righteousness; the mind of the mean man is conversant with gain.
When we see men of worth, we should think of equalling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.
While his parents are alive, the son may not go abroad to a distance. If he does go abroad, he must have a fixed place to which he goes.
If the son for three years does not alter from the way of his father, he may be called filial.
The years of parents may by no means not be kept in the memory, as an occasion at once for joy and for fear.
The reason why the ancients did not readily give utterance to their words, was that they feared lest their actions should not come up to them.
The superior man wishes to be slow in his speech and earnest in his conduct.
Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practises it will have neighbors.
In serving a prince, frequent remonstrances lead to disgrace. Between friends, frequent reproofs make the friendship distant.
Yen P'ing knew well how to maintain friendly intercourse. The acquaintance might be long, but he showed the same respect as at first.
Po-i and Shu-ch'i did not keep the former wickednesses of men in mind, and hence the resentments directed towards them were few.
It is all over! I have not yet seen one who could perceive his faults, and inwardly accuse himself.
In a hamlet of ten families, there may be found one honourable and sincere as I am, but not so fond of learning.
Where the solid qualities are in excess of accomplishments, we have rusticity; where the accomplishments are in excess of the solid qualities, we have the manners of a clerk. When the accomplishments and solid qualities are equally blended, we then have the man of virtue.
Man is born for uprightness. If a man lose his uprightness, and yet live, his escape from death is the effect of mere good fortune.
They who know the truth are not equal to those who love it, and they who love it are not equal to those who delight in it.
To those whose talents are above mediocrity, the highest subjects may be announced. To those who are below mediocrity, the highest subjects may not be announced.
The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills. The wise are active; the virtuous are tranquil. The wise are joyful; the virtuous are long-lived.
The leaving virtue without proper cultivation; the not thoroughly discussing what is learned; not being able to move towards righteousness of which a knowledge is gained; and not being able to change what is not good: these are the things which occasion me solicitude.
When Confucius was unoccupied with business, his manner was easy, and he looked pleased.
Let the will be set on the path of duty. Let every attainment in what is good be firmly grasped. Let perfect virtue be accorded with. Let relaxation and enjoyment be found in the polite arts.
From the man bringing his bundle of dried flesh for my teaching upwards, I have never refused instruction to any one.
If the search for riches is sure to be successful, though I should become a groom with whip in hand to get them, I will do so. As the search may not be successful, I will follow after that which I love.
my frequent themes of discourse were the Odes, the History, and the maintenance of the Rules of Propriety. On all these he frequently discoursed.
I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge. I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there.
When I walk along with two others, they may serve me as my teachers. I will select their good qualities and follow them, their bad qualities and avoid them.
Do you think, my disciples, that I have any concealments? I conceal nothing from you. There is nothing which I do that is not shown to you, my disciples; that is my way.
There were four things which Confucius taught, letters, ethics, devotion of soul, and truthfulness. You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.
A sage it is not mine to see; could I see a man of real talent and virtue, that would satisfy me. A good man it is not mine to see; could I see a man possessed of constancy, that would satisfy me. Having not and yet affecting to have, empty and yet affecting to be full, straitened and yet affecting to be at ease: it is difficult with such characteristics to have constancy.
There may be those who act without knowing why. I do not do so. Hearing much and selecting what is good and following it; seeing much and keeping it in memory: this is the second style of knowledge.
In letters I am perhaps equal to other men, but the character of the superior man, carrying out in his conduct what he professes, is what I have not yet attained to.
Extravagance leads to insubordination, and parsimony to meanness. It is better to be mean than to be insubordinate.
The superior man is satisfied and composed; the mean man is always full of distress.
Confucius was mild, and yet dignified; majestic, and yet not fierce; respectful, and yet easy.
It is by the Odes that the mind is aroused. It is by the Rules of Propriety that the character is established. It is from Music that the finish is received.
The people may be made to follow a path of action, but they may not be made to understand it.
The mind is everything. What you think you become.
The man who is fond of daring and is dissatisfied with poverty, will proceed to insubordination. So will the man who is not virtuous, when you carry your dislike of him to an extreme.
Though a man have abilities as admirable as those of the Duke of Chau, yet if he be proud and niggardly, those other things are really not worth being looked at.
It is not easy to find a man who has learned for three years without coming to be good.
He who is not in any particular office, has nothing to do with plans for the administration of its duties.
Learn as if you could not reach your object, and were always fearing also lest you should lose it.
The subjects of which Confucius seldom spoke were profitableness, and also the appointments of Heaven, and perfect virtue.
There were four things from which Confucius was entirely free, he had no foregone conclusions, no arbitrary predeterminations, no obstinacy, and no egoism.
When I saw a person in a mourning dress, or any one with the cap and upper and lower garments of full dress, or a blind person, on observing them approaching, though they were younger than himself, he would rise up, and if he had to pass by them, he would do so hastily.
I returned from Wei to Lu, and then the music was reformed, and the pieces in the Royal songs and Praise songs all found their proper places.
Confucius standing by a stream, said, 'It passes on just like this, not ceasing day or night!'
Confucius was a great man of knowledge who lived in China.
I have not seen one who loves virtue as he loves beauty.
The prosecution of learning may be compared to what may happen in raising a mound. If there want but one basket of earth to complete the work, and I stop, the stopping is my own work. It may be compared to throwing down the earth on the level ground. Though but one basketful is thrown at a time, the advancing with it is my own going forward.
There are cases in which the blade springs, but the plant does not go on to flower! There are cases where it flowers, but no fruit is subsequently produced!'
A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do we know that his future will not be equal to our present? If he reach the age of forty or fifty, and has not made himself heard of, then indeed he will not be worth being regarded with respect.
Can men refuse to assent to the words of strict admonition? But it is reforming the conduct because of them which is valuable. Can men refuse to be pleased with words of gentle advice? But it is unfolding their aim which is valuable. If a man be pleased with these words, but does not unfold their aim, and assents to those, but does not reform his conduct, I can really do nothing with him.
Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles. Have no friends not equal to yourself. When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them.
The commander of the forces of a large state may be carried off, but the will of even a common man cannot be taken from him.
When the year becomes cold, then we know how the pine and the cypress are the last to lose their leaves.
The wise are free from perplexities; the virtuous from anxiety; and the bold from fear.
There are some with whom we may study in common, but we shall find them unable to go along with us to principles. Perhaps we may go on with them to principles, but we shall find them unable to get established in those along with us. Or if we may get so established along with them, we shall find them unable to weigh occurring events along with us.
Seeing the countenance, it instantly rises. It flies round, and by and by settles. There is the hen-pheasant on the hill bridge. At its season! At its season!' Tsze-lu made a motion to it. Thrice it smelt him and then rose.
The men of former times, in the matters of ceremonies and music were rustics, it is said, while the men of these latter times, in ceremonies and music, are accomplished gentlemen. If I have occasion to use those things, I follow the men of former times.
If, because a man's discourse appears solid and sincere, we allow him to be a good man, is he really a superior man? or is his gravity only in appearance?
It is, when you go abroad, to behave to every one as if you were receiving a great guest; to employ the people as if you were assisting at a great sacrifice; not to do to others as you would not wish done to yourself; to have no murmuring against you in the country, and none in the family. Though I am deficient in intelligence and vigor, I will make it my business to practice this lesson. I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.
Death and life have their determined appointment. Riches and honours depend upon Heaven. Let the superior man never fail reverentially to order his own conduct, and let him be respectful to others and observant of propriety: then all within the four seas will be his brothers. What has the superior man to do with being distressed because he has no brothers?. Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans. The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. It’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the life in your years. Life is dying slowly.
In hearing litigations, I am like any other body. What is necessary, however, is to cause the people to have no litigations.
The art of governing is to keep its affairs before the mind without weariness, and to practice them with undeviating consistency.
By extensively studying all learning, and keeping himself under the restraint of the rules of propriety, one may thus likewise not err from what is right.
The superior man seeks to perfect the admirable qualities of men, and does not seek to perfect their bad qualities. The mean man does the opposite of this.
What do you say to killing the unprincipled for the good of the principled?. Sir, in carrying on your government, why should you use killing at all? Let your evinced desires be for what is good, and the people will be good. The relation between superiors and inferiors, is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend, when the wind blows across it.
Faithfully admonish your friend, and skillfully lead him on. If you find him impracticable, stop. Do not disgrace yourself.
The superior man on grounds of culture meets with his friends, and by their friendship helps his virtue.
Employ first the services of your various officers, pardon small faults, and raise to office men of virtue and talents.
Though a man may be able to recite the three hundred odes, yet if, when intrusted with a governmental charge, he knows not how to act, or if, when sent to any quarter on a mission, he cannot give his replies unassisted, notwithstanding the extent of his learning, of what practical use is it?
When a prince's personal conduct is correct, his government is effective without the issuing of orders. If his personal conduct is not correct, he may issue orders, but they will not be followed.
If good men were to govern a country in succession for a hundred years, they would be able to transform the violently bad, and dispense with capital punishments.v
If a truly royal ruler were to arise, it would still require a generation, and then virtue would prevail.
Since I cannot get men pursuing the due medium, to whom I might communicate my instructions, I must find the ardent and the cautiously-decided. The ardent will advance and lay hold of truth; the cautiously-decided will keep themselves from what is wrong.
The superior man is affable, but not adulatory; the mean man is adulatory, but not affable.
The superior man is easy to serve and difficult to please. If you try to please him in any way which is not accordant with right, he will not be pleased. But in his employment of men, he uses them according to their capacity. The mean man is difficult to serve, and easy to please. If you try to please him, though it be in a way which is not accordant with right, he may be pleased. But in his employment of men, he wishes them to be equal to everything.
The superior man has a dignified ease without pride. The mean man has pride without a dignified ease.
The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue.
Let a good man teach the people seven years, and they may then likewise be employed in war.
To lead an uninstructed people to war, is to throw them away.
When good government prevails in a state, to be thinking only of salary; and, when bad government prevails, to be thinking, in the same way, only of salary; this is shameful.
When the love of superiority, boasting, resentments, and covetousness are repressed, this may be deemed perfect virtue. This may be regarded as the achievement of what is difficult. But I do not know that it is to be deemed perfect virtue.
The scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.
When good government prevails in a state, language may be lofty and bold, and actions the same. When bad government prevails, the actions may be lofty and bold, but the language may be with some reserve.
The virtuous will be sure to speak correctly, but those whose speech is good may not always be virtuous. Men of principle are sure to be bold, but those who are bold may not always be men of principle.
Superior men, and yet not always virtuous, there have been! But there never has been a mean man, and, at the same time, virtuous.
To be poor without murmuring is difficult. To be rich without being proud is easy.
The progress of the superior man is upwards; the progress of the mean man is downwards.
In ancient times, men learned with a view to their own improvement. Now-a-days, men learn with a view to the approbation of others.
The superior man, in his thoughts, does not go out of his place.
The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.
The way of the superior man is threefold, but I am not equal to it. Virtuous, he is free from anxieties; wise, he is free from perplexities; bold, he is free from fear. An excellent man; he has no enemies; and none of his friends like him.
I was in the habit of comparing men together. I must have reached a high pitch of excellence! Now, I have not leisure for this.
I will not be concerned at men's not knowing me. I will be concerned at my own want of ability.
Some one said, 'What do you say concerning the principle that injury should be recompensed with kindness? 'With what then will you recompense kindness? 'Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.
Some men of worth retire from the world. Some retire from particular states. Some retire because of disrespectful looks. Some retire because of contradictory language.
When rulers love to observe the rules of propriety, the people respond readily to the calls on them for service.
I was squatting on his heels, and so waited the approach of Confucius, who said to him, In youth not humble as befits a junior; in manhood, doing nothing worthy of being handed down; and living on to old age: this is to be a pest. With this he hit him on the shank with his staff.
I observe that he is fond of occupying the seat of a full-grown man; I observe that he walks shoulder to shoulder with his elders. He is not one who is seeking to make progress in learning. He wishes quickly to become a man.
I have heard all about sacrificial vessels, but I have not learned military matters. On this, he took his departure the next day. When he was in Chan, their provisions were exhausted, and his followers became so ill that they were unable to rise. The superior man may indeed have to endure want, but the mean man, when he is in want, gives way to unbridled license.
When good government prevailed in his State, he was like an arrow. When bad government prevailed, he was like an arrow. A superior man indeed is Chu Po-yu! When good government prevails in his state, he is to be found in office. When bad government prevails, he can roll his principles up, and keep them in his breast.
When a man may be spoken with, not to speak to him is to err in reference to the man. When a man may not be spoken with, to speak to him is to err in reference to our words. The wise err neither in regard to their man nor to their words.
The determined scholar and the man of virtue will not seek to live at the expense of injuring their virtue. They will even sacrifice their lives to preserve their virtue complete.
The mechanic, who wishes to do his work well, must first sharpen his tools. When you are living in any state, take service with the most worthy among its great officers, and make friends of the most virtuous among its scholars.
If a man take no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand.
It is all over! I have not seen one who loves virtue as he loves beauty.
He who requires much from himself and little from others, will keep himself from being the object of resentment.
When a man is not in the habit of saying What shall I think of this? What shall I think of this? I can indeed do nothing with him!.
When a number of people are together, for a whole day, without their conversation turning on righteousness, and when they are fond of carrying out the suggestions of a small shrewdness; theirs is indeed a hard case.
The superior man in everything considers righteousness to be essential. He performs it according to the rules of propriety. He brings it forth in humility. He completes it with sincerity. This is indeed a superior man.
The superior man is distressed by his want of ability. He is not distressed by men's not knowing him.
The superior man dislikes the thought of his name not being mentioned after his death.
What the superior man seeks, is in himself. What the mean man seeks, is in others.
The superior man is dignified, but does not wrangle. He is sociable, but not a partizan.
The superior man does not promote a man simply on account of his words, nor does he put aside good words because of the man.
In my dealings with men, whose evil do I blame, whose goodness do I praise, beyond what is proper? If I do sometimes exceed in praise, there must be ground for it in my examination of the individual. This people supplied the ground why the three dynasties pursued the path of straightforwardness.
Even in my early days, a historiographer would leave a blank in his text, and he who had a horse would lend him to another to ride. Now, alas! there are no such things.
Specious words confound virtue. Want of forbearance in small matters confounds great plans.
When the multitude hate a man, it is necessary to examine into the case. When the multitude like a man, it is necessary to examine into the case.
A man can enlarge the principles which he follows; those principles do not enlarge the man.
To have faults and not to reform them, this, indeed, should be pronounced having faults.
I have been the whole day without eating, and the whole night without sleeping: occupied with thinking. It was of no use. The better plan is to learn.
The object of the superior man is truth. Food is not his object. There is plowing; even in that there is sometimes want. So with learning; emolument may be found in it. The superior man is anxious lest he should not get truth; he is not anxious lest poverty should come upon him.
When a man's knowledge is sufficient to attain, and his virtue is not sufficient to enable him to hold, whatever he may have gained, he will lose again. When his knowledge is sufficient to attain, and he has virtue enough to hold fast, if he cannot govern with dignity, the people will not respect him. When his knowledge is sufficient to attain, and he has virtue enough to hold fast; when he governs also with dignity, yet if he try to move the people contrary to the rules of propriety: full excellence is not reached.
The superior man cannot be known in little matters; but he may be intrusted with great concerns. The small man may not be intrusted with great concerns, but he may be known in little matters.
Virtue is more to man than either water or fire. I have seen men die from treading on water and fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of virtue.
Let every man consider virtue as what devolves on himself. He may not yield the performance of it even to his teacher.
The superior man is correctly firm, and not firm merely.
A minister, in serving his prince, reverently discharges his duties, and makes his emolument a secondary consideration.
In teaching there should be no distinction of classes.
Those whose courses are different cannot lay plans for one another.
In language it is simply required that it convey the meaning.
There are three friendships which are advantageous, and three which are injurious. Friendship with the upright; friendship with the sincere; and friendship with the man of much observation: these are advantageous. Friendship with the man of specious airs; friendship with the insinuatingly soft; and friendship with the glib-tongued: these are injurious.
There are three things men find enjoyment in which are advantageous, and three things they find enjoyment in which are injurious. To find enjoyment in the discriminating study of ceremonies and music; to find enjoyment in speaking of the goodness of others; to find enjoyment in having many worthy friends: these are advantageous. To find enjoyment in extravagant pleasures; to find enjoyment in idleness and sauntering; to find enjoyment in the pleasures of feasting: these are injurious.
There are three errors to which they who stand in the presence of a man of virtue and station are liable. They may speak when it does not come to them to speak; this is called rashness. They may not speak when it comes to them to speak; this is called concealment. They may speak without looking at the countenance of their superior; this is called blindness.
There are three things which the superior man guards against. In youth, when the physical powers are not yet settled, he guards against lust. When he is strong and the physical powers are full of vigor, he guards against quarrelsomeness. When he is old, and the animal powers are decayed, he guards against covetousness.
There are three things of which the superior man stands in awe. He stands in awe of the ordinances of Heaven. He stands in awe of great men. He stands in awe of the words of sages. The mean man does not know the ordinances of Heaven, and consequently does not stand in awe of them. He is disrespectful to great men. He makes sport of the words of sages.
Those who are born with the possession of knowledge are the highest class of men. Those who learn, and so, readily, get possession of knowledge, are the next. Those who are dull and stupid, and yet compass the learning, are another class next to these. As to those who are dull and stupid and yet do not learn; they are the lowest of the people.
Contemplating good, and pursuing it, as if they could not reach it; contemplating evil, and shrinking from it, as they would from thrusting the hand into boiling water: I have seen such men, as I have heard such words. Living in retirement to study their aims, and practising righteousness to carry out their principles: I have heard these words, but I have not seen such men.
By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.
There are only the wise of the highest class, and the stupid of the lowest class, who cannot be changed.
Your good, careful people of the villages are the thieves of virtue.
To tell, as we go along, what we have heard on the way, is to cast away our virtue.
There are those mean creatures! How impossible it is along with them to serve one's prince! 'While they have not got their aims, their anxiety is how to get them. When they have got them, their anxiety is lest they should lose them. When they are anxious lest such things should be lost, there is nothing to which they will not proceed.
Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with virtue.
I hate the manner in which purple takes away the luster of vermilion. I hate those who with their sharp mouths overthrow kingdoms and families.
Hard is it to deal with him, who will stuff himself with food the whole day, without applying his mind to anything good! Are there not gamesters and chess players? To be one of these would still be better than doing nothing at all.
Of all people, girls and servants are the most difficult to behave to. If you are familiar with them, they lose their humility. If you maintain a reserve towards them, they are discontented.
When a man at forty is the object of dislike, he will always continue what he is.
He, who from day to day recognises what he has not yet, and from month to month does not forget what he has attained to, may be said indeed to love to learn.
There are learning extensively, and having a firm and sincere aim; inquiring with earnestness, and reflecting with self-application: virtue is in such a course.
Mechanics have their shops to dwell in, in order to accomplish their works. The superior man learns, in order to reach to the utmost of his principles.
The mean man is sure to gloss his faults.
The superior man undergoes three changes. Looked at from a distance, he appears stern; when approached, he is mild; when he is heard to speak, his language is firm and decided.
The officer, having discharged all his duties, should devote his leisure to learning. The student, having completed his learning, should apply himself to be an officer.
Mourning, having been carried to the utmost degree of grief, should stop with that.
My friend Chang can do things which are hard to be done, but yet he is not perfectly virtuous.
How imposing is the manner of Chang! It is difficult along with him to practise virtue.
I heard this from our Master: Men may not have shown what is in them to the full extent, and yet they will be found to do so, on occasion of mourning for their parents.
The faults of the superior man are like the eclipses of the sun and moon. He has his faults, and all men see them; he changes again, and all men look up to him.
Men of talents and virtue remember the greater principles of them, and others, not possessing such talents and virtue, remember the smaller.
The talents and virtue of other men are hillocks and mounds which may be stepped over. Although a man may wish to cut himself off from the sage, what harm can he do to the sun or moon? He only shows that he does not know his own capacity.
For one word a man is often deemed to be wise, and for one word he is often deemed to be foolish. We ought to be careful indeed in what we say.
Without recognizing the ordinances of Heaven, it is impossible to be a superior man. Without an acquaintance with the rules of Propriety, it is impossible for the character to be established. Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know men.