Books, as Dryden has aptly termed them, are spectacles to read nature. Aeschylus and Aristotle, Shakespeare and Bacon, are priests who preach and expound the mysteries of man and the universe. They teach us to understand and feel what we see, to decipher and syllable the hieroglyphics of the senses.
Augustus William HareThe body too has its rights; and it will have them: they cannot be trampled on without peril. The body ought to be the soul's best friend. Many good men however have neglected to make it such: so it has become a fiend and has plagued them.
Augustus William HareMythology is not religion. It may rather be regarded as the ancient substitute, the poetical counterpart, for dogmatic theology.
Augustus William HareThe thoughtful excitement of lonely rambles, of gardening, and of other like occupations, where the mind has leisure to must during the healthful activity of the body, with the fresh and wakeful breezes blowing round it.
Augustus William HareIt is said that Windham, when he came to the end of a speech, often found himself so perplexed by his own subtlety that he hardly knew which way he was going to give his vote. This is a good illustration of the fallaciousness of reasoning, and of the uncertainties which attend its practical application.
Augustus William Hare