In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border.
I can't but say it is an awkward sight To see one's native land receding through The growing waters; it unmans one quite, Especially when life is rather new.
Fear has its use, but cowardice has none. I may not put my finger into the jaws of a snake, but the very sight of the snake need not strike terror into me.
Now this is very profound, what rhythm is, and goes far deeper than words. A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it.
The beneficial effect of state intervention, especially in the form of legislation, is direct, immediate, and so to speak, visible, while its evil effects are gradual and indirect and lay out of sight ... Hence the majority of mankind must almost of necessity look with undue favor upon governmental intervention.
Life is comic or pitiful as soon as the high ends of being fade out of sight, and man becomes near-sighted, and can only attend towhat addresses the senses.
Every faculty in one man is the measure by which he judges of the like faculty in another. I judge of your sight by my sight, of your ear by my ear, of your reason by my reason, of your resentment by my resentment, of your love by my love. I neither have, nor can have, any other way of judging about them.
Odors have an altogether peculiar force, in affecting us through association; a force differing essentially from that of objects addressing the touch, the taste, the sight or the hearing.
Keep your mouth shut, and close up the doors of sight and sound, and as long as you live you will have no vexation. But open your mouth, or become inquisitive, and you will be in trouble all your life long.