Edwin Percy Whipple Quotes

Genius is not a single power, but a combination of great powers. It reasons, but it is not reasoning; it judges, but it is not judgment; it imagines, but it is not imagination; it feels deeply and fiercely, but it is not passion. It is neither, because it is all. It is another name for the perfection of human nature, for Genius is not a fact but an ideal. It is nothing less than the possession of all the powers and impulses of humanity, in their greatest possible strength and most harmonious combination; and the genius of any particular man is great in proportion as he approaches this ideal of universal genius.

The eye observes only what the mind, the heart, and the imagination are gifted to see; and sight must be reinforced by insight before souls can be discerned as well as manners, ideas as well as objects, realities and relations as well as appearances and accidental connections.

Everybody knows that fanaticism is religion caricatured; bears, indeed, about the same relation to it that a monkey bears to a man; yet, with many, contempt of fanaticism is received as a sure sign of hostility to religion.

Seneca, with two millions out at usury, can afford to chant the praises of poverty; but for our part, we prefer the fine extravagance of that philosopher, who declared "that no man was as rich as all men ought to be."

Grit is in the grain of character. It may generally be described as heroism materialized,—spirit and will thrust into heart, brain, and backbone, so as to form part of the physical substance of the man.

The strife of politics tends to unsettle the calmest understanding, and ulcerate the most benevolent heart. There are no absurdities or bigotries too gross for parties to create or adopt under the stimulus of political passions. The path of all great statesmen lies between two opposing insanities.

Cheerfulness, in most cheerful people, is the rich and satisfying result of strenuous discipline.