quote · Legacy record
Evil of every kind, being familiar to us as an object of apprehension, appears to be external to ourselves. And yet it is invested with the greater part of its severity by the mind: it acts upon us by the ideas it awakens, the affections it wounds, the aspirations it disappoints. If its outward pressure were all, and it dealt with us as beings of sense alone, it would lose most of its poignancy and would dwindle down into a few animal pangs.... It is our higher nature that creates immeasurably the greater part of the ills we endure: they are ideal, not sensible: and it is the privilege of reason to have tears instead of groans; of love to know grief instead of pain; of conscience to replace uneasiness with remorse.... Penury, disgrace, bereavement, guilt, are evils which we must be human in order to feel; and it is the penalty of our nobleness, not only to be weighed down by their occasional burthen, but to be perpetually haunted by the phantom of their approach.
Evil of every kind, being familiar to us as an object of apprehension, appears to be external to ourselves. And yet it is invested with the greater part of its severity by the mind: it acts upon us by the ideas it awakens, the affections it wounds, the aspirations it disappoints. If its outward pressure were all, and it dealt with us as beings of sense alone, it would lose most of its poignancy and would dwindle down into a few animal pangs.... It is our higher nature that creates immeasurably the greater part of the ills we endure: they are ideal, not sensible: and it is the privilege of reason to have tears instead of groans; of love to know grief instead of pain; of conscience to replace uneasiness with remorse.... Penury, disgrace, bereavement, guilt, are evils which we must be human in order to feel; and it is the penalty of our nobleness, not only to be weighed down by their occasional burthen, but to be perpetually haunted by the phantom of their approach.
In print by 1921 AD · modern
Recorded in a printed collection by this date; the original date of these words is still unknown.
Meaning not yet available
An individual explanation has not yet been added. We do not substitute a generic description for an interpretation of these particular words.
Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- James Martineau (identity unresolved)
Attribution: unknown - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- In print by 1921 AD · modern
In print by 1921: recorded in My Commonplace Book (third English edition,1921). Collection publication is an upper bound for this wording, not its earliest origin, composition date or the author's lifetime.
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- My Commonplace Book (third English edition,1921) (1921 AD)
Page 280 · printed citation: James Martineau (Hours of Thought, II, 150). · compiler notes excluded
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.