Sublime

The right word is always a power, and communicates its definiteness to our action. Considered as a demise, old Featherstone’s death assumed a merely legal aspect, so that Mr Vincy could tap his snuff-box over it and be jovial, without even an intermittent affectation of solemnity; and Mr Vincy hated both solemnity and affectation.

decorous.

“Each person acquires their own character, but their official roles are designated by chance. You should invite some to your table because they are deserving, others because they may come to deserve it.” —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS

I READ the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instil is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private he

the community is its own moralist. It elects and pays judges, policemen, and preachers, as if to say, “When I am difficult, please kick me.

Still, in a case of this kind, it should be our care, especially in youth, to avoid the precipice of presumption, and not ascribe to ourselves a superfluity of power which is not there.

Destroy weak phrases like “I think” or “in my opinion” that corrupt your argument. Say what needs to be said, or don’t say it at all. When you do use such a phrase, make it count.

Only, consider at what price you’re willing to sell your power of choice. If nothing else, make sure, man, that you don’t sell it cheap.

In consciously making a commitment, they’re closing off their fantasies of infinite possibility in favor of what I described, in the previous chapter, as the “joy of missing out”: the recognition that the renunciation of alternatives is what makes their choice a meaningful one in the first place.