Today’s pick
Providence and diligence together
The family prays before and after every venture and also works from dawn to dark. The book never treats faith as a reason to wait idly or skill as a reason to forget God.
Daily commonplace
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A shuffled feed of quotes and lessons, with today’s pick chosen by a date seed.
Commonplace Items
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A Bear Called Paddington
“PLEASE LOOK AFTER THIS BEAR. THANK YOU.”
A Bear Called Paddington — Michael Bond
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A Child's Garden of Verses
“In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle-light. In summer quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day.”
A Child's Garden of Verses — Robert Louis Stevenson
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A Child's Garden of Verses
“The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.”
A Child's Garden of Verses — Robert Louis Stevenson
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A Child's Garden of Verses
“The rain is falling all around, It falls on field and tree, It rains on the umbrellas here, And on the ships at sea.”
A Child's Garden of Verses — Robert Louis Stevenson
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A Christmas Carol
“MARLEY was dead: to begin with”
A Christmas Carol — Charles Dickens
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A Christmas Carol
“Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner”
A Christmas Carol — Charles Dickens
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A Christmas Carol
“If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
A Christmas Carol — Charles Dickens
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A Christmas Carol
“You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are”
A Christmas Carol — Charles Dickens
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A Christmas Carol
“I wear the chain I forged in life”
A Christmas Carol — Charles Dickens
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A Christmas Carol
“Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business”
A Christmas Carol — Charles Dickens
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A Christmas Carol
“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy”
A Christmas Carol — Charles Dickens
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A Christmas Carol
“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year”
A Christmas Carol — Charles Dickens
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A Christmas Carol
“God bless us every one”
A Christmas Carol — Charles Dickens
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A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America
“Corruption in elections is the great enemy of freedom.”
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America — John Adams
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A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America
“The perfection of the portrait consists in its likeness.”
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America — John Adams
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A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America
“The rich, the well-born, and the able, acquire an influence among the people that will soon be too much for simple honesty and plain sense, in a house of representatives.”
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America — John Adams
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A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America
“Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.”
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America — John Adams
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A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America
“As the treble, the tenor, and the bass exist in nature, they will be heard in the concert.”
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America — John Adams
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A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America
“What is the ingredient which in England has preserved the democratical authority? The balance, and that only.”
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America — John Adams
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A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America
“The institutions now made in America will not wholly wear out for thousands of years. It is of the last importance, then, that they should begin right.”
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America — John Adams
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A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America
“The president of Pennsylvania might, upon such an occasion, have recollected one of Sir Isaac Newton's laws of motion”
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America — John Adams
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A Disquisition on Government
“It follows, then, that man is so constituted, that government is necessary to the existence of society, and society to his existence, and the perfection of his faculties.”
A Disquisition on Government — John C. Calhoun
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A Disquisition on Government
“takes the sense of each, through its majority or appropriate organ, and the united sense of all, as the sense of the entire community.”
A Disquisition on Government — John C. Calhoun
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A Disquisition on Government
“constitution implies limitation or restriction”
A Disquisition on Government — John C. Calhoun
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A Disquisition on Government
“This principle, in constitutional governments, is compromise”
A Disquisition on Government — John C. Calhoun
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A Disquisition on Government
“it is found, in practice, not only to succeed, but to be the safest, the wisest and the best that human ingenuity has ever devised.”
A Disquisition on Government — John C. Calhoun
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A Disquisition on Government
“A reward more appropriate than liberty could not be conferred on the deserving”
A Disquisition on Government — John C. Calhoun
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A Disquisition on Government
“But to go further, and make equality of condition essential to liberty, would be to destroy both liberty and progress.”
A Disquisition on Government — John C. Calhoun
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A Doll's House and Other Plays
“I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I was papa's doll-child”
A Doll's House and Other Plays — Henrik Ibsen
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A Doll's House and Other Plays
“I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are”
A Doll's House and Other Plays — Henrik Ibsen
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A Doll's House and Other Plays
“Mother, give me the sun”
A Doll's House and Other Plays — Henrik Ibsen
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A Farewell to Arms
“At the start of the winter came the permanent rain and with the rain came the cholera. But it was checked and in the end only seven thousand died of it in the army.”
A Farewell to Arms — Ernest Hemingway
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A Farewell to Arms
“He had always known what I did not know and what, when I learned it, I was always able to forget.”
A Farewell to Arms — Ernest Hemingway
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A Farewell to Arms
“I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain.”
A Farewell to Arms — Ernest Hemingway
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A Farewell to Arms
“Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.”
A Farewell to Arms — Ernest Hemingway
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A Farewell to Arms
“Anger was washed away in the river along with any obligation.”
A Farewell to Arms — Ernest Hemingway
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A Farewell to Arms
“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”
A Farewell to Arms — Ernest Hemingway
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A Farewell to Arms
“It was like saying good-by to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.”
A Farewell to Arms — Ernest Hemingway
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A Letter Concerning Toleration
“I esteem it above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the Business of Civil Government from that of Religion, and to settle the just Bounds that lie between the one and the other.”
A Letter Concerning Toleration — John Locke
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A Letter Concerning Toleration
“The Commonwealth seems to me to be a Society of Men constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing of their own Civil Interests.”
A Letter Concerning Toleration — John Locke
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A Letter Concerning Toleration
“Civil Interests I call Life, Liberty, Health, and Indolency of Body; and the Possession of outward things, such as Money, Lands, Houses, Furniture, and the like.”
A Letter Concerning Toleration — John Locke
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A Letter Concerning Toleration
“All the Life and Power of true Religion consists in the inward and full perswasion of the mind; and Faith is not Faith without believing.”
A Letter Concerning Toleration — John Locke
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A Letter Concerning Toleration
“A Church then I take to be a voluntary Society of Men, joining themselves together of their own accord, in order to the publick worshipping of God, in such a manner as they judge acceptable to him, and effectual to the Salvation of their Souls.”
A Letter Concerning Toleration — John Locke
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A Letter Concerning Toleration
“No man can be forced to be Rich or Healthful, whether he will or no. Nay, God himself will not save men against their wills.”
A Letter Concerning Toleration — John Locke
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A Letter Concerning Toleration
“Lastly, Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the Being of a God. Promises, Covenants, and Oaths, which are the Bonds of Humane Society, can have no hold upon an Atheist.”
A Letter Concerning Toleration — John Locke
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A Letter Concerning Toleration
“neither Pagan, nor Mahumetan, nor Iew, ought to be excluded from the Civil Rights of the Commonwealth, because of his Religion.”
A Letter Concerning Toleration — John Locke
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A Little Princess
“"Soldiers don't complain," she would say between her small, shut teeth, "I am not going to do it; I will pretend this is part of a war."”
A Little Princess — Frances Hodgson Burnett
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A Little Princess
“EVERYTHING'S a story. You are a story--I am a story. Miss Minchin is a story.”
A Little Princess — Frances Hodgson Burnett
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A Little Princess
“If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it.”
A Little Princess — Frances Hodgson Burnett
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A Little Princess
“"She is hungrier than I am," she said to herself. "She's starving."”
A Little Princess — Frances Hodgson Burnett
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A Little Princess
“to be able to learn things quickly isn't everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people.”
A Little Princess — Frances Hodgson Burnett
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A Little Princess
“I--TRIED not to be anything else," she answered in a low voice--"even when I was coldest and hungriest--I tried not to be.”
A Little Princess — Frances Hodgson Burnett
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A Mathematician's Apology
“No mathematician should ever allow himself to forget that mathematics, more than any other art or science, is a young man's game.”
A Mathematician's Apology — G. H. Hardy
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A Mathematician's Apology
“A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns.”
A Mathematician's Apology — G. H. Hardy
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
“The course of true love never did run smooth”
A Midsummer Night's Dream — William Shakespeare
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A Model of Christian Charity
“GOD ALMIGHTY in his most holy and wise providence, hath soe disposed of the condition of mankind, as in all times some must be rich, some poore, some high and eminent in power and dignitie; others mean and in submission.”
A Model of Christian Charity — John Winthrop
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A Model of Christian Charity
“Love is the bond of perfection.”
A Model of Christian Charity — John Winthrop
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A Model of Christian Charity
“for to love and live beloved is the soule's paradise both here and in heaven.”
A Model of Christian Charity — John Winthrop
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A Model of Christian Charity
“For it is a true rule that particular Estates cannot subsist in the ruin of the publique.”
A Model of Christian Charity — John Winthrop
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A Model of Christian Charity
“Now the onely way to avoyde this shipwracke, and to provide for our posterity, is to followe the counsell of Micah, to doe justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God.”
A Model of Christian Charity — John Winthrop
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A Model of Christian Charity
“Wee must delight in eache other; make other's conditions our oune; rejoice together, mourne together, labour and suffer together, allwayes haueving before our eyes our commission and community in the worke, as members of the same body.”
A Model of Christian Charity — John Winthrop
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A Model of Christian Charity
“For wee must consider that wee shall be as a citty upon a hill. The eies of all people are uppon us.”
A Model of Christian Charity — John Winthrop
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A Model of Christian Charity
“Therefore lett us choose life that wee, and our seede may liue, by obeyeing His voyce and cleaveing to Him, for Hee is our life and our prosperity.”
A Model of Christian Charity — John Winthrop
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A Modest Proposal
“I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection”
A Modest Proposal — Jonathan Swift
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
“Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road”
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man — James Joyce
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
“Lucifer, we are told, was a son of the morning, a radiant and mighty angel; yet he fell”
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man — James Joyce
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
“A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea.”
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man — James Joyce
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
“When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.”
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man — James Joyce
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
“The artist, like the God of creation, remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.”
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man — James Joyce
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
“I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use—silence, exile and cunning.”
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man — James Joyce
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
“Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man — James Joyce
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
“Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead.”
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man — James Joyce
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A System of Logic, Book III: Of Induction
“It is not from the past to the future, as past and future, that we infer, but from the known to the unknown; from facts observed to facts unobserved”
A System of Logic, Book III: Of Induction — John Stuart Mill
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A System of Logic, Book III: Of Induction
“the proposition that the course of nature is uniform, is the fundamental principle, or general axiom of Induction.”
A System of Logic, Book III: Of Induction — John Stuart Mill
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A System of Logic, Book III: Of Induction
“Why is a single instance, in some cases, sufficient for a complete induction, while in others, myriads of concurring instances, without a single exception known or presumed, go such a very little way toward establishing a universal proposition?”
A System of Logic, Book III: Of Induction — John Stuart Mill
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A System of Logic, Book III: Of Induction
“The ellipse was in the facts before Kepler recognized it; just as the island was an island before it had been sailed round.”
A System of Logic, Book III: Of Induction — John Stuart Mill
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A System of Logic, Book III: Of Induction
“The cause, then, philosophically speaking, is the sum total of the conditions, positive and negative taken together”
A System of Logic, Book III: Of Induction — John Stuart Mill
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A System of Logic, Book III: Of Induction
“If an instance in which the phenomenon under investigation occurs, and an instance in which it does not occur, have every circumstance in common save one, that one occurring only in the former; the circumstance in which alone the two instances differ, is the effect, or the cause, or an indispensable part of the cause, of the phenomenon.”
A System of Logic, Book III: Of Induction — John Stuart Mill
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A System of Logic, Book III: Of Induction
“there are some truths in medicine which are sufficiently proved by direct experiment.”
A System of Logic, Book III: Of Induction — John Stuart Mill
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A System of Logic, Book III: Of Induction
“is no contradiction to the law of cause and effect; it is a new effect, supposed to be produced by the introduction of a new cause.”
A System of Logic, Book III: Of Induction — John Stuart Mill