A Quote by James Kenneth Stephen

Birthdays? yes, in a general way; For the most if not for the best of men: You were born (I suppose) on a certain day: So was I: or perhaps in the night: what then?
I certainly wasn't born with creative writing. Maybe there's a certain amount of learning and then it's up to the person. I think in the end it's your favourite books that are the best teachers. That's the way I've learned the most, by far.
Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It's abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.
They say the two most important days in a person's life were the day you were born and the day you discover why you were born.
When it comes to birthdays, I think there are two camps. There are people like me, who choose to treat it like any other day, and then there are the 'birthday people.' You know, those people who claim the full month in which they were born as their own.
The ability to work with systems of general equilibrium is perhaps one of the most important skills of the economist - a skill which he shares with many other scientists, but in which he has perhaps a certain comparative advantage.
In the final exam in the Chaucer course we were asked why he used certain verbal devices, certain adjectives, why he had certain characters behave in certain ways. And I wrote, 'I don't think Chaucer had any idea why he did any of these things. That isn't the way people write.' I believe this as strongly now as I did then. Most of what is best in writing isn't done deliberately.
Perhaps some people really are born unhappy. I surely hope not. Speaking for my sister and myself: We were born with the capacity and determination to be utterly happy all the time. Perhaps even in this we were freaks. Hi ho.
If you look at how humans tend to want to sleep, it seems to be either, you know, sort of a monophasic way or at least a biphasic way, where there's, perhaps, a long bout during the night and then maybe a siesta-like pattern during the day.
I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men." "Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.
I also just get so ecstatic hearing and feeling the noise in general and it still makes me giggle inside playing certain sounds. One of the downsides is that in order to produce certain sounds, I'm totally using my arms the wrong way and sometimes that worries me. But then that physical strain puts me in a different state of mind to bring out different dimensions in the music, I suppose.
Women in general have to think about certain things that men don't - like being safe in the street at night or something.
Without any extraordinary effort of genius, I have discovered that nature was the same three thousand years ago as at present; that men were but men then as well as now; that modes and customs vary often, but that human nature is always the same. And I can no more suppose, that men were better, braver, or wiser, fifteen hundred or three thousand years ago, than I can suppose that the animals or vegetables were better than they are now.
I cannot remember how I felt when the light went out of my eyes. I suppose I felt it was always night and perhaps I wondered why the day did not come.
Thus a man was born into a fixed relation to certain gods as surely as he was born into a relation to his fellow-men; and his religion... was simply one side of the general scheme of conduct prescribed for him by his position as a member of society.
Women joked amongst themselves: 'Why do you think a bride cries on her wedding day? It's for the love that this marriage is putting an end to for all eternity. Men may think a woman has no past- "you were born and then I married you"- but men are fools.
You're born in a certain time, your budvi, or the way to mind, or the psyche of it all, understands the time in which you were born, and so already information is adapted by the mind of a person born in a certain time, that's why we're so different from our parents, and our parents from theirs.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!