Herein they are like little dogs; if
anything stirs, they immediately set up a shrill bark.
Therefore, let us carefully regulate the attention to be paid to this
trumpet of danger, so that it may not disturb our digestion. Let us
recognize that a newspaper is at best but a magnifying-glass, and very
often merely a shadow on the wall.
The _pen_ is to thought what the stick is to walking; but you walk
most easily when you have no stick, and you think with the greatest
perfection when you have no pen in your hand. It is only when a man
begins to be old that he likes to use a stick and is glad to take up
his pen.
When an _hypothesis_ has once come to birth in the mind, or gained a
footing there, it leads a life so far comparable with the life of an
organism, as that it assimilates matter from the outer world only when
it is like in kind with it and beneficial; and when, contrarily, such
matter is not like in kind but hurtful, the hypothesis, equally with
the organism, throws it off, or, if forced to take it, gets rid of it
again entire.
To gain _immortality_ an author must possess so many excellences that
while it will not be easy to find anyone to understand and appreciate
them all, there will be men in every age who are able to recognize
and value some of them.
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