Quotations

«In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice. Those who have money will display it in every imaginable way. If their ostentation does not exceed their fortune, all will be well. But if their ostentation does exceed their fortune they will ruin themselves. In such a country, the greatest fortunes will vanish in the twinkling of an eye. Those who don't have money will ruin themselves with vain efforts to conceal their poverty. That is one kind of affluence: the outward sign of wealth for a small number, the mask of poverty for the majority, and a source of corruption for all.»

«The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state»

«And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.»

«And the LORD spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, saying, / Number the children of Levi after the house of their fathers, by their families: every male from a month old and upward shalt thou number them.»

«Seven weeks shalt thou number unto thee: begin to number the seven weeks from such time as thou beginnest to put the sickle to the corn.»

«For the LORD had spoken unto Moses, saying, / Only thou shalt not number the tribe of Levi, neither take the sum of them among the children of Israel: / But thou shalt appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of testimony, and over all the vessels thereof, and over all things that belong to it: they shall bear the tabernacle, and all the vessels thereof; and they shall minister unto it, and shall encamp round about the tabernacle.»

«Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? / Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? / Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? / Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee? / Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go and say unto thee, Here we are? / Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart? / Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of heaven, / When the dust groweth into hardness, and the clods cleave fast together? / Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? or fill the appetite of the young lions, / When they couch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in wait? / Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat.»

«And Joab said unto the king, Now the LORD thy God add unto the people, how many soever they be, an hundredfold, and that the eyes of my lord the king may see it: but why doth my lord the king delight in this thing? / Notwithstanding the king's word prevailed against Joab, and against the captains of the host. And Joab and the captains of the host went out from the presence of the king, to number the people of Israel.»

«Knowest thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth? or canst thou mark when the hinds do calve? / Canst thou number the months that they fulfil? or knowest thou the time when they bring forth? / They bow themselves, they bring forth their young ones, they cast out their sorrows.»

«The business of a poet, said Imlac, is to examine, not the individual but the species; to remark general properties and large appearances. He does not number the streaks of the tulip.»