Best 24 quotes of Edward Carpenter on MyQuotes

Edward Carpenter

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    Edward Carpenter

    Anyone who realises what Love is, the dedication of the heart, so profound, so absorbing, so mysterious, so imperative, and always just in the noblest natures so strong, cannot fail to see how difficult, how tragic even, must often be the fate of those whose deepest feelings are destined from the earliest days to be a riddle and a stumbling-block, unexplained to themselves, passed over in silence by others.

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    Edward Carpenter

    Do not think too much of the dead husk of your friend, or mourn too much over it, but send your thoughts out towards the real soul or self which has escaped — to reach it. For so, surely you will cast a light of gladness upon his onward journey, and contribute your part towards the building of that kingdom of love which links our earth to heaven.

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    Edward Carpenter

    Great success in examinations does naturally not as a rule go with originality of thought.

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    Edward Carpenter

    IN April 1882 my father died; and I was at once whirled out of my land of dreams into a very different sphere.

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    Edward Carpenter

    I saw deep in the eyes of the animals, the human soul look out upon me.

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    Edward Carpenter

    IT is curious that, with my somewhat antinomian tendencies, I should have gone to Trinity Hall - which was, and is, before all a Law College - and should thus have been thrown into close touch with the legal element in life.

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    Edward Carpenter

    I was in the Square at the time. The crowd was a most good-humoured, easy going, smiling crowd; but presently it was transformed. A regiment of mounted police came cantering up.

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    Edward Carpenter

    Let your mind be quiet, realizing the beauty of the world, and the immense boundless treasures that it holds.

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    Edward Carpenter

    Making a choice is like backing a horse - in a hundred years, they may decide you picked wrongly.

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    Edward Carpenter

    Motherhood is, after all, woman's great and incomparable work.

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    Edward Carpenter

    My ideas had been taking a socialistic shape for many years; but they were lacking in definite outline.

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    Edward Carpenter

    Remember, the serpent is still living in the Garden of Eden. Only the heterosexual couple was expelled.

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    Edward Carpenter

    The general fact of surplus value, namely that the workmen does not get the full value of his labours, and that he is taken advantage of by the capitalist, is obvious.

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    Edward Carpenter

    We lived within two hundred yards of the sea, and its voice was in our ears night and day.

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    Edward Carpenter

    What is the good of life if its chief element, and that which must always be its chief element, is odious? No, the only true economy is to arrange so that your daily labor shall be itself a joy.

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    Edward Carpenter

    With my somewhat vague aspiring mind, to be imprisoned in the rude details of a most material life was often irksome.

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    Edward Carpenter

    Anyhow, with their extraordinary gift for, and experience in, affairs of the heart from the double point of view, both of the man and of the woman it is not difficult to see that these people have a special work to do as reconcilers and interpreters of the two sexes to each other.

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    Edward Carpenter

    [A]s people are beginning to see that the sexes form in a certain sense a continuous group, so they are beginning to see that Love and Friendship which have been so often set apart from each other as things distinct are in reality closely related and shade imperceptibly into each other. Women are beginning to demand that Marriage shall mean Friendship as well as Passion; that a comrade-like Equality shall be included in the word Love; and it is recognised that from the one extreme of a 'Platonic' friendship (generally between persons of the same sex) up to the other extreme of passionate love (generally between persons of opposite sex) no hard and fast line can at any point be drawn effectively separating the different kinds of attachment. We know, in fact, of Friendships so romantic in sentiment that they verge into love; we know of Loves so intellectual and spiritual that they hardly dwell in the sphere of Passion.

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    Edward Carpenter

    In the case of Michel Angelo we have an artist who with brush and chisel portrayed literally thousands of human forms; but with this peculiarity, that while scores and scores of his male figures are obviously suffused and inspired by a romantic sentiment, there is hardly one of his female figures that is so,—the latter being mostly representative of woman in her part as mother, or sufferer, or prophetess or poetess, or in old age, or in any aspect of strength or tenderness, except that which associates itself especially with romantic love. Yet the cleanliness and dignity of Michel Angelo's male figures are incontestable, and bear striking witness to that nobility of the sentiment in him, which we have already seen illustrated in his sonnets.

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    Edward Carpenter

    It would seem probable that the attachment of such a one is of a tender and profound character; indeed, it is possible that in this class of men we have the love sentiment in one of its most perfect forms—a form in which from the necessities of the situation the sensuous element, though present, is exquisitely subordinated to the spiritual.

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    Edward Carpenter

    Love is concerned with growth and evolution. It is — though as yet hardly acknowledged in that connection — a root-factor of ordinary human growth; for in so far as it is a hunger of the individual, the satisfaction of that hunger is necessary for individual growth — necessary (in its various forms) for physical, mental and spiritual nourishment, for health, mental energy, large affectional capacity, and so forth. And it is — though this too is not sufficiently acknowledged — a root-factor of the Evolution process. For in so far as it represents and gives rise to the union of two beings in a new form, it plainly represents a step in Evolution, and plainly suggests that the direction of that step will somehow depend upon the character and quality of the love concerned.

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    Edward Carpenter

    Self-consciousness is fatal to love. The self-conscious lover never ‘arrives.’ … And so too the whole modern period of commercial civilization and Christianity has been fatal to love… They have bred the self-regarding consciousness in the highest degree; and so — though they may have had their uses and their parts to play in the history of mankind, they have been fatal to the communal spirit in society, and they have been fatal to the glad expression of the soul in private life. Self-consciousness is fatal to love, which is the true expression of the soul.

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    Edward Carpenter

    That men of this kind despise women, though a not uncommon belief, is one which hardly appears to be justified. Indeed, though naturally not inclined to 'fall in love' in this direction, such men are by their nature drawn rather near to women, and it would seem that they often feel a singular appreciation and understanding of the emotional needs and destinies of the other sex, leading in many cases to a genuine though what is called 'Platonic' friendship. There is little doubt that they are often instinctively sought after by women, who, without suspecting the real cause, are conscious of a sympathetic chord in the homogenic which they miss in the normal man.

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    Edward Carpenter

    To some perhaps it may appear a little strained to place this last-mentioned form of attachment on a level of importance with the others, and such persons may be inclined to deny to the homogenic [...] or homosexual love that intense, that penetrating, and at times overmastering character which would entitle it to rank as a great human passion. But in truth this view, when entertained, arises from a want of acquaintance with the actual facts.