Four seasons fill the measure of the year; there are four seasons in the mind of man
Source: The Human Seasons (1818)
Topic
Carlyle's definition — man is a tool-using animal — and Channing's insistence that every human being is intended to be what no others are bracket the range. Kafka notes that human beings lure one into self-observation simply by association. Keats on heroism arriving unexpectedly in the middle of otherwise unremarkable people. La Bruyère's three events — birth, life, death — and the observation that the middle one is routinely forgotten. James: human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. These quotes are for people interested in the species at large rather than any particular individual — who find the whole enterprise of human existence puzzling, admirable, and somewhat comic.
Four seasons fill the measure of the year; there are four seasons in the mind of man
Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed.
It is not what a lawyer tells me I MAY do, but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I OUGHT to do.
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others.
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I am large, I contain multitudes.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
The Child is Father of the Man;
Men are but children of a larger growth.
Beware the fury of a patient man!
Love is the life out of which are fashioned all the natural feelings, every emotion of man.