William Batchelder Greene Quotes

18 Sourced Quotes

Without doubt, matter is unlimited in extent, and, in this sense, infinite; and the forces of Nature mould it into an innumerable number of worlds. Would it be at all astonishing if, from the universal dice-box, out of an innumberable number of throws, there should be thrown out one world infinitely perfect? Nay, does not the calculus of probabilities prove to us that one such world out of an infinite number, must be produced of necessity?

William Batchelder Greene
Marriage may be polygamic, monogamic, polyandric, complex according to the Oneida pattern, or other, and is true marriage (I do not say perfect marriage) so long as it promotes the happiness of the persons married, and the procreation, support, and education of children, and so long as it is founded on the joint free contract of the persons married, and remains under the sanction of the organic society of which those persons are members.

William Batchelder Greene
Society is older than government. But every persisting society implies the existence of government and laws; for a society without government and laws is at once overturned by its madmen and scoundrels and lapses into barbarism.

William Batchelder Greene
Man, having an ideal before him of that which he ought to be, and is not, and acting as though he possessed the character he ought to have, but has not, comes, by the very virtue of his aspiration, to possess the character he imagines.

William Batchelder Greene
Reviving Spring, a toast to thy fresh lips! Thy blush is music, and e'en heaven lurks In thy thick perfumed hair that hangs about Thy flowered shoulders like enchanted rain; Thy sigh is song and thy soft breath a balm, Dispelling death -- soft loosing his cold grip, Unravelling darkness in the heart of pain, As o'er dank waters rings the laugh of dawn.

William Batchelder Greene
Thou slanting rain! Thou Hebe of the Skies, That pours out drink to Earth; thou faithful wife That with moist tears embraces her prone lord. Thou mist intensified; thou double dew That drowns the drought, that heals the parched and burnt -- Thou resurrection rain.

William Batchelder Greene
For man, the death of the body is inevitable, and is determined by time and circumstance; but, with proper precaution, the death of the soul may be totally avoided.

William Batchelder Greene
If it be true that God and man are in one image or likeness (and the affirmation that they are so is not unplausible) then it is the duty of man to bring out into its full splendor that Divine Image which is latent, on one side, in the complexity of his own nature.

William Batchelder Greene
Thou Moon! Sun of the Night, Sister mystic of the Day; Look down, pause in thy flight! Calm me with thy aural ray, Enchanting souls to silver sleep. Look down from out thy airy keep, My fevered senses hypnotize; Shut out the World, whereto Mind flies-- Ambitious Mind, with travail sore; Its fibre rest, its calm restore.

William Batchelder Greene
How Time doth lash us with sharp pains,
Set loose our teeth, snatch wisps of hair, dim eyes —
And finally bend our backs toward earth
To find the fittest place for burial.

William Batchelder Greene
What is it to be rich? It is to have an assured income in excess of expenditures, and to have no occasion for anxiety for the morrow. It is to be above the necessity of living from hand to mouth. It is to be able (or to have grounds to insanely suppose one's self to be able) to live outside of God's providence.

William Batchelder Greene
Faith is from within; it is the outbreaking of human spontaneity; it is force of soul, grandeur of sentiment, magnanimity, generosity, courage. Its formulas are naturally unintelligible in their literal tenor; for, otherwise, they would represent that which is scientifically known, and would not be the mere provisional clothing of that which is not objectively given, but subjectively projected from the inmost depth of the soul.

William Batchelder Greene
The Federal Government is rendered weak to do wrong, and powerful to do right: for, as soon as it begins to go wrong, it naturally begins to be divided against itself, and the three great wheels of its machinery exhaust their momentum, or wear each other out, in their friction against each other; while, as soon as it begins to go right, all the parts work harmoniously, and exhaust their full strength on the object of their action.

William Batchelder Greene
Like a goddess on her azure hill, the star of my ambition, the mistress of my dream; a thing apart, that we can worship, but not touch; a wild desire, that, in the madness of the thought, soars higher in its dignity, and leaves me weeping in the dust.

William Batchelder Greene
Faith is reason denying absurdity in the face of the unknown.

William Batchelder Greene
Life is a waste of woes, And Death a river deep, That ever onward flows, Troubled, yet asleep.

William Batchelder Greene
The Ideal is the invisible Sun which is always on the meridian of the soul.

William Batchelder Greene
Faith may always be acquired. Whoso is devoid of faith, and desires to have it, may acquire it by living for a few days (sometimes for a few hours only) as though he already possessed it. It is by practical, not theoretical, religion, that men transform their lives.

William Batchelder Greene