Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II. THE AET OF THINKING. WORK on the art of meditation has not yet teen produced ; yet such a work might prove of immense advantage to him. who never happened to have more than one single idea. Isaac Disraeli. For every purpose, whether for action or speculation, I hold that quality to be most valuable which it is quite within our own power to acquire, and which nature, unassisted, never yet gave to any man—I mean a perfectly accurate habit of thought and expression. Such is, as Jar as I can see, one of the very rarest acquirements. Lord Stanley's Inaugural Address at Glasgow, April 1, 1869. The rich are too indolent, the poor too weak, to bear the insupportable fatigue of thinking. Cowper. 'Tis the hardest thing in the world to be a good thinker, without being a good self-examiner. Shaftesbury's Characteristics. I Imagine that thinking is the great desideratum of the present age ; and the cause of whatever is done amiss, may justly be reckoned the general neglect of education in those who need it most—the people of fashion. What can be expected where those who have the most influence have the least sense, and those who are sure to be followed set the worst example ? Bishop Berkeley, 1732. You cannot imagine what a difficult matter it is here at present [1742] to fix any man's attention, but for a moment, upon any abstract subject. Such is the general indolence of mind, that one flashy, lively thing, whether in thought or expression, though in the midst of trash, is more greedily swallowed than the most elegant piece of reasoning. Correspondence of the Eight Hon. James Oswald. The greatest part of mankind may be divided into two classes,—that of shallow thinkers, who fall short of the tiuth, and that of abstruse thinkers, who go beyond it. The ...