human
and partly as a precaution against his hereditary tendency to nervous breakdown, he was a strong advocate of the proposition that
gpt
Life is not for work, but work is for life.
human
The progress of mankind is, under one aspect, a means of liberating more and more life from mere toil and leaving more and more life available for relaxation--for pleasurable culture, for æsthetic gratification, for travels, for games.
gpt
On one occasion George Eliot expressed her surprise that the author of _Social Statics_ had no lines on his forehead, to which he answered, 'I suppose it is because I am never puzzled.' This called forth the exclamation: 'O! that's the most arrogant thing I ever heard uttered.' To which I rejoined: 'Not at all, when you know what I mean.' And I then proceeded to explain that my mode of thinking did not involve that concentrated effort which is commonly accompanied by wrinkling of the brows
human
The conclusions at which I have from time to time arrived, have not been arrived at as solutions of questions raised; but have been arrived at unawares--each as the ultimate outcome of a body of thoughts which slowly grew from a germ.
gpt
; he let these accumulate and simmer, thinking them over and over again at intervals.
human
When accumulation of instances had given body to a generalisation, reflexion would reduce the vague conception at first framed to a more definite conception; and perhaps difficulties or anomalies at first passed over for a while, but eventually forcing themselves on attention, might cause a needful qualification and a truer shaping of the thought. Eventually the growing generalisation, thus far inductive, might take deductive form: being all at once recognised as a necessary consequence of some physical principle--some established law. And thus, little by little, in unobtrusive ways, without conscious intention or appreciable effort, there would grow up a coherent and organised theory (_Autobiography_, i. 400, 401). In short, Spencer gave his thinking machine time to do its work, or in other words he let his thoughts grow. He distrusted strain and all forcing. Like a good golfer, he would not
gpt
human
The determined effort causes perversion of thought.
gpt
It has always been out of the question for me to go on reading a book the fundamental principles of which I entirely dissent from. Tacitly giving an author credit for consistency, I, without thinking much about the matter, take it for granted that if the fundamental principles are wrong, the rest cannot be right, and thereupon cease reading--being, I suspect, rather glad of an excuse for doing so (i. p. 253).
human
All through my life, he says,
gpt
Locke's 'Essay' had been before me on my father's shelves, but I had never taken it down; or at any rate I have no recollection of having read a page of it.