I Hated Waiting. If I Had One

The Best Essays Come From The Moment In Which People Really Need To Work Something Out.

I Don't Know Exactly What Covetous Is, But In My Experience It Is Not So Much Desiring Someone Else's Virtue Or Happiness As Rejecting It, Taking Offense At The Beauty Of It.

To Recognize Our Bias Toward Error Should Teach Us Modesty And Reflection, And To Forgive It Should Help Us Avoid The Inhumanity Of Thinking We Ourselves Are Not As Fallible As Those Who, In Any Instance, Seem Most At Fault. Science Can Give Us Knowledge, But It Cannot Give Us Wisdom. Nor Can Religion, Until It Puts Aside Nonsense And Distraction And Becomes Itself Again.

Isaac Watts, Of Course, Is A Hymn Writer In The Tradition Of Congregationalism Who Lived In The Seventeenth And Early Eighteenth Century. He Is Very Interesting And Important Because He Was Also A Metaphysician. He Knew A Great Deal About What Was, For Him, Contemporary Science. He Was Very Much Influenced By Isaac Newton, For Example. There Are Planets And Meteors And So On Showing Up In His Hymns Very Often. But, Again, The Scale Of His Religious Imagination Corresponds To A Very Generously Scaled Scientific Imagination.

Having A Sister Or A Friend Is Like Sitting At Night In A Lighted House. Those Outside Can Watch You If They Want, But You Need Not See Them. You Simply Say, "here Are The Perimeters Of Our Attention. If You Prowl Around Under The Windows Till The Crickets Go Silent, We Will Pull The Shades. If You Wish Us To Suffer Your Envious Curiosity, You Must Permit Us Not To Notice It." Anyone With One Solid Human Bond Is That Smug, And It Is The Smugness As Much As The Comfort And Safety That Lonely People Covet And Admire.