We Are Long Before We Are Convinced

From Bard, To Bard, The Frigid Caution Crept, Till Declamation Roar'd, While Passion Slept.

Few Enterprises Of Great Labor Or Hazard Would Be Undertaken If We Had Not The Power Of Magnifying The Advantages We Expect From Them.

Whatever Withdraws Us From The Power Of Our Senses; Whatever Makes The Past, The Distant, Or The Future, Predominate Over The Present, Advances Us In The Dignity Of Thinking Beings. Far From Me, And Far From My Friends Be Such Frigid Philosophy As May Conduct Us Indifferent And Unmoved Over Any Ground Which Has Been Dignified By Wisdom, Bravery, Or Virtue. That Man Is Little To Be Envied Whose Patriotism Would Not Gain Force Upon The Plain Of Marathon, Or Whose Piety Would Not Grow Warmer Among The Ruins Of Ionia.

An Exotic And Irrational Entertainment.

It Is However, Reasonable, To Have Perfection In Our Eye; That We May Always Advance Towards It, Though We Know It Never Can Be Reached.