Words of Hugh Blair
Look around you, and you will behold the universe full of active powers. Action is, so to speak, the genius of nature. By motion and exertion, the system of being is preserved in vigor. By its different parts always acting in subordination one to another, the perfection of the whole is carried on. The heavenly bodies perpetually revolve. Day and night incessantly repeat their appointed course. Continual operations are going on in the earth and in the waters. Nothing stands still. All is alive and stirring throughout the universe. In the midst of this animated and busy scene, is man alone to remain idle in his place? Belongs it to him to be the sole inactive and slothful being in the creation, when in so many various ways he might improve his own nature; might advance the glory of the God who made him; and contribute his part in the general good?
-Hugh Blair: as quoted in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert: “Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers” (1895), page 4
Hugh Blair was born on 7 April 1718 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He became a Christian minister, writer, and rhetorician. He is known for “Sermons” (1777 - 1801), a five-volume endorsement of practical Christian morality, and “Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres,” a prescriptive guide on composition. Hugh Blair passed on at 82 years of age on 27 December 1800.
Look around you, and you will behold the universe full of active powers. Action is, so to speak, the genius of nature. By motion and exertion, the system of being is preserved in vigor. By its different parts always acting in subordination one to another, the perfection of the whole is carried on. The heavenly bodies perpetually revolve. Day and night incessantly repeat their appointed course. Continual operations are going on in the earth and in the waters. Nothing stands still. All is alive and stirring throughout the universe. In the midst of this animated and busy scene, is man alone to remain idle in his place? Belongs it to him to be the sole inactive and slothful being in the creation, when in so many various ways he might improve his own nature; might advance the glory of the God who made him; and contribute his part in the general good?
-Hugh Blair: as quoted in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert: “Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers” (1895), page 4
Hugh Blair was born on 7 April 1718 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He became a Christian minister, writer, and rhetorician. He is known for “Sermons” (1777 - 1801), a five-volume endorsement of practical Christian morality, and “Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres,” a prescriptive guide on composition. Hugh Blair passed on at 82 years of age on 27 December 1800.
