SHAWORDS

In these chapters Mr. Simpson sets forth in more detail the conviction — William Gayley Simpson

"In these chapters Mr. Simpson sets forth in more detail the convictions that have possessed him, or, rather, that possess him now, with a backward glance now and then at those in which he formerly believed. In each of the stages by which he has come to his present convictions he seems to have been as sure as he is now that he had found the ultimate truth, only to have doubts creep in, and presently destroy the entire structure, so that he found himself once more searching for truth and, sooner or later, once more finding it. Mr. Simpson writes with simplicity and clarity of style, as far as mysticism can be clear and simple, but with a great deal of imaginative and emotional power. Doubtless he would be a deeply stirring, moving speaker. But as one reads his life and his book one wonders how it is possible for him still to believe so absolutely in his vision when it has played him false so many times, why he still thinks he can know the truth when so many times he has had to decide that what he had thought to be truth proved to be something else."
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William Gayley Simpson
William Gayley Simpson
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William Gayley Simpson was an American neo-Nazi author, Presbyterian clergyman and lecture-circuit speaker. From the late 1910s to the 1920s, Simpson was a Christian left-wing labor activist and the associate director for the National Civil Liberties Bureau, the precursor to the American Civil Liberties Union.

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"But this also must be said: he who does what he sees shall see more; he who fails to do what he sees goes blind. Nothing in the universe is more inexorable than this. If he sees, and does what he sees, every day the way he must go shall become more clear to him. But he who does not give himself to his ideal becomes calloused. It is not only that his eye may grow dull— his whole optic nerve dies. It is like a plant standing in the window and yet so calloused that it cannot tell the difference between light and dark."
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William Gayley Simpson
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"The sight of the ideal is like lightning flashes from the far horizon; once we have seen it, we can’t forget it. Thereafter we are just secretly waiting, hoping that that star may peep out from behind the clouds again, that seeing it, we may know it for the same star, and know it as our star, and fix our eyes upon it forever. Or again, it is like a maiden of rare beauty standing at the edge of the crowd who casts quick shy glances in our direction to see if there is any hope of our love. If once we really behold her, if once we look deep into her eyes, deep into what most deeply we are, then thereafter are we utterly damned, utterly lost to all ordinary ways of feeling, and thinking, and doing."
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William Gayley Simpson
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"What I am about to say is not intended for everybody. I warn you: it is intended only for those who have ears for it. For others, I would say something very different—possibly the direct opposite. And so, if you do not like what I say, if you find it uninteresting, or in part unintelligible, or offensive, or if, having heard my words, you are one who can forget them, then do not let yourself be overmuch disturbed by them. Do forget them. You are certainly not one of those to whom I am speaking. I am really speaking only to those who have ears for what I have to say—who have, as it seems to me, a rare kind of ear for a rare kind of music."
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William Gayley Simpson