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A Good Intention But Fixed And Resolute - Bent On High And Holy Ends, We Shall Find Means To Them On Every Side And At Every Moment; And Even Obstacles And Opposition Will But Make Us "like The Fabled Specter-ships," Which Sail The Fastest In The Very Teeth Of The Wind.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A Good Intention But

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

A Good Intention But Fixed And Resolute - Bent On High And Holy Ends, We Shall Find Means To Them On Every Side And At Every Moment; And Even Obstacles And Opposition Will But Make Us "like The Fabled Specter-ships," Which Sail The Fastest In The Very Teeth Of The Wind.

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Don't Ever Give Up On Something Or Someone That You Can't Go A Full Day Without Thinking About.

The Laws Of Each Are Convertible Into The Laws Of Any Other.

All Things Are Known To The Soul.

Let The Bird Sing Without Deciphering The Song.

The Resources Of The Scholar Are Proportioned To His Confidence In The Attributes Of The Intellect.

Insist On Yourself. Never Imitate.

Every Mind Has A New Compass, A New Direction Of Its Own, Differencing Its Genius And Aim From Every Other Mind.--we Call This Specialty The Bias Of Each Individual. And None Of Us Will Ever Accomplish Anything Excellent Or Commanding Except When He Listens To This Whisper Which Is Heard By Him Alone.

The Eye Is Easily Frightened.

What A Searching Preacher Of Self-command Is The Varying Phenomenon Of Health.

There Is Some Awe Mixed With The Joy Of Our Surprise, When This Poet, Who Lived In Some Past World, Two Or Three Hundred Years Ago, Says That Which Lies Close To My Own Soul, That Which I Also Had Wellnigh Thought And Said.

The Basis Of Good Manners Is Self-reliance. Necessity Is The Law Of All Who Are Not Self-possessed.

Great Men Exist That There Might Be Greater Men.

Pride Ruined The Angels, Their Shame Them Restores; And The Joy That Is Sweetest Lurks In Stings Of Remorse.

Conversation Is The Laboratory And Workshop Of The Student.

The Cannon Will Not Suffer Any Other Sound To Be Heard For Miles And For Years Around It.

Outside Among Your Fellows, Among Strangers, You Must Preserve Appearances, A Hundred Things You Cannot Do; But Inside, The Terrible Freedom.

When We Can't Piece Together The Puzzle Of Our Own Lives, Remember The Best View Of A Puzzle Is From Above. Let Him Help Put You Together.

The Finest People Marry The Two Sexes In Their Own Person.

As We Refine, Our Checks Become Finer. If We Rise To Spiritual Culture, The Antagonism Takes A Spiritual Form.

Every Man Is An Infinitely Repelling Orb, And Holds His Individual Being On That Condition.

The Mob Is Man Voluntarily Descending To The Nature Of The Beast.

An Eye Can Threaten Like A Loaded And Levelled Gun, Or It Can Insult Like Hissing Or Kicking; Or, In Its Altered Mood, By Beams Of Kindness, It Can Make The Heart Dance For Joy. ... One Of The Most Wonderful Things In Nature Is A Glance Of The Eye; It Transcends Speech; It Is The Bodily Symbol Of Identity.

As Sunbeams Stream Through Liberal Space And Nothing Jostle Or Displace, So Waved The Pine-tree Through My Thought And Fanned The Dreams It Never Brought.

The Value Of A Principle Is The Number Of Things It Will Explain.

I Hate The Prostitution Of The Name Of Friendship To Signify Modish And Worldly Alliances.

Let Us Be Poised, Wise And Our Own Today.

Europe Has Always Owed To Oriental Genius Its Divine Impulses. What These Holy Bards Said, All Sane Men Found Agreeable And True.

In The Woods, Too, A Man Casts Off His Years, As The Snake His Slough, And At What Period Soever Of Life, Is Always A Child. In The Woods Is Perpetual Youth. Within These Plantations Of God A Decorum And Sanctity Reign, A Perennial Festival Is Dressed, And The Guest Sees Not How He Should Tire Of Them In A Thousand Years. In The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

Each Man Reserves To Himself Alone The Right Of Being Tedious.

Why Should All Virtue Work In One And The Same Way? Why Should All Give Dollars? It Is Very Inconvenient To Us Country Folk, And We Do Not Think Any Good Will Come Of It. We Have Not Dollars; Merchants Have; Let Them Give Them. Farmers Will Give Corn; Poets Will Sing; Women Will Sew; Laborers Will Lend A Hand; The Children Will Bring Flowers.

Cultivate The Habit Of Being Grateful For Every Good Thing That Comes To You, And To Give Thanks Continuously. And Because All Things Have Contributed To Your Advancement, You Should Include All Things In Your Gratitude.

One Must Be An Inventor To Read Well.

Creative Writers

The Peril Of Every Fine Faculty Is The Delight Of Playing With It For Pride. Talent Is Commonly Developed At The Expense Of Character, And The Greater It Grows, The More Is The Mischief. Talent Is Mistaken For Genius, A Dogma Or System For Truth, Ambition For Greatness, Ingenuity For Poetry, Sensuality For Art.

Personal Beauty Is Then First Charming And Itself, When It Dissatisfies Us With Any End; When It Becomes A Story Without An End; When It Suggests Gleams And Visions, And Not Earthly Satisfactions; When It Makes The Beholder Feel His Unworthiness; When He Cannot Feel His Right To It, Though He Were Caesar; He Cannot Feel More Right To It Than To The Firmament And The Splendors Of A Sunset.

All Science Is Transcendental Or Else Passes Away.

The Superstition Respecting Power And Office Is Going To The Ground. The Stream Of Human Affairs Flows Its Own Way, And Is Very Little Affected By The Activity Of Legislators. What Great Masses Of Men Wish Done, Will Be Done; And They Do Not Wish It For A Freak, But Because It Is Their State And Natural End.

The Betrothed And Accepted Lover Has Lost The Wildest Charms Of His Maiden By Her Acceptance. She Was Heaven While He Pursued Her, But She Cannot Be Heaven If She Stoops To One Such As He!

Life Is A Festival Only To The Wise. Seen From The Nook And Chimneyside Of Prudence, It Wears A Ragged And Dangerous Front.

The Course Of Everything Goes To Teach Us Faith.

In Every Society Some Men Are Born To Rule, And Some To Advise.

Every Heroic Act Measures Itself By Its Contempt Of Some External Good. But It Finds Its Own Success At Last, And Then The Prudent Also Extol.

But I Go With My Friend To The Shore Of Our Little River, And With One Stroke Of The Paddle, I Leave The Village Politics And Personalities, Yes, And The World Of Villages And Personalities Behind, And Pass Into A Delicate Realm Of Sunset And Moonlight, Too Bright Almost For Spotted Man To Enter Without Novitiate And Probation.

All Life Is An Experiment. Place Yourself In The Middle Of The Stream Of Power And Wisdom Which Animates All Whom It Floats, And You Are Without Effort Impelled To Truth, To Right And A Perfect Contentment. I Wish To Write Such Rhymes As Shall Not Suggest A Restraint, But Contrariwise The Wildest Freedom. Immortality. I Notice That As Soon As Writers Broach This Question They Begin To Quote. I Hate Quotation. Tell Me What You Know.

Daughter Of Heaven And Earth, Coy Spring, With Sudden Passion Languishing, Teaching Barren Moors To Smile, Painting Pictures Mile On Mile, Holds A Cup Of Cowslip Wreaths Whence A Smokeless Incense Breathes.

Man Moves In All Modes, By Legs Of Horses, By Wings Of Winds, By Steam, By Gas Of Balloon, By Electricity, And Stands On Tiptoe Threatening To Hunt The Eagle In His Own Element.

The Sentiment Of Virtue Is A Reverence And Delight In The Presence Of Certain Divine Laws. It Perceives That This Homely Game Of Life We Play, Covers, Under What Seem Foolish Details, Principles That Astonish.

What's A Book? Everything Or Nothing. The Eye That Sees It All.

I Wiped Away The Weeds And Foam, I Fetched My Sea-borne Treasures Home.

Every Thought Which Genius And Piety Throw Into The World Alters The World.

The History Of Mankind Interests Us Only As It Exhibits A Steady Gain Of Truth And Right, In The Incessant Conflict Which It Records Between The Material And The Moral Nature.

It Is About Your Outlook Towards Life. You Can Either Regret Or Rejoice.

Infancy Conforms To Nobody: All Conform To It, So That One Babe Commonly Makes Four Or Five Out Of The Adults Who Prattle And Play To It.

He Is Great Who Is What He Is From Nature, And Who Never Reminds Us Of Others.

Imagination Is Not A Talent Of Some Men But Is The Health Of Every Man.

The Basis Of Good Manners Is Self-reliance.

What Opium Is Instilled Into All Disaster? It Shows Formidable As We Approach It, But There Is At Last No Rough Rasping Friction,but The Most Slippery Sliding Surfaces. We Fall Soft On A Thought.

Why Has My Motley Diary No Jokes? Because It Is A Soliloquy And Every Man Is Grave Alone.

Human Society Is Made Up Of Partialities. Each Citizen Has An Interest And A View Of His Own, Which, If Followed Out To The Extreme, Would Leave No Room For Any Other Citizen.

Because The Soul Is Progressive, It Never Quite Repeats Itself, But In Every Act Attempts The Production Of A New And Fairer Whole.

When Life Has Been Well Spent, Age Is A Loss Of What It Can Well Spare,--muscular Strength, Organic Instincts, Gross Bulk, And Works That Belong To These. But The Central Wisdom, Which Was Old In Infancy, Is Young In Fourscore Years, And Dropping Off Obstructions, Leaves In Happy Subjects The Mind Purified And Wise.

Spoons And Skimmers You Can Be Undistinguishably Together; But Vases And Statues Require Each A Pedestal For Itself.

Almost All People Descend To Meet. All Association Must Be A Compromise, And, What Is Worst, The Very Flower And Aroma Of The Flower Of Each Of The Beautiful Natures Disappears As They Approach Each Other.

My Life Is For Itself And Not For A Spectacle.

The Mark Of The Man Of The World Is Absence Of Pretension. He Does Not Make A Speech; He Takes A Low Business-tone, Avoids All Brag, Is Nobody, Dresses Plainly, Promises Not At All, Performs Much, Speaks In Monosyllables, Hugs His Fact.

The Man, Who Has Seen The Rising Moon Break Out Of The Clouds At Midnight, Has Been Present Like An Archangel At The Creation Of Light And Of The World.

Pure By Impure Is Not Seen.

Is It Not Better To Intimate Our Astonishment As We Pass Through This World If It Be Only For A Moment Ere We Are Swallowed Up In The Yeast Of The Abyss? I Will Lift Up My Hands And Say Kosmos.

If You Have Something To Say, You Will Be Given The Power To Say It.

Wisdom Will Never Let Us Stand With Any Man On An Unfriendly Footing. We Refuse Sympathy And Intimacy With People, As If We Waited For Some Better Sympathy Or Intimacy To Come. But Whence And When: Tomorrow Will Be Like Today. Life Wastes Itself While We Are Preparing To Live.

Each Age, It Is Found, Must Write Its Own Books; Or Rather, Each Generation For The Next Succeeding.

Life Will Show You Masks That Are Worth All Your Carnivals

Tell Them Dear, That If Eyes Were Made For Seeing, Then Beauty Is Its Own Excuse For Being: Why Thou Wert There, O Rival Of The Rose! I Never Sought To Ask, I Never Knew: But, In My Simple Ignorance Suppose The Selfsame Power That Brought Me There Brought You.

The Affections Cannot Keep Their Youth Any More Than Men.

Do Not Be Too Timid And Squeamish About Your Actions. All Life Is An Experiment. The More Experiments You Make The Better. What If They Are A Little Coarse And You May Get Your Coat Soiled Or Torn? What If You Do Fail, And Get Fairly Rolled In The Dirt Once Or Twice? Up Again, You Shall Never Be So Afraid Of A Tumble.

I Thought As I Rode In The Cold Pleasant Light Of Sunday Morning How Silent & Passive Nature Offers, Every Morn, Her Wealth To Man; She Is Immensely Rich, He Is Welcome To Her Entire Goods, Which He Speaks No Word, Only Leaves Over Doors Ajar, Hall, Store Room, & Cellar. He May Do As He Will: If He Takes Her Hint & Uses Her Goods, She Speaks No Word; If He Blunders & Starves, She Says Nothing.

Only The Great Generalizations Survive. The Sharp Words Of The Declaration Of Independence, Lampooned Then And Since As 'glittering Generalities,' Have Turned Out Blazing Ubiquities That Will Burn Forever And Ever.

The French Woman Says, 'i Am A Woman And A Parisienne, And Nothing Foreign To Me Appears Altogether Human.'

And The Glory Of Character Is In Affronting The Horrors Of Depravity To Draw Thence New Nobilities Of Power: As Art Lives And Thrills In New Use And Combining Of Contrasts, And Mining Into The Dark Evermore For Blacker Pits Of Night.

Society Is The Stage On Which Manners Are Shown; Novels Are The Literature. Novels Are The Journal Or Record Of Manners; And The New Importance Of These Books Derives From The Fact, That The Novelist Begins To Penetrate The Surface, And Treat This Part Of Life More Worthily.

The Sensual Man Conforms Thoughts To Things; The Poet Conforms Things To His Thoughts.

The Best Conversation Is Rare. Society Seems To Have Agreed To Treat Fictions As Realities, And Realities As Fictions; And The Simple Lover Of Truth, Especially If On Very High Grounds, As A Religious Or Intellectual Seeker, Finds Himself A Stranger And Alien.

The World Is His Who Can See Through Its Pretension. What Deafness, What Stone-blind Custom, What Overgrown Error You Behold, Is There Only By Sufferance,--by Your Sufferance. See It To Be A Lie, And You Have Already Dealt It Its Mortal Blow.

The Compensations Of Calamity Are Made Apparent To The Understanding Also, After Long Intervals Of Time.

Fear Is A Great Instructor.

Is The Parent Better Than The Child Into Whom He Has Cast His Ripened Being? Whence, Then, This Worship Of The Past?

In A Library We Are Surrounded By Many Hundreds Of Dear Friends, But They Are Imprisoned By An Enchanter In These Paper And Leathern Boxes.

One Of The Benefits Of A College Education Is To Show The Boy Its Little Avail.

It Is A Greater Joy To See The Author's Author, Than Himself.

A Healthy Soul Stands United With The Just And The True, As The Magnet Arranges Itself With The Pole, So That He Stands To All Beholders Like A Transparent Object Betwixt Them And The Sun, And Whoso Journeys Towards The Sun, Journeys Towards That Person. He Is Thus The Medium Of The Highest Influence To All Who Are Not On The Same Level.

Thoughts Come Into Our Minds By Avenues Which We Never Left Open, And Thoughts Go Out Of Our Minds Through Avenues Which We Never Voluntarily Opened.

The Man Of Genius Inspires Us With A Boundless Confidence In Our Own Powers.

Best Masters For The Young Writer And Speaker Are The Fault- Finding Brothers And Sisters At Home Who Will Not Spare Him, But Willpick And Cavil, And Tell The Odious Truth.

The Sea Is Masculine, The Type Of Active Strength. Look, What Egg-shells Are Drifting All Over It, Each One, Like Ours, Filled With Men In Ecstasies Of Terror, Alternating With Cockney Conceit, As The Sea Is Rough Or Smooth. Is This Sad-colored Circle An Eternal Cemetery?

A Self-denial, No Less Austere Than The Saint's, Is Demanded Of The Scholar. He Must Worship Truth, And Forgo All Things For That,and Choose Defeat And Pain, So That His Treasure In Thought Is Thereby Augmented.

Good Breeding, A Union Of Kindness And Independence.

Fear, When Your Friends Say To You What You Have Done Well, And Say It Through; But When They Stand With Uncertain Timid Looks Of Respect And Half-dislike, And Must Suspend Their Judgement For Years To Come, You May Begin To Hope.

The God Of Victory Is Said To Be One-handed, But Peace Gives Victory To Both Sides.

Everything In Creation Has Its Appointed Painter Or Poet And Remains In Bondage Like The Princess In The Fairy Tale 'til Its Appropriate Liberator Comes To Set It Free.

All Forms Of Government Symbolize An Immortal Government, Common To All Dynasties And Independent Of Numbers, Perfect Where Two Men Exist, Perfect Where There Is Only One Man.

Conversation Is An Art In Which A Man Has All Mankind For His Competitors, For It Is That Which All Are Practising Every Day While They Live.

Columbus Discovered No Isle Or Key So Lonely As Himself.

Nature Paints The Best Part Of A Picture, Carves The Best Parts Of The Statue, Builds The Best Part Of The House, And Speaks The Best Part Of The Oration.

My Angel,-his Name Is Freedom,- Choose Him To Be Your King; He Shall Cut Pathways East And West, And Fend You With His Wing.

Difficulties Exist To Be Surmounted.

Solitude, The Safeguard Of Mediocrity, Is To Genius The Stern Friend

Each Work Of Art Excludes The World, Concentrates Attention On Itself. For The Time It Is The Only Thing Worth Doing -to Do Just That; Be It A Sonnet, A Statue, A Landscape, An Outline Head Of Caesar, Or An Oration. Presently We Return To The Sight Of Another That Globes Itself Into A Whole As Did The First, For Example, A Beautiful Garden; And Nothing Seems Worth Doing In Life But Laying Out A Garden.

The Counting-room Maxims Liberally Expounded Are Laws Of The Universe. The Merchant's Economy Is A Coarse Symbol Of The Soul's Economy. It Is, To Spend For Power, And Not For Pleasure.

The Wise Know That Foolish Legislation Is A Rope Of Sand, Which Perishes In The Twisting.

Astronomy Taught Us Our Insignificance In Nature.

Is The Acorn Better Than The Oak Which Is Its Fullness And Completion?

What You Set Your Heart Upon, Surely Shall Be Yours.

Pride Can Go Without Domestics, Without Fine Clothes, Can Live In A House With Two Rooms, Can Eat Potato, Purslain, Beans, Lyed Corn, Can Work On The Soil, Can Travel Afoot, Can Talk With Poor Men, Or Sit Silent Well Contented With Fine Saloons. But Vanity Costs Money, Labor, Horses, Men, Women, Health And Peace, And Is Still Nothing At Last; A Long Way Leading Nowhere.--only One Drawback; Proud People Are Intolerably Selfish, And The Vain Are Gentle And Giving.

That Which We Persist In Doing Becomes Easier To Do, Not That The Nature Of The Thing Has Changed But That Our Power To Do Has Increased.

The Profoundest Thought Or Passion Sleeps As In A Mine, Until An Equal Mind And Heart Finds And Publishes It.

The Hero Sees That The Event Is Ancillary: It Must Follow Him.

Sugar Is Not So Sweet To The Palate As Sound To The Healthy Ear.

Who Is He That Shall Control Me? Why May Not I Act And Speak And Write And Think With Entire Freedom? What Am I To The Universe, Or, The Unvierse, What Is It To Me? Who Hath Forged The Chains Of Wrong And Right, Of Opinion And Custom? And Must I Wear Them?

The Things Taught In Schools & Colleges Are Not An Education But The Means Of Education.

The Adventitious Beauty Of Poetry May Be Felt In The Greater Delight With A Verse Given In A Happy Quotation Than In The Poem.

When It Is Darkest, We Can See The Stars.

Suicide Inspirational

A Cynic Can Chill And Dishearten With A Single Word.

But It Is Impossible That The Creative Power Should Exclude Itself. Into Every Intelligence There Is A Door Which Is Never Closed,through Which The Creator Passes.

Nature Is A Frugal Mother, And Never Gives Without Measure. When She Has Work To Do, She Qualifies Men For That And Sends Them Equipped.

Every Opinion Reacts On Him Who Utters It.

After Thirty, A Man Wakes Up Sad Every Morning, Excepting Perhaps Five Or Six, Until The Day Of His Death.

But Speak The Truth, And All Nature And All Spirits Help You With Unexpected Furtherance. Speak The Truth, And All Things Alive Orbrute Are Vouchers, And The Very Roots Of The Grass Underground There Do Seem To Stir And Move To Bear You Witness.

The Truth, The Hope, Of Any Time Must Be Sought In The Minorities. Michael Angelo Was The Conscience Of Italy. We Grow Free With His Name, And Find It Ornamental Now, But In His Own Day His Friends Were Few.

The Pest Of Society Are The Egotist, They Are Dull And Bright, Sacred And Profane, Course And Fine. It Is A Disease That Like The Flu Falls On All Constitutions.

When Good Is Near You, When You Have Life In Yourself, It Is Not By Any Known Or Accustomed Way; You Shall Not Discern The Foot-prints Of Any Other; You Shall Not See The Face Of Man; You Shall Not Hear Any Name; The Way, The Thought, The Good, Shall Be Wholly Strange And New. It Shall Exclude Example And Experience.

Put The Argument Into A Concrete Shape, Into An Image, Some Hard Phrase, Round And Solid As A Ball, Which They Can See And Handle And Carry Home With Them, And The Cause Is Half Won.

The Flowers Talk When The Wind Blows Over Them.

But Do Your Work, And I Shall Know You. Do Your Work, And You Shall Reinforce Yourself.

A Person's Life Is Limited But Serving The People Is Limitless. I Want To Devote My Limited Life To Serving The People Limitlessly.

The Rain Has Spoiled The Farmer's Day; Shall Sorrow Put My Books Away? Thereby Are Two Days Lost.

At Present, Man Applies To Nature But Half His Force. He Works On The World With His Understanding Alone. He Lives In It, And Masters It By A Penny-wisdom; And He That Works Most In It, Is But A Half-man, And Whilst His Arms Are Strong And His Digestion Good, His Mind Is Imbruted, And He Is A Selfish Savage.

It Is The Fault Of Our Rhetoric That We Cannot Strongly State One Fact Without Seeming To Belie Some Other.

I Have Been Told By Persons Of Experience In Matters Of Taste, That The Fashions Follow A Law Of Gradation, And Are Never Arbitrary. The New Mode Is Always Only A Step Onward In The Same Direction As The Last Mode; And A Cultivated Eye Is Prepared For And Predicts The New Fashion.

A Man Is The Whole Encyclopedia Of Facts.

We Cannot Forgive Another For Not Being Ourselves.

Education Should Be As Broad As Man.

I Covet Truth; Beauty Is Unripe Childhood's Cheat; I Leave It Behind With The Games Of Youth.

Intellectual Tasting Of Life Will Not Supersede Muscular Activity.

We See The World Piece By Piece, As The Sun, The Moon, The Animal, The Tree; But The Whole, Of Which These Are Shining Parts, Is The Soul.

Happy Is The Hearing Man; Unhappy The Speaking Man.

A Great Man Scarcely Knows How He Dines, How He Dresses; But Without Railing Or Precision, His Living Is Natural And Poetic.

Success In Your Work, The Finding A Better Method, The Better Understanding That Insures The Better Performing Is Hat And Coat, Is Food And Wine, Is Fire And Horse And Health And Holiday. At Least, I Find That Any Success In My Work Has The Effect On My Spirits Of All These.

A Part Of Fate Is The Freedom Of Man. Forever Wells Up The Impulse Of Choosing And Acting In His Soul.

Nature, As We Know Her, Is No Saint.... She Comes Eating And Drinking And Sinning.

The Mystic Must Be Steadily Told,-all That You Say Is Just As True Without The Tedious Use Of That Symbol As With It. Let Us Have A Little Algebra, Instead Of This Trite Rhetoric,-universal Signs, Instead Of These Village Symbols,-and We Shall Both Be Gainers. The History Of Hierarchies Seems To Show That All Religious Error Consisted In Making The Symbol Too Stark And Solid, And Was At Last Nothing But An Excess Of The Organ Of Language.

Cunning Is Strength Withheld.

Do Not Be Too Timid And Squeamish About Your Actions.

Will And Determination

The Mark Of A Man Of The World Is Absence Of Pretension.

There Is No Privacy That Cannot Be Penetrated. No Secret Can Be Kept In The Civilized World. Society Is A Masked Ball Where Everyone Hides His Real Character, Then Reveals It By Hiding

The Civility Of No Race Can Be Perfect Whilst Another Race Is Degraded. It Is A Doctrine Alike Of The Oldest And Of The Newest Philosophy, That Man Is One, And That You Cannot Injure Any Member, Without A Sympathetic Injury To All The Members

A Judge May Be A Farmer; But He Is Not To Geld His Own Pigs.

You Need Not Fear To Handle The Truth Roughly. She Is No Invalid.

Progress Is The Activity Of Today And The Assurance Of Tomorrow

I May Say It Of Our Preposterous Use Of Books,--he Knew Not What To Do, And So He Read.

Every Man Is Grave Alone.

The First Lesson Of History Is That Evil Is Good.

The Ship Of Heaven Guides Itself And Will Not Accept A Wooden Rudder.

It Is The Doctrine Of The Popular Music-masters, That Whoever Can Speak Can Sing. So, Probably, Every Man Is Eloquent Once In His Life. Our Temperaments Differ In Capacity Of Heat, Or

We Lie In The Lap Of Immense Intelligence.

Men Who Know The Same Things Are Not Long The Best Company For Each Other.

The Great Poet Makes Us Feel Our Own Wealth, And Then We Think Less Of His Compositions. His Best Communication To Our Mind Is To Teach Us To Despise All He Has Done.

Culture Implies All Which Gives The Mind Possession Of Its Own Powers, As Languages To The Critic, Telescope To The Astronomer. Culture Alters The Political Status Of An Individual. It Raises A Rival Royalty In A Monarchy. 'tis King Against King. It Is Ever A Romance Of History In All Dynasties--the Co-presence Of The Revolutionary Force In Intellect. It Creates A Personal Independence Which The Monarch Cannot Look Down, And To Which He Must Often Succumb.

If Any Mention Was Made Of Homicide, Madness, Adultery, And Intolerable Tortures, We Would Let The Church-bells Ring Louder, The Church-organ Swell Its Peal And Drown The Hideous Sound. The Sugar They Raised Was Excellent: Nobody Tasted Blood In It.

People Do Not Deserve To Have Good Writing, They Are So Pleased With Bad.

The Key To Every Man Is His Thought.

When You Have Worn Out Your Shoes, The Strength Of The Show Fiber Has Passed Into Your Body.

The Only Person You Are Destined To Become Is The Person You Decide To Be.

Let Not A Man Guard His Dignity, But Let His Dignity Guard Him.

The Gift, To Be True, Must Be The Flowing Of The Giver Unto Me, Correspondent To My Flowing Unto Him.

Will Is The Measure Of Power. To A Great Genius There Must Be A Great Will. If The Thought Is Not A Lamp To The Will, Does Not Proceed To An Act, The Wise Are Imbecile. He Alone Is Strong And Happy Who Has A Will. The Rest Are Herds. He Uses; They Are Used. He Is Of The Maker; They Are Of The Made. Will Is Always Miraculous, Being The Presence Of God To Men. When It Appears In A Man He Is A Hero, And All Metaphysics Are At Fault.

If We Meet No Gods, It Is Because We Harbor None. If There Is Grandeur In You, You Will Find Grandeur In Porters And Sweeps.

For It Is Only The Finite That Has Wrought And Suffered; The Infinite Lies Stretched In Smiling Repose.

It Is Not An Arbitrary "decree Of God," But In The Nature Of Man, That A Veil Shuts Down On The Facts Of To-morrow; For The Soul Will Not Have Us Read Any Other Cipher Than That Of Cause And Effect. By This Veil, Which Curtains Events, It Instructs The Children Of Men To Live In To-day.

Colleges Hate Geniuses, Just As Convents Hate Saints.

The Life Of Man Is The True Romance, Which When It Is Valiantly Conduced, Will Yield The Imagination A Higher Joy Than Any Fiction.

Echo Waits With Art And Care And Will The Faults Of Song Repair.

A Man Should Learn To Detect And Watch That Gleam Of Light Which Flashes Across His Mind From Within, More Than The Luster Of The Firmament Of Bards And Sages

The Key To The Age May Be This, Or That, Or The Other, As The Young Orators Describe; The Key To All Ages Is - Imbecility; Imbecility In The Vast Majority Of Men, At All Times, And, Even In Heroes, In All But Certain Eminent Moments; Victims Of Gravity

Women Stand Related To Beautiful Nature Around Us, And The Enamoured Youth Mixes Their Form With Moon And Stars, With Woods And Waters, And The Pomp Of Summer. They Heal Us Of Awkwardness By Their Words And Looks. We Observe Their Intellectual Influence On The Most Serious Student. They Refine And Clear His Mind: Teach Him To Put A Pleasing Method Into What Is Dry And Difficult.

Conservatism Makes No Poetry, Breathes No Prayer, Has No Invention; It Is All Memory. Reform Has No Gratitude, No Prudence, No Husbandry.

Cities Give Us Collision. 'tis Said, London And New York Take The Nonsense Out Of A Man.

The Moral Equalizes All; Enriches, Empowers All. It Is The Coin Which Buys All, And Which All Find In Their Pocket. Under The Whipof The Driver, The Slave Shall Feel His Equality With Saints And Heroes.

Why Should We Be Cowed By The Name Of Action?.

Nothing Is Arbitrary, Nothing Is Insulated In Beauty. It Depends Forever On The Necessary And The Useful. The Plumage Of The Bird, The Mimic Plumage Of The Insect, Has A Reason For Its Rich Colors In The Constitution Of The Animal. Fitness Is So Inseparable An Accompaniment Of Beauty, That It, Has Been Taken For It.

And What Greater Calamity Can Fall Upon A Nation Than The Loss Of Worship.

The Virtue In Most Request Is Conformity.

Every Word Was Once A Poem. Every New Relation Is A New Word.

Blessed Are Those Who Have No Talent!

Blessed Are Those

Every Word Which Is Used To Express A Moral Or Intellectual Fact, If Traced To Its Root, Is Found To Be Borrowed From Some Material Appearance.

Tragedy Is In The Eye Of The Observer, And Not In The Heart Of The Sufferer.

The Whole Value Of The Dime Is In Knowing What To Do With It.

The Sciences, Even The Best,-mathematics And Astronomy,-are Like Sportsmen, Who Seize Whatever Prey Offers, Even Without Being Able To Make Any Use Of It.

The Earth Is A Machine Which Yields Almost Gratuitous Service To Every Application Of Intellect. Every Plant Is A Manufacturer Of Soil. In The Stomach Of The Plant Development Begins. The Tree Can Draw On The Whole Air, The Whole Earth, On All The Rolling Main. The Plant Is All Suction-pipe,--imbibing From The Ground By Its Root, From The Air By Its Leaves, With All Its Might.

There Are Not In The World At Any One Time More Than A Dozen Persons Who Read And Understand Plato:-never Enough To Pay For An Edition Of His Works; Yet To Every Generation These Come Duly Down, For The Sake Of Those Few Persons, As If God Brought Them Written In His Hand.

The Hero Is A Mind Of Such Balance That No Disturbances Can Shake His Will, But Pleasantly, And, As It Were, Merrily, He Advancesto His Own Music, Alike In Frightful Alarms And In The Tipsy Mirth Of Universal Dissoluteness.

War Disorganizes, But It Is To Reorganize.

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