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A Man Cannot Speak But He Judges Himself. With His Will Or Against His Will He Draws His Portrait To The Eye Of His Companions By Every Word. Every Opinion Reacts On Him Who Utters It. It Is A Threadball Thrown At A Mark, But The Other End Remains On The Thrower

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A Man Cannot Speak

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A Man Cannot Speak But He Judges Himself. With His Will Or Against His Will He Draws His Portrait To The Eye Of His Companions By Every Word. Every Opinion Reacts On Him Who Utters It. It Is A Threadball Thrown At A Mark, But The Other End Remains On The Thrower

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Natural Science Sharpens The Discrimination. There Is No False Logic In Nature. All Its Properties Are Permanent: The Acids And Metals Never Lie; Their Yea Is Yea, Their Nay, Nay. They Are Newly Discovered But Not New.

In Private Places, Among Sordid Objects, An Act Of Truth Or Heroism Seems At Once To Draw To Itself The Sky As Its Temple, The Sun As Its Cradle. Nature Stretches Out Her Arms To Embrace Man, Only Let His Thoughts Be Of Equal Greatness.

In The Morning A Man Walks With His Whole Body; In The Evening, Only With His Legs. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals And Miscellaneous Notebooks Greek Architecture Is The Perfect Flowering Of Geometry.

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.

Society Is Infested By Persons Who, Seeing That The Sentiments Please, Counterfeit The Expression Of Them. These We Call Sentimentalists - Talkers Who Mistake The Description For The Thing, Saying For Having.

We Are As Much Strangers In Nature, As We Are Aliens From God. We Do Not Understand The Notes Of Birds. The Fox And The Deer Run Away From Us; The Bear And Tiger Rend Us. We Do Not Know The Uses Of More Than A Few Plants, As Corn And The Apple, The Potato And The Vine. Is Not The Landscape, Every Glimpse Of Which Hath A Grandeur, A Face Of Him?

In Nature Nothing Can Be Given. All Things Are Sold.

As Every Man Is Hunted By His Own Daemon, Vexed By His Own Disease, This Checks All His Activity.

If We Meet No Gods, It Is Because We Harbor None.

The Reverence For The Scriptures Is An Element Of Civilization, For Thus Has The History Of The World Been Preserved, And Is Preserved.

The Affirmative Class Monopolize The Homage Of Mankind. They Originate And Execute All The Great Feats. What A Force Was Coiled Upin The Skull Of Napoleon!

The Revelation Of Thought Takes Men Out Of Servitude Into Freedom.

We Swim, Day By Day, On A River Of Delusions, And Are Effectually Amused With Houses And Towns In The Air, Of Which The Men Aboutus Are Dupes. But Life Is A Sincerity.

I Believe It Is The Conviction Of The Purest Men, That The Net Amount Of Man And Man Does Not Much Vary. Each Is Incomparably Superior To His Companion In Some Faculty. His Want Of Skill In Other Directions, Has Added To His Fitness For His Own Work.

The Conscious Utterance Of Thought, By Speech Or Action, To Any End, Is Art.

The Sky Is The Ultimate Art Gallery Just Above Us.

Man's Life Is A Progress, Not A Station.

For, Whom The Muses Smile Upon, And Touch With Soft Persuasion, His Words Like A Storm-wind Can Bring Terror And Beauty On Their Wing; In His Every Syllable Lurketh Nature Veritable.

The Education Of The Will Is The Object Of Our Existence.

If We Will Not Interfere With Our Thought, But Will Act Entirely, Or See How The Thing Stands In God, We Know The Particular Thing, And Every Thing, And Every Man.

No Love Can Be Bound By Oath Or Covenant To Secure It Against A Higher Love.

Worst, When This Sensualism Intrudes Into The Education Of Young Women, And Withers The Hope And Affection Of Human Nature, By Teaching That Marriage Signifies Nothing But A Housewife's Thrift, And That Woman's Life Has No Other Aim.

If We Could Have Any Security Against Moods! If The Profoundest Prophet Could Be Holden To His Words, And The Hearer Who Is Readyto Sell All And Join The Crusade, Could Have Any Certificate That To-morrow His Prophet Shall Not Unsay His Testimony!

The Rule For Hospitality And Irish "help," Is, To Have The Same Dinner Every Day Throughout The Year. At Last, Mrs. O'shaughnessylearns To Cook It To A Nicety, The Host Learns To Carve It, And The Guests Are Well Served.

The Masters Painted For Joy, And Knew Not That Virtue Had Gone Out Of Them. They Could Not Paint The Like In Cold Blood. The Masters Of English Lyric Wrote Their Songs So. It Was A Fine Efflorescence Of Fine Powers.

We Mark With Light In The Memory The Few Interviews We Have Had With Souls That Made Our Souls Wiser, That Spoke What We Thought, That Told Us What We Knew, That Gave Us Leave To Be What We Inly Are.

A Man Is Known By The Books He Reads, By The Company He Keeps, By The Praise He Gives, By His Dress, By His Tastes, By His Distastes, By The Stories He Tells, By His Gait, By The Notion Of His Eye, By The Look Of His House, Of His Chamber; For Nothing On Earth Is Solitary But Every Thing Hath Affinities Infinite.

Every Genuine Work Of Art Has As Much Reason For Being As The Earth And The Sun.

It Sometimes Occurs That Memory Has A Personality Of Its Own And Volunteers Or Refuses Its Information At Its Will, Not At Mine.

We Are Impressed And Even Daunted By The Immense Universe To Be Explored. "what We Know Is A Point To What We Do Not Know."

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

A Man Is Known By The Books He Reads.

[gratitude Is] The Cheerfulness Of Wisdom.

In Haydn's Oratorios, The Notes Present To The Imagination Not Only Motions, As, Of The Snake, The Stag, And The Elephant, But Colors Also; As The Green Grass.

Nature Will Not Be Buddhist: She Resents Generalizing, And Insults The Philosopher In Every Moment With A Million Fresh Particulars.

In The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

It Is One Of The Beautiful Compensations In This Life That No One Can Sincerely Try To Help Another Without Helping Himself.

Defect In Manners Is Usually The Defect Of Fine Perceptions. Men Are Too Coarsely Made For The Delicacy Of Beautiful Carriage And Customs. It Is Not Quite Sufficient To Good Breeding, A Union Of Kindness And Independence.

I Think Sometimes Could I Only Have Music On My Own Terms, Could I Live In A Great City, And Know Where I Could Go Whenever I Wished The Ablution And Inundation Of Musical Waves, That Were A Bath And A Medicine.

In Order For One To Learn The Important Lessons Of Life, One Must First Overcome A Fear Each Day.

No Orator Can Top The One Who Can Give Good Nicknames.

No One Can Read The History Of Astronomy Without Perceiving That Copernicus, Newton, Laplace, Are Not New Men, Or A New Kind Of Men, But That Thales, Anaximenes, Hipparchus, Empodocles, Aristorchus, Pythagorus, Oenipodes, Had Anticipated Them.

The Merit Of Those Who Fill A Space In The World's History, Who Are Borne Forward, As It Were, By The Weight Of Thousands Whom They Lead, Shed A Perfume Less Sweet Than Do The Sacrifices Of Private Virtue.

Tobacco, Coffee, Alcohol, Hashish, Prussic Acid, Strychnine, Are Weak Dilutions; The Surest Poison Is Time. This Cup Which Nature Puts To Our Lips, Has A Wonderful Virtue, Surpassing That Of Any Other Draught. It Opens The Senses, Adds Power, Fills Us With Exalted Dreams, Which We Call Hope, Love, Ambition, Science; Especially It Creates A Craving For Larger Draughts Of Itself.

We Are Ashamed Of Our Thoughts And Often See Them Brought Forth By Others.

Thought Is The Property Of Him Who Can Entertain It, And Of Him Who Can Adequately Place It.

Nothing Divine Dies. All Good Is Eternally Reproductive. The Beauty Of Nature Re-forms Itself In The Mind, And Not For Barren Contemplation, But For New Creation.

I Think No Virtue Goes With Size;the Reason Of All Cowardiceis, That Men Are Overgrown,and, To Be Valiant, Must Come Downto The Titmouse Dimension.

The Virtue Of Books Is To Be Readable.

The Great Will Not Condescend To Take Anything Seriously.

Give Me Truths For I Am Weary Of The Surfaces.

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!

A Man Must Ride Alternately On The Horses Of His Private And His Public Nature.

Genius Is Saying What Is In Your Heart, Because It's In Everyone's Heart.

Before We Acquire Great Power We Must Acquire Wisdom To Use It Well.

Poverty Consist In Feeling Poor.

I Cannot Find Language Of Sufficient Energy To Convey My Sense Of The Sacredness Of Private Integrity.

My Life Is For Itself And Not For A Spectacle.

...what Torments Of Pain Have You Endured That Haven't As Yet Arrived? And May Never!

You Never Know How You Look Through Other People's Eyes.

Postpone Not Your Life.

Procrastination

Great Men Are They Who See That Spiritual Is Stronger Than Any Material Force - That Thoughts Rule The World.

The Poorest Experience Is Rich Enough For All The Purposes Of Expressing Thought

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage.

The Measure Of Mental Health Is The Disposition To Find Good Everywhere.

In My Dealing With My Child, My Latin And Greek, My Accomplishments And My Money Stead Me Nothing; But As Much Soul As I Have Avails. If I Am Wilful, He Sets His Will Against Mine, One For One, And Leaves Me, If I Please, The Degradation Of Beating Him By My Superiority Of Strength. But If I Renounce My Will, And Act For The Soul, Setting That Up As Umpire Between Us Two, Out Of His Young Eyes Looks The Same Soul; He Reveres And Loves With Me.

Truth Gathers Itself Spotless And Unhurt After All Our Surrenders And Concealments And Partisanship; Never Hurt By The Treachery Or Ruin Of Its Best Defenders, Whether Luther, Or William Penn, Or St. Paul.

Undoubtedly We Have No Questions To Ask Which Are Unanswerable. We Must Trust The Perfection Of The Creation So Far, As To Believe That Whatever Curiosity The Order Of Things Has Awakened In Our Minds, The Order Of Things Can Satisfy. Every Man's Condition Is A Solution In Hieroglyphic To Those Inquiries He Would Put. He Acts It As Life, Before He Apprehends It As Truth.

All The World Loves A Lover.

He Who Loves Goodness Harbors Angels, Reveres Reverence, And Lives With God.

The Trail Of The Serpent Reaches Into All The Lucrative Professions And Practices Of Man. Each Has Its Own Wrongs. Each Finds A Tender And Very Intelligent Conscience A Disqualification For Success. Each Requires Of The Practitioner A Certain Shutting Of The Eyes, A Certain Dapperness And Compliance, An Acceptance Of Customs, A Sequestration From The Sentiments Of Generosity And Love, A Compromise Of Private Opinion And Lofty Integrity.

Power And Speed Be Hands And Feet.

I Read Your Piece On Plato. Holmes, When You Strike At A King, You Must Kill Him.

Nature Is An Endless Combination And Repetition Of A Very Few Laws. She Hums The Old Well-known Air Through Innumerable Variations.

Do What You Fear And Your Fear Will Die.

A Man Is A Method, A Progressive Arrangement; A Selecting Principle, Gathering His Like To Him; Wherever He Goes.

Never Mind The Ridicule, Never Mind The Defeat: Up Again, Old Heart!-it Seems To Say,-there Is Victory Yet For All Justice; And The True Romance Which The World Exists To Realize, Will Be The Transformation Of Genius Into Practical Power.

A Man Is Relieved And Gay When He Has Put His Heart Into His Work And Done His Best; But What He Has Said Or Done Otherwise Shall Give Him No Peace.

Two Sorts Of Writers Possess Genius: Those Who Think, And Those Who Cause Others To Think.

Do Not Tell Me Of My Obligation To Put All Poor Men In Good Situations. Are They My Poor? I Tell Thee, Thou Foolish Philanthropist, That I Grudge The Dollar, The Dime, The Cent, I Give To Such Men As Do Not Belong To Me And To Whom I Do Not Belong

I Will No Longer Confer, Differ, Refer, Defer, Prefer, Or Suffer. I Renounce The Whole Tribe Of Fero. I Embrace Absolute Life.

The Nonchalance Of Boys Who Are Sure Of A Dinner, And Would Disdain As Much As A Lord To Do Or Say Aught To Conciliate One, Is The Healthy Attitude Of Human Nature.

Keep Your Friendships In Repair.

Everything Is Prospective, And Man Is To Live Hereafter. That The World Is For His Education Is The Only Sane Solution Of The Enigma.

What Is Well Done, I Feel As If I Did; What Is Ill-done, I Reck Not Of.

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

The Socialism Of Our Day Has Done Good Service In Setting Men To Thinking How Certain Civilizing Benefits, Now Only Enjoyed By Theopulent, Can Be Enjoyed By All.

Each Man Is A Hero And An Oracle To Somebody.

The Forest Is My Loyal Friend A Delphic Shrine To Me.

Not A Ray Is Dimmed, Not An Atom Worn; Nature's Oldest Force Is As Good As New.

Every Actual State Is Corrupt. Good Men Must Not Obey The Laws Too Well.

A Man In A Cave Or In A Camp, A Nomad, Will Die With No More Estate Than The Wolf Or The Horse Leaves.

God Has Delegated Himself To A Million Deputies.

Beauty Brings Its Own Fancy Price, For All That A Man Hath Will He Give For His Love.

The Shot Heard Round The World.

Revolutionary War

Augusta National

April And Spring

A Man Of Good Sense But Of Little Faith, Whose Compassion Seemed To Lead Him To Church As Often As He Went There, Said To Me; 'that He Liked To Have Concerts, And Fairs, And Churches, And Other Public Amusements Go On.

Beware Of Too Much Good Staying In Your Hand. It Will Fast Corrupt And Worm Worms. Pay It Away Quickly In Some Sort.

Let A Man Learn To Look For The Permanent In The Mutable And Fleeting; Let Him Learn To Bear The Disappearance Of Things He Was Wont To Reverence; Without Losing His Reverence; Let Him Learn That He Is Here, Not To Work, But To Be Worked Upon; And That, Though Abyss Open Under Abyss, And Opinion Displace Opinion, All Are At Last Contained In The Eternal Cause.

If A Man Carefully Examine His Thoughts He Will Be Surprised To Find How Much He Lives In The Future. His Well-being Is Always Ahead. Such A Creature Is Probably Immortal.

Wherever A Man Comes, There Comes Revolution. The Old Is For Slaves.

The Soul Raised Over Passion Beholds Identity And Eternal Causation, Perceives The Self-existance Of Truth And Right, And Calms Itself With Knowing That All Things Go Well.

I Hear Therefore With Joy Whatever Is Beginning To Be Said Of The Dignity And Necessity Of Labor To Every Citizen. There Is Virtue Yet In The Hoe And The Spade, For Learned As Well As For Unlearned Hands. And Labor Is Everywhere Welcome; Always We Are Invited To Work; Only Be This Limitation Observed, That A Man Shall Not For The Sake Of Wider Activity Sacrifice Any Opinion To The Popular Judgments And Modes Of Action.

Slavery Is An Institution For Converting Men Into Monkeys.

Friendship Requires More Time Than Poor Busy Men Can Usually Command.

Drudgery, Calamity, Exasperation, Want, Are Instructors In Eloquence And Wisdom.

Who Makes And Keeps The Jew Or The Negro Base, Who But You, Who Exclude Them From The Rights Which Others Enjoy?

No Law Can Be Sacred To Me But That Of My Nature. Good And Bad Are But Names Very Readily Transferable To That Or This; The Only Right Is What Is After My Constitution; The Only Wrong Is What Is Against It.

The Genius Is A Genius By The First Look He Casts On Any Object. Is His Eye Creative? Does He Not Rest In Angles And Colors, But Beholds The Design,--he Will Presently Undervalue The Actual Object.

There Is Ever A Slight Suspicion Of The Burlesque About Earnest Good Men.

It Is Bad Enough That Our Geniuses Cannot Do Anything Useful, But It Is Worse That No Man Is Fit For Society Who Has Fine Traits.he Is Admired At A Distance, But He Cannot Come Near Without Appearing A Cripple.

If You Criticize A Fine Genius, The Odds Are That You Are Out Of Your Reckoning, And, Instead Of The Poet, Are Censuring Your Owncaricature Of Him.

All Are Needed By Each One; Nothing Is Fair Or Good Alone.

All Stealing Is Comparative. If You Come To Absolutes, Pray Who Does Not Steal.

The Sign And Credentials Of The Poet Are That He Announces That Which No Man Foretold

Sometimes We Receive The Power To Say Yes To Life. Then Peace Enters Us And Makes Us Whole.

Every Person Has His Or Her Own Vocation-talent Is The Call.

Why Should We Grope Among The Dry Bones Of The Past, Or Put The Living Generation Into Masquerade Out Of Its Faded Wardrobe?

Men Talk As If Victory Were Something Fortunate. Work Is Victory.

I Am The Lover Of Uncontained And Immortal Beauty. In The Wilderness, I Find Something More Dear And Connate Than In Streets Or Villages. In The Tranquil Landscape, And Especially In The Distant Line Of The Horizon, Man Beholds Somewhat As Beautiful As His Own Nature.

The Gothic Cathedral Is A Blossoming In Stone Subdued By The Insatiable Demand Of Harmony In Man.

Nature Has Made Up Her Mind That What Cannot Defend Itself Shall Not Be Defended.

Good Thoughts Are No Better Than Good Dreams If You Don't Follow Through.

Love Is Like A Hunter, Who Cares Not For The Game When Once Caught, Which He May Have Pursued With The Most Intense And Breathless Eagerness. Love Is Strongest In Pursuit; Friendship In Possession.

Economy Does Not Consist In Saving The Coal, But In Using The Time While It Burns.

The World Is Always Childish, And With Each New Gewgaw Of A Revolution Or New Constitution That It Finds, Thinks It Shall Never Cry Any More.

Genius Is Always Sufficiently The Enemy Of Genius By Over Influence. The Literature Of Every Nation Bear Me Witness. The English Dramatic Poets Have Shakspearized Now For Two Hundred Years.

There Are Always Difficulties Arising That Tempt You To Believe Your Critics Are Right.

By Virtue Of The Deity Thought Renews Itself Inexhaustibly Every Day And The Thing Whereon It Shines, Though It Were Dust And Sand, Is A New Subject With Countless Relations.

There Is A Class Of Persons To Whom By All Spiritual Affinity I Am Bought And Sold; For Them I Will Go To Prison, If Need Be; But Your Miscellaneous Popular Charities; The Education At College Of Fools; The Building Of Meeting-houses To The Vain End To Which Many Now Stand; Alms To Sots; And The Thousandfold Relief Societies; - Though I Confess With Shame I Sometimes Succumb And Give The Dollar, It Is A Wicked Dollar Which By And By I Shall Have The Manhood To Withhold.

As Many Languages As He Has, As Many Friends, As Many Arts And Trades, So Many Times Is He A Man.

He Who Would Be A Man Must Therefore Be A Non-conformist.

I Am Thankful For Small Mercies. I Compared Notes With One Of My Friends Who Expect Everything Of The Universe, And Is Disappointed When Anything Is Less Than The Best, And I Found That I Begin At The Other Extreme, Expecting Nothing, And Am Always Full Of Thanks For Moderate Good. . . . If We Will Take The Good We Find, . . . We Shall Have Heaping Measures. . . .

If You Tax Too High, The Revenue Will Yield Nothing.

What Matters Most Is Not What Is Behind Us Or Before Us, But What Is Within Us.

We Are Never Without A Pilot. When We Know Not How To Steer, And Dare Not Hoist A Sail, We Can Drift. The Current Knows The Way, Though We Do Not. The Ship Of Heaven Guides Itself, And Will Not Accept A Wooden Rudder.

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

Don't Waste Life In Doubts And Fears; Spend Yourself On The Work Before You, Well Assured That The Right Performance Of This Hour's Duties Will Be The Best Preparation For The Hours And Ages That Will Follow It.

The Scholar Is That Man Who Must Take Up Into Himself All The Ability Of The Time, All The Contributions Of The Past, All The Hopes Of The Future. He Must Be An University Of Knowledges.

Presently We Pass To Some Other Object Which Rounds Itself Into A Whole As Did The First; For Example, A Well-laid Garden; And Nothing Seems Worth Doing But The Laying~out Of Gardens.

Power Educates The Potentate.

The Secret Of Fortune Is Joy In Our Hands.

A Scholar Is A Candle Which The Love And Desire Of All Men Will Light.

Democracy Is Morose, And Runs To Anarchy.

War Educates The Senses, Calls Into Action The Will, Perfects The Physical Constitution, Brings Men Into Such Swift And Close Collision In Critical Moments That Man Measures Man.

Saving Private Ryan

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

...man Is An Analogist, And Studies Relations In All Objects. He Is Placed In The Center Of Beings, And A Ray Of Relation Passes From Every Other Being To Him. And Neither Can Man Be Understood Without These Objects, Nor These Objects Without Man.

The Results Of Life Are Uncalculated And Uncalculable. The Years Teach Much Which The Days Never Know. The Persons Who Compose Our Company, Converse, And Come And Go, And Design And Execute Many Things, And Somewhat Comes Of It All, But An Unlooked For Result. The Individual Is Always Mistaken. He Designed Many Things, And Drew In Other Persons As Coadjutors, Quarrelled With Some Or All, Blundered Much, And Something Is Done; All Are A Little Advanced, But The Individual Is Always Mistaken. It Turns Out Somewhat New, And Very Unlike What He Promised Himself.

The Thing Done Avails, And Not What Is Said About It.

A Great Licentiousness Treads On The Heels Of A Reformation.

Do Not Be Caught By The Sensational In Nature, As A Coarse Red-faced Sunset, A Garrulous Waterfall, Or A Fifteen Thousand Foot Mountain... Avoid Prettiness - The Word Looks Much Like Pettiness - And There Is But Little Difference Between Them.

You Cannot See The Mountain Near.

My Hours Are Peaceful Centuries.

He Only Is A Well-made Man Who Has A Good Determination.

For, Truly Speaking, Whoever Provokes Me To A Good Act Or Thought Has Given Me A Pledge Of His Fidelity To Virtue,--he Has Come Under The Bonds To Adhere To That Cause To Which We Are Jointly Attached.

The Exercise Of All The Senses Is As Intense Pleasure, As Anyone Will Find, Who Recovers The Use Of One After Being Deprived Of It.

America Is Another Name For Opportunity.

The World Is Plentiful With Honey, But Only The Humble Bee Can Collect It.

Books Are The Best Of Things If Well Used; If Abused, Among The Worst. They Are Good For Nothing But To Inspire. I Had Better Never See A Book Than Be Warped By Its Attraction Clean Out Of My Own Orbit, And Made A Satellite Instead Of A System.

Truth Has Not Single Victories; All Things Are Its Organs,--not Only Dust And Stones, But Errors And Lies.

The Delicate Muses Lose Their Head If Their Attention Is Once Diverted. Perhaps If You Were Successful Abroad In Talking And Dealing With Men, You Would Not Come Back To Your Bookshelf And Your Task. When The Spirit Chooses You For Its Scribe To Publish Some Commandment, It Makes You Odious To Men And Men Odious To You, And You Shall Accept That Loathsomeness With Joy. The Moth Must Fly To The Lamp, And You Must Solve Those Questions Though You Die.

God Will Not Have His Work Made Manifest By Cowards. Always, Always, Always, Always, Always Do What You Are Afraid To Do. Do The Thing You Fear And The Death Of Fear Is Certain.

In The Country, Without Any Interference From The Law, The Agricultural Life Favors The Permanence Of Families.

The Soul Is The Perceiver And Revealer Of Truth. We Know Truth When We See It, Let Skeptic And Scoffer Say What They Choose. Foolish People Ask You, When You Have Spoken What They Do Not Wish To Hear, 'how Do You Know It Is Truth, And Not An Error Of Your Own?' We Know Truth When We See It, From Opinion, As We Know When We Are Awake That We Are Awake.

Fate, Then, Is A Name For Facts Not Yet Passed Under The Fire Of Thought; For Causes Which Are Unpenetrated.

We Are Imprisoned In Life In The Company Of Persons Powerfully Unlike Us.

A Scholar Is A Man With His Inconvenience, That, When You Ask Him His Opinion Of Any Matter, He Must Go Home And Look Up His Manuscripts To Know.

To The Body And Mind Which Have Been Cramped By Noxious Work Or Company, Nature Is Medicinal And Restores Their Tone.

Those Who Live To The Future Must Always Appear Selfish To Those Who Live To The Present.

That Which Befits Us, Embosomed In Beauty And Wonder As We Are, Is Cheerfulness, And Courage, And The Endeavor To Realize Our Aspirations. Shall Not The Heart Which Has Received So Much, Trust The Power By Which It Lives? May It Not Quit Other Leadings, And Listen To The Soul That Has Guided It So Gently, And Taught It So Much, Secure That The Future Will Be Worthy Of The Past?

O Day Of Days When We Can Read! The Reader And The Book, Either Without The Other Is Naught.

Society Is A Wave. The Wave Moves Onward, But The Water Of Which It Is Composed Does Not.

For, Though The Origin Of Most Of Our Words Is Forgotten, Each Word Was At First A Stroke Of Genius, And Obtained Currency, Because For The Moment It Symbolized The World To The First Speaker And To The Hearer. The Etymologist Finds The Deadest Word To Have Been Once A Brilliant Picture.

The Poet A Moody Child And Wildly Wise Pursued The Game With Joyful Eyes, Which Chose, Like Meteors, Their Way, And Rived The Dark With Private Ray: They Overleapt The Horizon's Edge, Searched With Apollo's Privilege; Through Man, And Woman, And Sea, And Star, Saw The Dance Of Nature Forward Far; Through Worlds, And Races, And Terms, And Times, Saw Musical Order, And Pairing Rhymes. Olympian Bards Who Sung Divine Ideas Below, Which Always Find Us Young, And Always Keep Us So.

People Say Law But They Mean Wealth.

Teaching Is The Perpetual End And Office Of All Things. Teaching, Instruction Is The Main Design That Shines Through The Sky And Earth.

The Vocabulary Of An Omniscient Man Would Embrace Words And Images Excluded From Polite Conversation. What Would Be Base, Or Even Obscene, To The Obscene, Becomes Illustrious, Spoken In A New Connexion Of Thought.

The Constructive Intellect [genius] Produces Thoughts, Sentences, Poems, Plans, Designs, Systems. It Is The Generation Of The Mind, The Marriage Of Thought With Nature.

In Skating Over Thin Ice Our Safety Is In Our Speed.

Good As Is Discourse, Silence Is Better, And Shames It. The Length Of The Discourse Indicates The Distance Of Thought Betwixt The Speaker And The Hearer. If They Were At A Perfect Understanding In Any Part, No Words Would Be Necessary Thereon. If At One In All Parts, No Words Would Be Suffered.

If I Cannot Brag Of Knowing Something, Then I Brag Of Not Knowing It; At Any Rate, Brag.

He Decided To Give Up His Large Ambition Of Knowledge And Action For Any Narrow Craft Or Profession, Aiming At A Much More Comprehensive Calling, The Art Of Living.

Power Dwells With Cheerfulness.

Positive Attitude

Faith Makes Us, And Not We It; And Faith Makes Its Own Forms.

Heaven Often Protects Valuable Souls Charged With Great Secrets, Great Ideas, By Long Shutting Them Up With Their Own Thoughts.

A Right Rule For A Club Would Be, Admit No Man Whose Presence Excludes Any One Topic. It Requires People Who Are Not Surprised Andshocked, Who Do And Let Do, And Let Be, Who Sink Trifles, And Know Solid Values, And Who Take A Great Deal For Granted.

Read Proudly--put The Duty Of Being Read Invariably On The Author. If He Is Not Read, Whose Fault Is It? I Am Quite Ready To Be Charmed, But I Shall Not Make-believe I Am Charmed.

We, As We Read, Must Become Greeks, Romans, Turks, Priest And King, Martyr And Executioner; Must Fasten These Images To Some Reality In Our Secret Experience, Or We Shall Learn Nothing Rightly.

A Man Cannot Speak But He Judges Himself

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

It Is A Sign Of Our Times, Conspicuous To The Coarsest Observer, That Many Intelligent And Religious Persons Withdraw Themselves From The Common Labors And Competitions Of The Market And The Caucus, And Betake Themselves To A Certain Solitary And Critical Way Of Living, From Which No Solid Fruit Has Yet Appeared To Justify Their Separation.

I Have Heard That Death Takes Us Away From Ill Things, Not From Good. I Have Heard That When We Pronounce The Name Of Man We Pronounce The Belief Of Immortality.

No One Has A Prosperity So High And Firm That Two Or Three Words Can't Dishearten It.

Poverty Demoralizes. A Man In Debt Is So Far A Slave; And Wall-street Thinks It Easy For A Millionaire To Be A Man Of His Word, Aman Of Honor, But, That, In Failing Circumstances, No Man Can Be Relied On To Keep His Integrity.

What Is A Weed? A Plant Whose Virtues Have Never Been Discovered.

If Thou Fill Thy Brain With Boston And New York, With Fashion And Covetousness, And Wilt Stimulate Thy Jaded Senses With Wine And French Coffee, Thou Shalt Find No Radiance Of Wisdom In The Lonely Waste Of The Pinewoods.

In This Great Society Wide Lying Around Us, A Critical Analysis Would Find Very Few Spontaneous Actions. It Is Almost All Custom And Gross Sense.

Critical Analysis

Traveling Is A Fool's Paradise.

He Is A Good Man, Who Can Receive A Gift Well. We Are Either Glad Or Sorry At A Gift, And Both Emotions Are Unbecoming.

In The Fiji Islands, It Appears, Cannibalism Is Now Familiar. They Eat Thier Own Wives And Children. We Only Devour Widows' Houses, And Great Merchants Outwit And Absorb The Substance Of Small Ones, And Every Man Feeds On His Neighbor's Labor If He Can. It Is A Milder Form Of Cannibalism.

It Is Very Odd That Nature Should Be So Unscrupulous. She Is No Saint . . .

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