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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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A Man Of Good

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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.

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Astronomy Is A Cold, Desert Science, With All Its Pompous Figures,-depends A Little Too Much On The Glass-grinder, Too Little On The Mind. 't Is Of No Use To Show Us More Planets And Systems. We Know Already What Matter Is, And More Or Less Of It Does Not Signify.

Sunday Is The Core Of Our Civilization, Dedicated To Thought And Reverence.

To Say Then, The Majority Are Wicked, Means No Malice, No Bad Heart In The Observer, But, Simply That The Majority Are Unripe, Andhave Not Yet Come To Themselves, Do Not Yet Know Their Opinion.

Each Truth That A Writer Acquires Is A Lantern, Which He Turns Full On What Facts And Thoughts Lay Already In His Mind, And Behold, All The Mats And Rubbish Which Had Littered His Garret Become Precious. Every Trivial Fact In His Private Biography Becomes An Illustration Of This New Principle, Revisits The Day, And Delights All Men By Its Piquancy And New Charm.

Though Thou Loved Her As Thyself, As A Self Of Purer Clay, Tho' Her Parting Dims The Day, Stealing Grace From All Alive, Heartily Know, When Half-gods Go, The Gods Arrive.

Speak Your Latent Conviction. . . Else Tomorrow A Stranger Will Say With Masterly Good Sense Precisely What We Have Thought And Felt All The Time, And We Shall Be Forced To Take With Shame Our Own Opinion From Another.

There Is A Genius Of A Nation, Which Is Not To Be Found In The Numerical Citizens, But Which Characterizes The Society.

A Man's Growth Is Seen In The Successive Choirs Of His Friends.

Nature Wishes That Woman Should Attract Man, Yet She Often Cunningly Moulds Into Her Face A Little Sarcasm, Which Seems To Say, 'yes, I Am Willing To Attract, But To Attract A Little Better Kind Of A Man Than Any I Yet Behold

Every Individual Strives To Grow And Exclude, To The Extremities Of The Universe, And To Impose The Law Of Its Being On Every Other Creature.

Solitary Converse With Nature; For Thence Are Ejaculated Sweet And Dreadful Words Never Uttered In Libraries. Ah! The Spring Days, The Summer Dawns, And October Woods!

Every Reform Was Once A Private Opinion, And When It Shall Be A Private Opinion Again, It Will Solve The Problem Of The Age.

And Of Poetry, The Success Is Not Attained When It Lulls And Satisfies, But When It Astonishes And Fires Us With New Endeavours After The Unattainable.

Almost Every Man We Meet Requires Some Civility; Requires To Be Humored; - He Has Some Fame, Some Talent, Some Whim Of Religion Or Philanthropy In His Head That Is Not To Be Questioned, And Which Spoils All Conversation With Him. But A Friend Is A Sane Man Who Exercises Not My Ingenuity, But Me.

He Who Does A Good Deed Is Instantly Ennobled. He Who Does A Mean Deed Is By The Action Itself Contracted.

A Sublime Hope Cheers Ever The Faithful Heart, That Elsewhere, In Other Regions Of The Universal Powers, Souls Are Now Acting, Enduring And Daring, Which Can Love Us, And Which We Can Love.

No Facts To Me Are Sacred; None Are Profane.

A Day Is A Miniature Eternity.

The Machine Unmakes The Man. Now That The Machine Is So Perfect, The Engineer Is Nobody.

The First Questions Are Always To Be Asked, And The Wisest Doctor Is Gravelled By The Inquisitiveness Of A Child.

Some Men, At The Approach Of A Dispute, Neigh Like Horses.

I Honor Health As The First Muse, And Sleep As The Condition Of Health. Sleep Benefits Mainly By The Sound Health It Produces; Incidentally Also By Dreams, Into Whose Farrago A Divine Lesson Is Sometimes Slipped.

There Is A Crack In Everything God Has Made

Reality Is A Sliding Door.

Therefore Is Nature Ever The Ally Of Religion: Lends Her All Her Pomp And Riches To The Religious Sentiment.

It Is Sublime To Think And Say Of Another, I Need Never Meet, Or Speak, Or Write To Him: We Need Not Reinforce Ourselves, Or Send Tokens Of Remembrance; I Rely On Him As On Myself: If He Did Thus And Thus, I Know It Was Right.

When Nature Has Work To Be Done, She Creates A Genius To Do It.

Not Always Can Flowers, Pearls, Poetry, Protestations, Nor Even Home In Another Heart, Content The Awful Soul That Dwells In Clay.

In Dreams We Are True Poets; We Create The Persons Of The Drama; We Give Them Appropriate Figures Faces, Costumes; They Are Perfect In Their Organs, Attitudes, Manners; Moreover They Speak After Their Own Characters, Not Ours; And We Listen With Surprise To What They Say.

Discontent Is Want Of Self-reliance; It Is Infirmity Of Will.

I Am Not Much An Advocate For Traveling, And I Observe That Men Run Away To Other Countries Because They Are Not Good In Their Own, And Run Back To Their Own Because They Pass For Nothing In The New Places. For The Most Part, Only The Light Characters Travel. Who Are You That Have No Task To Keep You At Home?

We Do Not Want Actions, But Men; Not A Chemical Drop Of Water, But Rain; The Spirit That Sheds And Showers Actions, Countless, Endless Actions.

On The Other Side, The Conservative Party, Composed Of The Most Moderate, Able, And Cultivated Part Of The Population, Is Timid, And Merely Defensive Of Property. It Vindicates No Right, It Aspires To No Real Good, It Brands No Crime, It Proposes No Generous Policy, It Does Not Build, Nor Write, Nor Cherish The Arts, Nor Foster Religion, Nor Establish Schools, Nor Encourage Science, Nor Emancipate The Slave, Nor Befriend The Poor, Or The Indian, Or The Immigrant.

All Great Men Come Out Of The Middle Classes.

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

A Just Thinker Will Allow Full Swing To His Scepticism. I Dip My Pen In The Blackest Ink, Because I Am Not Afraid Of Falling Into My Inkpot.... We Are Of Different Opinions At Different Hours, But We Always May Be Said To Be At Heart On The Side Of Truth.

We Live Amid Surfaces, And The True Art Of Life Is To Skate Well On Them

I Know And See Too Well, When Not Voluntarily Blind, The Speedy Limits Opersons Called High And Worthy.

Cities Force Growth And Make People Talkative And Entertaining, But They Also Make Them Artificial.

The Religions We Call False Were Once True.

A Lady With Whom I Was Riding In The Forest Said To Me That The Woods Always Seemed To Her To Wait, As If The Genii Who Inhabit Them Suspend Their Deeds Until The Wayfarer Had Passed Onward; A Thought Which Poetry Has Celebrated In The Dance Of The Fairies, Which Breaks Off On The Approach Of Human Feet.

Take The Place And Attitude To Which You See Your Unquestionable Right, And All Men Acquiesce.

If We Follow The Truth, It Will Bring Us Out Safe At Last.

The History Of Persecution Is A History Of Endeavors To Cheat Nature, To Make Water Run Up Hill, To Twist A Rope Of Sand.

Fashion Understands Itself; Good-breeding And Personal Superiority Of Whatever Country Readily Fraternize With Those Of Every Other. The Chiefs Of Savage Tribes Have Distinguished Themselves In London And Paris, By The Purity Of Their Tournure.

Beware When The Great God Lets Loose A Thinker On This Planet.

Add Energy, Inspire Hope, And Blow The Coals Into A Useful Flame.

Thus Is Man Made Equal To Every Event. He Can Face Danger For The Right. A Poor, Tender, Painful Body, He Can Run Into Flame Or Bullets Or Pestilence, With Duty For His Guide.

The Hearing Ear Is Always Found Close To The Speaking Tongue.

Some People Will Tell You There Is A Great Deal Of Poetry And Fine Sentiment In A Chest Of Tea.

When I First Open My Eyes Upon The Morning Meadows And Look Out Upon The Beautiful World, I Thank God I Am Alive.

The Ornaments Of Our Homes Are The Friends That Visit It

Be Not The Slave Of Your Own Past.

Whenever The Average Intellect Of The Clergy Declines In The Balance With The Average Intellect Of The People The Churches Will Be Shut Up And A New Order Of Things [will] Begin.

The Passages Of Shakespeare That We Most Prize Were Never Quoted Until Within This Century.

One Man's Justice Is Another's Injustice; One Man's Beauty Another's Ugliness; One Man's Wisdom Anpther's Folly.

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.

We All Need Someone Who Can Help Us Do What We Already Can.

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.

What Your Heart Thinks Is Great, Is Great. The Soul's Emphasis Is Always Right.

How Cunningly Nature Hides Every Wrinkle Of Her Inconceivable Antiquity Under Roses And Violets And Morning Dew!

The People Are To Be Taken In Very Small Doses.

Public Speaking

The Transcendentalist Adopts The Whole Connection Of Spiritual Doctrine. He Believes In Miracle, In The Perpetual Openness Of Thehuman Mind To New Influx Of Light And Power; He Believes In Inspiration, And In Ecstacy.

Let The Amelioration In Our Laws Of Property Proceed From The Concession Of The Rich, Not From The Grasping Of The Poor. Let Us Understand That The Equitable Rule Is, That No One Should Take More Than His Share, Let Him Be Ever So Rich.

We Thirst For Approbation, Yet Cannot Forgive The Approver.

Love, Which Is The Essence Of God, Is Not For Levity, But For The Total Worth Of Man.

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!

For A Great Nature, It Is A Happiness To Escape A Religious Training; Religion Of Character Is So Apt To Be Invaded.

Nature Is A Rag Merchant, Who Works Up Every Shred And Ort And End Into New Creations.

Every Man Is A Borrower And A Mimic, Life Is Theatrical And Literature A Quotation.

The Refining Influence Is The Study Of Art, Which Is The Science Of Beauty; And I Find That Every Man Values Every Scrap Of Knowledge In Art, Every Observation Of His Own In It, Every Hint He Has Caught From Another. For The Laws Of Beauty Are The Beauty Of Beauty, And Give The Mind The Same Or A Higher Joy Than The Sight Of It Gives The Senses. The Study Of Art Is Of High Value To The Growth Of The Intellect.

My Son, A Perfect Little Boy Of Five Years And Three Months, Had Ended His Earthly Life. You Can Never Sympathize With Me; You Can Never Know How Much Of Me Such A Young Child Can Take Away. A Few Weeks Ago I Accounted Myself A Very Rich Man, And Now The Poorest Of All.

Valor Consists In The Power Of Self Recovery.

Deep Insight Will Always, Like Nature, Ultimate Its Thought In A Thing.

The Sum Of Wisdom Is That Time Is Never Lost That Is Devoted To Work.

Though We Love Goodness And Not Stealing, Yet Also We Love Freedom And Not Preaching.

Nature, Through All Her Kingdoms, Insures Herself.

The Secret Of Success In Education Is Respecting The Students.

Secret To Success

Nothing In Nature Is Exhausted In Its First Use...in God, Every End Is Converted Into A New Means.

My Companion Assumes To Know My Mood And Habit Of Thought, And We Go On From Explanation To Explanation, Until All Is Said That Words Can, And We Leave Matters Just As They Were At First, Because Of That Vicious Assumption.

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

A Gothic Cathedral Affirms That It Was Done By Us And Not Done By Us.

Let Us Not Forget The Genial Miraculous Force We Have Known To Proceed From A Book.

What A Benefit Would The American Government, Not Yet Relieved Of Its Extreme Need, Render To Itself, And To Every City, Village And Hamlet In The States, If It Would Tax Whiskey And Rum Almost To The Point Of Prohibition! Was It Bonaparte Who Said That He Found Vices Very Good Patriots? "he Got Five Millions From The Love Of Brandy, And He Should Be Glad To Know Which Of The Virtues Would Pay Him As Much." Tobacco And Opium Have Broad Backs, And Will Cheerfully Carry The Load Of Armies, If You Choose To Make Them Pay High For Such Joy As They Give And Such Harm As They Do.

Do You Want To Be A Power In The World? Then Be Yourself. Be True To The Highest Within Your Soul And Then Allow Yourself To Be Governed By No Customs Or Conventionaliti Es Or Arbitrary Man-made Rules That Are Not Founded On Principle.

Character Teaches Above Our Wills.

The "times," "the Age" What Is That, But A Few Profound Persons And A Few Active Persons Who Epitomize The Times?

It Is Better To Be A Thorn In The Side Of A Friend Than An Echo.

The Sinew And Heart Of Man Seem To Be Drawn Out, And We Are Become Timorous Desponding Whimperers. We Are Afraid Of Truth, Afraid Of Fortune, Afraid Of Death, And Afraid Of Each Other.

We Can See Well Into The Past; We Can Guess Shrewdly Into The Future, But That Which Is Rolled Up And Muffled In Impenetrable Folds Is Today.

It Is Commonly Said By Farmers, That A Good Pear Or Apple Costs No More Time Or Pains To Rear, Than A Poor One; So I Would Have No Work Of Art, No Speech, Or Action, Or Thought, Or Friend, But The Best.

Go Face The Fire At Sea, Or The Cholera In Your Friend's House, Or The Burglar In Your Own, Or What Danger Lies In The Way Of Duty, Knowing You Are Guarded By The Cherubim Of Destiny. If You Believe In Fate To Your Harm, Believe It, At Least, For Your Good.

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

It Never Was In The Power Of Any Man Or Any Community To Call The Arts Into Being. They Come To Serve His Actual Wants, Never To Please His Fancy.

The Other Terror That Scares Us From Self-trust Is Our Consistency; A Reverence For Our Past Act Or Word, Because The Eyes Of Others Have No Other Data For Computing Our Orbit Than Our Past Acts, And We Are Loath To Disappoint Them.

The Vanishing, Volatile Froth Of The Present Which Any Shadow Will Alter, Any Thought Blow Away, Any Event Annihilate, Is Every Moment Converted Into The Adamantine.

One Thing Is Forever Good; That One Thing Is Success.

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.

If We Will Take The Good We Find, Asking No Questions, We Shall Have Heaping Measures. The Great Gifts Are Not Got By Analysis. Everything Good Is On The Highway. The Middle Region Of Our Being Is The Temperate Zone.

There Are Many Eyes That Can Detect And Honor The Prudent And Household Virtues; There Are Many That Can Discern Genius On His Starry Track, Though The Mob Is Incapable; But When That Love Which Is All-suffering, All-abstaining, All-aspiring, Which Has Vowed To Itself, That It Will Be A Wretch And Also A Fool In This World, Sooner Than Soil Its White Hands By Any Compliances, Comes Into Our Streets And Houses,--only The Pure And Aspiring Can Know Its Face, And The Only Compliment They Can Pay It, Is To Own It.

Perpetual Modernism Is The Measure Of Merit In Every Work Of Art.

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

The Narrow Sectarian Cannot Read Astronomy With Impunity. The Creeds Of His Church Shrivel Like Dried Leaves At The Door Of The Observatory.

We Want A State Of Things In Which Crime Will Not Pay, A State Of Things Which Allows Every Man The Largest Liberty Compatible With The Liberty Of Every Other Man.

Wherever There Is Power, There Is Age. Don't Be Deceived By Dimples And Curls. I Tell You That Babe Is A Thousand Years Old.

Why Should You Renounce Your Right To Traverse The Star-lit Deserts Of Truth, Of The Premature Comforts Of An Acre, House, And Barn? Truth Also Has Its Roof, And Bed, And Board.

Works Of The Intellect Are Great Only By Comparison With Each Other.

People Are Very Inclined To Set Moral Standards For Others.

A Person Seldom Falls Sick But The Bystanders Are Animated With A Faint Hope That He Will Die.

As I Walked In The Woods I Felt What I Often Feel That Nothing Can Befall Me In Life, No Calamity, No Disgrace (leaving Me My Eyes) To Which Nature Will Not Offer A Sweet Consolation. Standing On The Bare Ground With My Head Bathed By The Blithe Air, & Uplifted Into The Infinite Space, I Become Happy In My Universal Relations. The Name Of The Nearest Friend Sounds Then Foreign & Accidental. I Am The Heir Of Uncontained Beauty And Power.

Beauty Through My Senses Stole; I Yielded Myself To The Perfect Whole.

Who Heeds The Waste Abyss Of Possibility? The Ocean Is Everywhere The Same, But It Has No Character Until Seen With The Shore Or The Ship.

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.

When We Have Broken Our God Of Tradition, And Ceased From Our God Of Rhetoric, Then May God Fire The Heart With His Presence.

There Is No Den In The Wide World To Hide A Rogue. Commit A Crime, And The Earth Is Made Of Glass. Commit A Crime, And It Seems As If A Coat Of Snow Fell On The Ground, Such As Reveals In The Woods The Track Of Every Partridge And Fox And Squirrel And Mole.

We Grizzle Every Day. I See No Need Of It. Whilst We Converse With What Is Above Us, We Do Not Grow Old, But Grow Young.

A Low Self-love In The Parent Desires That His Child Should Repeat His Character And Fortune.

It Does Not Hurt Weak Eyes To Look Into Beautiful Eyes Never So Long.

Everything In Nature Goes By Law, And Not By Luck.

As Long As Civilization Is Essentially One Of Property, Of Fences, Of Exclusiveness, It Will Be Mocked By Delusions. Our Riches Will Leave Us Sick; There Will Be Bitterness In Our Laughter, And Our Wine Will Burn Our Mouth. Only That Good Profits Which We Can Taste With All Doors Open, And Which Serves All Men.

When It's Dark Enough Men See Stars.

When The Spirit Is Not Master Of The World, Then It Is Its Dupe.

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.

What The Tender And Poetic Youth Dreams To-day, And Conjures Up With Inarticulate Speech, Is To-morrow The Vociferated Result Of Public Opinion, And The Day After Is The Character Of Nations.

He Who Travels In Search Of Something Which He Has Not Got, Travels Away From Himself And Grows Old Even In Youth Among Old Things.

Men Seek To Be Great; They Would Have Offices, Wealth, Power, And Fame. They Think That To Be Great Is To Possess One Side Of Nature,--the Sweet, Without The Other Side,--the Bitter.

It Is The Privilege Of Any Human Work Which Is Well Done To Invest The Doer With A Certain Haughtiness. He Can Well Afford Not To Conciliate, Whose Faithful Work Will Answer For Him.

Although Knaves Win In Every Political Struggle, Although Society Seems To Be Delivered Over From The Hands Of One Set Of Criminals Into The Hands Of Another Set Of Criminals, As Fast As The Government Is Changed, And The March Of Civilization Is A Train Of Felonies, Yet, General Ends Are Somehow Answered.

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

Earth Laughs In Flowers.

...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.

All The Great Ages Have Been Ages Of Belief.

No Institution Will Be Better Than The Institutor.

Language Is The Archives Of History.

By Fate, Not Option, Frugal Nature Gave One Scent To Hyson And To Wall-flower, One Sound To Pine-groves And To Water-falls, One Aspect To The Desert And The Lake. It Was Her Stern Necessity : All Things Are Of One Pattern Made; Bird, Beast, And Flower, Song, Picture, Form, Space, Thought, And Character Deceive Us, Seeming To Be Many Things, And Are But One.

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

Our Thinking Is A Pious Reception.

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.

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.

A Man Builds A Fine House; And Now He Has A Master, And A Task For Life.

If You Cannot Be Free Be As Free As You Can.

And Truly It Demands Something Godlike In Him Who Cast Off The Common Motives Of Humanity And Ventured To Trust Himself For A Taskmaster.

Knowledge Is The Knowing That We Cannot Know.

It Is For Want Of Self-culture That The Superstition Of Travelling, Whose Idols Are Italy, England, Egypt, Retains Its Fascinationfor All Educated Americans.

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

Hast Thou Named All The Birds Without A Gun?

I--this Thought Which Is Called I--is The Mould Into Which The World Is Poured Like Melted Wax.

If You Believe In The Soul, Do Not Clutch At Sensual Sweetness Before It Is Ripe On The Slow Tree Of Cause And Effect.

Shall I Tell You The Secret Of The True Scholar? It Is This: Every Man I Meet Is My Master In Some Point, And In That I Learn Of Him.

The Soul Lets No Man Go Without Some Visitations And Holy-days Of A Diviner Presence.

It Is Frivolous To Fix Pedantically The Date Of Particular Inventions. They Have All Been Invented Over And Over Fifty Times. Man Is The Arch Machine, Of Which All These Shifts Drawn From Himself Are Toy Models. He Helps Himself On Each Emergency By Copying Or Duplicating His Own Structure, Just So Far As Then Need Is.

Liberty Is A Slow Fruit.

Nothing Is Dead: Men Feign Themselves Dead, And Endure Mock Funerals And Mournful Obituaries, And There They Stand Looking Out Ofthe Window, Sound And Well, In Some New And Strange Disguise.

What We Do Not Call Education Is More Precious Than That Which We Call So. We Form No Guess, At The Time Of Receiving A Thought, Of Its Comparative Value. And Education Often Wastes Its Effort In Attempts To Thwart And Balk This Natural Magnetism, Which Is Sure To Select What Belongs To It.

There Is Always A Best Way Of Doing Everything, If It Be To Boil An Egg. Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things.

Education Should Be As Broad As Man.

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

Every Artist Was First An Amateur.

To Live The Greatest Number Of Good Hours Is Wisdom.

I Wiped Away The Weeds And Foam, I Fetched My Sea-born Treasures Home; But The Poor, Unsightly, Noisome Things Had Left Their Beauty On The Shore, With The Sun And The Sand And The Wild Uproar.

Everything Runs To Excess; Every Good Quality Is Noxious If Unmixed.

The Creation Of A Thousand Forests Is In One Acorn.

In The Matter Of Religion, People Eagerly Fasten Their Eyes On The Difference Between Their Own Creed And Yours; Whilst The Charm Of The Study Is In Finding The Agreements And Identities In All The Religions Of Humanity.

Life Wastes Itself Whilst We Are Preparing To Live.

Had I But Written As Many Odes In Praise Of Muhammad And Ali As I Have Composed For King Mahmud, They Would Have Showered A Hundred Blessings On Me.

A Man's Personal Defects Will Commonly Have With The Rest Of The World Precisely That Importance Which They Have To Himself. If He Makes Light Of Them, So Will Other Men.

Traveling Is A Fool's Paradise. Our First Journeys Discover To Us The Indifference Of Places. At Home I Dream That At Naples, At Rome, I Can Be Intoxicated With Beauty, And Lose My Sadness. I Pack My Trunk, Embrace My Friends, Embark On The Sea, And At Last Wake Up In Naples, And There Beside Me Is The Stern Fact, The Sad Self, Unrelenting, Identical, That I Fled From. I Seek The Vatican, And The Palaces. I Affect To Be Intoxicated With Sights And Suggestions, But I Am Not Intoxicated. My Giant Goes With Me Wherever I Go.

Cowardice Shuts The Eyes Till The Sky Is Not Larger Than A Calf-skin: Shuts The Eyes So That We Cannot See The Horse That Is Running Away With Us; Worse, Shuts The Eyes Of The Mind And Chills The Heart.

Wit Makes Its Own Welcome, And Levels All Distinction. No Dignity, No Learning, No Force Of Character, Can Make Any Stand Against Good Wit. It Is Like Ice, On Which No Beauty Of Form, No Majesty Of Carriage, Can Plead Any Immunity; They Must Walk Gingerly, According To The Laws Of Ice, Or Down They Must Go, Dignity And All.

I Find The Englishman To Be Him Of All Men Who Stands Firmest In His Shoes. They Have In Themselves What They Value In Their Horses, Mettle And Bottom.

Let Him Be Great, And Love Shall Follow Him.

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.

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

A Believer, A Mind Whose Faith Is Consciousness, Is Never Disturbed Because Other Persons Do Not Yet See The Fact Which He Sees.

Yet A Man May Love A Paradox, Without Losing Either His Wit Or His Honesty.

This Immediate Dependence Of Language Upon Nature, This Conversion Of An Outward Phenomenon Into A Type Of Somewhat In Human Life,never Loses Its Power To Affect Us. It Is This Which Gives That Piquancy To The Conversation Of A Strong-natured Farmer Or Backwoodsman, Which All Men Relish.

I Like My Boy With His Endless Sweet Soliloquies And Iterations And His Utter Inability To Conceive Why I Should Not Leave All My Nonsense, Business, And Writing And Come To Tie Up His Toy Horse, As If There Was Or Could Be Any End To Nature Beyond His Horse. And He Is Wiser Than We When [he] Threatens His Whole Threat "i Will Not Love You."

The Lover Never Sees Personal Resemblances In His Mistress To Her Kindred Or To Others. His Friends Find In Her A Likeness To Hermother, Or Her Sisters, Or To Persons Not Of Her Blood. The Lover Sees No Resemblance Except To Summer Evenings And Diamond Mornings, To Rainbows And The Song Of Birds.

God Builds His Temple In The Heart On The Ruins Of Churches And Religions.

Nature Is Methodical, And Doeth Her Work Well. Time Is Never To Be Hurried.

Do Not Fear To Put Novels Into The Hands Of Young People As An Occasional Holiday Experiment, But Above All, Good Poetry In All Kinds,--epic, Tragedy, Lyric. If We Can Touch The Imagination, We Serve Them; They Will Never Forget It.

Don't Be Pushed By Your Problems. Be Led By Your Dreams.

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.

In Analysing History Do Not Be Too Profound, For Often The Causes Are Quite Superficial.

The Hero Is Not Fed On Sweets, Daily His Own Heart He Eats; Chambers Of The Great Are Jails, And Head-winds Right For Royal Sails.

One Of The Illusions Of Life Is That The Present Hour Is Not The Critical Decisive Hour. Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day Of The Year. He Only Is Right Who Owns The Day, And No One Owns The Day Who Allows It To Be Invaded By Worry, Fret And Anxiety. Finish Every Day, And Be Done With It. You Have Done What You Could.

The Walls Of Rude Minds Are Scrawled All Over With Facts, With Thoughts. They Shall One Day Bring A Lantern And Read The Inscriptions.

We Animate What We Can See, And We See Only What We Animate.

The Child Realizes To Every Man His Own Earliest Remembrance, And So Supplies A Defect In Our Education, Or Enables Us To Live Over The Unconscious History With A Sympathy So Tender As To Be Almost Personal Experience.

As Long As Any Man Exists, There Is Some Need Of Him.

Ah Fate, Cannot A Man Be Wise Without A Beard? East, West, From Beer To Dan, Say, Was It Never Heard That Wisdom Might In Youth Be Gotten, Or Wit Be Ripe Before 't Was Rotten?

The Crowning Fortune Of A Man Is To Be Born To Some Pursuit Which Finds Him Employment And Happiness, Whether It Be To Make Baskets, Or Broadswords, Or Canals, Or Statues, Or Songs.

The Finest Poems Of The World Have Been Expedients To Get Bread.

Never Read Any Book That Is Not A Year Old.

Do Not Follow Where The Path May Lead.

The Foundations Of A Person Are Not In Matter But In Spirit.

I Appeal From Your Customs. I Must Be Myself. I Cannot Break Myself Anylonger For You, Or You. If You Can Love Me For What I Am, We Shall Bethe Happier. If You Cannot, I Will Still Seek To Deserve That Youshould. I Will Not Hide My Tastes Or Aversions. I Will So Trust Thatwhat Is Deep Is Holy, That I Will Do Strongly Before The Sun And Moonwhatever Inly Rejoices Me, And The Heart Appoints. If You Are Noble, Iwill Love You; If You Are Not, I Will Not Hurt You And Myself Byhypocritical Attentions. If You Are True, But Not In The Same Truthwith Me, Cleave To Your Companions; I Will Seek My Own.

But Dare Rather To Quit The Platform, Plunge Into The Sublime Seas, Dive Deep, & Swim Far, So Shall You Come Back With Self-respect, With New Power, With An Advanced Experience, That Shall Explain & Overlook The Old. Trust Your Emotion.

Do What You Know And Perception Is Converted Into Character.

All History Is But The Lengthened Shadow Of A Great Man.

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