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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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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

The State Of Society Is One In Which The Members Have Suffered Amputation From The Trunk, And Strut About So Many Walking Monsters,—a Good Finger, A Neck, A Stomach, An Elbow, But Never A Man.

Eyes...they Speak All Languages.

That Is Ever The Difference Between The Wise And The Unwise: The Latter Wonders At What Is Unusual; The Wise Man Wonders At The Usual.

A Friend Is A Person Who Goes Around Saying Nice Things About You Behind Your Back.

Cute Friendship

Behind Your Back

'tis A Short Sight To Limit Our Faith In Laws To Those Of Gravity, Of Chemistry, Of Botany, And So Forth. Those Laws Do Not Stop Where Our Eyes Lose Them, But Push The Same Geometry And Chemistry Up Into The Invisible Plane Of Social And Rational Life, So That, Look Where We Will, In A Boy's Game, Or In The Strifes Of Races, A Perfect Reaction, A Perpetual Judgment Keeps Watch And Ward.

Every Promise Of The Soul Has Innumerable Fulfillments; Each Of Its Joys Ripens Into A New Want.

Consider What You Have In The Smallest Chosen Library. A Company Of The Wisest And Wittiest Men That Could Be Picked Out Of All Civil Countries, In A Thousand Years, Have Set In Best Order The Results Of Their Learning And Wisdom.

We Fly To Beauty As An Asylum From The Terrors Of Finite Nature.

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.

Knowledge Is The Only Elegance.

Miracle Comes To The Miraculous, Not To The Arithmetician.

We Are As Much Informed Of A Writer's Genius By What He Selects As By What He Originates.

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

It Is Very Certain That The Strong British Race Which Has Now Overrun Much Of This Continent, Must Also Overrun [texas], And Mexico And Oregon Also, And It Will In The Course Of Ages Be Of Small Import By What Particular Occasions And Methods It Was Done.

Men Do What Is Called A Good Action, As Some Piece Of Courage Or Charity, Much As They Would Pay A Fine In Expiation Of Daily Non-appearance On Parade. Their Works Are Done As An Apology Or Extenuation Of Their Living In The World. I Do Not Wish To Expiate, But To Live. My Life Is Not An Apology, But A Life.

There Can Never Be Deep Peace Between Two Spirits, Never Mutual Respect, Until, In Their Dialogue, Each Stands For The Whole World.

The Americans Have No Faith, They Rely On The Power Of A Dollar; They Are Deaf To Sentiment.

Some Of The Sweetest Hours In Life, In Retrospect Will Be Found To Have Been Spent With Books.

A Man Is The Facade Of A Temple Wherein All Wisdom And All Good Abide.

The Riddle Of The Age Has For Each A Private Solution.

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.

That Which Shows God In Me, Fortifies Me. That Which Shows God Out Of Me, Makes Me A Wart And A Wen.

Positive Atheism

Some Will Always Be Above Others.

It Seems As If Nature, In Regarding The Geologic Night Behind Her, When, In Five Or Six Millenniums, She Had Turned Out Five Or Six Men, As Homer, Phidias, Menu, And Columbus, Was No Wise Discontented With The Result. These Samples Attested The Virtue Of The Tree.

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.

How Much Better When The Whole Land Is A Garden, And The People Have Grown Up In The Bowers Of A Paradise.

Life Has A Way Of Demanding That You Live It.

Universally, The Better Gold The Worse Man. The Political Economist Defies Us To Show Any Gold Mine Country That Is Traversed By Good Roads, Or A Shore Where Pearls Are Found On Which Good Schools Are Erected.

I Quote Another Man's Saying; Unluckily, That Other Withdraws Himself In The Same Way, And Quotes Me.

No Facts To Me Are Sacred; None Are Profane.

Men Are Conservatives When They Are Least Vigorous Or When They Are Most Luxurious-they Are Conservatives After Dinner.

The Instincts Of The Ant Are Very Unimportant, Considered As The Ants; But The Moment A Ray Of Relation Is Seen To Be A Monitor, A Little Body With A Mighty Heart, Then All Its Habits, Even That Said To Be Recently Observed, That It Never Sleeps, Become Sublime.

In The Hands Of The Discoverer, Medicine Becomes A Heroic Art . . Wherever Life Is Dear He Is A Demigod.

For The Existing World Is Not A Dream, And Cannot With Impunity Be Treated As A Dream; Neither Is It A Disease; But It Is The Ground On Which You Stand, It Is The Mother Of Whom You Were Born.

The World Is Upheld By The Veracity Of Good Men: They Make The Earth Wholesome. They Who Lived With Them Found Life Glad And Nutritious. Life Is Sweet And Tolerable Only In Our Belief In Such Society.

The World Always Had The Same Bankrupt Look, To Foregoing Ages As To Us.

The Greatest Gift Is A Portion Of Thyself.

There Comes A Time In Each Man's Education In Which He Comes To The Conclusion That Envy Is Ignorance, Imitation Is Suicide, And Society In In Conspiracy Against Each One Of Its Members.

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

Nature Does Not Cocker Us: We Are Children, Not Pets: She Is Not Fond: Everything Is Dealt To Us Without Fear Or Favor, After Severe Universal Laws.

What I Must Do Is All That Concerns Me, Not What People Think. This Rule,equally Arduous In Actual And Intellectual Life, May Serve For The Whole Distinction Between Greatness And Meanness. It Is The Harder, Because You Will Always Find Those Who Think They Know What Is Your Duty Better Than You Know It. It Is Easy In The World To Live After The World's Opinion; It Is Easy In Solitude To Live After Our Own; But The Great Man Is He Who In The Midst Of The Crowd Keeps With Perfect Sweetness The Independence Of Solitude.

We Shun The Rugged Battle Of Fate Where Strength Is Born.

Nature Arms Each Man With Some Faculty Which Enables Him To Do Easily Some Feat Impossible To Any Other.

The Efforts Which We Make To Escape From Our Destiny Only Serve To Lead Us Into It.

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

Pride Is Handsome, Economical; Pride Eradicates So Many Vices, Letting None Subsist But Itself, That It Seems As If It Were A Great Gain To Exchange Vanity For Pride.

All The Mistakes I Make Arise From Forsaking My Own Station And Trying To See The Object From Another Person's Point Of View.

I Suppose An Entire Cabinet Of Shells Would Be An Expression Of The Whole Human Mind; A Flora Of The Whole Globe Would Be So Likewise, Or A History Of Beasts; Or A Painting Of All The Aspects Of The Clouds. Everything Is Significant.

My Life Is Superficial, Takes No Root In The Deep World; I Ask, When Shall I Die, And Be Relieved Of The Responsibility Of Seeinga Universe Which I Do Not Use? I Wish To Exchange This Flash-of-lightning Faith For Continuous Daylight, This Fever-glow For A Benign Climate.

Common Sense Is As Rare As Genius.

Beauty Is An Outward Gift, Which Is Seldom Despised, Except By Those To Whom It Has Been Refused.

Everything That Is Popular, It Has Been Said, Deserves The Attention Of Philosophers: And This Is For The Obvious Reason, That Although It May Not Be Of Any Worth In Itself, Yet It Characterizes The People.

When The Master Of The Universe Has Points To Carry In His Government He Impresses His Will In The Structure Of Minds.

In Good Writing, Words Become One With Things.

Say Thank You! I Want To Hear You Say It Now. Out Loud. 'thank You.' You're Saying Thank You Because Your Faith Is So Strong That You Don't Doubt That Whatever The Problem, You'll Get Through It. You're Saying Thank You Because You Know That Even In The Eye Of The Storm, God Has Put A Rainbow In The Clouds. You're Saying Thank You Because You Know There's No Problem Created That Can Compare To The Creator Of All Things. Say Thank You!

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage. Whatever Course You Decide Upon, There Is Always Someone To Tell You That You Are Wrong.

Many A Man Had Taken The First Step. With Every Additional Step You Enhance Immensely The Value Of Your First.

The Crystal Sphere Of Thought Is As Concentrical As The Geological Structure Of The Globe. As Our Soils And Rocks Lie In Strata, Concentric Strata, So Do All Men's Thinkings Run Laterally, Never Vertically.

The Great Man Is Not Convulsible Or Tormentable; Events Pass Over Him Without Much Impression.

There Is No Strong Performance Without A Little Fanaticism In The Performer.

The Condition Which High Friendship Demands Is Ability To Do Without It.

There Comes A Period Of The Imagination To Each--a Later Youth--the Power Of Beauty, The Power Of Looks, Of Poetry.

Man's Actions Are The Picture Book Of His Creeds.

War, To Sane Men At The Present Day, Begins To Look Like An Epidemic Insanity, Breaking Out Here And There Like The Cholera Or Influenza, Infecting Men's Brains Instead Of Their Bowels.

Intellect Annuls Fate. So Far As A Man Thinks He Is Free.

The First In Time And The First In Importance Of The Influences Upon The Mind Is That Of Nature. Every Day, The Sun; And After Sunset, Night And Her Stars. Ever The Winds Blow; Ever The Grass Grows.

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.

Better Be A Nettle In The Side Of Your Friend Than His Echo.

The Poor And The Low Have Their Way Of Expressing The Last Facts Of Philosophy As Well As You. "blessed Be Nothing," And "the Worse Things Are, The Better They Are," Are Proverbs Which Express The Transcendentalism Of Common Life.

Power Is The First Good.

The Intelligent Have A Right Over The Ignorant; Namely, The Right Of Instructing Them.

The Most Indian Thing About The Indian Is Surely Not His Moccasins Or His Calumet, His Wampum Or His Stone Hatched, But Traits Of Character And Sagacity, Skill, Or Passion.

Native American

A Friend, Therefore, Is A Sort Of Paradox In Nature. I Who Alone Am, I Who See Nothing In Nature Whose Existence I Can Affirm With Equal Evidence To My Own, Behold Now The Semblance Of My Being, In All Its Height, Variety, And Curiosity, Reiterated In A Foreign Form; So That A Friend May Well Be Reckoned The Masterpiece Of Nature.

With The Past, I Have Nothing To Do; Nor With The Future. I Live Now.

Would We Codify The Laws That Should Reign In Households, And Whose Daily Transgression Annoys And Mortifies Us, And Degrades Our Household Life, We Must Adorn Every Day With Sacrifices. Good Manners Are Made Up Of Petty Sacrifices.

The Aid We Can Give Each Other Is Only Incidental, Lateral, And Sympathetic.

The Gentleman Is A Man Of Truth, Lord Of His Own Actions, And Expressing That Lordship In His Behavior, Not In Any Manner Dependent And Servile Either On Persons, Or Opinions, Or Possessions.

I Do Not Count The Hours I Spend In Wandering By The Sea; The Forest Is My Loyal Friend, Like God It Useth Me.

Men Cease To Interest Us When We Find Their Limitations

For All Symbols Are Fluxional; All Language Is Vehicular And Transitive, And Is Good, As Ferries And Horses Are, For Conveyance, Not As Farms And Houses Are, For Homestead.

Heaven Walks Among Us Ordinarily Muffled In Such Triple Or Tenfold Disguises That The Wisest Are Deceived And No One Suspects The Days To Be Gods.

Wise Men Put Their Trust In Ideas And Not In Circumstances.

Right Is More Beautiful Than Private Affection, And Is Compatible With Universal Wisdom.

The Only Thing That Can Grow Is The Thing You Give Energy To.

Men Such As They Are, Very Naturally Seek Money Or Power; And Power Because It Is As Good As Money.

I Like People Who Can Do Things

We Are Such Lovers Of Self-reliance, That We Excuse In A Man Many Sins, If He Will Show Us A Complete Satisfaction In His Position, Which Asks No Leave To Be, Of Mine, Or Any Man's Good Opinion.

Money, Which Represents The Prose Of Life, And Which Is Hardly Spoken Of In Parlors Without An Apology, Is, In Its Effects And Laws, As Beautiful As Roses.

The Americans Have Many Virtues, But They Have Not Faith And Hope. I Know No Two Words Whose Meaning Is More Lost Sight Of.

Culture Is One Thing And Varnish Is Another.

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

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.

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.

When A Man Lives With God, His Voice Shall Be As Sweet As The Murmur Of The Brook And Rustle Of The Corn.

A Man Is The Whole Encyclopedia Of Facts. The Creation Of A Thousand Forests Is In One Acorn, And Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, Lie Folded Already In The First Man.

No Man Acquires Property Without Acquiring With It A Little Arithmetic Also.

But Genius Looks Forward: The Eyes Of Men Are Set In His Forehead, Not In His Hindhead: Man Hopes: Genius Creates.

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

A Great Man Will Find A Great Subject, Or Which Is The Same Thing, Make Any Subject Great.

Society Will Pardon Much To Genius And Special Gifts; But, Being In Its Nature Conventional, It Loves What Is Conventional, Or What Belongs To Coming Together.

Far Or Forgot To Me Is Near; Shadow And Sunlight Are The Same; The Vanished Gods To Me Appear; And One To Me Are Shame And Fame.they Reckon Ill Who Leave Me Out; When Me They Fly, I Am The Wings; I Am The Doubter And The Doubt, And I The Hymn The Brahmin Sings.

Religion Is As Effectively Destroyed By Bigotry As By Indifference.

Without The Great Arts Which Speak To The Sense Of Beauty, A Man Seems To Me A Poor, Naked, Shivering Creature. These Are His Becoming Draperies, Which Warm And Adorn Him.

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

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

The Terrors Of The Child Are Quite Reasonable, And Add To His Loveliness; For His Utter Ignorance And Weakness, And His Enchanting Indignation On Such A Small Basis Of Capital Compel Every Bystander To Take His Part.

Beware Of Jokes From Which We Go Away Hollow And Ashamed.

I Am Constrained Every Moment To Acknowledge A Higher Origin For Events Than The Will I Call Mine.

If You Follow The Suburban Fashion In Building A Sumptuous- Looking House For A Little Money, It Will Appear To All Eyes As A Cheap, Dear House.

The Wise And Just Man Will Always Feel That He Stands On His Own Feet; That He Imparts Strength To The State, Not Receives Security From It; And If All Went Down, He And Such As He Would Quite Easily Combine In A New And Better Constitution.

A Hero Is A Man Who Is Afraid To Run Away.

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 Chief Value Of The New Fact Is To Enhance The Great And Constant Fact Of Life.

Venus, When Her Son Was Lost, Cried Him Up And Down The Coast, In Hamlets, Palaces, And Parks, And Told The Truant By His Marks,- Golden Curls, And Quiver, And Bow.

The New Statement Will Comprise The Skepticisms, As Well As The Faiths Of Society, And Out Of Unbeliefs A Creed Shall Be Formed. For, Skepticisms Are Not Gratuitous Or Lawless, But Are Limitations Of The Affirmative Statement, And The New Philosophy Must Take Them In, And Make Affirmations Outside Of Them, Just As Much As Must Include The Oldest Beliefs.

There Is No True Orator Who Is Not A Hero.

Conversation Is The Laboratory And Workshop Of The Student.

Valor Consists In The Power Of Self Recovery.

To Laugh Often And Love Much; To Win The Respect Of Intelligent Persons And The Affection Of Children; To Earn The Approbation Of Honest Critics And Endure The Betrayal Of False Friends; To Appreciate Beauty.

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.

Of Course, He Who Has Put Forth His Total Strength In Fit Actions, Has The Richest Return Of Wisdom.

A Man Finds Room In The Few Square Inches Of The Face For The Traits Of All His Ancestors; For The Expression Of All His History, And His Wants.

The Moment We Indulge Our Affections, The Earth Is Metamorphosed, There Is No Winter And No Night; All Tragedies, All Ennui S, Vanish, All Duties Even.

The World Is All Gates, All Opportunities, Strings Of Tension Waiting To Be Struck.

Dear To Us Are Those Who Love Us... But Dearer Are Those Who Reject Us As Unworthy, For They Add Another Life; They Build A Heaven Before Us Whereof We Had Not Dreamed, And Thereby Supply To Us New Powers Out Of The Recesses Of The Spirit, And Urge Us To New And Unattempted Performances.

The Force Of Character Is Cumulative.

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.

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.

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.

A Man Is A God In Ruins. When Men Are Innocent, Life Shall Be Longer, And Shall Pass Into The Immortal, As Gently As We Awake From Dreams.

The Good Judge Is Not He Who Does Hair-splitting Justice To Every Allegation, But Who, Aiming At Substantial Justice, Rules Something Intelligible Of The Guidance Of Suitors.

We Must Learn The Language Of Facts. The Most Wonderful Inspirations Die With Their Subject, If He Has No Hand To Paint Them To The Senses.

The Modernness Of All Good Books Seems To Give Men An Existence As Wide As Man.

The Aristocrat Is The Democrat Ripe, And Gone To Seed.

The Farmer After Sacrificing Pleasure, Taste, Freedom, Thought, Love, To His Work, Turns Out Often A Bankrupt, Like The Merchant.this Result Might Well Seem Astounding. All This Drudgery, From Cockcrowing To Starlight, For All These Years, To End In Mortgages And The Auctioneer's Flag, And Removing From Bad To Worse. It Is Time To Have The Thing Looked Into, And With A Sifting Criticism Ascertained Who Is The Fool.

We Are Always Getting Ready To Live But Never Living.

Law Of Attraction

If In The Least Particular, One Could Derange The Order Of Nature, Who Would Accept The Gift Of Life?

It Is Better To Suffer Injustice Than To Do It.

For The Most Part, Only The Light Characters Travel. Who Are You That Have No Task To Keep You At Home?

Pay No Heed To The Average Photographer's Remarks Upon "flat" And "weak" Negatives. Probably He Is Flat, Weak, Stale, And Unprofitable; Your Negative May Be First-rate, And Probably Is If He Does Not Approve Of It.

But To Most Of Us Society Shows Not Its Face And Eye, But Its Side And Back. To Stand In True Relations With Men In A False Age Isworth A Fit Of Insanity, Is It Not?

Only By Obedience To His Genius; Only By The Freest Activity In The Way Constitutional To Him, Does An Angel Seem To Arise Beforea Man, And Lead Him By The Hand Out Of All The Wards Of The Prison.

A Philosopher Must Be More Than A Philosopher.

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

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.

At Times The Whole World Seems To Be In Conspiracy To Importune You With Emphatic Trifles.

O, When I Am Safe In My Sylvan Home, I Mock At The Pride Of Greece And Rome; And When I Am Stretch'd Beneath The Pines When The Evening Star So Holy Shines, I Laugh At The Lore And Pride Of Man, At The Sophist's Schools, And The Learned Clan; For What Are They All In Their High Conceit, When Man In The Bush With God May Meet?

Life Is Not Measured By Its Length, But By Its Depth.

A Friend May Well Be Reckoned The Masterpiece Of Nature.

Jesus Christ Belonged To The True Race Of The Prophets. He Saw With An Open Eye The Mystery Of The Soul. . Alone In All History He Estimated The Greatness Of Man.

Heaven Sometimes Hedges A Rare Character About With Ungainliness And Odium, As The Burr That Protects The Fruit.

I Take This Evanescence And Lubricity Of All Objects, Which Lets Them Slip Through Our Fingers Then When We Clutch Hardest, To Be The Most Unhandsome Part Of Our Condition.

Although This Garrulity Of Advising Is Born With Us, I Confess That Life Is Rather A Subject Of Wonder, Than Of Didactics. So Muchfate, So Much Irresistible Dictation From Temperament And Unknown Inspiration Enter Into It, That We Doubt We Can Say Anything Out Of Our Own Experience Whereby To Help Each Other.

A Frenchman May Possibly Be Clean; An Englishman Is Conscientiously Clean.

To The Birds And Trees He Talks: Caesar Of His Leafy Rome, There The Poet Is At Home.

A Man Must Thank His Defects, And Stand In Some Terror Of His Talents. A Transcendent Talent Draws So Largely On His Forces As Tolame Him; A Defect Pays Him Revenues On The Other Side.

Poetry Teaches The Enormous Force Of A Few Words, And, In Proportion To The Inspiration, Checks Loquacity.

How Silent, How Spacious, What Room For All, Yet Without Place To Insert An Atom--in Graceful Succession, In Equal Fullness, In Balanced Beauty, The Dance Of The Hours Goes Forward Still. Like An Odor Of Incense, Like A Strain Of Music, Like A Sleep, It Is Inexact And Boundless. It Will Not Be Dissected, Nor Unraveled, Nor Shown.

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.

The Wonder Is That We Can See These Trees And Not Wonder More.

I Now Require This Of All Pictures, That They Domesticate Me, Not That They Dazzle Me. Pictures Must Not Be Too Picturesque. Nothing Astonishes Men So Much As Common-sense And Plain Dealing. All Great Actions Have Been Simple, And All Great Pictures Are.

I Cannot Often Enough Say, That A Man Is Only A Relative And Representative Nature. Each Is A Hint Of The Truth, But Far Enough From Being That Truth, Which Yet He Quite Newly And Inevitably Suggests To Us. If I Seek It In Him, I Shall Not Find It.

One More Royal Trait Properly Belongs To The Poet. I Mean His Cheerfulness, Without Which No Man Can Be A Poet,--for Beauty Is His Aim. He Loves Virtue, Not For Its Obligation, But For Its Grace; He Delights In The World, In Man, In Woman, For The Lovely Light That Sparkles From Them. Beauty, The Spirit Of Joy And Hilarity, He Sheds Over The Universe.

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.

Manners Require Time, And Nothing Is More Vulgar Than Haste.

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

That Which We Are, We Are All The While Teaching, Not Voluntarily, But Involuntarily.

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.

Moderation In All Things, Especially Moderation.

Moderation In All Things

Let Us Learn The Meaning Of Economy. Economy Is A High Human Office,--a Sacrament When Its Aim Is Grand, When It Is The Prudence Of Simple Tastes, When It Is Practised For Freedom Or For Love Or Devotion.

Art Is A Jealous Mistress.

The Wise Man In The Storm Prays God Not For Safety From Danger But For Deliverance From Fear. It Is The Storm Within Which Endangers Him[,] Not The Storm Without.

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

Prudence Is The Virtue Of The Senses. It Is The Science Of Appearances. It Is The Outmost Action Of The Inward Life.

Go Out Of The House To See The Moon, And't Is Mere Tinsel; It Will Not Please As When Its Light Shines Upon Your Necessary Journey.

Stand Guard At The Portal Of Your Mind.

Vigor Is Contagious, And Whatever Makes Us Either Think Or Feel Strongly Adds To Our Power And Enlarges Our Field Of Action.

Health Is The First Muse, And Sleep Is The Condition To Produce It.

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!

Art, In The Artist, Is Proportion, Or, A Habitual Respect To The Whole By An Eye Loving Beauty In Details. And The Wonder And Charm Of It Is The Sanity In Insanity Which It Denotes.

You Must Hear The Birds Song Without Attempting To Render It Into Nouns And Verbs.

The Years Teach Much Which The Days Never Know.

Wise Men Are Not Wise At All Times.

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.

The Heroic Soul Does Not Sell Its Justice And Its Nobleness.

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.

We Must Set Up A Strong Present Tense Against All Rumors Of Wrath, Past And To Come.

All The Devils Respect Virtue.

The Landscape Belongs To The Person Who Looks At It..." -ralph Waldo Emerson

To Finish The Moment, To Find The Journey's End In Every Step Of The Road, To Live The Greatest Number Of Good Hours, Is Wisdom.

How Much We Forgive To Those Who Yield Us The Rare Spectacle Of Heroic Manners! We Will Pardon Them The Want Of Books, Or Arts, And Even Of Gentler Virtues. How Tenaciously We Remember Them!

A Poem Is Made Up Of Thoughts, Each Of Which Filled The Whole Sky Of The Poet In Its Turn.

Self-reliance Is Its Aversion. It Loves Not Realities And Creators, But Names And Customs.

Not For Nothing One Face, One Character, One Fact Makes Much Impression On Him, And Another None.

We See God Face To Face Every Hour, And Know The Savor Of Nature.

There Is An Optical Illusion About Every Person We Meet.

Optical Illusions

Transcendentalism

Religion Must Always Be A Crab Fruit; It Cannot Be Grafted, And Keep Its Wild Beauty.

The Civility Of No Race Can Be Perfect Whilst Another Race Is Degraded.

The House Praises The Carpenter.

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