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A State Of War Or Anarchy, In Which Law Has Little Force, Is So Far Valuable, That It Puts Every Man On Trial. The Man Of Principle Is Known As Such, And Even In The Fury Of Faction Is Respected.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A State Of War

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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A State Of War Or Anarchy, In Which Law Has Little Force, Is So Far Valuable, That It Puts Every Man On Trial. The Man Of Principle Is Known As Such, And Even In The Fury Of Faction Is Respected.

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The History Of The Genesis Or The Old Mythology Repeats Itself In The Experience Of Every Child. He Too Is A Demon Or God Thrown Into A Particular Chaos, Where He Strives Ever To Lead Things From Disorder Into Order.

I Have Come To Believe That The Whole World Is An Enigma, A Harmless Enigma That Is Made Terrible By Our Own Mad Attempt To Interpret It As Though It Had An Underlying Truth. If Two Or Three Persons Should Come With A High Spiritual Aim And With Great Powers, The World Would Fall Into Their Hands Like A Ripe Peach.

The Perception Of The Comic Is A Tie Of Sympathy With Other Men.

Wherever Snow Falls, Or Water Flows, Or Birds Fly, Wherever Day And Night Meet In Twilight, Wherever The Blue Heaven Is Hung By Clouds, Or Sown With Stars, Wherever Are Forms With Transparent Boundaries, Wherever Are Outlets Into Celestial Space, Wherever Is Danger, And Awe, And Love, There Is Beauty, Plenteous As Rain, Shed For Thee, And Though Thou Shouldest Walk The World Over, Thou Shalt Not Be Able To Find A Condition Inopportune Or Ignoble.

Not From A Vain Or Shallow Thought His Awful Jove Young Phidias Brought.

There Are People Who Have An Appetite For Grief; Pleasure Is Not Strong Enough And They Crave Pain. They Have Mithridatic Stomachs Which Must Be Fed On Poisoned Bread, Natures So Doomed That No Prosperity Can Sooth Their Ragged And Dishevelled Desolation.

The Judge Weighs The Arguments And Puts A Brave Face On The Matter, And Since There Must Be A Decision, Decides As He Can, And Hopes He Has Done Justice And Given Satisfaction To The Community

The Genius Of Life Is Friendly To The Noble, And, In The Dark, Brings Them Friends From Far.

The World Is His Who Can See Through Its Pretension.

American Scholar

It Requires A Great Deal Of Boldness And A Great Deal Of Caution To Make A Great Fortune, And When You Have It, It Requires Ten Times As Much Skill To Keep It.

They Who Talk Much Of Destiny, Their Birth-star, Etc., Are In A Lower Dangerous Plane, And Invite The Evils They Fear.

Most Of The Shadows Of This Life Are Caused By Standing In One's Own Sunshine.

The Piety Of The Hebrew Prophets Purges Their Grossness. The Circumcision Is An Example Of The Power Of Poetry To Raise The Low And Offensive.

We Expect A Great Man To Be A Good Reader.

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

A Moment Is A Concentrated Eternity.

I Find It More Credible, Since It Is Anterior Information, That One Man Should Know Heaven, As The Chinese Say, Than That So Many Men Should Know The World.

It Is Only When Mind And Character Slumber That The Dress Can Be Seen. If The Intellect Were Always Awake, And Every Noble Sentiment, The Man Might Go In Huckaback Or Mats, And His Dress Would Be Admired And Imitated.

Every Chair Should Be A Throne And Hold A King.

Life Is Comic Or Pitiful As Soon As The High Ends Of Being Fade Out Of Sight, And Man Becomes Near-sighted, And Can Only Attend Towhat Addresses The Senses.

Music Is The Poor Man's Parnassus.

For Every Minute You Remain Angry, You Give Up Sixty Seconds Of Peace Of Mind.

Patience And Fortitude Conquer All Things.

As The Farmer Casts Into The Ground The Finest Ears Of His Grain, The Time Will Come When We Too Shall Hold Nothing Back, But Shall Eagerly Convert More Than We Now Possess Into Means And Powers, When We Shall Be Willing To Sow The Sun And The Moon For Seeds.

Do What You Know And Perception Is Converted Into Character.

Let Us Stun And Astonish The Intruding Rabble Of Men And Books And Institutions By A Simple Declaration Of The Divine Fact. Bid The Invaders Take The Shoes From Off Their Feet, For God Is Here Within.

Every Time You Wink The Stars Move.

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.

We Cannot Let Our Angels Go; We Do Not See That They Only Go Out That Archangels May Come In.

Profound Sincerity Is The Only Basis Of Talent As Of Character.

Sorrow Looks Back, Worry Looks Around, Faith Looks Up

Time, Which Shows So Vacant, Indivisible, And Divine In Its Coming, Is Slit And Peddled Into Trifles And Tatters. A Door Is To Bepainted, A Lock To Be Repaired. I Want Wood, Or Oil, Or Meal, Or Salt; The House Smokes, Or I Have A Headache; Then The Tax; And An Affair To Be Transacted With A Man Without Heart Or Brains; And The Stinging Recollection Of An Injurious Or Very Awkward Word,--these Eat Up The Hours.

Men In All Ways Are Better Than They Seem.

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

The Universe Is Represented In Every One Of It's Particles. Everything Is Made Of One Hidden Stuff. The World Globes Itself In A Drop Of Dew. The True Doctrine Of Omnipresence Is That God Appears With All His Parts In Every Moss And Cobweb.

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.

Each Mind Has Its Own Method.

To The Body And Mind Which Have Been Cramped By Noxious Work Or Company, Nature Is Medicinal And Restores Their Tone. The Tradesman, The Attorney Comes Out Of The Din And Craft Of The Street And Sees The Sky And The Woods, And Is A Man Again. In Their Eternal Calm, He Finds Himself.

The Sun Illuminates Only The Eye Of The Man, But Shines Into The Eye And The Heart Of The Child.

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.

You Do Not Get Power So That You Can Go Out And Do Things, You Go Out And Do Things And You Will Get The Power

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.

The World Is Upheld By The Veracity Of Good Men: They Make The Earth Wholesome.

The Borrowing Is Often Honest Enough, And Comes Of Magnanimity And Stoutness. A Great Man Quotes Bravely And Will Not Draw On His Invention When His Memory Serves Him With A Word As Good.

The Line Of Beauty Is The Line Of Perfect Economy.

There Is Always Room For A Man Of Force And He Makes Room For Many. Society Is A Troop Of Thinkers And The Best Heads Among Them Take The Best Places.

But The Best Read Naturalist Who Lends An Entire And Devout Attention To Truth, Will See That There Remains Much To Learn Of His Relation To The World, And That It Is Not To Be Learned By Any Addition Or Subtraction Or Other Comparison Of Known Quantities, But Is Arrived At By Untaught Sallies Of The Spirit, By A Continual Self-recovery, And By Entire Humility.

No Change Of Circumstances Can Repair A Defect Of Character.

The Unstable Estimates Of Men Crowd To Him Whose Mind Is Filled With A Truth, As The Heaped Waves Of The Atlantic Follow The Moon.

It Is Easy To Carp At Colleges, And The College, If He Will Wait For It, Will Have Its Own Turn. Genius Exists There Also, But Will Not Answer A Call Of A Committee Of The House Of Commons. It Is Rare, Precious, Eccentric, And Darkling.

If You Maintain A Dead Church, Contribute To A Dead Bible-society, Vote With A Great Party Either For The Government Or Against It, Spread Your Table Like Base Housekeepers, - Under All These Screens I Have Diffuculty To Detect The Precise Man You Are: And Of Course So Much Force Is Withdrawn From Your Proper Life. But Do Your Work And I Shall Know You. Do Your Work, And You Shall Reinforce Yourself. A Man Must Consider What A Blind-man's Bluff Is This Game Of Conformity. If I Know Your Sect I Anticipate Your Argument.

Life Is A Series Of Surprises And Would Not Be Worth Taking Or Keeping If It Were Not.

Every Man Is Not So Much A Workman In The World As He Is A Suggestion Of That He Should Be. Men Walk As Prophecies Of The Next Age.

Fashion, Though In A Strange Way, Represents All Manly Virtue. It Is Virtue Gone To Seed: It Is A Kind Of Posthumous Honor. It Does Not Often Caress The Great, But The Children Of The Great: It Is A Hall Of The Past.

Housekeeping Is Not Beautiful; It Cheers And Raises Neither The Husband, The Wife, Nor The Child; Neither The Host Nor The Guest;it Oppresses Women. A House Kept To The End Of Prudence Is Laborious Without Joy; A House Kept To The End Of Display Is Impossible To All But A Few Women, And Their Success Is Dearly Bought.

The Progress Of Religion Is Steadily To Its Identity With Morals. Strength Enters Just As Much As The Moral Element Prevails.

One More Fagot Of These Adamantine Bandages Is The New Science Of Statistics.

There Is A Tendency In Things To Right Themselves, And The War Or Revolution Or Bankruptcy That Shatters Rotten System, Allows Things To Take A New And Natural Order.

We Come To Our Own And Would Make Friends With Matter, Which The Ambitious Chatter Of The Schools Would Persuade Us To Despise. We Can Never Part With It; The Mind Loves Its Old Home: As Water To Our Thirst, So Is Rock, The Ground, To Our Eyes, And Hands, And Feet. It Is Firm Water: It Is Cold Flame: What Health, What Affinity!

A Sturdy Lad From New Hampshire Or Vermont Who In Turn Tries All The Professions, Who Teams It, Farms It, Peddles, Keeps A School,preaches, Edits A Newspaper, Goes To Congress, Buys A Township, And So Forth, In Successive Years, And Always Like A Cat Falls On His Feet, Is Worth A Hundred Of These City Dolls. He Walks Abreast With His Days And Feels No Shame In Not "studying A Profession," For He Does Not Postpone His Life, But Lives Already.

Do Not Be Too Timid And Squeamish About Your Actions.

Will And Determination

I Am A Part And Parcel Of God.

And What Is Genius But Finer Love, A Love Impersonal, A Love Of The Flower And Perfection Of Things, And A Desire To Draw A New Picture Or Copy Of The Same? It Looks To The Cause And Life: It Proceeds From Within Outward, Whilst Talent Goes From Without Inward.

Success Goes Thus Invariably With A Certain Plus Or Positive Power: An Ounce Of Power Must Balance An Ounce Of Weight.

Englands Genius Filled All Measureof Heart And Soul, Of Strength And Pleasure,gave To The Mind Its Emperor,and Life Was Larger Than Before:nor Sequent Centuries Could Hitorbit And Sum Of Shakespeares Wit. The Men Who Lived With Him Becamepoets, For The Air Was Fame.

Every Sweet Has Its Sour; Every Evil Its Good.

It Is Defeat Which Educates Us.

The World-spirit Is A Good Swimmer, And Storms And Waves Can Not Drown Him. He Snaps His Fingers At Laws; And So, Throughout History, Heaven Seems To Affect Low And Poor Means. Through The Years And The Centuries, Through Evil Agents, Through Toys And Atoms, A Great And Beneficent Tendency Irresistibly Streams.

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.

[w]e Pity Our Fathers For Dying Before Steam And Galvanism, Sulphuric Ether And Ocean Telegraphs, Photograph And Spectrograph Arrived, As Cheated Out Of Their Human Estate.

A Mob Cannot Be A Permanency: Everybody's Interest Requires That It Should Not Exist, And Only Justice Satisfies All.

Nothing External To You Has Any Power Over You.

It Is Impossible For A Man To Be Cheated By Anyone But Himself.

Words Are Also Actions, And Actions Are A Kind Of Words.

The Glory Of Friendship Is Not The Outstretched Hand, Not The Kindly Smile, Nor The Joy Of Companionship; It Is The Spiritual Inspiration That Comes To One When You Discover That Someone Else Believes In You And Is Willing To Trust You With A Friendship.

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

Fashion Which Affects To Be Honor, Is Often, In All Men's Experience, Only A Ballroom-code.

At The Gates Of The Forest, The Surprised Man Of The World Is Forced To Leave His City Estimates Of Great And Small, Wise And Foolish. The Knapsack Of Custom Falls Off His Back With The First Step He Makes Into These Precincts. Here Is Sanctity Which Shames Our Religions, And Reality Which Discredits Our Heroes. Here We Find Nature To Be The Circumstance Which Dwarfs Every Other Circumstance, And Judges Like A God All Men That Come To Her.

Science In England, In America, Is Jealous Of Theory, Hates The Name Of Love And Moral Purpose. There's Revenge For This Humanity.what Manner Of Man Does Science Make? The Boy Is Not Attracted. He Says, I Do Not Wish To Be Such A Kind Of Man As My Professor Is.

Every Man Believes That He Has Greater Possibilities.

Enthusiasm Is One Of The Most Powerful Engines Of Success. When You Do A Thing, Do It With All Your Might. Put Your Whole Soul Into It. Stamp It With Your Own Personality. Be Active, Be Energetic, Be Enthusiastic And Faithful, And You Will Accomplish Your Object. Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without Enthusiasm.

Whoever Is Open, Loyal, True; Of Humane And Affable Demeanour; Honourable Himself, And In His Judgement Of Others; Faithful To His Word As To Law, And Faithful Alike To God And Man....such A Man Is A True Gentleman.

It Is The Delight Of Vulgar Talent To Dazzle And To Bind The Beholder. But True Genius Seeks To Defend Us From Itself. True Geniuswill Not Impoverish, But Will Liberate, And Add New Sense. If A Wise Man Should Appear In Our Village, He Would Create, In Those Who Conversed With Him, A New Consciousness Of Wealth, By Opening Their Eyes To Unobserved Advantages; He Would Establish A Sense Of Immovable Equality, Calm Us With Assurances That We Could Not Be Cheated; As Every One Would Discern The Checks And Guarantees Of Condition.

Criticism Is Infested With The Cant Of Materialism, Which Assumes That Manual Skill And Activity Is The First Merit Of All Men, And Disparages Such As Say And Do Not, Overlooking The Fact, That Some Men, Namely, Poets, Are Natural Sayers, Sent Into The World To The End Of Expression, And Confounds Them With Those Whose Province Is Action, But Who Quit To Imitate The Sayers.

Sanity Consists In Not Being Subdued By Your Means. Fancy Prices Are Paid For Position, And For The Culture Of Talent, But To Thegrand Interests, Superficial Success Is Of No Account.

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

Spartans, Stoics, Heroes, Saints And Gods Use Short And Positive Speech.

Christianity Taught The Capacity, The Element, To Love The All-perfect Without A Stingy Bargain For Personal Happiness. It Taught That To Love Him Was Happiness;--to Love Him In Others' Virtues.

Nature And Books Belong To The Eyes That See Them.

But Whoso Is Heroic Must Find Crises To Try His Edge. Human Virtue Demands Her Champions And Martyrs, And The Trial Of Persecution Always Proceeds.

The Energetic Action Of The Times Develops Individualism, And The Religious Appear Isolated. I Esteem This A Step In The Right Direction. Heaven Deals With Us On No Representative System. Souls Are Not Saved In Bundles.

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

It Does Not Need That A Poem Should Be Long. Every Word Was Once A Poem.

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.

We Are Sure That, Though We Know Not How, Necessity Does Comport With Liberty, The Individual With The World, My Polarity With Thespirit Of The Times. The Riddle Of The Age Has For Each A Private Solution.

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

One Can Never Truly Savor Success Until First Tasting Adversity.

The Most Attractive Class Of People Are Those Who Are Powerful Obliquely, And Not By The Direct Stroke: Men Of Genius, But Not Yetaccredited: One Gets The Cheer Of Their Light, Without Paying Too Great A Tax.

I Look On That Man As Happy, Who, When There Is Question Of Success, Looks Into His Work For A Reply.

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

Why Need I Volumes, If One Word Suffice?

Nature Is Made To Conspire With Spirit To Emancipate Us.

Knowledge Exists To Be Imparted.

Science, Nature,-o, I've Yearned To Open Some Page.

Every Natural Action Is Graceful.

When It's Darkest, Men See The Stars.

Peace Cannot Be Achieved Through Violence, It Can Only Be Attained Through Understanding.

Successful Is The Person Who Has Lived Well, Laughed Often And Loved Much, Who Has Gained The Respect Of Children, Who Leaves The World Better Than They Found It, Who Has Never Lacked Appreciation For The Earth's Beauty, Who Never Fails To Look For The Best In Others Or Give The Best Of Themselves.

If You Would Lift Me Up, You've Got To Be On Higher Ground.

For Beauty Is God's Handwriting...a Nd, Thank God For It As A Cup Of His Blessing.

Christian Inspirational

The Poet, The Painter, The Sculptor, The Musican, The Architect, Seek Each To Concentrate This Radiance Of The World On One Point, And Each In His Several Work To Satisfy The Love Of Beauty Which Stimulates Him To Produce.

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.

Its The Not The Destination, It's The Journey.

Away With This Hurrah Of Masses, And Let Us Have The Considerate Vote Of Single Men.

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

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.

Guard Your Own Spare Moments. They Are Like Uncut Diamonds.

Let Us Be Poised, And Wise, And Our Own, Today. Let Us Treat Men And Women Well; Treat Them As If They Were Real; Perhaps They Are.

Every Man Is Actually Weak, And Apparently Strong. To Himself, He Seems Weak; To Others, Formidable.

In Different Hours, A Man Represents Each Of Several Of His Ancestors, As If There Were Seven Or Eight Of Us Rolled Up In Each Man's Skin, - Seven Or Eight Ancestors At Least, And They Constitute The Variety Of Notes For That New Piece Of Music Which His Life Is.

History No Longer Shall Be A Dull Book. It Shall Walk Incarnate In Every Just And Wise Man. You Shall Not Tell Me By Language And Titles A Catalogue Of The Volumes You Have Read. You Shall Make Me Feel What Periods You Have Lived.

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

Whatever Games Are Played With Us, We Must Play No Games With Ourselves, But Deal In Our Privacy With The Last Honesty And Truth.

Moral Qualities Rule The World, But At Short Distances The Senses Are Despotic.

Every Industrious Man, In Every Lawful Calling, Is A Useful Man. And One Principal Reason Why Men Are So Often Useless Is That They Neglect Their Own Profession Or Calling, And Divide And Shift Their Attention Among A Multiplicity Of Objects And Pursuits.

I Think All Men Know Better Than They Do; Know That The Institutions We So Volubly Commend Are Go-carts And Baubles; But They Darenot Trust Their Presentiments.

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. . . .

A Man Of Thought Must Feel The Thought That Is Parent Of The Universe: That The Masses Of Nature Do Undulate And Flow.

We Are Too Civil To Books. For A Few Golden Sentences We Will Turn Over And Actually Read A Volume Of Four Or Five Hundred Pages.

Life Only Avails, Not The Having Lived.

Could Shakespeare Give A Theory Of Shakespeare?

Shallow Men Believe In Luck. Strong Men Believe In Cause And Effect.

Nature Hates Monopolies And Exceptions.

Man Carries The World In His Head, The Whole Astronomy And Chemistry Suspended In A Thought. Because The History Of Nature Is Charactered In His Brain, Therefore He Is The Prophet And Discoverer Of Her Secrets. Every Known Fact In Natural Science Was Divined By The Presentiment Of Somebody, Before It Was Actually Verified.

When We Quarrel, How We Wish We Had Been Blameless.

Neither You Nor The World Knows What You Can Do Until You Have Tried.

Good Writing Is A Kind Of Skating Which Carries Off The Performer Where He Would Not Go.

As Arkwright And Whitney Were The Demi-gods Of Cotton, So Prolific Time Will Yet Bring An Inventor To Every Plant. There Is Not A Property In Nature But A Mind Is Born To Seek And Find It.

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 Two Terrors That Discourage Creativity And Creative Living Are Fear Of Public Opinion And Undue Reverence For One's Own Consistency.

But I Shall Hear Without Pain, That I Play The Courtier Very Ill, And Talk Of That Which I Do Not Well Understand.

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.

I Can Find My Biography In Every Fable That I Read.

Only By The Supernatural Is A Man Strong--only By Confiding In The Divinity Which Stirs Within Us. Nothing Is So Weak As An Egotist--nothing Is Mightier Than We, When We Are Vehicles Of A Truth Before Which The State And The Individual Are Alike Ephemeral.

Great Thoughts Ensure Musical Expression.

Musical Expression

Build A Better Mousetrap And The World Will Beat A Path To Your Door.

The World Is A Divine Dream, From Which We May Presently Awake To The Glories And Certainties Of Day.

The First Lesson Of History Is That Evil Is Good.

This Whole Business Of Trade Gives Me To Pause And Think, As It Constitutes False Relations Between Men; Inasmuch As I Am Prone Tocount Myself Relieved Of Any Responsibility To Behave Well And Nobly To That Person Who I Pay With Money, Whereas If I Had Not That Commodity, I Should Be Put On My Good Behavior In All Companies, And Man Would Be A Benefactor To Man, As Being Himself His Only Certificate That He Had A Right To Those Aids And Services Which Each Asked Of The Other.

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

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

Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself. Nothing Can Bring You Peace But The Triumph Of Principles.

The Longest Wave Is Quickly Lost In The Sea.

God Hides Things By Putting Them Near Us.

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.

No Rent-roll Nor Army-list Can Dignify Skulking And Dissimulation: And The First Point Of Courtesy Must Always Be Truth, As Really All The Forms Of Good-breeding Point That Way.

The Eye Is The Best Of Artists.

The True Scholar Grudges Every Opportunity Of Action Passed, By, As A Loss Of Power.

As Thinkers, Mankind Has Ever Divided Into Two Sects, Materialists And Idealists; The First Class Founding On Experience, The Second On Consciousness; The First Class Beginning To Think From The Data Of The Senses, The Second Class Perceive That The Senses Are Not Final And Say, The Senses Give Us Representations Of Things, But What Are The Things Themselves, They Cannot Tell. The Materialist Insists On Facts, On History, On The Force Of Circumstances And The Animal Wants Of Man; The Idealists On The Power Of Thought And Will, On Inspiration, On Miracle, On Individual Culture.

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

You've Got To Be Taught, To Hate And Fear, You've Got To Be Taught, From Year To Year, It's Got To Be Drummed In Your Dear Little Ear, You've Got To Be Carefully Taught.

Self-command Is The Main Elegance.

Is It So Bad, Then, To Be Misunderstood? Pythagoras Was Misunderstood, And Socrates, And Jesus, And Luther, And Copernicus, And Galileo, And Newton, And Every Pure And Wise Spirit That Ever Took Flesh. To Be Great Is To Be Misunderstood.

Five Great Enemies Of Peace Inhabit Us: Avarice, Ambition, Envy, Anger And Pride.

Open The Doors Of Opportunity To Talent And Virtue And They Will Do Themselves Justice, And Property Will Not Be In Bad Hands.

O Lord! Unhappy Is The Man Whom Man Can Make Unhappy.

In The Great Books Of India, An Empire Spoke To Us, Nothing Small Or Unworthy, But Large, Serene, Consistent, The Voice Of An Old Intelligence, Which In Another Age And Climate Had Pondered And Thus Disposed Of The Questions That Exercise Us.

A Collector Recently Bought At Public Auction, In London, For One Hundred And Fifty-seven Guineas, An Autograph Of Shakespeare; But For Nothing A School-boy Can Read Hamlet And Can Detect Secrets Of Highest Concernment Yet Unpublished Therein.

When A Man Becomes Cultivated, He Develops A New Respect For Who He Is. This Causes Him To Be Ashamed Of His Past Identification Of Himself And Others According To Things, I.e. Property.

If A Teacher Have Any Opinion Which He Wishes To Conceal, His Pupils Will Become As Fully Indoctrinated Into That As Into Any Which He Publishes.

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

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.

Any Work Looks Wonderful To Me Except The One Which I Can Do.

Plants Are The Young Of The World, Vessels Of Health And Vigor; But They Grope Ever Upward Towards Consciousness; The Trees Are Imperfect Men, And Seem To Bemoan Their Imprisonment, Rooted In The Ground.

Love Should Make Joy; But Our Benevolence Is Unhappy. Our Sunday-schools, And Churches, And Pauper-societies Are Yokes To The Neck. We Pain Ourselves To Please Nobody.

Far Off, Men Swell, Bully, And Threaten; Bring Them Hand To Hand, And They Are Feeble Folk.

I Am Present At The Sowing Of The Seed Of The World. With A Geometry Of Sunbeams, The Soul Lays The Foundations Of Nature.

Things Have Their Laws As Well As Men, And Things Refuse To Be Trifled With.

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.

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

Nor Has Science Sufficient Humanity, So Long As The Naturalist Overlooks The Wonderful Congruity Which Subsists Between Man And The World; Of Which He Is Lord, Not Because He Is The Most Subtile Inhabitant, But Because He Is Its Head And Heart, And Finds Something Of Himself In Every Great And Small Thing, In Every Mountain Stratum, In Every New Law Of Color, Fact Of Astronomy, Or Atmospheric Influence Which Observation Or Analysis Lay Open.

The Field Cannot Be Seen From Within The Field.

Genius Borrows Nobly.

Do Not Require A Description Of The Countries Towards Which You Sail. The Description Does Not Describe Them To You, And To- Morrow You Arrive There, And Know Them By Inhabiting Them.

I Remember An Answer Which When Quite Young I Was Prompted To Make A Valued Adviser Who Was Wont To Importune Me With The Dear Old Doctrines Of The Church. On My Saying, What Have I To Do With The Sacredness Of Traditions, If I Live Wholly From Within? My Friend Suggested, - "but These Impulses May Be From Below, Not From Above." I Replied, 'they Do Not Seem To Me To Be Such; But If I Am The Devil's Child, I Will Live Then From The Devil.'

There Is Then Creative Reading As Well As Creative Writing. When The Mind Is Braced By Labor And Invention, The Page Of Whatever Book We Read Becomes Luminous With Manifold Allusion. Every Sentence Is Doubly Significant, And The Sense Of Our Author Is As Broad As The World.

The Highest End Of Government Is The Culture Of Men.

There Was Never A Man Born So Wise Or Good, But One Or More Companions Came Into The World With Him, Who Delight In His Faculty, And Report It. I Cannot See Without Awe, That No Man Thinks Alone And No Man Acts Alone, But The Divine Assessors Who Came Up With Him Into Life,--now Under One Disguise, Now Under Another,--like A Police In Citizen's Clothes, Walk With Him, Step For Step, Through All Kingdoms Of Time.

The Greatest Genius Is The Most Indebted Person.

The Longer We Live The More We Must Endure The Elementary Existence Of Men And Women; And Every Brave Heart Must Treat Society Asa Child, And Never Allow It To Dictate.

When We See A Special Reformer We Feel Like Asking Him, What Right Have You, Sir, To Your Own Virtue? Is Virtue Piecemeal?

Nature Is Upheld By Antagonism.

To Make Knowledge Valuable, You Must Have The Cheerfulness Of Wisdom.

I Am Ashamed To Think How Easily We Capitulate To Badges And Names, To Large Societies And Dead Institutions.

We Pass For What We Are. Character Teaches Above Our Wills. Men Imagine That They Communicate Thier Virtue Or Vice By Overt Actions, And Do Not See That Virtue Or Vice Emit A Breath Ever Moment....one Tendency Unites Them All. The Voyage Of The Best Ship Is A Zsig Zag Line Of A Hundred Tacks. See The Line From A Sufficent Distance And It Straightens Itslef To The Average Tendency.

But Whoso Is Heroic Will Always Find Crises To Try His Edge.

A Chief Event Of Life Is The Day In Which We Have Encountered A Mind That Startled Us.

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

Skepticism? Yes, But A Saint Is A Skeptic Once In Twenty-four Hours.

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