Background Image

...

All Persons Are Puzzles Until At Last We Find In Some Word Or Act The Key To The Man, To The Woman; Straightway All Their Past Words And Actions Lie In Light Before Us.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

All Persons Are Puzzles

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

All Persons Are Puzzles Until At Last We Find In Some Word Or Act The Key To The Man, To The Woman; Straightway All Their Past Words And Actions Lie In Light Before Us.

Views: 8

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

The World Is The Perennial Miracle Which The Soul Worketh.

Life Only Avails, Not The Having Lived.

The Secret Of Education Lies In Respecting The Pupil. It Is Not For You To Choose What He Shall Know, What He Shall Do. It Is Chosen And Foreordained And He Only Holds The Key To His Own Secret.

People Destined To Meet Will Do So, Apparently By Chance, At Precisely The Right Moment.

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.

Art Is The Need To Create; But In Its Essence, Immense And Universal, It Is Impatient Of Working With Lame Or Tied Hands, And Of Making Cripples And Monsters, Such As All Pictures And Statues Are. Nothing Less Than The Creation Of Man And Nature Is Its End.

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. The Beauty That Shimmers In The Yellow Afternoons Of October, Who Could Ever Clutch It? Go Forth To Find It, And It Is Gone: 't Is Only A Mirage As You Look From The Windows Of Diligence.

There Is More In Every Person's Soul Than We Think.

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

What Is Life But The Angle Of Vision? A Man Is Measured By The Angle At Which He Looks At Objects.

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.

Every Man Supposes Himself Not To Be Fully Understood; And If There Is Any Truth In Him, If He Rests At Last On The Divine Soul, I See Not How It Can Be Otherwise. The Last Chamber, The Last Closet, He Must Feel, Was Never Opened; There Is Always A Residuum Unknown, Unanalyzable. That Is, Every Man Believes That He Has A Greater Possibility.

The Rhyme Of The Poet Modulates The King's Affairs.

Standing On The Bare Ground,--my Head Bathed By The Blithe Air And Uplifted Into Infinite Space,--all Mean Egotism Vanishes. I Become A Transparent Eyeball; I Am Nothing; I See All; The Currents Of The Universal Being Circulate Through Me; I Am Part Or Parcel Of God.

The Ancestor Of Every Action Is A Thought.

Positive Thinking

Our Spontaneous Action Is Always The Best. You Cannot, With Your Best Deliberation And Heed, Come So Close To Any Question As Your Spontaneous Glance Shall Bring You.

Do Your Thing, And I Shall Know You.

I Have Only One Doctrine, The Infinitude Of The Private Man.

Fear Defeats More People Than Any Other One Thing In The World.

The Axioms Of Physics Translate The Laws Of Ethics. Thus, "the Whole Is Greater Than Its Part;" "reaction Is Equal To Action;" "the Smallest Weight May Be Made To Lift The Greatest, The Difference Of Weight Being Compensated By Time;" And Many The Like Propositions, Which Have An Ethical As Well As Physical Sense. These Propositions Have A Much More Extensive And Universal Sense When Applied To Human Life, Than When Confined To Technical Use.

The Use Of Literature Is To Afford Us A Platform Whence We May Command A View Of Our Present Life, A Purchase By Which We May Move It....we See Literature Best From The Midst Of Wild Nature, Or From The Din Of Affairs, Or From A High Religion. The Field Cannot Be Well Seen From Within The Field.

The Visible Heavens And Earth Sympathize With Jesus.

Wise Men Are Not Wise At All Hours, And Will Speak Five Times From Their Taste Or Their Humor, To Once From Their Reason.

If You Don't Ride In The Rain, You Don't Ride.

Riding Your Bike

Spirit, That Made Those Heroes Dare To Die, And Leave Their Children Free, Bid Time And Nature Gently Spare The Shaft We Raise To Them And Thee.

Don't Make A Novel To Establish A Principle Of Political Economy. You Will Spoil Both.

The Less Government We Have The Better.

All I Know Is Reception; I Am And I Have: But I Do Not Get, And When I Fancied I Had Gotten Anything, I Found I Did Not.

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

Henceforth, Please God, Forever I Forego The Yolk Of Men's Opinions. I Will Be Light-hearted As A Bird And Live With God. I Find Him In The Bottom Of My Heart, And I Hear Continually His Voice Therein.

The Secrets Of Life Are Not Shown Except To Sympathy And Likeness.

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

Fractures Well Cured Make Us More Strong.

What I Must Do Is All That Concerns Me, Not What The People Think.

A Little Fact Is Worth A Whole Limbo Of Dreams.

Passion Rebuilds The World For The Youth. It Makes All Things Alive And Significant.

A Man Often Pays Dear For A Small Frugality.

The Tempered Light Of The Woods Is Like A Perpetual Morning.

Beauty Is The Pilot Of The Young Soul.

And In Cases Where Profound Conviction Has Been Wrought, The Eloquent Man Is He Who Is No Beautiful Speaker, But Who Is Inwardly Drunk With A Certain Belief. It Agitates And Tears Him, And Perhaps Almost Bereaves Him Of The Power Of Articulation.

Every Man Is Eloquent Once In His Life.

Public Speaking

We Do Not Live An Equal Life, But One Of Contrasts And Patchwork; Now A Little Joy, Then A Sorrow, Now A Sin, Then A Generous Or Brave Action.

Society, To Be Sure, Does Not Like This Very Well; It Saith, Whoso Goes To Walk Alone, Accuses The Whole World; He Declares All To Be Unfit To Be His Companions; It Is Very Uncivil, Nay, Insulting; Society Will Retaliate.

When A Man Thinks Happily, He Finds No Foot-track In The Field He Traverses. All Spontaneous Thought Is Irrespective Of All Else.

There Is A Time When A Man Distinguishes The Idea Of Felicity From The Idea Of Wealth; It Is The Beginning Of Wisdom.

What You Do Thunders Above Your Head So Loudly, I Cannot Hear The Words You Speak.

Words You Speak

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

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

We Do Not Quite Forgive A Giver. The Hand That Feeds Us Is In Some Danger Of Being Bitten.

The Secret Of Fortune Is Joy In Our Hands.

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

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. He Has Not One Chance, But A Hundred Chances.

The Eye Is Easily Frightened.

Teach That God Is, Not Was; That He Speaketh, Not Spake.

Crime And Punishment Grow Out Of One Stem.

The Great Majority Of Men Are Bundles Of Beginnings

Every Man's Reason Is Sufficient For His Guidance, If Used.

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.

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

Well, The World Has A Million Writers. One Would Think, Then, That Good Thought Would Be As Familiar As Air And Water, And The Gifts Of Each New Hour Would Exclude The Last. Yet We Can Count All Our Good Books; Nay, I Remember Any Beautiful Verse For Twenty Years.

New York Is A Sucked Orange. All Conversation Is At An End, When We Have Discharged Ourselves Of A Dozen Personalities, Domestic Or Imported, Which Make Up Our American Existence.

The Influence Of The Senses Have In Men Overpowered The Thought To The Degree That The Walls Of Time And Space Have Come To Look Solid, Real And Insurmountable. .. Yet Time And Space Are But Inverse Measures Of The Power Of The Mind. Man Is Capable Of Abolishing Them Both.

Welcome Back My Friends To The Show That Never Ends. We're So Glad You Could Attend, Come Inside, Come Inside.

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

Speech Is Power: Speech Is To Persuade, To Convert, To Compel. It Is To Bring Another Out Of His Bad Sense Into Your Good Sense.

Power Of Speech

Sport Is The Bloom And Glow Of A Perfect Health. The Great Will Not Condescend To Take Anything Seriously; All Must Be As Gay As The Song Of A Canary, Though It Were The Building Of Cities, Or The Eradication Of Old And Foolish Churches And Nations, Which Have Cumbered The Earth Long Thousands Of Years.

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.

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

We Rail At Trade, But The Historian Of The World Will See That It Was The Principle Of Liberty; That It Settled America, And Destroyed Feudalism, And Made Peace And Keeps Peace; That It Will Abolish Slavery.

I Hope In These Days We Have Heard The Last Of Conformity And Consistency. Let The Words Be Gazetted And Ridiculous Henceforward.instead Of The Gong For Dinner, Let Us Hear A Whistle From The Spartan Fife.

When A Natural King Becomes A Titular King, Every Body Is Pleased And Satisfied.

A Cynic Can Chill And Dishearten With A Single Word.

I Have Just Been Conversing With One Man, To Whom No Weight Of Adverse Experience Will Make It For A Moment Appear Impossible That Thousands Of Human Beings Might Exercise Towards Each Other The Grandest And Simplest Sentiments, As Well As A Knot Of Friends, Or A Pair Of Lovers.

Every Particular In Nature, A Leaf, A Drop, A Crystal, A Moment Of Time Is Related To The Whole, And Partakes Of The Perfection Of The Whole.

Whilst We Want Cities As The Centres Where The Best Things Are Found, Cities Degrade Us By Magnifying Trifles.

The Method Of Nature: Who Could Ever Analyze It?

Let Every Man Shovel Out His Own Snow And The Whole City Will Be Passable.

The City Is Always Recruited From The Country. The Men In Cities Who Are The Centres Of Energy, The Driving-wheels Of Trade, Politics Or Practical Arts, And The Women Of Beauty And Genius, Are The Children Or Grandchildren Of Farmers, And Are Spending The Energies Which Their Fathers' Hardy, Silent Life Accumulated In Frosty Furrows In Poverty, Necessity And Darkness.

Every Thing Admonishes Us How Needlessly Long Life Is.

Grow Angry Slowly - There's Plenty Of Time.

That Which We Do Not Believe, We Cannot Adequately Say; Even Though We May Repeat The Words Ever So Often.

When Science Is Learned In Love, And Its Powers Are Wielded By Love, They Will Appear The Supplements And Continuations Of The Material Creation.

Man Is A Stream Whose Source Is Hidden. Our Being Is Descending Into Us From We Know Not Whence. The Most Exact Calculator Has Noprescience That Somewhat Incalculable May Not Balk The Very Next Moment. I Am Constrained Every Moment To Acknowledge A Higher Origin For Events Than The Will I Call Mine.

The Moment The Doctrine Of The Immortality Is Separately Taught, Man Is Already Fallen. In The Flowing Of Love, In The Adoration Of Humility, There Is No Question Of Continuance. No Inspired Man Ever Asks This Question, Or Condescends To These Evidences. For The Soul Is True To Itself, And The Man In Whom It Is Shed Abroad Cannot Wander From The Present, Which Is Infinite, To A Future Which Would Be Finite.

I Could Better Eat With One Who Did Not Respect The Truth Or The Laws, Than With A Sloven And Unpresentable Person. Moral Qualities Rule The World, But At Shorter Distances, The Senses Are Despotic.

Give No Bounties: Make Equal Laws: Secure Life And Prosperity And You Need Not Give Alms.

If The Whole Of History Is In One Man, It Is All To Be Explained From Individual Experience.

He Who Has Acquired The Ability, May Wait Securely The Occasion Of Making It Felt And Appreciated, And Know That It Will Not Loiter.

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

The Imitator Dooms Himself To Hopeless Mediocrity. The Inventor Did It Because It Was Natural To Him, And So In Him It Has A Charm. In The Imitator Something Else Is Natural, And He Bereaves Himself Of His Own Beauty, To Come Short Of Another Man's.

Things Are Pretty, Graceful, Rich, Elegant, Handsome, But, Until They Speak To The Imagination, Not Yet Beautiful.

There Are Only Ten Minutes In The Life Of A Pear When It Is Perfect To Eat.

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

Respect The Child. Wait And See The New Product Of Nature. Nature Loves Analogies, But Not Repetitions. Respect The Child. Be Not Too Much His Parent. Trespass Not On His Solitude.

The Craft Of The Merchant Is This Bringing A Thing Where It Abounds To Where It Is Costly.

I Will Not Hide My Tastes Or Aversions. If You Are True, But Not In The Same Truth With Me, Cleave To Your Companions; I Will Seek My Own.

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.

There Is No Man Of Nature's Worth In The Circle Of The Earth.

Democracy Is Morose, And Runs To Anarchy.

Come, See The North-wind's Masonry, Out Of An Unseen Quarry Evermore Furnished With Tile, The Fierce Artificer Curves His White Bastions With Projected Roof Round Every Windward Stake, Or Tree, Or Door. Speeding, The Myriad-handed, His Wild Work So Fanciful, So Savage, Naught Cares He For Number Or Proportion.

The Land Is The Appointed Remedy For Whatever Is False And Fantastic In Our Culture...food For Our Mind, As Well As Our Body.

Do You See That Kitten Chasing So Prettily Her Own Tail? If You Could Look With Her Eyes, You Might See Her Surrounded With Hundreds Of Figures Performing Complex Dramas, With Tragic And Comic Issues, Long Conversations, Many Characters, Many Ups And Downs Of Fate.

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.

The World Leaves No Track In Space, And The Greatest Action Of Man No Mark In The Vast Idea.

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

The Whole Of What We Know Is A System Of Compensation. Every Defect In One Manner Is Made Up In Another. Every Suffering Is Rewarded; Every Sacrifice Is Made Up; Every Debt Is Paid.

Nature Is No Spendthrift, But Takes The Shortest Way To Her Ends.

Creative Force, Like A Musical Composer, Goes On Unweariedly Repeating A Simple Air Or Theme, Now High, Now Low, In Solo, In Chorus, Ten Thousand Times Reverberated, Till It Fills Earth And Heaven With The Chant.

A More Secret, Sweet, And Overpowering Beauty Appears To Man When His Heart And Mind Open To The Sentiment Of Virtue. Then He Is Instructed In What Is Set Above Him. He Learns That His Being Is Without Bound; That To The Good, To The Perfect, He Is Born, Low As He Now Lies In Evil And Weakness.

The Forest Waves, The Morning Breaks, The Pastures Sleep, Ripple The Lakes, Leaves Twinkle, Flowers Like Persons Be And Life Pulsates In Rock Or Tree.

The Astronomers Said, 'give Us Matter And A Little Motion And We Will Construct The Universe. It Is Not Enough That We Should Have Matter, We Must Also Have A Single Impulse, One Shove To Launch The Mass And Generate The Harmony Of The Centrifugal And Centripetal Forces.' ... There Is No End To The Consequences Of The Act. That Famous Aboriginal Push Propagates Itself Through All The Balls Of The System, And Through Every Atom Of Every Ball.

Sculpture And Painting Have The Effect Of Teaching Us Manners And Abolishing Hurry.

Self Reliance, The Height And Perfection Of Man, Is Reliance On God.

We Are Taught By Great Actions That The Universe Is The Property Of Every Individual In It.

Every Mind Must Make Its Choice Between Truth And Repose. It Cannot Have Both.

We Must Be Very Suspicious Of The Deceptions Of The Element Of Time. It Takes A Good Deal Of Time To Eat Or To Sleep, Or To Earn Ahundred Dollars, And A Very Little Time To Entertain A Hope And An Insight Which Becomes The Light Of Our Life.

These Arts Open Great Gates Of A Future, Promising To Make The World Plastic And To Lift Human Life Out Of Its Beggary To A God- Like Ease And Power.

Our First Mistake Is The Belief That The Circumstance Gives The Joy Which We Give To The Circumstance.

It Is Very Hard To Be Simple Enough To Be Good.

In The Actual World--the Painful Kingdom Of Time And Place--dwell Care, And Canker, And Fear. With Thought, With The Ideal, Is Immortal Hilarity, The Rose Of Joy.

We Do Not Quite Forgive A Giver. The Hand That Feeds Us Is In Some Danger Of Being Bitten. We Can Receive Anything From Love, Forthat Is A Way Of Receiving It From Ourselves; But Not From Any One Who Assumes To Bestow. We Sometimes Hate The Meat Which We Eat, Because There Seems Something Of Degrading Dependence In Living It.

Walking Has The Best Value As Gymnastics Of The Mind.

Everything Teaches Transition, Transference, Metamorphosis: Therein Is Human Power, In Transference, Not In Creation; & Therein Is Human Destiny, Not In Longevity But In Removal. We Dive & Reappear In New Places.

Hither Rolls The Storm Of Heat; I Feel Its Finer Billows Beat Like A Sea Which Me Infolds; Heat With Viewless Fingers Moulds, Swells, And Mellows, And Matures, Paints, And Flavors, And Allures, Bird And Brier Inly Warms, Still Enriches And Transforms, Gives The Reed And Lily Length, Adds To Oak And Oxen Strength, Transforming What It Doth Infold, Life Out Of Death, New Out Of Old.

In Conversation The Game Is, To Say Something New With Old Words. And You Shall Observe A Man Of The People Picking His Way Along, Step By Step, Using Every Time An Old Boulder, Yet Never Setting His Foot On An Old Place.

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

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.

The Quality Of The Imagination Is To Flow And Not To Freeze.

General Ideas Are Essences. They Are Our Gods: They Round And Ennoble The Most Partial And Sordid Way Of Living.

To Be Great, You Must Be Misunderstood

Every Man Alone Is Sincere. At The Entrance Of A Second Person, Hypocrisy Begins. We Parry And Fend The Approach Of Our Fellow-man By Compliments, By Gossip, By Amusements, By Affairs. We Cover Up Our Thought From Him Under A Hundred Folds.

Earth's A Howling Wilderness, Truculent With Fraud And Force.

To Help The Young Soul, To Add Energy, Inspire Hope, And Blow The Coals Into A Useful Flame; To Redeem Defeat By New Thought And Firm Action, This, Though Not Easy, Is The Work Of Divine Men.

When It's Dark Enough Men See Stars.

He Takes Men Out Of Time And Makes Them Feel Eternity.

When The Man Is At Home, His Standing In Society Is Well Known And Quietly Taken; But When He Is Abroad, It Is Problematical, And Is Dependent On The Success Of His Manners.

Let Us Be Poised, Wise And Our Own Today.

Columbus Discovered No Isle Or Key So Lonely As Himself.

The Only Sin Is Limitation. As Soon As You Once Come Up With A Man's Limitations, It Is All Over With Him. Has He Talents? Has Heenterprise? Has He Knowledge? It Boots Not. Infinitely Alluring And Attractive Was He To You Yesterday, A Great Hope, A Sea To Swim In; Now, You Have Found His Shores, Found It A Pond, And You Care Not If You Never See It Again.

The Intellect Searches Out The Absolute Order Of Things As They Stand In The Mind Of God, And Without The Colors Of Affection. The Intellectual And The Active Powers Seem To Succeed Each Other, And The Exclusive Activity Of The One Generates The Exclusive Activity Of The Other. There Is Something Unfriendly In Each To The Other, But They Are Like The Alternate Periods Of Feeding And Working In Animals; Each Prepares And Will Be Followed By The Other.

It Really Is Considered One Of The Blessings Of Previous Mates Which You Could Manage Being Silly With Them.

Instead Of Feeling A Poverty When We Encounter A Great Man, Let Us Treat The New Comer Like A Travelling Geologist, Who Passes Through Our Estate, And Shows Us Good Slate, Or Limestone, Or Anthracite, In Our Brush Pasture.

We Are Thus Assisted By Natural Objects In The Expression Of Particular Meanings. But How Great A Language To Convey Such Pepper-corn Informations!

A Feeble Man Can See The Farms That Are Fenced And Tilled, The Houses That Are Built. The Strong Man Sees The Possible Houses And Farms. His Eye Makes Estates As Fast As The Sun Breeds Clouds.

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

It Takes A Good Deal Of Character To Judge A Person By His Future Instead Of His Past

Beauty Is The Mark God Sets On Virtue. Every Natural Action Is Graceful; Every Heroic Act Is Also Decent, And Causes The Place And The Bystanders To Shine.

The Cruelest Foe Is A Masked Benefactor. The Wars Which Make History So Dreary Have Served The Cause Of Truth And Virtue.

What Is Originality? It Is Being One's Self, And Reporting Accurately What We See And Are.

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.

We Can Only Obey Our Own Polarity.

The Truth, The Hope Of Any Time, Must Always Be Sought In Minorities.

Freedom Is Not The Right To Live As We Please, But The Right To Find How We Ought To Live In Order To Fulfill Our Potential.

Of All The Ways To Lose A Person, Death Is The Kindest

Democracy Becomes A Government Of Bullies Tempered By Editors.

Democracies Have

A Seashell Should Be The Crest Of England, Not Only Because It Represents A Power Built On The Waves, But Also The Hard Finish Ofthe Men. The Englishman Is Finished Like A Cowry Or A Murex.

A Vivid Thought Brings The Power To Paint It; And In Proportion To The Depth Of Its Source Is The Force Of Its Projection.

An Action Is The Perfection And Publication Of Thought.

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

The Pulpit And The Press Have Many Commonplaces Denouncing The Thirst For Wealth, But If Men Should Take These Moralists At Their Word, And Leave Off Aiming To Be Rich, The Moralists Would Rush To Rekindle At All Hazards This Love Of Power In The People, Lest Civilization Should Be Undone.

We Owe To Man Higher Succors Than Food And Fire. We Owe To Man, Man.

The Reason Of Idleness And Of Crime Is The Deferring Of Our Hopes. Whilst We Are Waiting, We Beguile The Time With Jokes, With Sleep, With Eating, And With Crimes.

Great Believers Are Always Reckoned Infidels, Impracticable, Fantastic, Atheistic, And Really Men Of No Account. The Spiritualist Finds Himself Driven To Express His Faith By A Series Of Skepticisms.

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

The Dogma Of The Mystic Offices Of Christ Being Dropped, And He Standing On His Genius As A Moral Teacher, 'tis Impossible To Maintain The Old Emphasis Of His Personality; And It Recedes, As All Persons Must, Before The Sublimity Of The Moral Laws.

Marriage (in What Is Called The Spiritual World) Is Impossible, Because Of The Inequality Between Every Subject And Every Object.

Intemperance Is The Only Vulgarity.

Wherever The Truth Is Injured, Defend It.

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

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

There Is A Remedy For Every Wrong And A Satisfaction For Every Soul.

The Less A Man Thinks Or Knows About His Virtues, The Better We Like Him.

The Disease With Which The Human Mind Now Labors Is Want Of Faith

Difference Of Opinion Is The One Crime Which Kings Never Forgive.

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

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.

The Unsaid Part Is The Best Of Every Discourse.

Genius Is Power, Talent Is Applicability.

Life Is Too Short To Waste.

Life Is Too Short

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

It Is A Mischievous Notion That We Are Come Late Into Nature; That The World Was Finished A Long Time Ago. As The World Was Plastic And Fluid In The Hands Of God, So It Is Ever To So Much Of His Attributes As We Bring To It. To Ignorance And Sin, It Is Flint. They Adapt To Themselves To It As They May; But In Proportion As A Man Has Anything In Him Divine, The Firmament Flows Before Him And Takes His Signet And Form.

The Compensations Of Calamity Are Made Apparent To The Understanding Also, After Long Intervals Of Time. A Fever, A Mutilation, A Cruel Disappointment, A Loss Of Wealth, A Loss Of Friends, Seems At The Moment Unpaid Loss, And Unpayable. But The Sure Years Reveal The Deep Remedial Force That Underlies All Facts.

The Quality Of The Thought Differences The Egyptian And The Roman, The Austrian And The American.

Go Forth Into The Busy World And Love It. Interest Yourself In Its Life, Mingle Kindly With Its Joys And Sorrows.

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

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.

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

A Great Licentiousness Treads On The Heels Of A Reformation.

Envy Is Ignorance, Imitation Is Suicide.

This Ennui, For Which We Saxons Had No Name,--this Word Of France, Has Got A Terrific Significance. It Shortens Life, And Bereaves The Day Of Its Light.

You Cannot Kindle A Fire In Any Other Heart Until It Is Burning In Your Own.

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

Man Exists For His Own Sake And Not To Add A Laborer To The State.

It Is Always So Pleasant To Be Generous, Though Very Vexatious To Pay Debts.

The Walking Of Man Is Falling Forwards.

See Only That Thou Work And Thou Canst Not Escape The Reward.

A Work Of Art Is An Abstract Or Epitome Of The World. It Is The Result Or Expression Of Nature, In Miniature. For, Although The Works Of Nature Are Innumerable And All Different, The Result Or The Expression Of Them All Is Similar And Single.

Out Of Love And Hatred, Out Of Earnings And Borrowings And Leadings And Losses; Out Of Sickness And Pain; Out Of Wooing And Worshipping; Out Of Traveling And Voting And Watching And Caring; Out Of Disgrace And Contempt, Comes Our Tuition In The Serene And Beautiful Laws.

Society Always Consists In The Greatest Part, Of Young And Foolish Persons.

I'm Happier. I Guess I Made Up My Mind To Be That Way.

Trending Author

Category