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And What Avails It That Science Has Come To Treat Space And Time As Simply Forms Of Thought, And The Material World As Hypothetical, And Withal Our Pretension Of Property And Even Of Self-hood Are Fading With The Rest, If, At Last, Even Our Thoughts Are Not Finalities, But The Incessant Flowing And Ascension Reach These Also, And Each Thought Which Yesterday Was A Finality, To-day Is Yielding To A Larger Generalization?

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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And What Avails It

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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And What Avails It That Science Has Come To Treat Space And Time As Simply Forms Of Thought, And The Material World As Hypothetical, And Withal Our Pretension Of Property And Even Of Self-hood Are Fading With The Rest, If, At Last, Even Our Thoughts Are Not Finalities, But The Incessant Flowing And Ascension Reach These Also, And Each Thought Which Yesterday Was A Finality, To-day Is Yielding To A Larger Generalization?

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We Do Not Yet Trust The Unknown Powers Of Thought. Whence Came All These Tools, Inventions, Book Laws, Parties, Kingdoms? Out Of The Invisible World, Through A Few Brains. The Arts And Institutions Of Men Are Created Out Of Thought. The Powers That Make The Capitalist Are Metaphysical, The Force Of Method And Force Of Will Makes Trade, And Builds Towns.

We Are Rich Only Through What We Give, And Poor Only Through What We Refuse.

Now That Is The Wisdom Of A Man, In Every Instance Of His Labor, To Hitch His Wagon To A Star, And See His Chore Done By The Gods Themselves. That Is The Way We Are Strong, By Borrowing The Might Of The Elements. The Forces Of Steam, Gravity, Galvanism, Light, Magnets, Wind, Fire, Serve Us Day By Day And Cost Us Nothing.

The Greatest Homage To Truth Is To Use It.

Never Utter The Truism But Live It Among Men.

All Mankind Love A Lover.

Not Gold But Only Men Can Makea People Great And Strong;men Who For Truth And Honors Sakestand Fast And Suffer Long. Brave Men Who Work While Others Sleep,who Dare While Others Flythey Build A Nations Pillars Deepand Lift Them To The Sky.

Consistency Is The Bugbear That Frightens Little Minds.

Wisdom Has Its Root In Goodness, Not Goodness Its Root In Wisdom.

Our Young People Are Diseased With The Theological Problems Of Original Sin, Origin Of Evil, Predestination, And The Like. These Never Presented A Practical Difficulty To Any Man,--never Darkened Across Any Man's Road, Who Did Not Go Out Of His Way To Seek Them. These Are The Soul's Mumps, And Measles, And Whooping- Coughs, And Those Who Have Not Caught Them Cannot Describe Their Health Or Prescribe A Cure. A Simple Mind Will Not Know These Enemies.

We Live In Succession, In Division, In Parts And Particles. Meantime, Within Man, Is The Soul Of The Whole; The Wise Silence; The Universal Beauty To Which Every Part And Particle Is Equally Related; The Eternal One.

It Has Been The Office Of Art To Educate The Perception Of Beauty. We Are Immersed In Beauty But Our Eyes Have No Clear Vision.

We Must Trust Infinitely To The Beneficent Necessity Which Shines Through All Laws. Human Nature Expresses Itself In Them As Characteristically As In Statues, Or Songs, Or Railroads, And An Abstract Of The Codes Of Nations Would Be An Abstract Of The Common Conscience.

The Field Cannot Be Well Seen From Within The Field. The Astronomer Must Have His Diameter Of The Earth's Orbit As A Base To Fix The Parallax Of Any Other Star

It Is Long Ere We Discover How Rich We Are. Our History, We Are Sure, Is Quite Tame: We Have Nothing To Write, Nothing To Infer. But Our Wiser Years Still Run Back To The Despised Recollections Of Childhood. . . .

Go Oft To The House Of Thy Friend, For Weeds Choke The Unused Path.

Nothing Is Arbitrary, Nothing Is Insulated In Beauty. It Depends Forever On The Necessary And The Useful. The Plumage Of The Bird, The Mimic Plumage Of The Insect, Has A Reason For Its Rich Colors In The Constitution Of The Animal. Fitness Is So Inseparable An Accompaniment Of Beauty, That It, Has Been Taken For It.

Pride Ruined The Angels.

Insist On Yourself. Never Imitate.

If The Tongue Had Not Been Framed For Articulation, Man Would Still Be A Beast In The Forest.

The Plays Of Children Are Nonsense, But Very Educative Nonsense. So It Is With The Largest And Solemnest Things, With Commerce, Government, Church, Marriage, And So With The History Of Every Man's Bread, And The Ways By Which He Is To Come By It.

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

Every Fact Is Related On One Side To Sensation, And, On The Other, To Morals. The Game Of Thought Is, On The Appearance Of One Of These Two Sides, To Find The Other: Given The Upper, To Find The Under Side.

Teach Me Your Mood, O Patient Stars. Who Climb Each Night, The Ancient Sky. Leaving On Space No Shade, No Scars, No Trace Of Age, No Fear To Die.

Power Ceases In The Instant Of Repose; It Resides In The Moment Of Transition From A Past To A New State, In The Shooting Of The Gulf, In The Darting To An Aim.

Thought Makes Everything Fit For Use.

The Basis Of Good Manners Is Self-reliance. Necessity Is The Law Of All Who Are Not Self-possessed.

All Successful Men Have Agreed In One Thing -- They Were Causationists. They Believed That Things Went Not By Luck, But By Law; That There Was Not A Weak Or A Cracked Link In The Chain That Joins The First And Last Of Things.

When Private Men Shall Act With Original Views, The Lustre Will Be Transferred From The Actions Of Kings To Those Of Gentlemen.

The Soul Knows Only The Soul; The Web Of Events Is The Flowing Robe In Which She Is Clothed.

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

I Consider Theology To Be The Rhetoric Of Morals.

All Life Is An Experiment. The More Experiments You Make The Better.

To Aim To Convert A Man By Miracles Is A Profanation Of The Soul. A True Conversion, A True Christ, Is Now, As Always, To Be Madeby The Reception Of Beautiful Sentiments.

We Thirst For Approbation, Yet Cannot Forgive The Approver.

Prosperity Is Something The Businessmen Created For Politicians To Take Credit For

The Religions Are Obsolete When The Reforms Do Not Proceed From Them.

Society Everywhere Is In Conspiracy Against The Manhood Of Every One Of Its Members. The Virtue In Most Request Is Conformity. Self-reliance Is Its Aversion. It Loves Not Realities And Creators, But Names And Customs.

Don't Waste Yourself In Rejection, Nor Bark Against The Bad, But Chant The Beauty Of The Good.

It Makes A Great Difference In The Force Of A Sentence, Whether A Man Be Behind It Or No.

One Definition Of Man Is An Intelligence Served By Organs.

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

I Think No Virtue Goes With Size.

I Am Defeated All The Time, Yet To Victory I Am Born.

We Grant No Dukedoms To The Few, We Hold Like Rights And Shall; Equal On Sunday In The Pew, On Monday In The Mall. For What Avail The Plough Or Sail, Or Land, Or Life, If Freedom Fail?

How Beautiful To Have The Church Always Open, So That Every Tired Wayfaring Man May Come In And Be Soothed By All That Art Can Suggest Of A Better World When He Is Weary With This.

The Same, The Same: Friend And Foe Are Of One Stuff; The Ploughman, The Plough, And The Furrow, Are Of One Stuff; And The Stuff Is Such, And So Much, That The Variations Of Form Are Unimportant.

The People Know That They Need In Their Representative Much More Than Talent, Namely, The Power To Make His Talent Trusted.

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

Give Me Truths For I Am Weary Of The Surfaces.

The Shows Of The Day, The Dewy Morning, The Rainbow, Mountains, Orchards In Blossom, Stars, Moonlight, Shadows In Still Water, Andthe Like, If Too Eagerly Hunted, Become Shows Merely, And Mock Us With Their Unreality.

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

Too Busy With The Crowded Hour To Fear To Live Or Die.

Our Distrust Is Very Expensive.

When A Thought Of Plato Becomes A Thought To Me,--when A Truth That Fired The Soul Of Pindar Fires Mine, Time Is No More. When I Feel That We Two Meet In A Perception, That Our Two Souls Are Tinged With The Same Hue, And Do As It Were Run Into One, Why Should I Measure Degrees Of Latitude, Why Should I Count Egyptian Years?

Wise Cultivated, Genial Conversation Is The Last Flower Of Civilization, And The Best Result Which Life Has To Offer Us,--a Cup For Gods, Which Has No Repentance. Conversation Is Our Account Of Ourselves. All We Have, All We Can, All We Know, Is Brought Into Play, And As The Reproduction In Finer Form, Of All Our Havings.

All Nobility In Its Beginnings Was Somebody's Natural Superiority.

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

For Every Seeing Soul, There Are Two Absorbing Facts - I, And The Abyss.

The Only Sin That We Never Forgive In Each Other Is A Difference In Opinion.

I Once Heard A Preacher Who Sorely Tempted Me To Go To Church No More.

We Do Not Yet Possess Ourselves, And We Know At The Same Time That We Are Much More.

Beware When The Great God Lets Loose A Thinker On This Planet. Then All Things Are At Risk. It Is As When A Conflagration Has Broken Out In A Great City, And No Man Knows What Is Safe, Or Where It Will End.

He In Whom The Love Of Truth Predominates . . . Submits To The Inconvenience Of Suspense And Imperfect Opinion; But He Is A Candidate For Truth . . . And Respects The Highest Law Of His Being.

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

Concentration Is The Secret Of Srength.

What Is The City In Which We Sit Here, But An Aggregate Of Incongruous Materials, Which Have Obeyed The Will Of Some Man?

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

The Age Of Puberty Is A Crisis In The Age Of Man Worth Studying. It Is The Passage From The Unconscious To The Conscious; From Thesleep Of Passions To Their Rage.

If We Walk In The Woods, We Must Feed Mosquitoes.

Dreams And Beasts Are Two Keys By Which We Find Out The Keys Of Our Own Nature.

Flowers... Are A Proud Assertion That A Ray Of Beauty Outvalues All The Utilities Of The World.

Raphael Paints Wisdom, Handel Sings It, Phidias Carves It, Shakespeare Writes It, Wren Builds It, Columbus Sails It, Luther Preaches It, Washington Arms It, Watt Mechanizes It.

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

We Ask For Long Life, But 'tis Deep Life, Or Noble Moments That Signify. Let The Measure Of Time Be Spiritual, Not Mechanical.

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. It Is Not The Part Of Men, But Of Fanatics, Or Of Mathematicians, If You Will, To Say, That, The Shortness Of Life Considered, It Is Not Worth Caring Whether For So Short A Duration We Were Sprawling In Want, Or Sitting High. Since Our Office Is With Moments, Let Us Husband Them.

Life Is To Be Lived, Not Controlled.

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.

Allow Yourself To Trust Joy And Embrace It. You Will Find You Dance With Everything.

To Give Money To A Sufferer Is Only A Come-off. It Is Only A Postponement Of The Real Payment, A Bribe Paid For Silence, A Creditsystem In Which A Paper Promise To Pay Answers For The Time Instead Of Liquidation. We Owe To Man Higher Succors Than Food And Fire. We Owe To Man.

The Line Of Beauty Is The Line Of Perfect Economy.

All Promise Outruns Performance.

The Simplest Words,--we Do Not Know What They Mean Except When We Love And Aspire.

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?

An Orchard, Good Tillage, Good Grounds, Seem A Fixture, Like A Gold Mine, Or A River, To A Citizen; But To A Large Farmer, Not Much More Fixed Than The State Of The Crop.

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.

Exaggeration Is In The Course Of Things. Nature Sends No Creature, No Man Into The World, Without Adding A Small Excess Of His Proper Quality. Given The Planet, It Is Still Necessary To Add The Impulse; So, To Every Creature Nature Added A Little Violence Of Direction In Its Proper Path, A Shove To Put It On Its Way; In Every Instance, A Slight Generosity, A Drop Too Much.

Exaggeration Is

Plant Your Dreams And Miracles Will Grow.

All Inquiry Into Antiquity, All Curiosity Respecting The Pyramids, The Excavated Cities, Stonehenge, The Ohio Circles, Mexico, Memphis,--is The Desire To Do Away This Wild, Savage, And Preposterous There And Then, And Introduce In Its Place The Here And Now.

There Is Hope In Extravagance, There Is None In Routine.

Character Wants Room; Must Not Be Crowded On By Persons, Nor Be Judged From Glimpses Got In The Press Of Affairs, Or On Few Occasions. It Needs Perspective, As A Great Building.

Whoso Would Be A Man Must Be A Nonconformist.

Being Different

But Every Jet Of Chaos Which Threatens To Exterminate Us Is Convertible By Intellect Into Wholesome Force. Fate Is Unpenetrated Causes.

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

I Please Myself With The Graces Of The Winter Scenery, And Believe That We Are As Much Touched By It As By The Genial Influences Of Summer.

Society Never Advances. It Recedes As Fast On One Side As It Gains On The Other. Society Acquires New Arts, And Loses Old Instincts.

English History Is Aristocracy With The Doors Open. Who Has Courage And Faculty, Let Him Come In.

English History

Who Looks Upon A River In A Meditative Hour And Is Not Reminded Of The Flux Of All Things?

The One Prudence In Life Is Concentration; The One Evil Is Dissipation: And It Makes No Difference Whether Our Dissipations Are Coarse Or Fine; Property And Its Cares, Friends And A Social Habit, Or Politics, Or Music, Or Feasting. Everything Is Good Which Takes Away One Plaything And Delusion More, And Drives Us Home To Add One Stroke Of Faithful Work.

No Picture Of Life Can Have Any Veracity That Does Not Admit The Odious Facts. A Man's Power Is Hooped In By A Necessity, Which, By Many Experiments, He Touches On Every Side, Until He Learns Its Arc.

The Attraction And Superiority Of California Are In Its Days. It Has Better Days & More Of Them, Than Any Other Country.

There Is One Mind Common To All Individual Men

When I Walk Up The Piazza Of Santa Croce I Feel As If It Were Not A Florentine Nor An European Church But A Church Built By And For The Human Race.

We Do Not Know Today Whether We Are Busy Or Idle. In Times When We Thought Ourselves Indolent, We Have Afterwards Discovered That Much Was Accomplished, And Much Was Begun In Us.

Self Improvement

The Hues Of The Opal, The Light Of The Diamond, Are Not To Be Seen If The Eye Is Too Near.

A Man Of No Conversation Should Smoke.

The Mob Is Man Voluntarily Descending To The Nature Of The Beast. Its Fit Hour Of Activity Is Night. Its Actions Are Insane Like Its Whole Constitution. It Persecutes A Principle; It Would Whip A Right; It Would Tar And Feather Justice, By Inflicting Fire And Outrage Upon The Houses And Persons Of Those Who Have These. It Resembles The Prank Of Boys, Who Run With Fire-engines To Put Out The Ruddy Aurora Streaming To The Stars.

Or Whipping Its Rough Surface For A Trout.

In Youth, We Clothe Ourselves With Rainbows, With Hope & Love, & Go As Brave As The Zodiack. In Age We Put Out Another Sort Of Perspiration; Gout, Fever, Rheumatism, Caprice, Doubt, Fretting, And Avarice.

The Book Written Against Fame And Learning Has The Author's Name On The Title-page.

So Much Of Our Time Is Spent In Preparation, So Much In Routine, And So Much In Retrospect, That The Amount Of Each Person's Genius Is Confined To A Very Few Hours.

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!

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

Neither Is Life Long Enough For Friendship. That Is A Serious And Majestic Affair.

An Orator Or Author Is Never Successful Till He Has Learned To Make His Words Smaller Than His Ideas.

By Degrees We May Come To Know The Primitive Sense Of The Permanent Objects Of Nature, So That The World Shall Be To Us An Open Book, And Every Form Significant Of Its Hidden Life And Final Cause.

When A Man Becomes A Conformist, He Is Sacrificing The Richness Of Independent Thinking.

Science Finds It Methods.

Earth Proudly Wears The Parthenon As The Best Gem Upon Her Zone.

Foolish, Whenever You Take The Meanness And Formality Of That Thing You Do, Instead Of Converting It Into The Obedient Spiracle Ofyour Character And Aims.

What Can We See, Read, Acquire, But Ourselves. Take The Book, My Friend, And Read Your Eyes Out, You Will Never Find There What I Find.

So Each Man, Like Each Plant, Has His Parasites. A Strong, Astringent, Bilious Nature Has More Truculent Enemies Than The Slugs And Moths That Fret My Leaves. Such A One Has Curculios, Borers, Knife-worms; A Swindler Ate Him First, Then A Client, Then A Quack, Then Smooth, Plausible Gentlemen, Bitter And Selfish As Moloch.

He That Writes To Himself Writes To An Eternal Public.

Give Me Insight Into Today And You May Have The Antique And Future Worlds.

There Are Always Two Parties; The Establishment And The Movement.

Tragedy Is In The Eye Of The Observer, And Not In The Heart Of The Sufferer.

I Believe In Eternity. I Can Find Greece, Palestine, Italy, Spain, And The Islands, - The Genius And Creative Principle Of Each And Of All Eras, In My Own Mind.

We Have More Than We Use.

Use It Or Lose It

A Garden Is Like Those Pernicious Machineries Which Catch A Man's Coat-skirt Or His Hand, And Draw In His Arm, His Leg , And His Whole Body To Irresistible Destruction.

Among The Multitude Of Scholars And Authors, We Feel No Hallowing Presence; We Are Sensible Of A Knack And Skill Rather Than Of Inspiration; They Have A Light, And Know Not Whence It Comes, And Call It Their Own; Their Talent Is Some Exaggerated Faculty, Some Overgrown Member, So That Their Strength Is A Disease.

Let No One Honour Me With Tears, Or Bury Me With Lamentation. Why? Because I Fly Hither And Thither, Living In The Mouths Of Me.

The Flowers Talk When The Wind Blows Over Them.

Commerce Is Of Trivial Import; Love, Faith, Truth Of Character, The Aspiration Of Man, These Are Sacred.

Thoughts Rule The World.

It Is One Of The Most Beautiful Compensations Of This Life That No Person Can Sincerely Try To Help Another Without Helping Him Or Herself. Serve And You Shall Be Served. If You Love And Serve People, You Cannot, By Any Hiding Or Stratagem, Escape The Remuneration.

Of Course You Will Insist On Modesty In The Children, And Respect To Their Teachers, But If The Boy Stops You In Your Speech, Cries Out That You Are Wrong And Sets You Right, Hug Him!

All High Beauty Has A Moral Element In It.

The Learned And The Studious Of Thought Have No Monopoly Of Wisdom. Their Violence Of Direction In Some Degree Disqualifies Them To Think Truly.

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

The Primary Wisdom Is Intuition. In That Deep Force, The Last Fact Behind Which Analysis Cannot Go, All Things Find Their Origin.

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.

If Government Knew How, I Should Like To See It Check, Not Multiply, The Population. When It Reaches Its True Law Of Action, Every Man That Is Born Will Be Hailed As Essential.

As A Man Thinketh, So Is He, And As A Man Chooseth, So Is He.

Finish Each Day Before You Begin The Next, And Interpose A Solid Wall Of Sleep Between The Two. This You Cannot Do Without Temperance.

We Walk Alone In The World. Friends, Such As We Desire, Are Dreams And Fables.

Society Is Infected With Rude, Cynical, Restless, And Frivolous Persons Who Prey Upon The Rest, And Whom No Public Opinion Concentrated Into Good Manners, Forms Accepted By The Sense Of All, Can Reach; The Contradictors And Railers At Public And Private Tables, Who Are Like Terriers, Who Conceive It The Duty Of A Dog Of Honor To Growl At Any Passer-by, And Do The Honors Of The House By Barking Him Out Of Sight.

We Learn Geology The Morning After The Earthquake, On Ghastly Diagrams Of Cloven Mountains, Upheaved Plains, And The Dry Bed Of The Sea.

The Right Eloquence Needs No Bell To Call The People Together, And No Constable To Keep Them.

The Beautiful Is Never Plentiful.

Take Egotism Out And You Would Castrate The Benefactors.

Our Chief Want Is Someone Who Will Inspire Us To Be What We Know We Could Be.

Surely Nobody Would Be A Charlatan, Who Could Afford To Be Sincere.

Courage Is Temperamental, Scientific, Ideal.

Wherever There Is Failure, There Is Some Giddiness, Some Superstition About Luck, Some Step Omitted, Which, Nature Never Pardons.

The Art Of Conversation, Or The Qualification For A Good Companion, Is A Certain Self-control, Which Now Holds The Subject, Now Lets It Go, With A Respect For The Emergencies Of The Moment.

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.

We Take Care Of Our Health; We Lay Up Money; We Make Our Roof Tight, And Our Clothing Sufficient; But Who Provides Wisely That He Shall Not Be Wanting In The Best Property Of All, -friends?

The Three Practical Rules, Then, Which I Have To Offer, Are, --/ Never Read A Book That Is Not A Year Old./ Never Read Any But The Famed Books./ Never Read Any But What You Like.

Genius Has Infused Itself Into Nature. It Indicates Itself By A Small Excess Of Good, A Small Balance In Brute Facts Always Favorable To The Side Of Reason.

Our Globe Discovers Its Bidden Virtues, Not Only In Heroes And Arch-angels, But In Gossips And Nurses.

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

Poverty, Frost, Famine, Rain, Disease, Are The Beadles And Guardsmen That Hold Us To Common Sense.

Besides, Our Action On Each Other, Good As Well As Evil, Is So Incidental And At Random, That We Can Seldom Hear The Acknowledgments Of Any Person Who Would Thank Us For A Benefit, Without Some Shame And Humiliation. We Can Rarely Strike A Direct Stroke, But Must Be Content With An Oblique One; We Seldom Have The Satisfaction Of Yielding A Direct Benefit, Which Is Directly Received.

The Ragged Cliff Has Thousand Faces In A Thousand Hours.

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.

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.

Every Discourse Is An Approximate Answer: But It Is Of Small Consequence, That We Do Not Get It Into Verbs And Nouns, Whilst It Abides For Contemplation Forever.

It Is God In You That Responds To God Without, Or Affirms His Own Words Trembling On The Lips Of Another.

Infancy Is The Perpetual Messiah, Which Comes Into The Arms Of Fallen Men, And Pleads With Them To Return To Paradise.

If You Are Wise, You Will Dread A Prosperity Which Only Loads You With More.

For, When Men Shall Meet As They Ought, Each A Benefactor, A Shower Of Stars, Clothed With Thoughts, With Deeds, With Accomplishments, It Should Be The Festival Of Nature Which All Things Announce. Of Such Friendship, Love In The Sexes Is The First Symbol, As All Other Things Are Symbols Of Love. Those Relations To The Best Men, Which, At One Time, We Reckoned The Romances Of Youth, Become, In The Progress Of Character, The Most Solid Enjoyment.

Genius Seems To Consistent Merely In Trueness Of Sight.

A New Person Is To Me A Great Event, And Hinders Me From Sleep. I Have Often Had Fine Fancies About Persons Which Have Given Me Delicious Hours; But The Joy Ends In The Day; It Yields No Fruit.

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

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.

Find The Journey's End In Every Step.

The World Is So Beautiful That I Can Hardly Believe It Exists.

Every Violation Of Truth Is Not Only A Sort Of Suicide In The Liar, But Is A Stab At The Health Of Human Society.

Infancy Conforms To Nobody; All Conform To It.

A Sect Or Party Is An Elegant Incognito Devised To Save A Man From The Vexation Of Thinking.

It Is Commonly Observed That A Sudden Wealth, Like A Prize Drawn In A Lottery Or A Large Bequest To A Poor Family, Does Not Permanently Enrich. They Have Served No Apprenticeship To Wealth, And With The Rapid Wealth Come Rapid Claims Which They Do Not Know How To Deny, And The Treasure Is Quickly Dissipated.

The Next Best Thing To Saying A Good Thing Yourself Is To Quote One.

To Be A Man Is To Be A Nonconformist.

Colleges, In Like Manner, Have Their Indispensable Office,--to Teach Elements. But They Can Only Highly Serve Us, When They Aim Not To Drill, But To Create; When They Gather From Far Every Ray Of Various Genius To Their Hospitable Halls, And, By The Concentrated Fires, Set The Hearts Of Their Youth On Flame.

A Poem, A Sentence, Causes Us To See Ourselves. I Be, And I See My Being, At The Same Time.

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

When The Literary Class Betray A Destitution Of Faith, It Is Not Strange That Society Should Be Disheartened And Sensualized By Unbelief.

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

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

No Hope So Bright But Is The Beginning Of Its Own Fulfilment.

The Best Bribe Which London Offers To-day To The Imagination, Is, That, In Such A Vast Variety Of People And Conditions, One Can Believe There Is Room For Persons Of Romantic Character To Exist, And That The Poet, The Mystic, And The Hero May Hope To Confront Their Counterparts.

Luckily For Us, Now That Steam Has Narrowed The Atlantic To A Strait, The Nervous, Rocky West Is Intruding A New And Continental Element Into The National Mind, As We Shall Yet Have An American Genius.

The Essence Of Age Is Intellect. Wherever That Appears, We Call It Old.

Every Book Is A Quotation; And Every House Is A Quotation Out Of All Forests, And Mines, And Stone Quarries; And Every Man Is A Quotation From All His Ancestors.

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.

When At Last In A Race A New Principle Appears, An Idea--that Conserves It; Ideas Only Save Races.

People Are Very Inclined To Set Moral Standards For Others.

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.

People Who Know How To Act Are Never Preachers.

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

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