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Another Success Is The Post-office, With Its Educating Energy Augmented By Cheapness And Guarded By A Certain Religious Sentimentin Mankind; So That The Power Of A Wafer Or A Drop Of Wax Or Gluten To Guard A Letter, As It Flies Over Sea Over Land And Comes To Its Address As If A Battalion Of Artillery Brought It, I Look Upon As A Fine Meter Of Civilization.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Another Success Is The

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Another Success Is The Post-office, With Its Educating Energy Augmented By Cheapness And Guarded By A Certain Religious Sentimentin Mankind; So That The Power Of A Wafer Or A Drop Of Wax Or Gluten To Guard A Letter, As It Flies Over Sea Over Land And Comes To Its Address As If A Battalion Of Artillery Brought It, I Look Upon As A Fine Meter Of Civilization.

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

But In Our Experience, Man Is Cheap And Friendship Wants Its Deep Sense. We Affect To Dwell With Our Friends In Their Absence, But We Do Not; When Deed, Word, Or Letter Comes Not, They Let Us Go.

I Shun Father And Mother And Wife And Brother When My Genius Calls Me. I Would Write On The Lintels Of The Door-post, Whim. I Hope That It Is Somewhat Better Than Whim At Last, But We Cannot Spend The Day In Explanation.

The Poisons Are Our Principal Medicines, Which Kill The Disease And Save The Life.

The Superstition Respecting Power And Office Is Going To The Ground. The Stream Of Human Affairs Flows Its Own Way, And Is Very Little Affected By The Activity Of Legislators. What Great Masses Of Men Wish Done, Will Be Done; And They Do Not Wish It For A Freak, But Because It Is Their State And Natural End.

Solitude Is Impractical, And Society Fatal. We Must Keep Our Head In The One And Our Hands In The Other. The Conditions Are Met, If We Keep Our Independence, Yet Do Not Lose Our Sympathy.

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.

Society Acquires New Arts, And Loses Old Instincts.

Transcendentalism

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

He Who Loves The Bristle Of Bayonets Only Sees In The Glitter What Beforehand He Feels In His Heart. It Is Avarice And Hatred; It Is That Quivering Lip, That Cold, Hating Eye, Which Built Magazines And Powder-houses.

He Is A Dull Observer Whose Experience Has Not Taught Him The Reality And Force Of Magic, As Well As Of Chemistry.

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

Eloquence Shows The Power And Possibility Of Man.

There Is Health In Table Talk And Nursery Play. We Must Wear Old Shoes And Have Aunts And Cousins.

If You Meet A Sectary, Or A Hostile Partisan, Never Recognize The Dividing Lines; But Meet On What Common Ground Remains,--if Onlythat The Sun Shines, And The Rain Rains For Both; The Area Will Widen Very Fast, And Ere You Know It The Boundary Mountains, On Which The Eye Had Fastened, Have Melted Into Air.

Pride Ruined The Angels.

Only Those Books Come Down Which Deserve To Last . All The Gilt Edges, Vellum And Morocco, All The Presentation Copies To All The Libraries Will Not Preserve A Book In Circulation Beyond Its Intrinsic Date.

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.

Courage Of The Soldier Awakes The Courage Of Woman.

Stay At Home In Your Mind. Don't Recite Other People's Opinions.

A Man Must Keep An Eye On His Servants, If He Would Not Have Them Rule Him.

The Charm Of Fine Manners Is Music And Sculpture And Picture To Many Who Do Not Pretend To Appreciation Of These Arts.

A Friend Is The Hope Of The Heart.

We Do Not Yet Trust The Unknown Power Of Thoughts.

Power Of Thought

A Man's Library Is A Sort Of Harem.

Intellectual Tasting Of Life Will Not Supersede Muscular Activity.

Every Man Should Let Out All The Length Of All The Reigns; Should Find Or Make A Frank And Healthy Expression Of What Force And Meaning Is In Him.

If A Man Fasten His Attention On A Single Aspect Of Truth And Apply Himself To That Alone For A Long Time, The Truth Becomes Distorted And Not Itself But Falsehood.

All I Have Seen Teaches Me To Trust The Creator For All I Have Not Seen.

To Live The Greatest Number Of Good Hours Is Wisdom.

Love Is Like Wildflowers; It's Often Found In The Most Unlikely Places.

Solitude, The Safeguard Of Mediocrity, Is To Genius, The Stern Friend, The Cold, Obscure Shelter Where Moult The Wings Which Will Bear It Farther Than Suns And Stars.

When The Night Is Darkest, The Stars Come Out.

Proverbs Are The Literature Of Reason, Or The Statements Of Absolute Truth, Without Qualification. Like The Sacred Books Of Each Nation, They Are The Sanctuary Of Its Intuitions.

The Best Lightning Rod For Your Protection Is Your Own Spine.

To Be A Man Is To Be A Nonconformist.

Excite The Soul, And The Weather And The Town And Your Condition In The World All Disappear; The World Itself Loses Its Solidity, Nothing Remains But The Soul And The Divine Presence In Which It Lives.

Good As Is Discourse, Silence Is Better, And Shames It. The Length Of The Discourse Indicates The Distance Of Thought Betwixt The Speaker And The Hearer. If They Were At A Perfect Understanding In Any Part, No Words Would Be Necessary Thereon. If At One In All Parts, No Words Would Be Suffered.

To Be Rich Is To Have A Ticket Of Admission To The Masterworks And Chief Men Of Each Race. It Is To Have The Sea, By Voyaging; To Visit The Mountains, Niagara, The Nile, The Desert, Rome, Paris, Constantinople: To See Galleries, Libraries, Arsenals, Manufactories.

What Is Excellent, As God Lives, Is Permanent; Hearts Are Dust, Hearts' Loves Remain, Heart's Love Will Meet Thee Again.

We But Half Express Ourselves, And Are Ashamed Of That Divine Idea Which Each Of Us Represents. It May Be Safely Trusted As Proportionate And Of Good Issues, So It Be Faithfully Imparted, But God Will Not Have His Work Made Manifest By Cowards.

I Do Not Wish To Remove From My Present Prison To A Prison A Little Larger. I Wish To Break All Prisons.

I Will Not Hide My Tastes Or Aversions. I Will So Trust That What Is Deep Is Holy, That I Will Do Strongly Before The Sun And Moon Whatever Only Rejoices Me, And The Heart Appoints

As The Eye Is The Best Composer, So Light Is The First Of Painters. There Is No Object So Foul That Intense Light Will Not Make Beautiful; And The Stimulus It Affords To The Sense, And A Sort Of Infinitude Which It Hath Like Space And Time, Make All Matter Gay.

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

Let A Man Attain The Highest And Broadest Culture That Any American Has Possessed, Then Let Him Die By Sea-storm, Railroad Collision, Or Other Accident, And All America Will Acquiesce That The Best Thing Has Happened To Him; That, After The Education Has Gone Far, Such Is The Expensiveness Of America, That The Best Use To Put A Fine Person To Is To Drown Him To Save His Board.

Liberty Is Slow Fruit. It Is Never Cheap; It Is Made Difficult Because Freedom Is The Accomplishment And Perfectness Of Man.

Self Trust Is The Essence Of Heroism.

In The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

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.

The Customer Is The Immediate Jewel Of Our Souls. Him We Flatter, Him We Feast, Compliment, Vote For, And Will Not Contradict.

We Are Of Different Opinions At Different Hours, But We Always May Be Said To Be At Heart On The Side Of Truth.

Different Opinions

Gold And Iron Are Good To Buy Iron And Gold.

The Greater Speed And Success That Distinguish The Planting Of The Human Race In This Country, Over All Other Plantations In History, Owe Themselves Mainly To The New Subdivisions Of The State Into Small Corporations Of Land And Power.

Half A Man's Wisdom Goes With His Courage.

Culture Is One Thing And Varnish Is Another.

Give Me Wine To Wash Me Clean Of The Weather-stains Of Cares

We Find Delight In The Beauty And Happiness Of Children That Makes The Heart Too Big For The Body.

The Imaginative Faculty Of The Soul Must Be Fed With Objects Immense And Eternal.

Sleep Takes Off The Costume Of Circumstance, Arms Us With Terrible Freedom, So That Every Will Rushes To A Deed.

Hospitality Consists In A Little Fire, A Little Food, And An Immense Quiet

Each Mind Has Its Own Method.

Give All To Love: Obey Thy Heart; Friends, Kindred, Days, Estate, Good Fame, Plans, Credit, And The Muse,- Nothing Refuse.

The Stupidity Of Men Always Invites The Insolence Of Power.

I Have Heard That Stiff People Lose Something Of Their Awkwardness Under High Ceilings, And In Spacious Halls. I Think, Sculptureand Painting Have An Effect To Teach Us Manners, And Abolish Hurry.

By The Rude Bridge That Arched The Flood, Their Flag To April's Breeze Unfurled, Here Once The Embattled Farmers Stood, And Fired The Shot Heard Round The World.

A Man Is Like A Bit Of Labrador Spar, Which Has No Lustre As You Turn It In Your Hand Until You Come To A Particular Angle; Then It Shows Deep And Beautiful Colors. There Is No Adaptation Or Universal Applicability In Men, But Each Has His Special Talent, And The Mastery Of Successful Men Consists In Adroitly Keeping Themselves Where And When That Turn Shall Be Oftenest To Be Practiced.

Old Age Brings Along With Its Uglinesses The Comfort That You Will Soon Be Out Of It, - Which Ought To Be A Substantial Relief To Such Discontented Pendulums As We Are.

The Secret Of Fortune Is Joy In Our Hands. Welcome Evermore To Gods And Men Is The Self-helping Man. For Him All Doors Are Flung Wide. Him All Tongues Greet, All Honors Crown, All Eyes Follow With Desire. Our Love Goes Out To Him And Embraces Him Because He Did Not Need It.

When It Is Darkest, We Can See The Stars.

Suicide Inspirational

We Judge Others By Their Actions But We Judge Ourselves By Our Intensions.

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

I Am Old, Yet I Look At Wise Men And See That I Am Very Young. I Look Over Those Stars Yonder, And Into The Myriads Of The Aspirant And Ordered Souls, And See I Am A Stranger And A Youth And Have Yet My Spurs To Win. Too Ridiculous Are These Airs Of Age.

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.

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

The Power Of A Man Increases Steadily By Continuance In One Direction. He Becomes Acquainted With The Resistances And With His Own Tools; Increases His Skill And Strength And Learns The Favorable Moments And Favorable Accidents.

It Depends Little On The Object, Much On The Mood, In Art.

To Be Yourself In A World That Is Constantly Trying To Make You Something Else Is The Greatest Accomplishment.

Accept The Place The Divine Providence Has Found For You, The Society Of Your Contemporaries, The Connection Of Events.

The The Illuminated Mind The Whole World Sparkles With Light.

What Is Man Born For But To Be A Reformer, A Remaker Of What Man Has Made? A Renouncer Of Lies; A Restorer Of Truth And Good? Imitating That Great Nature Which Embossoms Us All, And Which Sleeps No Moment On An Old Past, But Every Hour Repairs Herself, Yielding Us Every Morning A New Day, With Every Breath A New Life?

Who Can . . . Guess How Much Industry And Providence And Affection We Have Caught From The Pantomime Of Brutes?

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

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

Common Sense Is Genius Dressed In Its Working Clothes.

We Do What We Must, And Call It By The Best Names.

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

The Genius Of The Platonists, Is Intoxicating To The Student, Yet How Few Particulars Of It Can I Detach From All Their Books.

Life Is An Ecstasy. Life Is Sweet As Nitrous Oxide.

Every Stoic Was A Stoic; But In Christendom Where Is The Christian?

Success In Your Work, The Finding A Better Method, The Better Understanding That Insures The Better Performing Is Hat And Coat, Is Food And Wine, Is Fire And Horse And Health And Holiday. At Least, I Find That Any Success In My Work Has The Effect On My Spirits Of All These.

Nature Never Sends A Great Man Into The Planet, Without Confiding The Secret To Another Soul.

Genius Is Its Own End.

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

Live, Let Live, And Help Live

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

For, The Sense Of Being Which In Calm Hours Rises, We Know Not How, In The Soul, Is Not Diverse From Things, From Space, From Light, From Time, From Man, But One With Them, And Proceeds Obviously From The Same Source Whence Their Life And Being Also Proceed. We First Share The Life By Which Things Exist, And Afterwards See Them As Appearances In Nature, And Forget That We Have Shared Their Cause. Here Is The Fountain Of Action And Of Thought.

The Greatest Genius Is The Most Indebted Person.

But, If A Man Would Be Alone, Let Him Look At The Stars. The Rays That Come From These Heavenly Worlds, Will Separate Between Him And What He Touches. One Might Think The Atmosphere Was Made Transparent With This Design, To Give Man, In The Heavenly Bodies, The Perpetual Presence Of The Sublime... But Every Night Come Out These Envoys Of Beauty, And Light The Universe With Their Admonishing Smile.

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.

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

A Great Teacher Makes Hard Things Easy.

The Solitary Knows The Essence Of The Thought, The Scholar In Society Only Its Fair Face.

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.

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

There Is No Beautifier Of Complexion, Or Form, Or Behavior, Like The Wish To Scatter Joy And Not Pain Around Us.

Nothing Great Ever Happened Without Enthusiasm.

If A Man's Eye Is On The Eternal, His Intellect Will Grow.

The Advantage In Education Is Always With Those Children Who Slip Up Into Life Without Being Objects Of Notice.

There Are Always Difficulties Arising That Tempt You To Believe Your Critics Are Right.

When Half-gods Go The Gods Arrive.

Art Is The Path Of The Creator To His Work.

As Long As Our People Quote English Standards They Dwarf Their Own Proportions.

In Nature, All Is Useful, All Is Beautiful. It Is Therefore Beautiful, Because It Is Alive, Moving, Reproductive; It Is Thereforeuseful, Because It Is Symmetrical And Fair. Beauty Will Not Come At The Call Of A Legislature, Nor Will It Repeat In England Or America Its History In Greece. It Will Come, As Always, Unannounced, And Spring Up Between The Feet Of Brave And Earnest Men.

Mankind Have Such A Deep Stake In Inward Illumination, That There Is Much To Be Said By The Hermit Or Monk In Defence Of His Life Of Thought And Prayer.

Is Not Marriage An Open Question, When It Is Alleged, From The Beginning Of The World, That Such As Are In The Institution Wish To Get Out, And Such As Are Out Wish To Get In?

I Should As Soon Think Of Swimming Across Charles River, When I Wish To Go To Boston, As Of Reading All My Books In Originals, When I Have Them Rendered For Me In My Mother Tongue.

Man Begins Life Helpless. The Babe Is In Paroxysms Of Fear The Moment Its Nurse Leaves It Alone, And It Comes So Slowly To Any Power Of Self-protection That Mothers Say The Salvation Of The Life And Health Of A Young Child Is A Perpetual Miracle.

If Your Friend Has Displeased You, You Shall Not Sit Down To Consider It, For He Has Already Lost All Memory Of The Passage, And Has Doubled His Power To Serve You, And, Ere You Can Rise Up Again, Will Burden You With Blessings.

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

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.

Nothing Can Bring You Happiness But Yourself Especially How You Choose To Think About Your Situation.

The Universal Soul Is The Alone Creator Of The Useful And The Beautiful; Therefore To Make Anything Useful Or Beautiful, The Individual Must Be Submitted To The Universal Mind.

Within, I Do Not Find Wrinkles And Used Heart, But Unspent Youth.

A Good Symbol Is The Best Argument, And Is A Missionary To Persuade Thousands.

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

Power Is In Nature The Essential Measure Of Right.

When There Is Sympathy, There Needs But One Wise Man In A Company And All Are Wise,--so, A Blockhead Makes A Blockhead Of His Companion. Wonderful Power To Benumb Possesses This Brother.

He Who Has A Thousand Friends Has Not A Friend To Spare, While He Who Has One Enemy Shall Meet Him Everywhere.

As Soon As There Is Life There Is Danger.

We Learn That God Is; That He Is In Me; And That All Things Are Shadows Of Him.

Things Bring Their Own Philosophy With Them, That Is, Prudence.

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

Ennui Shortens Life, And Bereaves The Day Of Its Light.

The Use Of Natural History Is To Give Us Aid In Supernatural History: The Use Of The Outer Creation, To Give Us Language For The Beings And Changes Of The Inward Creation.

What King Has He Not Taught State, As Talma Taught Napoleon? What Maiden Has Not Found Him Finer Than Her Delicacy? What Lover Has He Not Outloved? What Sage Has He Not Outseen? What Gentleman Has He Not Instructed In The Rudeness Of His Behavior?

There Is No Thought In Any Mind, But It Quickly Tends To Convert Itself Into Power.

A Scholar Is A Man With His Inconvenience, That, When You Ask Him His Opinion Of Any Matter, He Must Go Home And Look Up His Manuscripts To Know.

'tis A Superstition To Insist On A Special Diet. All Is Made At Last Of The Same Chemical Atoms.

Talent For Talent's Sake Is A Bauble And A Show. Talent Working With Joy In The Cause Of Universal Truth Lifts The Possessor To New Power As A Benefactor.

The Longest Wave Is Quickly Lost In The Sea.

Fate Is Unpenetrated Causes.

Shakespeare Possesses The Power Of Subordinating Nature For The Purposes Of Expression, Beyond All Poets. His Imperial Muse Tosses The Creation Like A Bauble From Hand To Hand, And Uses It To Embody Any Caprice Of Thought That Is Uppermost In His Mind. The Remotest Spaces Of Nature Are Visited, And The Farthest Sundered Things Are Brought Together, By Subtle Spiritual Connection. We Are Made Aware That Magnitude Of Material Things Is Relative, And All Objects Shrink And Expand To Serve The Passion Of The Poet.

To Clothe The Fiery Thought In Simple Words Succeeds, For Still The Craft Of Genius Is To Mask A King In Weeds.

Emancipation Is The Demand Of Civilization. That Is A Principle; Everything Else Is An Intrigue.

To The Body And Mind Which Have Been Cramped By Noxious Work Or Company, Nature Is Medicinal And Restores Their Tone.

People Who Wash Much Have A High Mind About It, And Talk Down To Those Who Wash Little.

The Corruption Of Man Is Followed By The Corruption Of Language. ... In Due Time, The Fraud Is Manifest, And Words Lose All Power To Stimulate The Understanding Or The Affections.

We Denote This Primary Wisdom As Intuition, Whilst All Later Teachings Are Tuitions.

We Love Flattery, Even Though We Are Not Deceived By It, Because It Shows That We Are Of Importance Enough To Be Courted.

The American Who Has Been Confined, In His Own Country, To The Sight Of Buildings Designed After Foreign Models, Is Surprised On Entering York Minster Or St. Peter's At Rome, By The Feeling That These Structures Are Imitations Also,--faint Copies Of An Invisible Archetype.

The Ocean Is A Large Drop; A Drop Is A Small Ocean.

If I Have Renounced The Search Of Truth, If I Have Come Into The Port Of Some Pretending Dogmatism, Some New Church, Some Schelling Or Cousin, I Have Died To All Use Of These New Events That Are Born Out Of Prolific Time Into Multitude Of Life Every Hour. I Am As Bankrupt To Whom Brilliant Opportunities Offer In Vain. He Has Just Foreclosed His Freedom, Tied His Hands, Locked Himself Up And Given The Key To Another To Keep.

It Is Never Too Late To Do Right.

We See The World Piece By Piece, As The Sun, The Moon, The Animal, The Tree; But The Whole, Of Which These Are Shining Parts, Is The Soul.

As Sunbeams Stream Through Liberal Space And Nothing Jostle Or Displace, So Waved The Pine-tree Through My Thought And Fanned The Dreams It Never Brought.

The Finest Poetry Was First Experience.

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

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

Poverty Demoralizes. A Man In Debt Is So Far A Slave; And Wall-street Thinks It Easy For A Millionaire To Be A Man Of His Word, Aman Of Honor, But, That, In Failing Circumstances, No Man Can Be Relied On To Keep His Integrity.

But I Cannot Recite, Even Thus Rudely, Laws Of The Intellect, Without Remembering That Lofty And Sequestered Class Of Men Who Have Been Its Prophets And Oracles, The High-priesthood Of The Pure Reason, The Trismegisti, The Expounders Of The Principles Of Thought From Age To Age.

Women, More Than All, Are The Element And Kingdom Of Illusion. Being Fascinated, They Fascinate.

People Wish To Be Settled; Only As Far As They Are Unsettled Is There Any Hope For Them.

The Subject Is Said To Have The Property Of Making Dull Men Eloquent.

There Was Never Anything That Did Not Proceed From A Thought.

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.

Life Is A Series Of Surprises.

Every Hero Becomes A Bore At Last.

Machinery Is Aggressive. The Weaver Becomes A Web, The Machinist A Machine. If You Do Not Use The Tools, They Use You. All Tools Are In One Sense Edge-tools, And Dangerous.

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 Man, Who Has Seen The Rising Moon Break Out Of The Clouds At Midnight, Has Been Present Like An Archangel At The Creation Of Light And Of The World.

Our Knowledge Is The Amassed Thought And Experience Of Innumerable Minds.

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

If A Man Knows The Law, Find Out, Though He Live In A Pine Shanty, And Resort To Him. And If A Man Can Pipe Or Sing, So As To Wrap The Imprisoned Soul In An Elysium; Or Can Paint A Landscape, And Convey Into Souls And Ochres All The Enchantments Of Spring Or Autumn; Or Can Liberate And Intoxicate All People Who Hear Him With Delicious Songs And Verses; It Is Certain That The Secret Cannot Be Kept; The First Witness Tells It To A Second, And Men Go By Fives And Tens And Fifties To His Doors.

Fear Is Cruel And Mean. The Political Reigns Of Terror Have Been Reigns Of Madness And Malignity,--a Total Perversion Of Opinion;society Is Upside Down, And Its Best Men Are Thought Too Bad To Live.

All Writing Is By The Grace Of God. People Do Not Deserve To Have Good Writing, They Are So Pleased With Bad. In These Sentences That You Show Me, I Can Find No Beauty, For I See Death In Every Clause And Every Word. There Is A Fossil Or A Mummy Character Which Pervades This Book. The Best Sepulchers, The Vastest Catacombs, Thebes And Cairo, Pyramids, Are Sepulchers To Me. I Like Gardens And Nurseries. Give Me Initiative, Spermatic, Prophesying, Man-making Words.

I Have Been Told, That In Some Public Discourses Of Mine My Reverence For The Intellect Has Made Me Unjustly Cold To The Personalrelations. But Now I Almost Shrink At The Remembrance Of Such Disparaging Words. For Persons Are Love's World, And The Coldest Philosopher Cannot Recount The Debt Of The Young Soul Wandering Here In Nature To The Power Of Love, Without Being Tempted To Unsay, As Treasonable To Nature, Aught Derogatory To The Social Instincts.

The Saint And Poet Seek Privacy To Ends The Most Public And Universal: And It Is The Secret Of Culture, To Interest The Man More In His Public, Than In His Private Quality.

This Day Is All That Is Good And Fair. It Is Too Dear, With Its Hopes And Invitations, To Waste A Moment On The Yesterdays.

Do What You Know And Perception Is Converted Into Character.

The Secret Of Ugliness Consists Not In Irregularity, But In Being Uninteresting.

Funny Relationship

The Greatest Man In History Was The Poorest.

I Have Heard That Whoever Loves Is In No Condition Old. I Have Heard That Whenever The Name Of Man Is Spoken, The Doctrine Of Immortality Is Announced; It Cleaves To His Constitution. The Mode Of It Baffles Our Wit, And No Whisper Comes To Us From The Other Side. But The Inference From The Working Of Intellect, Hiving Knowledge, Hiving Skill,--at The End Of Life Just Ready To Be Born,--affirms The Inspirations Of Affection And Of The Moral Sentiment.

Sole And Self-commanded Works, Fears Not Undermining Days, Grows By Decays, And, By The Famous Might That Lurks In Reaction And Recoil, Makes Flames To Freeze, And Ice To Boil.

Do Not Be Caught By The Sensational In Nature, As A Coarse Red-faced Sunset, A Garrulous Waterfall, Or A Fifteen Thousand Foot Mountain... Avoid Prettiness - The Word Looks Much Like Pettiness - And There Is But Little Difference Between Them.

If The Stars Should Appear One Night In A Thousand Years, How Would Men Believe And Adore; And Preserve For Many Generations The Remembrance Of The City Of God Which Had Been Shown! But Every Night Come Out These Envoys Of Beauty, And Light The Universe With Their Admonishing Smile.

Nature Is Saturated With Deity.

It Is Very Odd That Nature Should Be So Unscrupulous. She Is No Saint . . .

The Mob Is Man Voluntarily Descending To The Nature Of The Beast.

A Foolish Consistency Is The Hobgoblin Of Little Minds, Adored By Little Statesmen And Philosophers And Divines.

Who Are The Farmer's Servants? ... Geology And Chemistry, The Quarry Of The Air, The Water Of The Brook, The Lightning Of The Cloud, The Castings Of The Worm, The Plough Of The Frost.

Slavery Is No Scholar, No Improver; It Does Not Love The Whistle Of The Railroad; It Does Not Love The Newspaper, The Mailbag, A College, A Book Or A Preacher Who Has The Absurd Whim Of Saying What He Thinks; It Does Not Increase The White Population; It Does Not Improve The Soil; Everything Goes To Decay.

A Man Comes To Measure His Greatness By The Regrets, Envies And Hatreds Of His Competitors.

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

The Voyage Of The Best Ship Is A Zigzag Line Of A Hundred Tacks. See The Line From A Sufficient Distance, And It Straightens Itself To The Average Tendency. Your Genuine Action Will Explain Itself, And Will Explain Your Other Genuine Actions. Your Conformity Explains Nothing. Act Singly, And What You Have Already Done Singly Will Justify You Now. Greatness Appeals To The Future.

All The Fairy Tales Of Aladdin, Or The Invisible Gyges, Or The Talisman That Opens Kings' Palaces, Or The Enchanted Halls Underground Or In The Sea, Are Only Fictions To Indicated The One Miracle Of Intellectual Enlargement.

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

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.

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

Skepticism Is Slow Suicide.

There Is A Property In The Horizon Which No Man Has, But He Whose Eyes Can Integrate All The Parts,--that Is, The Poet.

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