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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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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As I Walked In

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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.

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

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.

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.

Life Is Wasted In The Necessary Preparation Of Finding What Is The True Way, And We Die Just As We Enter It.

Genial Manners Are Good, And Power Of Accommodation To Any Circumstance, But The High Prize Of Life, The Crowning Fortune Of A Man Is To Be Born With A Bias To Some Pursuit, Which Finds Him In Employment And Happiness, -- Whether It Be To Make Baskets, Or Broadswords, Or Canals, Or Statutes, Or Songs. I Doubt Not This Was The Meaning Of Socrates, When He Pronounced Artists The Only Truly Wise, As Being Actually, Not Apparently So.

We Thirst For Approbation, Yet Cannot Forgive The Approver.

There Are Books... Which Rank In Our Life With Parents And Lovers And Passionate Experiences.

We Walk Alone In The World.

Out From The Heart Of Nature Rolled The Burdens Of The Bible Old.

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.

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.

Let The Man Stand On His Feet. Let Religion Cease To Be Occasional; And The Pulses Of Thought That Go To The Borders Of The Universe, Let Them Proceed From The Bosom Of The Household.

What Is A Weed? A Plant Whose Virtues Have Never Been Discovered.

We Pray To Be Conventional. But The Wary Heaven Takes Care You Shall Not Be, If There Is Anything Good In You. Dante Was Very Badcompany, And Was Never Invited To Dinner.

Astronomy Is A Cold, Desert Science, With All Its Pompous Figures,-depends A Little Too Much On The Glass-grinder, Too Little On The Mind. 't Is Of No Use To Show Us More Planets And Systems. We Know Already What Matter Is, And More Or Less Of It Does Not Signify.

Keep The Town For Occasions, But The Habits Should Be Formed In Retirement.

Cities Give Not The Human Senses Room Enough. We Go Out Daily And Nightly To Feed The Eyes On The Horizon, And Require So Much Scope, Just As We Need Water For Our Bath.

Others Can Get In Your Way Temporarily, But Only You Can Get Out Of Your Way Permanently. Our Best Thoughts Come From Others.

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.

Let Us Answer A Book Of Ink With A Book Of Flesh And Blood.

We Honor The Rich Because They Have Externally The Freedom, Power, And Grace Which We Feel To Be Proper To Man, Proper To Us.

The God Of Victory Is Said To Be One-handed, But Peace Gives Victory To Both Sides.

Science Surpasses The Old Miracles Of Mythology.

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.

In The Sublimest Flights Of The Soul, Rectitude Is Never Surmounted, Love Is Never Outgrown.

What You Do Speaks So Loud That I Cannot Hear What You Say.

The Mind Is A Finer Body, And Resumes Its Functions Of Feeding, Digesting, Absorbing, Excluding, And Generating, In A New And Ethereal Element. Here, In The Brain, Is All The Process Of Alimentation Repeated, In The Acquiring, Comparing, Digesting, And Assimilating Of Experience. Here Again Is The Mystery Of Generation Repeated.

The Craft With Which The World Is Made Runs Also Into The Mind And Character Of Men. No Man Is Quite Sane; Each Has A Vein Of Folly In His Composition, A Slight Determination Of Blood To The Head, To Make Sure Of Holding Him Hard To Some One Point Which Nature Has Taken To Heart.

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

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?

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.

The Ancients Called Beauty The Flowering Of Virtue.

All Men, In The Abstract, Are Just And Good; What Hinders Them, In The Particular, Is, The Momentary Predominance Of The Finite And Individual Over The General Truth. The Condition Of Our Incarnation In A Private Self, Seems To Be, A Perpetual Tendency To Prefer The Private Law, To Obey The Private Impulse, To The Exclusion Of The Law Of The Universal Being.

To Me, However, The Question Of The Times Resolved Itself Into A Practical Question Of The Conduct Of Life. How Shall I Live? We Are Incompetent To Solve The Times. Our Geometry Cannot Span The Huge Orbits Of The Prevailing Ideas, Behold Their Return, And Reconcile Their Opposition. We Can Only Obey Our Own Polarity.

The Shot Heard Round The World.

Revolutionary War

Augusta National

April And Spring

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

Without A Rich Heart, Wealth Is An Ugly Beggar.

He That Despiseth Small Things Will Perish By Little And Little.

It Is One Soul Which Animates All Men.

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

The Whole Of Heraldry And Of Chivalry Is In Courtesy. A Man Of Fine Manners Shall Pronounce Your Name With All The Ornament That Titles Of Nobility Could Ever Add.

All Conservatives Are Such From Personal Defects. They Have Been Effiminated By Position Of Nature, Born Halt And Blind, Through Luxury Of Their Parents, And Can Only, Like Invalids, Act On The Defensive.

My Tongue Is Prone To Lose The Way,not So My Pen, For In A Letterwe Have Not Better Things To Say,but Surely Put Them Better.

Public Opinion, I Am Sorry To Say, Will Bear A Great Deal Of Nonsense. There Is Scarcely Any Absurdity So Gross, Whether In Religion, Politics, Science Or Manners, Which It Will Not Bear.

The Heroic Cannot Be The Common, Nor The Common The Heroic.

The Only Right Is What Is After My Constitution; The Only Wrong Is What Is Against It.

Give Me Health And A Day, And I Will Make The Pomp Of Emperors Ridiculous.

The Corruption Of Man Is Followed By The Corruption Of Language.

Truth Is The Summit Of Being.

If You Take In A Lie, You Must Take In All That Belongs To It.

Up And Away For Life! Be Fleet!- The Frost-king Ties My Fumbling Feet, Sings In My Ears, My Hands Are Stones, Curdles The Blood To The Marble Bones, Tugs At The Heart-strings, Numbs The Sense, And Hems In Life With Narrowing Fence. Well, In This Broad Bed Lie And Sleep,- The Punctual Stars Will Vigil Keep,- Embalmed By Purifying Cold; The Winds Shall Sing Their Dead-march Old, The Snow Is No Ignoble Shroud, The Moon Thy Mourner, And The Cloud.

Science Was False By Being Unpoetical. It Assumed To Explain A Reptile Or A Mollusk, And Isolated It-which Is Hunting For Life In Graveyards. Reptile Or Mollusk Or Man Or Angel Only Exists In System, In Relation.

As Long As Civilization Is Essentially One Of Property, Of Fences, Of Exclusiveness, It Will Be Mocked By Delusions. Our Riches Will Leave Us Sick; There Will Be Bitterness In Our Laughter, And Our Wine Will Burn Our Mouth. Only That Good Profits Which We Can Taste With All Doors Open, And Which Serves All Men.

Overhead The Sanctities Of The Stars Shine Forever-more... Pouring Satire On The Pompous Business Of The Day Which They Close, And Making The Generations Of Men Show Slight And Evanescent.

I Knew A Witty Physician Who Found Theology In The Biliary Duct, And Used To Affirm That If There Was A Disease In The Liver, The Man Became A Calvinist, And If That Organ Was Sound, He Became A Unitarian.

We Can Only Obey Our Own Polarity.

A Man Is But A Little Thing In The Midst Of The Objects Of Nature, Yet, By The Moral Quality Radiating From His Countenance, He May Abolish All Considerations Of Magnitude, And In His Manners Equal The Majesty Of The World.

A Strenuous Soul Hates Cheap Success.

There Is No History; Only Biography.

The President Proclaims War, And Those Senators Who Dissent Are Not Those Who Know Better, But Those Who Can Afford To...democracy Becomes A Government Of Bullies Tempered By Editors.

He Who Would Be A Great Soul In The Future, Must Be A Great Soul Now.

He Then Learns That In Going Down Into The Secrets Of His Own Mind, He Has Descended Into The Secrets Of All Minds.

Many Might Go To Heaven With Half The Labor They Go To Hell.

The Cities Drain The Country Of The Best Part Of Its Population: The Flower Of The Youth, Of Both Sexes, Goes Into The Towns, Andthe Country Is Cultivated By A So Much Inferior Class. The Land,--travel A Whole Day Together,--looks Poverty-stricken, And The Buildings Plain And Poor.

The Jews Believed Jerusalem To Be The Centre. I Have Seen A Kratometric Chart Designed To Show That The City Of Philadelphia Was In The Same Thermic Belt, And, By Inference, In The Same Belt Of Empire, As The Cities Of Athens, Rome, And London. It Was Drawn By A Patriotic Philadelphian, And Was Examined With Pleasure, Under His Showing, By The Inhabitants Of Chestnut Street. But, When Carried To Charleston, To New Orleans, And To Boston, It Somehow Failed To Convince The Ingenious Scholars Of All Those Capitals.

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

Art And Power Will Go On As They Have Done,--will Make Day Out Of Night, Time Out Of Space, And Space Out Of Time.

The Ancestor Of Every Action Is A Thought.

Positive Thinking

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.

Good Bye, Proud World! I'm Going Home; Thou Art Not My Friend, And I'm Not Thine

A Great Part Of Courage Is The Courage Of Having Done The Thing Before.

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

Prayer That Craves A Particular Commodity, Anything Less Than All Good, Is Vicious.

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

Don't Trust Children With Edge Tools. Don't Trust Man, Great God, With More Power Than He Has Until He Has Learned To Use That Little Better. What A Hell We Should Make Of The World If We Could Do What We Would!

The World Is Emblematic. Parts Of Speech Are Metaphors, Because The Whole Of Nature Is A Metaphor Of The Human Mind.

He Who Is In Love Is Wise And Is Becoming Wiser.

In Spite Of Virtue And The Muse, Nemesis Will Have Her Dues, And All Our Struggles And Our Toils Tighter Wind The Giant Coils.

It Is With A Good Book As It Is With Good Company.

Every Hero Becomes A Bore At Last.

The Education Of The Will Is The Object Of Our Existence.

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

The Wise Through Excess Of Wisdom Is Made A Fool.

Our Best History Is Still Poetry.

A Man Is The Prisoner Of His Power. A Topical Memory Makes Him An Almanac; A Talent For Debate, Disputant; Skill To Get Money Makes Him A Miser, That Is, A Beggar. Culture Reduces These Inflammations By Invoking The Aid Of Other Powers Against The Dominant Talent, And By Appealing To The Rank Of Powers. It Watches Success.

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.

Every Artist Was First An Amateur.

Happy Will That House Be In Which The Relations Are Formed From Character; After The Highest, And Not After The Lowest Order; The House In Which Character Marries, And Not Confusion And A Miscellany Of Unavowable Motives.

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.

The Worst Feature Of This Double Consciousness Is, That The Two Lives, Of The Understanding And Of The Soul, Which We Lead, Reallyshow Very Little Relation To Each Other; Never Meet And Measure Each Other: One Prevails Now, All Buzz And Din; And The Other Prevails Then, All Infinitude And Paradise; And, With The Progress Of Life, The Two Discover No Greater Disposition To Reconcile Themselves.

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.

I Suppose Every Old Scholar Has Had The Experience Of Reading Something In A Book Which Was Significant To Him, But Which He Could Never Find Again. Sure He Is That He Read It There, But No One Else Ever Read It, Nor Can He Find It Again, Though He Buy The Book And Ransack Every Page.

I Would Put Myself In The Attitude To Look In The Eye An Abstract Truth, And I Cannot. I Blench And Withdraw On This Side And On That. I Seem To Know What He Meant Who Said, No Man Can See God Face To Face And Live.

There Is Ever A Slight Suspicion Of The Burlesque About Earnest Good Men.

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

No Man Ever Came To An Experience Which Was Satiating, But His Good Is Tidings Of A Better. Onward And Onward!

Nature Never Hurries: Atom By Atom, Little By Little, She Achieves Her Work. The Lesson One Learns From Yachting Or Planting Is The Manners Of Nature; Patience With The Delays Of Wind And Sun, Delays Of The Seasons, Bad Weather, Excess Or Lack Of Water.

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

Although Knaves Win In Every Political Struggle, Although Society Seems To Be Delivered Over From The Hands Of One Set Of Criminals Into The Hands Of Another Set Of Criminals, As Fast As The Government Is Changed, And The March Of Civilization Is A Train Of Felonies, Yet, General Ends Are Somehow Answered.

Every Person Has His Or Her Own Vocation-talent Is The Call.

Truth Is Beautiful, Without Doubt; But So Are Lies.

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

Art Is A Jealous Mistress; And If A Man Have A Genius For Painting, Poetry, Music, Architecture Or Philosophy, He Makes A Bad Husband And An Ill Provider.

Wisdom Is Not Found With Those Who Dwell At Their Ease; Rather Nature, When She Adds Brain, Adds Difficulty.

Immortality. I Notice That As Soon As Writers Broach This Question They Begin To Quote. I Hate Quotation. Tell Me What You Know.

The Student Is To Read History Actively And Not Passively; To Esteem His Own Life The Text, And Books The Commentary. Thus Compelled, The Muse Of History Will Utter Oracles As Never To Those Who Do Not Respect Themselves.

Each Particle Is A Microcosm, And Faithfully Renders The Likeness Of The World.

Whenever The Average Intellect Of The Clergy Declines In The Balance With The Average Intellect Of The People The Churches Will Be Shut Up And A New Order Of Things [will] Begin.

A Divine Person Is The Prophecy Of The Mind; A Friend Is The Hope Of The Heart.

There Are Some Men Above Grief And Some Men Below It.

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

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.

Don't Hang A Dismal Picture On The Wall, And Do Not Daub With Sables And Glooms In Your Conversation. Don't Be A Cynic And Disconsolate Preacher. Don't Bewail And Bemoan. Omit The Negative Propositions. Nerve Us With Incessant Affirmatives. Don't Waste Yourself In Rejection, Nor Bark Against The Bad, But Chant The Beauty Of The Good. When That Is Spoken Which Has A Right To Be Spoken, The Chatter And The Criticism Will Stop. Set Down Nothing That Will Not Help Somebody.

Colleges Hate Geniuses, Just As Convents Hate Saints.

Democracy Is Morose, And Runs To Anarchy, But In The State, And In The Schools, It Is Indispensable To Resist The Consolidation Ofall Men Into A Few Men.

Nature Is A Rag Merchant, Who Works Up Every Shred And Ort And End Into New Creations.

A Painter Told Me That Nobody Could Draw A Tree Without In Some Sort Becoming A Tree; Or Draw A Child By Studying The Outlines Of Its Form Merely But By Watching For A Time His Motions And Plays, The Painter Enters Into His Nature And Can Then Draw Him At Every Attitude.

For All Our Penny-wisdom, For All Our Soul-destroying Slavery To Habit, It Is Not To Be Doubted That All Men Have Sublime Thoughts; That All Men Value The Few Real Hours Of Life; They Love To Be Heard; They Love To Be Caught Up Into The Vision Of Principles. We Mark With Light In The Memory The Few Interviews We Have Had, In The Dreary Years Of Routine And Of Sin, With Souls That Made Our Souls Wiser; That Spoke What We Thought; That Told Us What We Knew; That Gave Us Leave To Be What We Only Were.

He Is The Rich Man In Whom The People Are Rich, And He Is The Poor Man In Whom The People Are Poor; And How To Give Access To Themasterpieces Of Art And Nature, Is The Problem Of Civilization.

Nature Hates Monopolies And Exceptions.

Universities Are Of Course Hostile To Geniuses, Which, Seeing And Using Ways Of Their Own, Discredit The Routine: As Churches And Monasteries Persecute Youthful Saints.

A Scholar Is A Candle Which The Love And Desire Of All Men Will Light.

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

Trust Your Instinct To The End, Though You Can Render No Reason.

After Thirty, A Man Wakes Up Sad Every Morning, Excepting Perhaps Five Or Six, Until The Day Of His Death.

These Are The Voices Which We Hear In Solitude, But They Grow Faint And Inaudible As We Enter Into The World.

A Life In Harmony With Nature, The Love Of Truth And Virtue, Will Purge The Eyes To Understanding Her Text.

The Genius Of Reading And Of Gardening Are Antagonistic, Like Resinous And Vitreous Electricity. One Is Concentrative In Sparks And Shocks: The Other Is Diffuse Strength; So That Each Disqualifies Its Workman For The Other's Duties.

Always Maintain Your Common Sense And Artful Skills, And Funnel It All Into Plain Enough Dealings.

The World Proceeds From The Same Spirit As The Body Of Man. It Is A Remoter And Inferior Incarnation Of God, A Projection Of God In The Unconscious.

Heaven Often Protects Valuable Souls Charged With Great Secrets, Great Ideas, By Long Shutting Them Up With Their Own Thoughts.

Man Is Timid And Apologetic; He Is No Longer Upright; He Dares Not Say "i Think," "i Am," But Quotes Some Saint Or Sage.

Let Us Be Poised, Wise And Our Own Today.

Beauty Is The Pilot Of The Young Soul.

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

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

The Nobler The Truth Or Sentiment, The Less Imports The Question Of Authorship.

Envy Is Ignorance, Imitation Is Suicide.

It Was A Pleasure And A Privilege To Walk With Him [h.d. Thoreau]. He Knew The Country Like A Fox Or A Bird, And Passed Through It As Freely By Paths Of His Own.

Adult Males Are What Their Moms Designed Them.

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

Go Into One Of Our Cool Churches, And Begin To Count The Words That Might Be Spared, And In Most Places The Entire Sermon Will Go.

A Great Licentiousness Treads On The Heels Of A Reformation.

There Is A Principle Which Is The Basis Of Things, Which All Speech Aims To Say, And All Action To Evolve, A Simple, Quiet, Undescribed, Undescribable Presence, Dwelling Very Peacefully In Us, Our Rightful Lord: We Are Not To Do, But To Let Do; Not To Work, But To Be Worked Upon.

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

The Finished Man Of The World Must Eat Of Every Apple Once.

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.

No Matter How Much Faculty Of Idle Seeing A Man Has, The Step From Knowing To Doing Is Rarely Taken.

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.

There Is Really No Insurmountable Barrier Save Your Own Inherent Weakness Of Purpose.

Every Action Has An Ancestor Of A Thought.

The Charming Landscape Which I Saw This Morning Is Indubitably Made Up Of Some Twenty Or Thirty Farms. Miller Owns This Field, Locke That, And Manning The Woodland Beyond. But None Of Them Owns The Landscape. There Is Property In The Horizon Which No Man Has But He Whose Eye Can Integrate All Parts, That Is, The Poet. This Is The Best Part Of These Men's Farms, Yet To This Their Warranty-deeds Give No Title.

This One Fact The World Hates; That The Soul Becomes; For That Forever Degrades The Past, Turns All Riches To Poverty, All Reputation To A Shame, Confounds The Saint With The Rogue, Shoves Jesus And Judas Equally Aside.

In Actions Of Enthusiasm, This Drawback Appears: But In Those Lower Activities, Which Have No Higher Aim Than To Make Us More Comfortable And More Cowardly, In Actions Of Cunning, Actions That Steal And Lie, Actions That Divorce The Speculative From The Practical Faculty, And Put A Ban On Reason And Sentiment, There Is Nothing Else But Drawback And Negation.

The Poem Is A Confession Of Faith.

Without Ambition One Starts Nothing. Without Work One Finishes Nothing. The Prize Will Not Be Sent To You. You Have To Win It. The Man Who Knows How Will Always Have A Job. The Man Who Also Knows Why Will Always Be His Boss. As To Methods There May Be A Million And Then Some, But Principles Are Few. The Man Who Grasps Principles Can Successfully Select His Own Methods. The Man Who Tries Methods, Ignoring Principles, Is Sure To Have Trouble.

People Seem Sheathed In Their Tough Organization.

The Masters Painted For Joy, And Knew Not That Virtue Had Gone Out Of Them. They Could Not Paint The Like In Cold Blood. The Masters Of English Lyric Wrote Their Songs So. It Was A Fine Efflorescence Of Fine Powers.

For, Rightly, Every Man Is A Channel Through Which Heaven Floweth, And, Whilst I Fancied I Was Criticising Him, I Was Censuring Orrather Terminating My Own Soul.

Of The Shaker Society, It Was Formerly A Sort Of Proverb In The Country, That They Always Sent The Devil To Market.

Every Wall Is A Door.

No Performance Is Worth Loss Of Geniality. 'tis A Cruel Price We Pay For Certain Fancy Goods Called Fine Arts And Philosophy.

The State Is A Poor, Good Beast Who Means The Best: It Means Friendly.

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.

Man Sheds Grief As His Skin Sheds Rain.

Preaching Is The Expression Of Moral Sentiments Applied To The Duties Of Life.

When Summer Opens, I See How Fast It Matures, And Fear It Will Be Short; But After The Heats Of July And August, I Am Reconciled, Like One Who Has Had His Swing, To The Cool Of Autumn.

Mysticism Is The Mistake Of An Accidental And Individual Symbol For An Universal One.

I Have Sometimes Thought That, In Order To Be A Good Minister, It Was Necessary To Leave The Ministry. The Profession Is Antiquated. In An Altered Age, We Worship In The Dead Forms Of Our Forefathers.

The Refining Influence Is The Study Of Art, Which Is The Science Of Beauty; And I Find That Every Man Values Every Scrap Of Knowledge In Art, Every Observation Of His Own In It, Every Hint He Has Caught From Another. For The Laws Of Beauty Are The Beauty Of Beauty, And Give The Mind The Same Or A Higher Joy Than The Sight Of It Gives The Senses. The Study Of Art Is Of High Value To The Growth Of The Intellect.

If Any Mention Was Made Of Homicide, Madness, Adultery, And Intolerable Tortures, We Would Let The Church-bells Ring Louder, The Church-organ Swell Its Peal And Drown The Hideous Sound. The Sugar They Raised Was Excellent: Nobody Tasted Blood In It.

We Are Not Free To Use Today, Or To Promise Tomorrow, Because We Are Already Mortgaged To Yesterday.

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?

Men Are So Charmed With Valor That They Have Pleased Themselves With Being Called Lions, Leopards, Eagles And Dragons, From The Animals Contemporary With Us In The Geologic Formations.

We Are By Nature Observers, And Thereby Learners. That Is Our Permanent State.

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

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

Words You Speak

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.

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.

Wild Liberty Breeds Iron Conscience; Natures With Great Impulses Have Great Resources, And Return From Far.

Each Mind Has Its Own Method. A True Man Never Acquires After College Rules.

Society Always Consists, In Greatest Part, Of Young And Foolish Persons. The Old, Who Have Seen Through The Hypocrisy Of The Courts And Statesmen, Die, And Leave No Wisdom To Their Sons. They Believe Their Own Newspaper, As Their Fathers Did At Their Age.

Why Should The Way I Feel Depend On The Thoughts In Someone Else's Head?

Our Chief Want In Life, Is, Someone Who Shall Make Us Do What We Can. This Is The Service Of A Friend. With Him We Are Easily Great.

Steam Is No Stronger Now Than It Was A Hundred Years Ago, But It Is Put To Better Use.

The World Makes Way For The Man Who Knows Where He Is Going

Beware Of What You Want-for You Will Get It.

The World Looks Like A Multiplication-table, Or A Mathematical Equation, Which, Turn It How You Will, Balances Itself.

Mathematical Equations

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.

The Household Is A School Of Power. There, Within The Door, Learn The Tragi-comedy Of Human Life.

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

The Regular Course Of Studies, The Years Of Academical And Professional Education, Have Not Yielded Me Better Facts Than Some Idle Books Under The Bench At The Latin School.

We Love It Because It Is Self Dependent, Self Derived, And Therefore Of An Old Immaculate Pedigree, Even If Shown In A Young Person.

O Friend, Never Strike Sail To A Fear!

I Cannot Find Language Of Sufficient Energy To Convey My Sense Of The Sacredness Of Private Integrity.

Every Man Believes He Has A Greater Possibility.

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

We Put Our Love Where We Have Put Our Labor.

Be As Beneficent As The Sun Or The Sea, But If Your Rights As A Rational Being Are Trenched On, Die On The First Inch Of Your Territory.

Knowledge Is The Only Elegance.

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

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