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

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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As The Farmer Casts

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

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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.

This Time, Like All Times, Is A Very Good One, If We But Know What To Do With It.

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

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, And Always We Are Fishing Up Some Wonderful Article Out Of That Pond; Until, By And By, We Begin To Suspect That The Biography Of The One Foolish Person We Know Is, In Reality, Nothing Less Than The Miniature Paraphrase Of The Hundred Volumes Of The Universal History.

I Read Your Piece On Plato. Holmes, When You Strike At A King, You Must Kill Him.

If A Man Can Write A Better Book, Preach A Better Sermon, Or Make A Better Mousetrap Than His Neighbor, Though He Build His House In The Woods, The World Will Make A Beaten Path To His Door.

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.

There Is No King Or Sovereign State That Can Fix A Hero's Rate; Each To All Is Venerable.

Cannot We Let [children] Be Themselves, And Enjoy Life In Their Own Way? You Are Trying To Make Another You. One's Enough.

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

The Miracles Of Genius Always Rest On Profound Convictions Which Refuse To Be Analyzed.

In Strict Science, All Persons Underlie The Same Condition Of An Infinite Remoteness. Shall We Fear To Cool Our Love By Mining Forthe Metaphysical Foundation Of This Elysian Temple? Shall I Not Be As Real As The Things I See? If I Am, I Shall Not Fear To Know Them For What They Are.

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.

A Judge May Be A Farmer; But He Is Not To Geld His Own Pigs.

The Soul Circumscribes All Things.

The Wise Man, The True Friend, The Finished Character, We Seek Everywhere, And Only Find In Fragments.

The Sky Is The Ultimate Art Gallery Just Above Us.

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

The Stars Awaken A Certain Reverence, Because Though Always Present, They Are Inaccessible; But All Natural Objects Make A Kindred Impression, When The Mind Is Open To Their Influence. Nature Never Wears A Mean Appearance. Neither Does The Wisest Man Extort Her Secret, And Lose His Curiosity By Finding Out All Her Perfection. Nature Never Became A Toy To A Wise Spirit. The Flowers, The Animals, The Mountains, Reflected The Wisdom Of His Best Hour, As Much As They Had Delighted The Simplicity Of His Childhood.

Hence, The Less Government We Have, The Better,--the Fewer Laws, And The Less Confided Power. The Antidote To This Abuse Of Formalgovernment, Is, The Influence Of Private Character, The Growth Of The Individual; The Appearance Of The Principal To Supersede The Proxy; The Appearance Of The Wise Man, Of Whom The Existing Government, Is, It Must Be Owned, But A Shabby Imitation.

We Are Symbols, And Inhabit Symbols.

Being Perfectly Well-dressed Gives A Feeling Of Tranquillity That Religion Is Powerless To Bestow.

If The Vast And The Spiritual Are Omitted, So Are The Practical And The Moral.

Man Is Physical As Well As Metaphysical, A Thing Of Shreds And Patches, Borrowed Unequally From Good And Bad Ancestors, And A Misfit From The Start.

We Do Not Want Actions, But Men; Not A Chemical Drop Of Water, But Rain; The Spirit That Sheds And Showers Actions, Countless, Endless Actions.

It Now Appears That The Negro Race Is, More Than Any Other, Susceptible Of Rapid Civilization. The Emancipation Is Observed, In The Islands, To Have Wrought For The Negro A Benefit As Sudden As When A Thermometer Is Brought Out Of The Shade Into The Sun. It Has Given Him Eyes And Ears.

If The East Loves Infinity, The West Delights In Boundaries.

Women See Better Than Men. Men See Lazily, If They Do Not Expect To Act. Women See Quite Without Any Wish To Act.

Life Is A Festival Only To The Wise. Seen From The Nook And Chimneyside Of Prudence, It Wears A Ragged And Dangerous Front.

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

Every Man Beholds His Human Condition With A Degree Of Melancholy. As A Ship Aground Is Battered By The Waves, So Man, Imprisonedin Mortal Life, Lies Open To The Mercy Of Coming Events.

'tis A Short Sight To Limit Our Faith In Laws To Those Of Gravity, Of Chemistry, Of Botany, And So Forth. Those Laws Do Not Stop Where Our Eyes Lose Them, But Push The Same Geometry And Chemistry Up Into The Invisible Plane Of Social And Rational Life, So That, Look Where We Will, In A Boy's Game, Or In The Strifes Of Races, A Perfect Reaction, A Perpetual Judgment Keeps Watch And Ward.

Whatever It Is, It's Better In The Wind.

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

Our Debt To Tradition Through Reading And Conversation Is So Massive, Our Protest So Rare And Insignificant-and This Commonly On The Ground Of Other Reading And Hearing-that In Large Sense, One Would Say There Is No Pure Originality. All Minds Quote. Old And New Make The Warp And Woof Of Every Moment. There Is No Thread That Is Not A Twist Of These Two Strands. By Necessity, By Proclivity, And By Delight, We All Quote. It Is As Difficult To Appropriate The Thoughts Of Others As It Is To Invent.

But Hospitality Must Be For Service, And Not For Show, Or It Pulls Down The Host. The Brave Soul Rates Itself Too High To Value Itself By The Splendor Of Its Table And Draperies. It Gives What It Hath, And All It Hath, But Its Own Majesty Can Lend A Better Grace To Bannocks And Fair Water Than Belong To City Feasts.

Taking To Pieces Is The Trade Of Those Who Cannot Construct.

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

There Are Men Whose Manners Have The Same Essential Splendor As The Simple And Awful Sculpture On The Friezes Of The Parthenon, And The Remains Of The Earliest Greek Art.

Philanthropies And Charities Have A Certain Air Of Quackery.

Although This Garrulity Of Advising Is Born With Us, I Confess That Life Is Rather A Subject Of Wonder, Than Of Didactics. So Muchfate, So Much Irresistible Dictation From Temperament And Unknown Inspiration Enter Into It, That We Doubt We Can Say Anything Out Of Our Own Experience Whereby To Help Each Other.

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

Nature Never Wears A Mean Appearance. Neither Does The Wisest Man Extort Her Secret, And Lose His Curiosity By Finding Out All Her Perfection.

The Sky Is The Daily Bread Of The Eyes.

The Most Tedious Of All Discourses Are On The Subject Of The Supreme Being.

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

Mathematical Equations

The World Is Nothing, The Man Is All; In Yourself Is The Law Of All Nature, And You Know Not Yet How A Globule Of Sap Ascends; In Yourself Slumbers The Whole Of Reason; It Is For You To Know All, It Is For You To Dare All.

Consider What You Have In The Smallest Well-chosen Library-a Company Of The Wisest And Wittiest Men Which Can Be Plucked Out Of All Civilized Countries In A Thousand Years. The Men Themselves Were Then Hidden And Inaccessible. They Were Solitary, Impatient Of Interruption, And Fenced By Etiquette. But Now They Are Immortal, And The Thought They Did Not Reveal, Even To Their Bosom Friends, Is Here Written Out In Transparent Words Of Light To Us, Who Are Strangers Of Another Age.

We Must Not Inquire Too Curiously Into The Absolute Value Of Literature. Enough That It Amuses And Exercises Us. At Least It Leaves Us Where We Were. It Names Things, But Does Not Add Things.

The Gentleman Is A Man Of Truth.

Good Judgment Comes From Experience, And A Lot Of That Comes From Bad Judgment. The One Thing In The World, Of Value, Is The Active Soul.

The Law Of Nature Is Alternation For Evermore. Each Electrical State Superinduces The Opposite. The Soul Environs Itself With Friends, That It May Enter Into A Grander Self-acquaintance Or Solitude; And It Goes Alone For A Season, That It May Exalt Its Conversation Or Society.

Every Great Institution Is The Lengthened Shadow Of A Single Man. His Character Determines The Character Of The Organization.

It Is True That Genius Takes Its Rise Out Of The Mountains Of Rectitude; That All Beauty And Power Which Men Covet Are Somehow Born Out Of That Alpine District; That Any Extraordinary Degree Of Beauty In Man Or Woman Involves A Moral Charm.

All Great Men Come Out Of The Middle Classes.

My Life Is Not An Apology, But A Life. It Is For Itself And Not For A Spectacle. I Much Prefer That It Should Be Of A Lower Strain, So It Be Genuine And Equal, Than That It Should Be Glittering And Unsteady.

Do Not Be Too Timid And Squeamish About Your Actions. All Life Is An Experiment. The More Experiments You Make The Better. What If They Are A Little Coarse And You May Get Your Coat Soiled Or Torn? What If You Do Fail, And Get Fairly Rolled In The Dirt Once Or Twice? Up Again, You Shall Never Be So Afraid Of A Tumble.

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

It Is Curious That Christianity, Which Is Idealism, Is Sturdily Defended By The Brokers, And Steadily Attacked By The Idealists.

The Eye Is The First Circle; The Horizon Which It Forms Is The Second; And Throughout Nature This Primary Figure Is Repeated Without End.

Throughout The Ages There Have Always Been Those Who Have Been Willing To Go Beyond The Norms And Reach For That Unknown And Distant Star.

There Is A Good Ear, In Some Men, That Draws Supplies To Virtue Out Of Very Indifferent Nutriment.

...man Is An Analogist, And Studies Relations In All Objects. He Is Placed In The Center Of Beings, And A Ray Of Relation Passes From Every Other Being To Him. And Neither Can Man Be Understood Without These Objects, Nor These Objects Without Man.

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

A Man In A Cave Or In A Camp, A Nomad, Will Die With No More Estate Than The Wolf Or The Horse Leaves.

The Finest People Marry The Two Sexes In Their Own Person.

Always Pay; For First Or Last You Must Pay Your Entire Debt.

For, The Advantages Which Fashion Values, Are Plants Which Thrive In Very Confined Localities, In A Few Streets, Namely. Out Of This Precinct, They Go For Nothing; Are Of No Use In The Farm, In The Forest, In The Market, In War, In The Nuptial Society, In The Literary Or Scientific Circle, At Sea, In Friendship, In The Heaven Of Thought Or Virtue.

Men Cease To Interest Us When We Find Their Limitations

We Are As Much Informed Of A Writer's Genius By What He Selects As By What He Originates. We Read The Quotation With His Eyes, Andfind A New And Fervent Sense; As A Passage From One Of The Poets, Well Recited, Borrows New Interest From The Rendering. As The Journals Say, "the Italics Are Ours.

I Pay The Schoolmaster, But 'tis The Schoolboys That Educate My Son.

If You Tax Too High, The Revenue Will Yield Nothing.

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

It Behooves Us To Be Careful What We Worship, For What We Are Worshipping We Are Becoming.

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

The Vanishing, Volatile Froth Of The Present Which Any Shadow Will Alter, Any Thought Blow Away, Any Event Annihilate, Is Every Moment Converted Into The Adamantine.

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

Everything That Is Popular, It Has Been Said, Deserves The Attention Of Philosophers: And This Is For The Obvious Reason, That Although It May Not Be Of Any Worth In Itself, Yet It Characterizes The People.

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.

Higher Than The Question Of Our Duration Is The Question Of Our Deserving. Immortality Will Come To Such As Are Fit For It, And He Would Be A Great Soul In Future Must Be A Great Soul Now.

It Is My Desire, In The Office Of A Christian Minister, To Do Nothing Which I Cannot Do With My Whole Heart. Having Said This, I Have Said All.

Talent May Frolic And Juggle; Genius Realizes And Adds.

Always Scorn Appearances And You Always May.

There Is An Intimate Interdependence Of Intellect And Morals.

Do What You Fear And Your Fear Will Die.

A Man Must Thank His Defects, And Stand In Some Terror Of His Talents. A Transcendent Talent Draws So Largely On His Forces As Tolame Him; A Defect Pays Him Revenues On The Other Side.

The Inquiry Leads Us To That Source, At Once The Essence Of Genius, Of Virtue, And Of Life, Which We Call Spontaneity Or Instinct.

A Man Is A Beggar Who Only Lives To The Useful, And, However He May Serve As A Pin Or Rivet In The Social Machine, Cannot Be Saidto Have Arrived At Self-possession.

Men Over Forty Are No Judges Of A Book Written In A New Spirit.

Passion, Though A Bad Regulator, Is A Powerful Spring.

The Philanthropists Inquire Whether Transcendentalism Does Not Mean Sloth: They Had As Lief Hear That Their Friend Is Dead, As That He Is A Transcendentalist; For Then Is He Paralyzed, And Can Never Do Anything For Humanity.

The Reliance On Authority Measures The Decline Of Religion, The Withdrawal Of The Soul.

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.

If You Have A Nation Of Men Who Have Risen To That Height Of Moral Cultivation That They Will Not Declare War Or Carry Arms, For They Have Not So Much Madness Left In Their Brains, You Have A Nation Of Lovers, Of Benefactors, Of True, Great, And Able Men.

When He Is Pushed, Tormented, Defeated, He Has A Chance To Learn Something; He Has Been Put On His Wits, On His Manhood; He Has Gained Facts; Learns His Ignorance; Is Cured Of The Insanity Of Conceit; Has Got Moderation And Real Skill.

There Is Nothing In History To Parallel The Influence Of Jesus Christ.

Explore, And Explore, And Explore. Be Neither Chided Nor Flattered Out Of Your Position Of Perpetual Inquiry. Neither Dogmatise Yourself, Nor Accept Another's Dogmatism. Why Should You Renounce Your Right To Traverse The Star-lit Deserts Of Truth, For The Premature Comforts Of An Acre, House, And Barn? Truth Also Has Its Roof, And Bed, And Board. Make Yourself Necessary To The World, And Mankind Will Give You Bread, And If Not Store Of It, Yet Such As Shall Not Take Away Your Property In All Men's Possessions, In All Men's Affections, In Art, In Nature, And In Hope.

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

It Is The Fine Souls Who Serve Us, And Not What Is Called Fine Society. Fine Society Is Only A Self-protection Against The Vulgarities Of The Street And The Tavern.

A Good Reader Makes A Good Book

There Is Virtue Yet In The Hoe And The Spade, For Learned As Well As For Unlearned Hands. And Labor Is Everywhere Welcome; Alwayswe Are Invited To Work.

Conservatism Makes No Poetry, Breathes No Prayer, Has No Invention; It Is All Memory. Reform Has No Gratitude, No Prudence, No Husbandry.

All Public Facts Are To Be Individualized, All Private Facts Are To Be Generalized.

When A Man Says To Me, "i Have The Intensest Love Of Nature," At Once I Know That He Has None.

Saving The Earth

I Believe That Our Own Experience Instructs Us That 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. By Your Tampering And Thwarting And Too Much Governing He May Be Hindered From His End And Kept Out Of His Own. 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.

Let The River Roll Which Way It Will, Cities Will Rise On Its Banks.

The Good Lawyer Is Not The Man Who Has An Eye To Every Side And Angle Of Contingency, And Qualifies All His Qualifications, But Who Throws Himself On Your Part So Heartily, That He Can Get You Out Of A Scrape.

It Is A Capital Blunder; As You Discover, When Another Man Recites His Charities.

I Appeal Now To The Convictions Of The Communicants, And Ask Such Persons Whether They Have Not Been Occasionally Conscious Of A Painful Confusion Of Thought Between The Worship Due To God And The Commemoration Due To Christ.

The Revelation Of Thought Takes Men Out Of Servitude Into Freedom.

The Hero Is Suffered To Be Himself.

Thoughts Rule The World.

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.

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.

How Much Of Human Life Is Lost In Waiting.

Music Is The Poor Man's Parnassus.

Friends Should Be Like Books, Easy To Find When You Need Them, But Seldom Used.

There Is No Great And No Small To The Soul That Maketh All.

Man Is A Shrewd Inventor, And Is Ever Taking The Hint Of A New Machine From His Own Structure, Adapting Some Secret Of His Own Anatomy In Iron, Wood, And Leather, To Some Required Function In The Work Of The World.

A Rush Of Thoughts Is The Only Conceivable Prosperity That Can Come To Us.

A Friend May Well Be Reckoned The Masterpiece Of Nature.

When We See A Soul Whose Acts Are All Regal, Graceful, And Pleasant As Roses, We Must Thank God That Such Things Can Be And Are.

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

The Gentleman Is A Man Of Truth, Lord Of His Own Actions, And Expressing That Lordship In His Behavior, Not In Any Manner Dependent And Servile Either On Persons, Or Opinions, Or Possessions.

When It Is Dark Enough, Men See The Stars.

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

The Advantage Of Riches Remains With Him Who Procured Them, Not With The Heir.

I Like My Boy With His Endless Sweet Soliloquies And Iterations And His Utter Inability To Conceive Why I Should Not Leave All My Nonsense, Business, And Writing And Come To Tie Up His Toy Horse, As If There Was Or Could Be Any End To Nature Beyond His Horse. And He Is Wiser Than We When [he] Threatens His Whole Threat "i Will Not Love You."

Some Men, At The Approach Of A Dispute, Neigh Like Horses.

We Grizzle Every Day. I See No Need Of It. Whilst We Converse With What Is Above Us, We Do Not Grow Old, But Grow Young.

A Man Must Consider What A Blindman's-buff Is This Game Of Conformity.

It Was High Counsel That I Once Heard Given To A Young Person, 'always Do What You Are Afraid To Do.'

You Must Pay For Conformity. All Goes Well As Long As You Run With Conformists. But You, Who Are Honest Men In Other Particulars, Know That There Is Alive Somewhere A Man Whose Honesty Reaches To This Point Also, That He Shall Not Kneel To False Gods, And, On The Day When You Meet Him, You Sink Into The Class Of Counterfeits.

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

Great Is The Art, Great Be The Manners, Of The Bard. He Shall Not His Brain Encumber With The Coil Of Rhythm And Number; But, Leaving Rule And Pale Forethought, He Shall Aye Climb For His Rhyme. "pass In, Pass In," The Angels Say

The Crime Which Bankrupts Men And Nations Is That Of Turning Aside From One's Main Purpose To Serve A Job Here And There.

Language Is A City, To The Building Of Which Every Human Being Brought A Stone; Yet He Is No More To Be Credited With The Grand Result Than The Acaleph Which Adds A Cell To The Coral Reef Which Is The Basis Of The Continent.

Everything Intercepts Us From Ourselves.

There Is No Den In The Wide World To Hide A Rogue.

Poetry Being ... When We Look From The Center Outward.

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

The Basis Of Good Manners Is Self-reliance.

A Man's Library Is A Sort Of Harem.

With Each Divine Impulse The Mind Rends The Thin Rinds Of The Visible And Finite, And Comes Out Into Eternity, And Inspires And Expires Its Air. It Converses With Truths That Have Always Been Spoken In The World, And Becomes Conscious Of A Closer Sympathy With Zeno And Arrian, Than With Persons In The House.

Self Trust Is The Essence Of Heroism.

Egotism Is A Kind Of Buckram That Gives Momentary Strength And Concentration To Men, And Seems To Be Much Used In Nature For Fabrics In Which Local And Spasmodic Energy Is Required.

To Be A Star, You Must Shine Your Own Light, Follow Your Path, And Don't Worry About The Darkness, For That Is When The Stars Shine Brightest. Always Do What You Are Afraid To Do.

Every Thing Admonishes Us How Needlessly Long Life Is.

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

And What Fastens Attention, In The Intercourse Of Life, Like Any Passage Betraying Affection Between Two Parties? Perhaps We Never Saw Them Before, And Never Shall Meet Them Again. But We See Them Exchange A Glance, Or Betray A Deep Emotion, And We Are No Longer Strangers. We Understand Them, And Take The Warmest Interest In The Development Of The Romance. All Mankind Love A Lover.

The Highest Compact We Can Make With Our Fellow Is - "let There Be Truth Between Us Two Forevermore."

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

I Pack My Trunk, Embrace My Friends, Embark On The Sea And At Last Wake Up In Naples, And There Beside Me Is The Stern Fact, The Sad Self, Unrelenting, Identical, That I Fled From.

Power Is In Nature The Essential Measure Of Right.

"do Not Call Yourself An "artist-photographer" And Make "artist-painters" And "artist-sculptors" Laugh; Call Yourself A Photographer And Wait For Artists To Call You Brother."

Perpetual Modernness Is The Measure Of Merit, In Every Work Of Art; Since The Author Of It Was Not Misled By Anything Short- Livedor Local, But Abode By Real And Abiding Traits.

The State Must Follow, And Not Lead, The Character And Progress Of The Citizen.

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.

Music Takes Us Out Of The Actual And Whispers To Us Dim Secrets That Startles Out Wonder As To Who We Are, And For What, Whence, And Whereto.

Do Not Speak Of God Much. After A Very Little Conversation On The Highest Nature, Thought Deserts Us And We Run Into Formalism.

You Must Elect Your Work; You Shall Take What Your Brains Can, And Drop All The Rest. Only So Can That Amount Of Vital Force Accumulate Which Can Make The Step From Knowing To Doing. No Matter How Much Faculty Of Idle Seeing A Man Has, The Step From Knowing To Doing Is Rarely Taken. It Is A Step Out Of A Chalk Circle Of Imbecility Into Fruitfulness.

Genius Seems To Consistent Merely In Trueness Of Sight.

I Am The Owner Of The Sphere, Of The Seven Stars And The Solar Year, Of Caesar's Hand, And Plato's Brain, Of Lord Christ's Heart, And Shakespeare's Strain.

Human Character Evermore Publishes Itself. The Most Fugitive Deed And Word, The Intimated Purpose, Express Character.

Deeds And Words

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.

Nothing Astonishes Men So Much As Common Sense And Plain Dealing.

Never Mind The Ridicule, Never Mind The Defeat: Up Again, Old Heart!-it Seems To Say,-there Is Victory Yet For All Justice; And The True Romance Which The World Exists To Realize, Will Be The Transformation Of Genius Into Practical Power.

Getting Old Is A Fascination Thing. The Older You Get, The Older You Want To Get.

Lose Yourself In Nature And Find Peace

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

People Only See What They Are Prepared To See.

Life Is Not Measured By Its Length, But By Its Depth.

What Torments Of Grief You Endured, From Evils That Never Arrived

God Is Our Name For The Last Generalization To Which We Can Arrive.

We Don't Grow Old. When We Cease To Grow, We Become Old.

I Like The Silent Church Before The Service Begins, Better Than Any Preaching. How Far Off, How Cool, How Chaste The Persons Look,begirt Each One With A Precinct Or Sanctuary!

In Good Writing, Words Become One With Things.

True Friends Are Two People Who Are Comfortable Sharing Silence Together.

Men Are Like Geneva Watches With Crystal Faces, Which Expose The Whole Movement.

A Great Teacher Makes Hard Things Easy.

In The Moment When You Make The Least Petition To God, Though It Be But A Silent Wish That He May Approve You, Or Add One Moment To Your Life,--do You Not, In The Very Act, Necessarily Exclude All Other Beings From Your Thought? In That Act, The Soul Stands Alone With God, And Jesus Is No More Present To Your Mind Than Your Brother Or Your Child.

The Never-ending Task Of Self Improvement.

The Eloquence Of One Stimulates All The Rest, Some Up To The Speaking-point, And All Others To A Degree That Makes Them Good Receivers And Conductors, And They Avenge Themselves For Their Enforced Silence By Increased Loquacity On Their Return.

Go Put Your Creed Into Your Deed, Nor Speak With Double Tongue.

Man Is Not A Farmer, Or A Professor, Or An Engineer, But He Is All. Man Is Priest, And Scholar, And Statesman, And Producer, And Soldier.

The Gift, To Be True, Must Be The Flowing Of The Giver Unto Me, Correspondent To My Flowing Unto Him.

It Is The Quality Of The Moment, Not The Number Of Days, Or Events, Or Of Actors, That Imports.

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

The Universe Does Not Jest With Us, But Is In Earnest.

The Poorest Experience Is Rich Enough For All The Purposes Of Expressing Thought

One Of The Benefits Of A College Education Is To Show The Boy Its Little Avail.

The Socialism Of Our Day Has Done Good Service In Setting Men To Thinking How Certain Civilizing Benefits, Now Only Enjoyed By Theopulent, Can Be Enjoyed By All.

We Are Imprisoned In Life In The Company Of Persons Powerfully Unlike Us.

Time Dissipates To Shining Ether The Solid Angularity Of Facts.

Now Every One Must Do After His Kind, Be He Asp Or Angel, And These Must.

Curiosity Is Lying In Wait For Every Secret.

What We Call Results Are Beginnings.

Every Great Man Is Unique.

I Like The Church, I Like A Cowl, I Love A Prophet Of The Soul; And On My Heart Monastic Aisles Fall Like Sweet Strains Or Pensive Smiles; Yet Not For All His Faith Can See, Would I That Cowled Churchman Be.

The Eye Is The Painter And The Ear The Singer.

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