Background Image

...

As Thinkers, Mankind Has Ever Divided Into Two Sects, Materialists And Idealists; The First Class Founding On Experience, The Second On Consciousness; The First Class Beginning To Think From The Data Of The Senses, The Second Class Perceive That The Senses Are Not Final And Say, The Senses Give Us Representations Of Things, But What Are The Things Themselves, They Cannot Tell. The Materialist Insists On Facts, On History, On The Force Of Circumstances And The Animal Wants Of Man; The Idealists On The Power Of Thought And Will, On Inspiration, On Miracle, On Individual Culture.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

As Thinkers, Mankind Has

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

As Thinkers, Mankind Has Ever Divided Into Two Sects, Materialists And Idealists; The First Class Founding On Experience, The Second On Consciousness; The First Class Beginning To Think From The Data Of The Senses, The Second Class Perceive That The Senses Are Not Final And Say, The Senses Give Us Representations Of Things, But What Are The Things Themselves, They Cannot Tell. The Materialist Insists On Facts, On History, On The Force Of Circumstances And The Animal Wants Of Man; The Idealists On The Power Of Thought And Will, On Inspiration, On Miracle, On Individual Culture.

Views: 9

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Ancestor Of Every Action Is A Thought.

Positive Thinking

All Stealing Is Comparative. If You Come To Absolutes, Pray Who Does Not Steal.

Headwinds Are Sore Vexations And The More Passengers The Sorer.

A Beautiful Woman Is A Practical Poet, Taming Her Savage Mate, Planting Tenderness, Hope And Eloquence In All Whom She Approaches.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage.

There Is More Difference In The Quality Of Our Pleasures Than In The Amount.

Prayer As A Means To Effect A Private End Is Theft And Meanness.

Nothing Is More Simple Than Greatness; Indeed, To Be Simple Is To Be Great.

Our Country, Customs, Laws, Our Ambitions, And Our Notions Of Fit And Fair-all These We Never Made; We Found Them Ready-made; We But Quote From Them. What Would Remain To Me If This Art Of Appropriation Were Derogatory To Genius? Every One Of My Writings Has Been Furnished To Me By A Thousand Different Persons, A Thousand Things; Wise And Foolish Have Brought Me, Without Suspecting It, The Offering Of Their Thoughts, Faculties, And Experience. My Work Is An Aggregation Of Beings Taken From The Whole Of Nature. It Bears The Name Of Goethe.

My Doom And My Strength Is To Be Solitary.

The Peril Of Every Fine Faculty Is The Delight Of Playing With It For Pride. Talent Is Commonly Developed At The Expense Of Character, And The Greater It Grows, The More Is The Mischief. Talent Is Mistaken For Genius, A Dogma Or System For Truth, Ambition For Greatness, Ingenuity For Poetry, Sensuality For Art.

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

Every Vice Is Only An Exaggeration Of A Necessary And Virtuous Function.

Exaggeration Is

The Reason Why Men Do Not Obey Us, Is Because They See The Mud At The Bottom Of Our Eye.

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.

The Laws Of Each Are Convertible Into The Laws Of Any Other.

Presently We Pass To Some Other Object Which Rounds Itself Into A Whole As Did The First; For Example, A Well-laid Garden; And Nothing Seems Worth Doing But The Laying~out Of Gardens.

There Is Creative Reading As Well As Creative Writing.

The Path Of Things Is Silent. Will They Suffer A Speaker To Go With Them?

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

If Two Or Three Persons Should Come With A High Spiritual Aim And With Great Powers, The World Would Fall Into Their Hands Like A Ripe Peach.

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.

New York Is A Sucked Orange.

Sometimes A Scream Is Better Than A Thesis.

We Can Only Obey Our Own Polarity.

Nature, As We Know Her, Is No Saint.... She Comes Eating And Drinking And Sinning.

We Are Disgusted By Gossip; Yet It Is Of Importance To Keep The Angels In Their Proprieties.

Finish Each Day And Be Done With It. You Have Done What You Could. Learn From It... Tomorrow Is A New Day.

God Will Not Have His Work Made Manifest By Cowards

All Infractions Of Love And Equity In Our Social Relations Are Speedily Punished-by Fear...be Honest With A Man And You Have No Fear. Try To Deceive And The Relationship Deteriorates.

There Is A Mortifying Experience In Particular, Which Does Not Fail To Wreak Itself Also In The General History; I Mean "the Foolish Face Of Praise," The Forced Smile Which We Put On In Company Where We Do Not Feel At Ease, In Answer To Conversation Which Does Not Interest Us. The Muscles, Not Spontaneously Moved But Moved, By A Low Usurping Wilfulness, Grow Tight About The Outline Of The Face, With The Most Disagreeable Sensation.

Great Men Are They Who See That Spiritual Is Stronger Than Any Material Force - That Thoughts Rule The World.

What Would Be The Use Of Immortality To A Person Who Cannot Use Well A Half An Hour?

All Things Are Moral. That Soul, Which Within Us Is A Sentiment, Outside Of Us Is A Law. We Feel Its Inspiration; Out There In History We Can See Its Fatal Strength.

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.

In Our Fine Arts, Not Imitation, But Creation Is The Aim... The Details, The Prose Of Nature, He Should Omit, And Give Us Only The Spirit And Splendour.

Age, Like Woman, Requires Fit Surroundings.

All Men Are Poets At Heart.

Live In The Fields, And God Will Give You Lectures On Natural Philosophy Every Day.

A Great Man Stands On God. A Small Man On A Great Man.

Teach The Children! It Is Painting In Fresco.

Shallow Men Believe In Luck.

The Merit Of Those Who Fill A Space In The World's History, Who Are Borne Forward, As It Were, By The Weight Of Thousands Whom They Lead, Shed A Perfume Less Sweet Than Do The Sacrifices Of Private Virtue.

The Religion That Is Afraid Of Science Dishonors God And Commits Suicide. Every Influx Of Atheism, Of Skepticism, Is Thus Made Useful As A Mercury Pill Assaulting And Removing A Diseased Religion, And Making Way For Truth.

Yet America Is A Poem In Our Eyes; Its Ample Geography Dazzles The Imagination, And It Will Not Wait Long For Metres.

Great Hearts Steadily Send Forth The Secret Forces That Incessantly Draw Great Events.

Law Of Attraction

Nobody Can Bring You Peace But Yourself.

As A Cure For Worrying, Work Is Better Than Whiskey.

The Need For A Rational Consistency Is The Hobgoblin Of Small Minds.

When We Are Young, We Spend Much Time And Pains In Filling Our Note-books With All Definitions Of Religion, Love, Poetry, Politics, Art, In The Hope That, In The Course Of A Few Years, We Shall Have Condensed Into Our Encyclopaedia The Net Value Of All The Theories At Which The World Has Yet Arrived. But Year After Year Our Tables Get No Completeness, And At Last We Discover That Our Curve Is A Parabola, Whose Arcs Will Never Meet.

Bring Me Wine, But Wine Which Never Grew In The Belly Of The Grape

There Is No Chance And Anarchy In The Universe. All Is System And Gradation. Every God Is There Sitting In His Sphere.

The Real And Lasting Victories Are Those Of Peace, And Not Of War.

The Value Of A Dollar Is To Buy Just Things; A Dollar Goes On Increasing In Value With All The Genius And All The Virtue Of The World. A Dollar In A University Is Worth More Than A Dollar In A Jail; In A Temperate, Schooled, Law-abiding Community Than In Some Sink Of Crime, Where Dice, Knives, And Arsenic Are In Constant Play.

But The Man And Woman Of Seventy Assume To Know All, They Have Outlived Their Hope, They Renounce Aspiration, Accept The Actual For The Necessary And Talk Down To The Young. Let Them Then Become Organs Of The Holy Ghost; Let Them Be Lovers; Let Them Behold Truth; And Their Eyes Are Uplifted, Their Wrinkles Smoothed, They Are Perfumed Again With Hope And Power.

I Suffer Whenever I See That Common Sight Of A Parent Or Senior Imposing His Opinion And Way Of Thinking And Being On A Young Soul To Which They Are Totally Unfit. Cannot We Let People Be Themselves, And Enjoy Life In Their Own Way? You Are Trying To Make That Man Another You. One's Enough.

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

Make Your Own Bible. Select And Collect All The Words And Sentences That In All Your Readings Have Been To You Like The Blast Of A Trumpet.

The Method Of Nature: Who Could Ever Analyze It?

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.

The Man In The Street Does Not Know A Star In The Sky.

Children And Savages Use Only Nouns Or Names Of Things, Which They Convert Into Verbs, And Apply To Analogous Mental Acts.

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

A Nation Never Falls But By Suicide.

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

If A Man Carefully Examine His Thoughts He Will Be Surprised To Find How Much He Lives In The Future. His Well-being Is Always Ahead. Such A Creature Is Probably Immortal.

Great Men Are More Distinguished By Range And Extent Than By Originality.

The Sum Of Wisdom Is That Time Is Never Lost That Is Devoted To Work.

There Is A Kind Of Latent Omniscience, Not Only In Every Man, But In Every Particle.

Only To Youth Will Spring Be Spring.

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

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

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

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

Deeds And Words

In Private Places, Among Sordid Objects, An Act Of Truth Or Heroism Seems At Once To Draw To Itself The Sky As Its Temple, The Sun As Its Cradle. Nature Stretches Out Her Arms To Embrace Man, Only Let His Thoughts Be Of Equal Greatness.

Discontent Is Want Of Self-reliance; It Is Infirmity Of Will.

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.

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

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.

How Much More The Seeker Of Abstract Truth, Who Needs Periods Of Isolation, And Rapt Concentration, And Almost A Going Out Of Thebody To Think!

The Reverence For The Deeds Of Our Ancestors Is A Treacherous Sentiment. Their Merit Was Not To Reverence The Old, But To Honor The Present Moment; And We Falsely Make Them Excuses Of The Very Habit Which They Hated And Defied.

Every Man Who Would Do Anything Well, Must Come To It From A Higher Ground.

Successful Is The Person Who Has Lived Well, Laughed Often And Loved Much, Who Has Gained The Respect Of Children, Who Leaves The World Better Than They Found It, Who Has Never Lacked Appreciation For The Earth's Beauty, Who Never Fails To Look For The Best In Others Or Give The Best Of Themselves.

After You Have Pumped Your Brains For Thoughts And Verses, There Is A Better Poetry Hinted In Whistling A Tune On Your Walk.

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

For Beauty Is God's Handwriting...a Nd, Thank God For It As A Cup Of His Blessing.

Christian Inspirational

A New Degree Of Intellectual Power Seems Cheap At Any Price.

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.

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.

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

Politics Is A Deleterious Profession, Like Some Poisonous Handicrafts.

Some Natures Are Too Good To Be Spoiled By Praise.

The Meaning Of Good And Bad, Of Better And Worse, Is Simply Helping Or Hurting.

Thought Is The Seed Of Action; But Action Is As Much Its Second Form As Thought Is Its First.

Society Has No Bribe For Me.

Work And Acquire, And Thou Hast Chained The Wheel Of Chance.

We Ascribe Beauty To That Which Is Simple; Which Has No Superfluous Parts; Which Exactly Answers Its End; Which Stands Related To All Things; Which Is The Mean Of Many Extremes.

The Betrothed And Accepted Lover Has Lost The Wildest Charms Of His Maiden By Her Acceptance. She Was Heaven While He Pursued Her, But She Cannot Be Heaven If She Stoops To One Such As He!

The Secret Of The Illusoriness Is In The Necessity Of A Succession Of Moods Or Objects. Gladly We Would Anchor, But The Anchorageis Quicksand.

Accept Your Genius And Say What You Think.

I Wish The Days To Be As Centuries, Loaded, Fragrant. Now We Reckon Them As Bank-days, By Some Debt Which Is To Be Paid Us, Or Which We Are To Pay, Or Some Pleasure We Are To Taste.

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

Let A Man Then Know His Worth And Keep Things Under His Feet.

One Can Never Truly Savor Success Until First Tasting Adversity.

Guard Your Own Spare Moments. They Are Like Uncut Diamonds.

The Virtue In Most Request Is Conformity.

The Eye Is The Best Of Artists.

A Mind Might Ponder Its Thought For An Epoch, And Not Gain So Much Self-knowledge As The Passion Of Love Shall Teach In A Day.

Let The Amelioration In Our Laws Of Property Proceed From The Concession Of The Rich, Not From The Grasping Of The Poor. Let Us Understand That The Equitable Rule Is, That No One Should Take More Than His Share, Let Him Be Ever So Rich.

I Think That The Heroism Which At This Day Would Make On Us The Impression Of Epaminondas And Phocion Must Be That Of A Domestic Conqueror. He Who Shall Bravely And Gracefully Subdue This Gorgon Of Convention And Fashion, And Show Men How To Lead A Clean, Handsome And Heroic Life Amid The Beggarly Elements Of Our Cities And Villages; Whoso Shall Teach Me How To Eat My Meat And Take My Repose And Deal With Men, Without Any Shame Following, Will Restore The Life Of Man To Splendor, And Make His Own Name Dear To All History.

The First And Last Lesson Of Religion Is, "the Things That Are Seen, Are Temporal; The Things That Are Unseen, Are Eternal." It Puts An Affront Upon Nature.

Not Out Of Those, On Whom Systems Of Education Have Exhausted Their Culture, Comes The Helpful Giant To Destroy The Old Or To Build The New, But Out Of Unhandselled Savage Nature, Out Of Terrible Druids And Berserkirs, Come At Last Alfred And Shakespeare.

Whenever You Are Sincerely Pleased You Are Nourished.

Words Are Finite Expressions Of The Infinite Mind.

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.

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.

Life Is Comic Or Pitiful As Soon As The High Ends Of Being Fade Out Of Sight, And Man Becomes Near-sighted, And Can Only Attend Towhat Addresses The Senses.

If You Put A Chain Around The Neck Of A Slave, The Other End Fastens Itself Around Your Own.

Your Actions Speak So Loud, I Can't Hear What You Say.

All The Tools And Engines On Earth Are Only Extensions Of Man's Limbs And Senses.

He In Whom The Love Of Repose Predominates Will Accept The First Creed, The First Philosophy, The First Political Party He Meets — Most Likely His Father's. He Gets Rest, Commodity, And Reputation; But He Shuts The Door Of Truth.

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

Washington, Where An Insignificant Individual May Trespass On A Nation's Time.

Nature Has Her Own Best Mode Of Doing Each Thing, And She Has Somewhere Told It Plainly, If We Will Keep Our Eyes And Ears Open. If Not, She Will Not Be Slow In Undeceiving Us, When We Prefer Our Own Way To Hers.

The Rich Mind Lies In The Sun And Sleeps, And Is Nature.

Among Provocatives, The Next Best Thing To Good Preaching Is Bad Preaching. I Have Even More Thoughts During Or Enduring It Than At Other Times.

Tart, Cathartic Virtue.

If We Must Accept Fate We Are Not Less Compelled To Affirm Liberty, The Significance Of The Individual, The Grandeur Of Duty, The Power Of Character.

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

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

I Give You Joy Of Your Free And Brave Thought. I Have Great Joy In It. I Find Incomparable Things Said Incomparably Well, As They Must Be. I Find The Courage Of Treatment Which So Delights Us, And Which Large Perception Only Can Inspire.

Traveling Is A Fool's Paradise. Our First Journeys Discover To Us The Indifference Of Places. At Home I Dream That At Naples, At Rome, I Can Be Intoxicated With Beauty, And Lose My Sadness. 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. I Seek The Vatican, And The Palaces. I Affect To Be Intoxicated With Sights And Suggestions, But I Am Not Intoxicated. My Giant Goes With Me Wherever I Go.

It Does Not To Dwell On Dreams And Forget To Live, But It Is Equally Foolish To Ignore The Past – Never Forget.

Society Is A Masked Ball, Where Every One Hides His Real Character, And Reveals It By Hiding.

It Must Be That When God Speaketh, He Should Communicate, Not One Thing, But All Things; Should Fill The World With His Voice; Should Scatter Forth Light, Nature, Time, Souls, From The Centre Of The Present Thought; And New Date And New Create The Whole.whenever A Mind Is Simple And Receives A Divine Wisdom, Old Things Pass Away, - Means, Teachers, Texts, Temples Fall; It Lives Now, And Absorbs Past And Future Into The Present Hour. All Things Are Made Sacred By Relation To It,-one As Much As Another. All Things Are Disolved To Ther Center By Thier Cause.

When You Were Born You Were Crying And Everyone Else Was Smiling. Live Your Life So At The End, Your're The One Who Is Smiling And Everyone Else Is Crying.

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.

As We Grow Old, The Beauty Steals Inward.

As Long As A Man Stands In His Own Way, Everything Seems To Be In His Way.

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

The Solid, Solid Universe Is Pervious To Love; With Bandaged Eyes He Never Errs, Around, Below, Above. His Blinding Light He Flingeth White On God's And Satan's Brood, And Reconciles By Mystic Wiles The Evil And The Good.

Whatever Events In Progress Shall Disgust Men With Cities, And Infuse Into Them The Passion For Country Life, And Country Pleasures, Will Render A Service To The Whole Face Of This Continent, And Will Further The Most Poetic Of All The Occupations Of Real Life, The Bringing Out By Art The Native But Hidden Graces Of The Landscape.

Astronomy To The Selfish Becomes Astrology.

Anatomy And Physiology

There Is No Better Way To Exercise The Imagination Than The Study Of The Law.

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

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?

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

It Is About Your Outlook Towards Life. You Can Either Regret Or Rejoice.

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

Manners Have Been Somewhat Cynically Defined To Be A Contrivance Of Wise Men To Keep Fools At A Distance. Fashion Is Shrewd To Detect Those Who Do Not Belong To Her Train, And Seldom Wastes Her Attentions. Society Is Very Swift In Its Instincts, And If You Do Not Belong To It, Resists And Sneers At You, Or Quietly Drops You.

The Merit Claimed For The Anglican Church Is That, If You Let It Alone, It Will Let You Alone.

Perception Is A Mirror Not A Fact. And What I Look On Is My State Of Mind, Reflected Outward.

Great Conversation ... Requires An Absolute Running Of Two Souls Into One.

Therefore We Value The Poet. All The Argument And All The Wisdom Is Not In The Encyclopedia, Or The Treatise On Metaphysics, Or The Body Of Divinity, But In The Sonnet Or The Play.

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

Our Fear Of Death Is Like Our Fear That Summer Will Be Short, But When We Have Had Our Swing Of Pleasure, Our Fill Of Fruit, And Our Swelter Of Heat, We Say We Have Had Our Day.

I Have Heard That Death Takes Us Away From Ill Things, Not From Good. I Have Heard That When We Pronounce The Name Of Man We Pronounce The Belief Of Immortality.

Society Cannot Do Without Cultivated Men. As Soon As The First Wants Are Satisfied, The Higher Wants Become Imperative.

Nothing Is At Last Sacred But The Integrity Of Your Own Mind.

My Gentleman Gives The Law Where He Is; He Will Outpray Saints In Chapel, Outgeneral Veterans In The Field, And Outshine All Courtesy In The Hall. He Is Good Company For Pirates, And Good With Academicians; So That It Is Useless To Fortify Yourself Against Him; He Has The Private Entrance To All Minds, And I Could As Easily Exclude Myself, As Him.

The Compensations Of Calamity Are Made Apparent To The Understanding Also, After Long Intervals Of Time.

The House Praises The Carpenter.

The Most Attractive Class Of People Are Those Who Are Powerful Obliquely, And Not By The Direct Stroke: Men Of Genius, But Not Yetaccredited: One Gets The Cheer Of Their Light, Without Paying Too Great A Tax.

Society Is A Hospital Of Incurables.

To Believe Your Own Thought, To Believe That What Is True For You In Your Private Heart Is True For All Men That Is Genius.

A Man In Debt Is So Far A Slave.

If With Love Thy Heart Has Burned; If Thy Love Is Unreturned; Hide Thy Grief Within Thy Breast, Though It Tear Thee Unexpressed.

A Child Convinced Against His Will Is Of The Same Opinion Still. The Reward For A Thing Well Done, Is To Have Done It.

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.

Thought Is The Blossom; Language The Bud; Action The Fruit Behind It.

I Hate To Be Defended In A Newspaper. As Long As All That Is Said Is Said Against Me, I Feel A Certain Assurance Of Success. But As Soon As Honeyed Words Of Praise Are Spoken For Me, I Feel As One That Lies Unprotected Before His Enemies.

Rings And Jewels Are Not Gifts, But Apologies For Gifts. The Only Gift Is A Portion Of Thyself. Thou Must Bleed For Me. Therefore The Poet Brings His Poem; The Shepherd, His Lamb; The Farmer, Corn; The Miner, A Stone; The Painter, His Picture; The Girl, A Handkerchief Of Her Own Sewing.

Love Is The Bright Foreigner, The Foreign Self.

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

Our Faith Comes In Moments; Our Vice Is Habitual.

When Nature Has Work To Be Done, She Creates A Genius To Do It.

There Is A Time In Every Man's Education When He Arrives At The Conviction That Envy Is Ignorance; That Imitation Is Suicide.

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.

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.

In Imitation Is A Bit Suicide.

Why Should We Assume The Faults Of Our Friend, Or Wife, Or Father, Or Child, Because They Sit Around Our Hearth, Or Are Said To Have The Same Blood?

Nature Will Not Be Buddhist: She Resents Generalizing, And Insults The Philosopher In Every Moment With A Million Fresh Particulars.

Then Climate Is A Great Impediment To Idle Persons; We Often Resolve To Give Up The Care Of The Weather, But Still We Regard The Clouds And The Rain.

If We Consider What Happens In Conversation, In Reveries, In Remorse, In Times Of Passion, In Surprises, In The Instructions Of Dreams, Wherein Often We See Ourselves In Masquerade,--the Droll Disguises Only Magnifying And Enhancing A Real Element, And Forcing It On Our Distinct Notice,--we Shall Catch Many Hints That Will Broaden And Lighten Into Knowledge Of The Secret Of Nature.

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.

There Is One Topic Peremptorily Forbidden To All Well-bred, To All Rational Mortals, Namely, Their Distempers.

Virtues Are, In The Popular Estimate, Rather The Exception Than The Rule. There Is The Man And His Virtues.

What Lies Behind You And What Lies In Front Of You, Pales In Comparison To What Lies Inside Of You.

Among The Map Makers Of Each Generation Are The Risk Takers, Those Who See The Opportunities, Seize The Moment And Expand Man's Vision Of The Future

Visions Of The Future

On The Other Side, The Conservative Party, Composed Of The Most Moderate, Able, And Cultivated Part Of The Population, Is Timid, And Merely Defensive Of Property. It Vindicates No Right, It Aspires To No Real Good, It Brands No Crime, It Proposes No Generous Policy, It Does Not Build, Nor Write, Nor Cherish The Arts, Nor Foster Religion, Nor Establish Schools, Nor Encourage Science, Nor Emancipate The Slave, Nor Befriend The Poor, Or The Indian, Or The Immigrant.

Our Prejudices Are Our Robbers, They Rob Us Valuable Things In Life. People Only See What They Are Prepared To See.

The Sentiment Of Virtue Is A Reverence And Delight In The Presence Of Certain Divine Laws. It Perceives That This Homely Game Of Life We Play, Covers, Under What Seem Foolish Details, Principles That Astonish.

Life Is Short But There Is Always Time For Courtesy.

We Read Often With As Much Talent As We Write.

There Is Something Servile In The Habit Of Seeking After A Law Which We Must Obey.

Every Man Contemplates An Angel In His Future Self.

Any Extraordinary Degree Of Beauty In Man Or Woman Involves A Moral Charm.

Our Admiration Of The Antique Is Not Admiration Of The Old, But Of The Natural.

Spring Still Makes Spring In The Mind When Sixty Years Are Told: Love Wakes Anew This Throbbing Heart, And We Are Never Old Over The Winter Glaciers I See The Summer Glow And Through The Wind-piled Snowdrift The Warm Rosebuds Below.

Not In Nature But In Man Is All The Beauty And Worth He Sees. The World Is Very Empty, And Is Indebted To This Gilding, Exalting Soul For All Its Pride.

Trending Author

Gregg Easterbrook

Lyndon B. Johnson

Category