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At The Gates Of The Forest, The Surprised Man Of The World Is Forced To Leave His City Estimates Of Great And Small, Wise And Foolish. The Knapsack Of Custom Falls Off His Back With The First Step He Makes Into These Precincts. Here Is Sanctity Which Shames Our Religions, And Reality Which Discredits Our Heroes. Here We Find Nature To Be The Circumstance Which Dwarfs Every Other Circumstance, And Judges Like A God All Men That Come To Her.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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At The Gates Of

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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At The Gates Of The Forest, The Surprised Man Of The World Is Forced To Leave His City Estimates Of Great And Small, Wise And Foolish. The Knapsack Of Custom Falls Off His Back With The First Step He Makes Into These Precincts. Here Is Sanctity Which Shames Our Religions, And Reality Which Discredits Our Heroes. Here We Find Nature To Be The Circumstance Which Dwarfs Every Other Circumstance, And Judges Like A God All Men That Come To Her.

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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.

As Men Get On In Life, They Acquire A Love For Sincerity, And Somewhat Less Solicitude To Be Lulled Or Amused. In The Progress Ofthe Character, There Is An Increasing Faith In The Moral Sentiment, And A Decreasing Faith In Propositions.

The Cardinal Virtue Of A Teacher [is] To Protect The Pupil From His Own Influence.

An Individual Is An Encloser. Time And Space, Liberty And Necessity, Truth And Thought, Are Left At Large No Longer.

Not The Sun Or Summer Alone, But Every Hour And Season Yields Its Tribute Of Delight.

Trust Thyself: Every Heart Vibrates To That Iron String. Accept The Place The Divine Providence Has Found For You, The Society Of Your Contemporaries, The Connection Of Events. Great Men Have Always Done So, And Confided Themselves Childlike To The Genius Of Their Age, Betraying Their Perception That The Absolutely Trustworthy Was Seated At Their Heart, Working Through Their Hands, Predominating In All Their Being.

Books Are For Nothing But To Inspire

Before A Leaf-bud Has Burst, Its Whole Life Acts; In The Full-blown Flower There Is No More; In The Leafless Root There Is No Less.

Concentration Is The Secret Of Srength.

Power Educates The Potentate.

Be Not The Slave Of Your Own Past - Plunge Into The Sublime Seas, Dive Deep, And Swim Far.

Thanks To The Morning Light, Thanks To The Foaming Sea, To The Uplands Of New Hampshire, To The Green-haired Forest Free.

Beware Of Too Much Good Staying In Your Hand. It Will Fast Corrupt And Worm Worms. Pay It Away Quickly In Some Sort.

The World Is The Perennial Miracle Which The Soul Worketh.

The Scholar Is That Man Who Must Take Up Into Himself All The Ability Of The Time, All The Contributions Of The Past, All The Hopes Of The Future. He Must Be An University Of Knowledges.

How We Hate This Solemn Ego That Accompanies The Learned, Like A Double, Wherever He Goes.

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

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

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.

The Instincts Of The Ant Are Very Unimportant, Considered As The Ants; But The Moment A Ray Of Relation Is Seen To Be A Monitor, A Little Body With A Mighty Heart, Then All Its Habits, Even That Said To Be Recently Observed, That It Never Sleeps, Become Sublime.

In Art, The Hand Can Never Execute Anything Higher Than The Heart Can Imagine.

If The Black Man Is Feeble And Not Important To The Existing Races, Not On A Parity With The Best Race, The Black Man Must Serve,and Be Exterminated. But If The Black Man Carries In His Bosom An Indispensable Element Of A New And Coming Civilization; For The Sake Of That Element, No Wrong Nor Strength Nor Circumstance Can Hurt Him: He Will Survive And Play His Part. So Now, The Arrival In The World Of Such Men As Toussaint, And The Haytian Heroes, Or Of The Leaders Of Their Race In Barbadoes And Jamaica, Outweighs In Good Omen All The English And American Humanity.

How Silent, How Spacious, What Room For All, Yet Without Place To Insert An Atom--in Graceful Succession, In Equal Fullness, In Balanced Beauty, The Dance Of The Hours Goes Forward Still. Like An Odor Of Incense, Like A Strain Of Music, Like A Sleep, It Is Inexact And Boundless. It Will Not Be Dissected, Nor Unraveled, Nor Shown.

There Are No Days In Life So Memorable As Those Which Vibrate To Some Stroke Of The Imagination.

Explore, And Explore. Be Neither Chided Nor Flattered Out Of Your Position Of Perpetual Inquiry. Neither Dogmatize Or Accept Another's Dogmatism.

Moderation In All Things, Especially Moderation.

Moderation In All Things

I Am Constrained Every Moment To Acknowledge A Higher Origin For Events Than The Will I Call Mine.

The Foundations Of A Person Are Not In Matter But In Spirit.

Self-trust Is The First Secret Of Success, The Belief That If You Are Here The Authorities Of The Universe Put You Here, And For Cause, Or With Some Task Strictly Appointed You In Your Constitution, And So Long As You Work At That You Are Well And Successful

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

I Honor Health As The First Muse, And Sleep As The Condition Of Health. Sleep Benefits Mainly By The Sound Health It Produces; Incidentally Also By Dreams, Into Whose Farrago A Divine Lesson Is Sometimes Slipped.

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

Conversation Is The Laboratory And Workshop Of The Student.

When A Man Meets His Make, Society Begins.

Who Shall Set A Limit To The Influence Of A Human Being? There Are Men, Who, By Their Sympathetic Attractions, Carry Nations Withthem, And Lead The Activity Of The Human Race. And If There Be Such A Tie, That, Wherever The Mind Of Man Goes, Nature Will Accompany Him, Perhaps There Are Men Whose Magnetisms Are Of That Force To Draw Material And Elemental Powers, And, Where They Appear, Immense Instrumentalities Organize Around Them.

Every Particular In Nature, A Leaf, A Drop, A Crystal, A Moment Of Time Is Related To The Whole, And Partakes Of The Perfection Of The Whole.

Conservatism Stands On Man's Confessed Limitations; Reform On His Indisputable Infinitude; Conservatism On Circumstance; Liberalism On Power; One Goes To Make An Adroit Member Of The Social Frame; The Other To Postpone All Things To The Man Himself.

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

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.

The Rain Comes When The Wind Calls.

Immitation Is Suicide.

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.

There Are Many Faculties In Man, Each Of Which Takes Its Turn Of Activity, And That Faculty Which Is Paramount In Any Period And Exerts Itself Through The Strongest Nation, Determines The Civility Of That Age: And Each Age Thinks Its Own The Perfection Of Reason.

"though Many Painters And Sculptors Talk Glibly Of "going In For Photography," You Will Find That Very Few Of Them Can Ever Make A Picture By Photography; They Lack The Science, Technical Knowledge, And Above All The Practice. Most People Think They Can Play Tennis, Shoot, Write Novels, And Photograph As Well As Any Other Person - Until They Try."

There Is Never A Beginning, There Is Never An End, To The Inexplicable Continuity Of This Web Of God, But Always Circular Power Returning Into Itself.

We Pass For What We Are.

The Only Thing Grief Has Taught Me Is To Know How Shallow It Is.

The Universe Is The Externalization Of The Soul.

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 Counting-room Maxims Liberally Expounded Are Laws Of The Universe. The Merchant's Economy Is A Coarse Symbol Of The Soul's Economy. It Is, To Spend For Power, And Not For Pleasure.

We Live In A Very Low State Of The World, And Pay Unwilling Tribute To Government Founded On Force. There Is Not, Among The Most Religious And Instructed Men Of The Most Religious And Civil Nations, A Reliance On The Moral Sentiment, And A Sufficient Belief In The Unity Of Things To Persuade Them That Society Can Be Maintained Without Artificial Restraints, As Well As The Solar System; Or That The Private Citizen Might Be Reasonable, And A Good Neighbor, Without The Hint Of A Jail Or A Confiscation.

Genius Detects Through The Fly, Through The Caterpillar, Through The Grub, Through The Egg, The Constant Individual; Through Countless Individuals The Fixed Species; Through Many Species The Genus; Through All Genera The Steadfast Type; Through All The Kingdoms Of Organized Life The Eternal Unity. Nature Is A Mutable Cloud Which Is Always And Never The Same.

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

The Objection To Conforming To Usages That Have Become Dead To You Is, That It Scatters Your Force.

No Man Can Help Another Without Helping Himself.

The Virtues Of Society Are The Vices Of The Saints.

Let None Presume To Measure The Irregularities Of Michael Angelo Or Socrates By Village Scales.

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

Nature Tells Every Secret Once.

But Whoso Is Heroic Must Find Crises To Try His Edge. Human Virtue Demands Her Champions And Martyrs, And The Trial Of Persecution Always Proceeds.

It Is Plain That There Is No Separate Essence Called Courage, No Cup Or Cell In The Brain, No Vessel In The Heart Containing Drops Or Atoms That Make Or Give This Virtue; But It Is The Right Or Healthy State Of Every Man, When He Is Free To Do That Which Is Constitutional To Him To Do.

A State Of War Or Anarchy, In Which Law Has Little Force, Is So Far Valuable, That It Puts Every Man On Trial. The Man Of Principle Is Known As Such, And Even In The Fury Of Faction Is Respected.

Wisdom Will Never Let Us Stand With Any Man On An Unfriendly Footing. We Refuse Sympathy And Intimacy With People, As If We Waited For Some Better Sympathy Or Intimacy To Come. But Whence And When: Tomorrow Will Be Like Today. Life Wastes Itself While We Are Preparing To Live.

Everything In Our World, Even A Drop Of Dew, Is A Microcosm Of The Universe.

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.

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.

The Wise Man In The Storm Prays God Not For Safety From Danger But For Deliverance From Fear. It Is The Storm Within Which Endangers Him[,] Not The Storm Without.

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.

The Relations Of The Soul To The Divine Spirit Are So Pure, That It Is Profane To Seek To Interpose Helps.

We Are Shut Up In Schools And College Recitation Rooms For Ten Or Fifteen Years, And Come Out At Last With A Bellyful Of Words And Do Not Know A Thing.

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

We Love Force And We Care Very Little How It Is Exhibited.

The Progress Of Religion Is Steadily To Its Identity With Morals. Strength Enters Just As Much As The Moral Element Prevails.

Self-trust Is The First Secret Of Success.

Men Achieve A Certain Greatness Unawares When Working To Another Aim.

We May Like Well To Know What Is Plato’s And What Is Montesquieu’s Or Goethe’s Part, And What Thought Was Always Dear To The Writer Himself; But The Worth Of The Sentences Consists In Their Radiancy And Equal Aptitude To All Intelligence. They Fit All Our Facts Like A Charm. We Respect Ourselves The More That We Know Them.

In Every Man's Memory, With The Hours When Life Culminated Are Usually Associated Certain Books Which Met His Views.

It Is The Secret Of The World That All Things Subsist And Do Not Die, But Only Retire A Little From Sight And Afterward Return Again.

Works Of The Intellect Are Great Only By Comparison With Each Other.

Spoons And Skimmers You Can Be Undistinguishably Together; But Vases And Statues Require Each A Pedestal For Itself.

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

God Will Not Have His Work Made Manifest By Cowards

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

"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."

The Secret Of Drunkenness Is, That It Insulates Us In Thought, Whilst It Unites Us In Feeling.

Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things.

The Element Running Through Entire Nature, Which We Popularly Call Fate, Is Known To Us As Limitation. Whatever Limits Us, We Callfate.

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

Society Has Really No Graver Interest Than The Well-being Of The Literary Class.

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.

Let The Realist Not Mind Appearances. Let Him Delegate To Others The Costly Courtesies And Decorations Of Social Life. The Virtuesare Economists, But Some Of The Vices Are Also. Thus, Next To Humility, I Have Noticed That Pride Is A Pretty Good Husband. A Good Pride Is, As I Reckon It, Worth From Five Hundred To Fifteen Hundred A Year.

Crime And Punishment Grow Out Of One Stem.

Genius Is Always Sufficiently The Enemy Of Genius By Over Influence. The Literature Of Every Nation Bear Me Witness. The English Dramatic Poets Have Shakspearized Now For Two Hundred Years.

Why Should We Grope Among The Dry Bones Of The Past, Or Put The Living Generation Into Masquerade Out Of Its Faded Wardrobe?

All Sensible People Are Selfish, And Nature Is Tugging At Every Contract To Make The Terms Of It Fair.

Nor Sequent Centuries Could Hitorbit And Sum Of Shakespeare's Wit.

Tis The Good Reader That Makes The Good Book; A Good Head Cannot Read Amiss: In Every Book He Finds Passages Which Seem Confidences Or Asides Hidden From All Else And Unmistakeably Meant For His Ear.

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.

Very Idle Is All Curiosity Concerning Other People's Estimate Of Us, And All Fear Of Remaining Unknown Is Not Less So.

The Noblest Ministry Of Nature Is To Stand As The Apparition Of God.

But The Nomads Were The Terror Of All Those Whom The Soil Or The Advantages Of The Market Had Induced To Build Towns. Agriculture Therefore Was A Religious Injunction, Because Of The Perils Of The State From Nomadism.

I Wish That Life Should Not Be Cheap, But Sacred. I Wish The Days To Be As Centuries, Loaded, Fragrant.

When Believers And Unbelievers Live In The Same Manner - I Distrust The Religion.

When It Comes To Divide An Estate, The Politest Men Quarrel.

What A Man Does, That He Has. What Has He To Do With Hope Or Fear? In Himself Is His Might. Let Him Regard No Good As Solid But That Which Is In His Nature, And Which Must Grow Out Of Him As Long As He Exists. The Goods Of Fortune May Come And Go Like Summer Leaves; Let Him Scatter Them On Every Wind As The Momentary Signs Of His Infinite Productiveness.

The Terrors Of The Child Are Quite Reasonable, And Add To His Loveliness; For His Utter Ignorance And Weakness, And His Enchanting Indignation On Such A Small Basis Of Capital Compel Every Bystander To Take His Part.

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

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.

Our Poets Are Men Of Talents Who Sing, And Not The Children Of Music.

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.

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

The Cold, Inconsiderate Of Persons, Tingles Your Blood, Benumbs Your Feet, Freezes A Man Like An Apple.

God Will Not Make Himself Manifest To Cowards

There Is No God Dare Wrong A Worm.

There Is No God

In Every Situation Do The Thing You Fear. If You Do The Thing You Fear, The Death Of Fear Is Certain.

Each Mind Has Its Own Method.

Infancy Conforms To Nobody; All Conform To It.

Nature Is A Mutable Cloud Which Is Always And Never The Same.

Life Only Avails, Not The Having Lived.

Always Scorn Appearances And You Always May.

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

A Nation, Like A Tree, Does Not Thrive Well Till It Is Engraffed With A Foreign Stock.

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

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.

When The Vain Speaker Has Sat Down, And The People Say 'what A Good Speech,' It Still Takes An Ounce To Balance An Ounce.

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

In Haydn's Oratorios, The Notes Present To The Imagination Not Only Motions, As, Of The Snake, The Stag, And The Elephant, But Colors Also; As The Green Grass.

Each Man Too Is A Tyrant In Tendency, Because He Would Impose His Idea On Others; And Their Trick Is Their Natural Defence. Jesuswould Absorb The Race; But Tom Paine Or The Coarsest Blasphemer Helps Humanity By Resisting This Exuberance Of Power.

The Walking Of Man Is Falling Forwards.

If The Race Is Good, So Is The Place.

There Can Never Be Deep Peace Between Two Spirits, Never Mutual Respect, Until, In Their Dialogue, Each Stands For The Whole World.

Friendship Requires More Time Than Poor Busy Men Can Usually Command.

Adult Males Are What Their Moms Designed Them.

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

Truly Speaking, It Is Not Instruction, But Provocation, That I Can Receive From Another Soul. What He Announces, I Must Find True In Me, Or Reject; And On His Word, Or As His Second, Be He Who He May, I Can Accept Nothing.

Solitary Converse With Nature; For Thence Are Ejaculated Sweet And Dreadful Words Never Uttered In Libraries. Ah! The Spring Days, The Summer Dawns, And October Woods!

When Some External Event Raises Your Spirits And You Think Good Days Are Preparing For You, Do Not Believe It. It Can Never Be So. Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself.

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

Consideration Is The Soil In Which Wisdom May Be Expected To Grow, And Strength Be Given To Every Up-springing Plant Of Duty.

A Moment Is A Concentrated Eternity.

I Could Better Eat With One Who Did Not Respect The Truth Or The Laws, Than With A Sloven And Unpresentable Person. Moral Qualities Rule The World, But At Shorter Distances, The Senses Are Despotic.

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

The Scholar Was Not Raised By The Sacred Thoughts Amongst Which He Dwelt, But Used Them To Selfish Ends. He Was A Profane Person,and Became A Showman, Turning His Gifts To Marketable Use, And Not To His Own Sustenance And Growth. It Was Found That The Intellect Could Be Independently Developed, That Is, In Separation From The Man, As Any Single Organ Can Be Invigorated, And The Result Was Monstrous.

Most Of The Classical Citations You Shall Hear Or Read In The Current Journals Or Speeches Were Not Drawn From The Originals, But From Previous Quotations In English Books.

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

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

Sorrow Makes Us All Children Again.

All Natural Objects Make A Kindred Impression, When The Mind Is Open To Their Influence.

What Is The Imagination? Only An Arm Or Weapon Of The Interior Energy; Only The Precursor Of The Reason.

I Am So Much A Unitarian As This: That I Believe The Human Mind Can Admit But One God, And That Every Effort To Pay Religious Homage To More Than One Being Goes To Take Away All Right Ideas.

Why Has My Motley Diary No Jokes? Because It Is A Soliloquy And Every Man Is Grave Alone.

Eloquence Is The Power To Translate A Truth Into Language Perfectly Intelligible To The Person To Whom You Speak.

Ah Fate, Cannot A Man Be Wise Without A Beard? East, West, From Beer To Dan, Say, Was It Never Heard That Wisdom Might In Youth Be Gotten, Or Wit Be Ripe Before 't Was Rotten?

An Imaginative Book Renders Us Much More Service At First, By Stimulating Us Through Its Tropes, Than Afterward, When We Arrive Atthe Precise Sense Of The Author. I Think Nothing Is Of Any Value In Books, Excepting The Transcendental And Extraordinary.

When We See A Special Reformer We Feel Like Asking Him, What Right Have You, Sir, To Your Own Virtue? Is Virtue Piecemeal?

My Joy In Friends, Those Sacred People, Is My Consolation.

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

The Good Spirit Never Cared For The Colleges, And Though All Men And Boys Were Now Drilled In Greek, Latin, And Mathematics, It Had Quite Left These Shells High On The Beach, And Was Creating And Feeding Other Matters [science] At Other Ends Of The World.

The Cheapness Of Man Is Every Day's Tragedy. It Is As Real A Loss That Others Should Be Low, As That We Should Be Low; For We Musthave A Society.

Love Is Our Highest Word And The Synonym Of God.

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.

Life Has No Memory. That Which Proceeds In Succession Might Be Remembered, But That Which Is Coexistent, Or Ejaculated From A Deeper Cause, As Yet Far From Being Conscious, Knows Not Its Own Tendency.

There Is One Mind Common To All Individual Men. Every Man Is An Inlet To The Same And To All Of The Same.

Astronomy Taught Us Our Insignificance In Nature.

But The Mark Of American Merit In Painting, In Sculpture, In Poetry, In Fiction, In Eloquence, Seems To Be A Certain Grace Withoutgrandeur, And Itself Not New But Derivative; A Vase Of Fair Outline, But Empty,--which Whoso Sees, May Fill With What Wit And Character Is In Him, But Which Does Not, Like The Charged Cloud, Overflow With Terrible Beauty, And Emit Lightnings On All Beholders.

The Unsaid Part Is The Best Of Every Discourse.

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.

Stand Guard At The Portal Of Your Mind.

But A Compassion For That Which Is Not And Cannot Be Useful And Lovely, Is Degrading And Futile.

Take Egotism Out And You Would Castrate The Benefactors.

Everything Intercepts Us From Ourselves.

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.

Fear Always Springs From Ignorance.

The Richest Of All Lords Is Use, And Ruddy Health The Loftiest Muse. Live In The Sunshine, Swim The Sea, Drink The Wild Air's Salubrity.

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

Self Improvement

But Genius Looks Forward: The Eyes Of Men Are Set In His Forehead, Not In His Hindhead: Man Hopes: Genius Creates.

I Cannot Find Language Of Sufficient Energy To Convey My Sense Of The Sacredness Of Private Integrity. All Men, All Things, The State, The Church, Yea The Friends Of The Heart Are Phantasms And Unreal Beside The Sanctuary Of The Heart. With So Much Awe, With So Much Fear, Let It Be Respected.

Every Materialist Will Be An Idealist; But An Idealist Can Never Go Backward To Be A Materialist.

The Senses Interfere Everywhere, And Mix Their Own Structure With All They Report Of.

Why Should Not We Have A Poetry And Philosophy Of Insight And Not Of Tradition, And A Religion By Revelation To Us, And Not The History Of Theirs?

Man's Actions Are The Picture Book Of His Creeds.

We Seek Our Friend Not Sacredly, But With An Adulterate Passion Which Would Appropriate Him To Ourselves.

Nature Is Sanative, Refining, Elevating. How Cunningly She Hides Every Wrinkle Of Her Inconceivable Antiquity Under Roses, And Violets, And Morning Dew! Every Inch Of The Mountains Is Scarred By Unimaginable Convulsions, Yet The New Day Is Purple With The Bloom Of Youth And Love.

The Affirmative Class Monopolize The Homage Of Mankind. They Originate And Execute All The Great Feats. What A Force Was Coiled Upin The Skull Of Napoleon!

An Answer In Words Is Delusive; It Is Really No Answer To The Questions You Ask.

Milton Says, That The Lyric Poet May Drink Wine And Live Generously, But The Epic Poet, He Who Shall Sing Of The Gods, And Their Descent Unto Men, Must Drink Water Out Of A Wooden Bowl. For Poetry Is Not "devil's Wine," But God's Wine.

Difficulties Exist To Be Surmounted.

A Man Cannot Speak But He Judges Himself

We Fly To Beauty As An Asylum From The Terrors Of Finite Nature.

Thus Grows Up Fashion, An Equivocal Semblance, The Most Puissant, The Most Fantastic And Frivolous, The Most Feared And Followed, And Which Morals And Violence Assault In Vain.

A Farm Is A Good Thing, When It Begins And Ends With Itself, And Does Not Need A Salary, Or A Shop, To Eke It Out.

But Whoso Is Heroic Will Always Find Crises To Try His Edge.

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

Society Does Not Love Its Unmaskers.

With Most Men, Scarce A Link Of Memory Holds Yesterday And To-day Together.

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.

Knowledge, Virtue, Power Are The Victories Of Man Over His Necessities, His March To The Dominion Of The World.

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 True Ship Is The Ship Builder.

Do Not Believe That Possibly You Can Escape The Reward Of Your Action.

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