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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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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But Hospitality Must Be

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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.

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

For, Truly Speaking, Whoever Provokes Me To A Good Act Or Thought Has Given Me A Pledge Of His Fidelity To Virtue,--he Has Come Under The Bonds To Adhere To That Cause To Which We Are Jointly Attached.

We Have More Than We Use.

Use It Or Lose It

Power Is The First Good.

Let Not The Emphasis Of Hospitality Lie In Bed And Board; But Let Truth And Love And Honor And Courtesy Flow In All Thy Deeds.

But The Best Read Naturalist Who Lends An Entire And Devout Attention To Truth, Will See That There Remains Much To Learn Of His Relation To The World, And That It Is Not To Be Learned By Any Addition Or Subtraction Or Other Comparison Of Known Quantities, But Is Arrived At By Untaught Sallies Of The Spirit, By A Continual Self-recovery, And By Entire Humility.

The Borrowing Is Often Honest Enough, And Comes Of Magnanimity And Stoutness. A Great Man Quotes Bravely And Will Not Draw On His Invention When His Memory Serves Him With A Word As Good.

Give The Slave The Least Elevation Of Religious Sentiment, And He Is Not Slave: You Are The Slave: He Not Only In His Humility Feels His Superiority, Feels That Much Deplored Condition Of His To Be A Fading Trifle, But He Makes You Feel It Too. He Is The Master.

What School, College, Or Lecture Bring Men Depends On What Men Bring To Carry It Home In.

Every Man Is Grave Alone.

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.

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

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.

All Science Is Transcendental Or Else Passes Away.

In Self-trust All The Virtues Are Comprehended.

The Conscious Utterance Of Thought, By Speech Or Action, To Any End, Is Art.

I Think Sometimes Could I Only Have Music On My Own Terms, Could I Live In A Great City, And Know Where I Could Go Whenever I Wished The Ablution And Inundation Of Musical Waves, That Were A Bath And A Medicine.

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

Be Brave Enough To Do The Loving Thing.

Is The Parent Better Than The Child Into Whom He Has Cast His Ripened Being? Whence, Then, This Worship Of The Past?

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

There Is No Planet, Sun, Or Star Could Hold You If You But Knew What You Are.

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!

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

If You Want A Friend You Need To Be A Friend.

If We Encounter A Man Of Rare Intellect, We Should Ask Him What Books He Reads.

Good Thoughts Are No Better Than Good Dreams If You Don't Follow Through.

I Can Believe A Miracle Because I Can Raise My Own Arm. I Can Believe A Miracle Because I Can Remember. I Can Believe It Because I Can Speak And Be Understood By You.

For It Is Not Metres, But A Metre-making Argument That Makes A Poem.

Give Me Truths For I Am Weary Of The Surfaces.

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.

Don't Waste Life In Doubts And Fears; Spend Yourself On The Work Before You, Well Assured That The Right Performance Of This Hour's Duties Will Be The Best Preparation For The Hours And Ages That Will Follow It.

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.

The Visible Heavens And Earth Sympathize With Jesus.

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

Coffee Is Good For Talent, But Genius Wants Prayer.

When I Was Praised I Lost My Time, For Instantly I Turned Around To Look At The Work I Had Thought Slightly Of, And That Day I Made Nothing New.

The Other Terror That Scares Us From Self-trust Is Our Consistency; A Reverence For Our Past Act Or Word, Because The Eyes Of Others Have No Other Data For Computing Our Orbit Than Our Past Acts, And We Are Loath To Disappoint Them.

The World Still Wants Its Poet-priest, A Reconciler, Who Shall Not Trifle With Shakspeare The Player, Nor Shall Grope In Graves With Swedenborg The Mourner; But Who Shall See, Speak, And Act, With Equal Inspiration. For Knowledge Will Brighten The Sunshine; Right Is More Beautiful Than Private Affection; And Love Is Compatible With Universal Wisdom.

The True Artist Has The Planet For His Pedestal; The Adventurer, After Years Of Strife, Has Nothing Broader Than His Shoes.

The World Is The Perennial Miracle Which The Soul Worketh.

Man Exists For His Own Sake And Not To Add A Laborer To The State.

We Walk Alone In The World. Friends, Such As We Desire, Are Dreams And Fables.

In Failing Circumstances No One Can Be Relied On To Keep Their Integrity.

Make The Most Of Yourself, For That Is All There Is Of You.

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

The Difference Between Talent And Genius Is That Talent Says Things Which He Has Never Heard But Once, And Genius Things Which He Has Never Heard.

"in The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith. There I Feel That Nothing Can Befall Me In Life~~no Disgrace, No Calamity (leaving Me My Eyes), Which Nature Cannot Repair."

We Are Ashamed Of Our Thoughts And Often See Them Brought Forth By Others.

All Poets Have Signalized Their Consciousness Of Rare Moments When They Were Superior To Themselves, -when A Light, A Freedom, A Power Came To Them Which Lifted Them To Performances Far Better Than They Could Reach At Other Times.

Wherever The Truth Is Injured, Defend It.

Away With This Hurrah Of Masses, And Let Us Have The Considerate Vote Of Single Men.

There Is An Intimate Interdependence Of Intellect And Morals.

Great Men, Great Nations, Have Not Been Boasters And Buffoons, But Perceivers Of The Terror Of Life, And Have Manned Themselves To Face It.

A Man Is What He Thinks About All Day Long.

A Little Fact Is Worth A Whole Limbo Of Dreams.

Patience And Fortitude Conquer All Things.

Every Ship Is A Romantic Object, Except That We Sail In. Embark, And The Romance Quits Our Vessel, And Hangs On Every Other Sail In The Horizon.

Heaven Sometimes Hedges A Rare Character About With Ungainliness And Odium, As The Burr That Protects The Fruit.

Not For Nothing One Face, One Character, One Fact Makes Much Impression On Him, And Another None.

The Person Who Screams, Or Uses The Superlative Degree, Or Converses With Heat Puts Whole Drawing-rooms To Flight. If You Wish To Be Loved, Love Measure.

The Scholar May Lose Himself In Schools, In Words, And Become A Pedant; But When He Comprehends His Duties, He Above All Men Is Arealist, And Converses With Things.

The Soul Is The Perceiver And Revealer Of Truth. We Know Truth When We See It, Let Skeptic And Scoffer Say What They Choose.

But It Is A Cold, Lifeless Business When You Go To The Shops To Buy Something, Which Does Not Represent Your Life And Talent, But A Goldsmith's.

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.

Fear Is A Great Instructor.

One Of The Illusions Of Life Is That The Present Hour Is Not The Critical Decisive Hour. Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day Of The Year. He Only Is Right Who Owns The Day, And No One Owns The Day Who Allows It To Be Invaded By Worry, Fret And Anxiety. Finish Every Day, And Be Done With It. You Have Done What You Could.

If A Teacher Have Any Opinion Which He Wishes To Conceal, His Pupils Will Become As Fully Indoctrinated Into That As Into Any Which He Publishes.

The Way To Mend The Bad World Is To Create The Right World.

The Idea Of God Ends In A Paltry Methodist Meeting-house.

All Good Conversation, Manners, And Action Come From A Spontaneity Which Forgets Usages And Makes The Moment Great.

A Healthy Soul Stands United With The Just And The True, As The Magnet Arranges Itself With The Pole, So That He Stands To All Beholders Like A Transparent Object Betwixt Them And The Sun, And Whoso Journeys Towards The Sun, Journeys Towards That Person. He Is Thus The Medium Of The Highest Influence To All Who Are Not On The Same Level.

To Different Minds, The Same World Is A Hell, And A Heaven Depending On Whether They Compare It To Something Better And So Feel Disappointed And Bitter Or Something Worse And So Feel Relieved And Grateful.

The Only Prudence In Life Is Concentration.

Focus And Concentration

It Has Been The Office Of Art To Educate The Perception Of Beauty. We Are Immersed In Beauty But Our Eyes Have No Clear Vision.

Sometimes A Scream Is Better Than A Thesis.

Out Of Love And Hatred, Out Of Earnings And Borrowings And Leadings And Losses; Out Of Sickness And Pain; Out Of Wooing And Worshipping; Out Of Traveling And Voting And Watching And Caring; Out Of Disgrace And Contempt, Comes Our Tuition In The Serene And Beautiful Laws.

Knowledge Is The Only Elegance.

A Man Is A God In Ruins. When Men Are Innocent, Life Shall Be Longer, And Shall Pass Into The Immortal, As Gently As We Awake From Dreams.

The Hand That Rounded Peter's Dome, And Groined The Aisles Of Christian Rome, Wrought In A Sad Sincerity; Himself From God He Could Not Free; He Builded Better Than He Knew: The Conscious Stone To Beauty Grew.

My Angel,-his Name Is Freedom,- Choose Him To Be Your King; He Shall Cut Pathways East And West, And Fend You With His Wing.

A Day Is A Miniature Eternity.

Real Action Is In Silent Moments.

Do The Thing And You Will Have The Power. But They That Do Not The Thing, Had Not The Power.

Work And Thou Canst Escape The Reward; Whether The Work Be Fine Or Course, Planting Corn Or Writing Epics, So Only It Be Honest Work, Done To Thine Own Approbation, It Shall Earn A Reward To The Senses As Well As To The Thought.

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 Are All Wise For Other People, None For Himself.

It Is One Soul Which Animates All Men.

To Laugh Often And Love Much; To Win The Respect Of Intelligent Persons And The Affection Of Children; To Earn The Approbation Of Honest Critics And Endure The Betrayal Of False Friends; To Appreciate Beauty.

The People Know That They Need In Their Representative Much More Than Talent, Namely, The Power To Make His Talent Trusted.

Yet Time And Space Are But Inverse Measures Of The Force Of The Soul. The Spirit Sports With Time.

We Are Immersed In Beauty, But Our Eyes Have No Clear Vision.

The Best Picture Makes Us Say, I Am A Painter Also.

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.

The Poet's Habit Of Living Should Be Set On A Key So Low That The Common Influences Should Delight Him.

For, Though The Origin Of Most Of Our Words Is Forgotten, Each Word Was At First A Stroke Of Genius, And Obtained Currency, Because For The Moment It Symbolized The World To The First Speaker And To The Hearer. The Etymologist Finds The Deadest Word To Have Been Once A Brilliant Picture.

A Good Form Strikes All Eyes Pleasantly, Long Before They Have Any Science On The Subject; And A Beautiful Face Sets Twenty Hearts In Palpitation, Prior To All Consideration Of The Mechanical Proportions Of The Features And Head.

That Which We Do Not Call Education Is More Precious Than That Which We Call So.

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

It Is The Privilege Of Any Human Work Which Is Well Done To Invest The Doer With A Certain Haughtiness. He Can Well Afford Not To Conciliate, Whose Faithful Work Will Answer For Him.

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.

[gratitude Is] The Cheerfulness Of Wisdom.

Democracy Is Morose, And Runs To Anarchy.

It Sometimes Occurs That Memory Has A Personality Of Its Own And Volunteers Or Refuses Its Information At Its Will, Not At Mine.

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.

The Influence Of The Senses Have In Men Overpowered The Thought To The Degree That The Walls Of Time And Space Have Come To Look Solid, Real And Insurmountable. .. Yet Time And Space Are But Inverse Measures Of The Power Of The Mind. Man Is Capable Of Abolishing Them Both.

People Destined To Meet Will Do So, Apparently By Chance, At Precisely The Right Moment.

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

The Truth, The Hope, Of Any Time Must Be Sought In The Minorities. Michael Angelo Was The Conscience Of Italy. We Grow Free With His Name, And Find It Ornamental Now, But In His Own Day His Friends Were Few.

Conversation Is A Game Of Circles.

Great Is Paint; Nay, God Is The Painter; And We Rightly Accuse The Critic Who Destroys Too Many Illusions. Society Does Not Love Its Unmaskers.

Tis Good-will Makes Intelligence.

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.

We Expect A Great Man To Be A Good Reader.

Pictures Must Not Be Too Picturesque.

Without The Great Arts Which Speak To The Sense Of Beauty, A Man Seems To Me A Poor, Naked, Shivering Creature. These Are His Becoming Draperies, Which Warm And Adorn Him.

Commonsense Is The Wick Of The Candle.

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

Let The Bird Sing Without Deciphering The Song.

Build Therefore Your Own World.

I Will Not Live Out Of Me I Will Not See With Others' Eyes My Good Is Good, My Evil Ill I Would Be Free.

The Search After The Great Men Is The Dream Of Youth, And The Most Serious Occupation Of Manhood.

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.

Wherever Work Is Done, Victory Is Attained.

Let Him Go Where He Will, He Can Only Find So Much Beauty Or Worth As He Carries.

Teaching Is The Perpetual End And Office Of All Things. Teaching, Instruction Is The Main Design That Shines Through The Sky And Earth.

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

Only An Inventor Knows How To Borrow, And Every Man Is Or Should Be An Inventor.

There Is A Persuasion In The Soul Of Man That He Is Here For Cause, That He Was Put Down In This Place By The Creator To Do The Work For Which He Inspires Him, That Thus He Is An Overmatch For All Antagonists That Could Combine Against Him.

The Piety Of The Hebrew Prophets Purges Their Grossness. The Circumcision Is An Example Of The Power Of Poetry To Raise The Low And Offensive.

The Lover Never Sees Personal Resemblances In His Mistress To Her Kindred Or To Others. His Friends Find In Her A Likeness To Hermother, Or Her Sisters, Or To Persons Not Of Her Blood. The Lover Sees No Resemblance Except To Summer Evenings And Diamond Mornings, To Rainbows And The Song Of Birds.

Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day In The Year. He Is Rich Who Owns The Day, And No One Owns The Day Who Allows It To Be Invaded With Fret And Anxiety. Finish Every Day And Be Done With It. You Have Done What You Could. Some Blunders And Absurdities, No Doubt Crept In. Forget Them As Soon As You Can, Tomorrow Is A New Day; Begin It Well And Serenely, With Too High A Spirit To Be Cumbered With Your Old Nonsense. This New Day Is Too Dear, With Its Hopes And Invitations, To Waste A Moment On The Yesterdays.

A Character Is Like An Acrostic Or Alexandrian Stanza; - Read It Forward, Backward, Or Across, It Still Spells The Same Thing.

All Power Is Of One Kind, A Sharing Of The Nature Of The World. The Mind That Is Parallel With The Laws Of Nature Will Be In The Current Of Events, And Strong With Their Strength.

Skepticism Is Unbelief In Cause And Effect.

Cause And Effect

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.

All Infractions Of Love And Equity In Our Social Relations Are ... Punished By Fear.

Genius Seems To Consist Merely In Trueness Of Sight, In Using Such Words As Show That The Man Was An Eye-witness, And Not A Repeater Of What Was Told.

Civilization Depends On Morality.

If With Love Thy Heart Has Burned; If Thy Love Is Unreturned; Hide Thy Grief Within Thy Breast, Though It Tear Thee Unexpressed; For When Love Has Once Departed From The Eyes Of The False-hearted, And One By One Has Torn Off Quite The Bandages Of Purple Light; Though Thou Wert The Loveliest Form The Soul Had Ever Dressed, Thou Shalt Seem, In Each Reply, A Vixen To His Altered Eye; Thy Softest Pleadings Seem Too Bold, Thy Praying Lute Will Seem To Scold; Though Thou Kept The Straightest Road, Yet Thou Errest Far And Broad.

Always The Seer Is A Sayer. Somehow His Dream Is Told; Somehow He Publishes It With Solemn Joy: Sometimes With Pencil On Canvas, Sometimes With Chisel On Stone, Sometimes In Towers And Aisles Of Granite, His Soul's Worship Is Builded; Sometimes In Anthems Of Indefinite Music, But Clearest And Most Permanent, In Words.

Too Busy With The Crowded Hour To Fear To Live Or Die.

There Can Be No High Civility Without A Deep Morality, Though It May Not Always Call Itself By That Name.

To Laugh Often And Much ... This Is To Have Succeeded. Probably Not From Emerson: Here's The Full Quotation And The Story.

The Silence That Accepts Merit As The Most Natural Thing In The World Is The Highest Applause.

All That Can Be Done For You Is Nothing To What You Can Do For Yourself.

The Maxim Of Courts Is That Manner Is Power.

Each Man, If He Attempts To Join Himself To Others, Is On All Sides Cramped And Diminished Of His Proportion; And The Stricter Theunion, The Smaller And The More Pitiful He Is. But Leave Him Alone, To Recognize In Every Hour And Place The Secret Soul, He Will Go Up And Down Doing The Works Of A True Member, And, To The Astonishment Of All, The Work Will Be Done With Concert, Though No Man Spoke.

Literature Is The Effort Of Man To Indemnify Himself For The Wrongs Of His Condition.

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.

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.

Solitude Is Naught And Society Is Naught. Alternate Them And The Good Of Each Is Seen.

Nature Ever Faithful Is To Such As Trust Her Faithfulness.

We Do Not Quite Forgive A Giver. The Hand That Feeds Us Is In Some Danger Of Being Bitten.

He Is Rich Who Owns The Day, And No One Owns The Day Who Allows It To Be Invaded With Fret And Anxiety.

Every Industrious Man, In Every Lawful Calling, Is A Useful Man. And One Principal Reason Why Men Are So Often Useless Is That They Neglect Their Own Profession Or Calling, And Divide And Shift Their Attention Among A Multiplicity Of Objects And Pursuits.

There Is Always Room For A Person Of Force And They Make Room For Many.

I Think No Virtue Goes With Size;the Reason Of All Cowardiceis, That Men Are Overgrown,and, To Be Valiant, Must Come Downto The Titmouse Dimension.

The Sciences, Even The Best,-mathematics And Astronomy,-are Like Sportsmen, Who Seize Whatever Prey Offers, Even Without Being Able To Make Any Use Of It.

The Profoundest Thought Or Passion Sleeps As In A Mine, Until An Equal Mind And Heart Finds And Publishes It.

We Live In Succession, In Division, In Parts And Particles. Meantime, Within Man, Is The Soul Of The Whole; The Wise Silence; The Universal Beauty To Which Every Part And Particle Is Equally Related; The Eternal One.

Beauty Is The Pilot Of The Young Soul.

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.

If We Could Have Any Security Against Moods! If The Profoundest Prophet Could Be Holden To His Words, And The Hearer Who Is Readyto Sell All And Join The Crusade, Could Have Any Certificate That To-morrow His Prophet Shall Not Unsay His Testimony!

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage.

A Man Must Be Clothed With Society, Or We Shall Feel A Certain Bareness And Poverty, As Of A Displaced And Unfurnished Member. He Is To Be Dressed In Arts And Institutions, As Well As In Body Garments. Now And Then A Man Exquisitely Made Can Live Alone, And Must; But Coop Up Most Men And You Undo Them.

Physical Force Has No Value, Where There Is Nothing Else. Snow In Snow-banks, Fire In Volcanoes And Solfataras Is Cheap. The Luxury Of Ice Is In Tropical Countries, And Midsummer Days. The Luxury Of Fire Is, To Have A Little On Our Hearth; And Of Electricity, Not The Volleys Of The Charged Cloud, But The Manageable Stream On The Battery-wires. So Of Spirit, Or Energy; The Rests Or Remains Of It In The Civil And Moral Man, Are Worth All The Cannibals In The Pacific.

He In Whom The Love Of Truth Predominates . . . Submits To The Inconvenience Of Suspense And Imperfect Opinion; But He Is A Candidate For Truth . . . And Respects The Highest Law Of His Being.

The Worthless And Offensive Members Of Society, Whose Existence Is A Social Pest, Invariably Think Themselves The Most Ill-used People Alive, And Never Get Over Their Astonishment At The Ingratitude And Selfishness Of Their Contemporaries.

We Infer The Spirit Of The Nation In Great Measure From The Language, Which Is A Sort Of Monument, To Which Each Forcible Individual In A Course Of Many Hundred Years Has Contributed A Stone.

The Evolution Of A Highly Destined Society Must Be Moral; It Must Run In The Grooves Of The Celestial Wheels.

Railroad Iron Is A Magician's Rod, In Its Power To Evoke The Sleeping Energies Of Land And Water.

There Is A Class Of Persons To Whom By All Spiritual Affinity I Am Bought And Sold; For Them I Will Go To Prison, If Need Be; But Your Miscellaneous Popular Charities; The Education At College Of Fools; The Building Of Meeting-houses To The Vain End To Which Many Now Stand; Alms To Sots; And The Thousandfold Relief Societies; - Though I Confess With Shame I Sometimes Succumb And Give The Dollar, It Is A Wicked Dollar Which By And By I Shall Have The Manhood To Withhold.

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.

Every Calamity Is A Spur And A Valuable Hint.

There Is The Illusion Of Time, Which Is Very Deep; Who Has Disposed Of It? Mor Come To The Conviction That What Seems The Succession Of Thought Is Only The Distribution Of Wholes Into Causal Series.

The Americans Have No Faith, They Rely On The Power Of A Dollar; They Are Deaf To Sentiment.

The Right Merchant Is One Who Has The Just Average Of Faculties We Call Common Sense; A Man Of A Strong Affinity For Facts, Who Makes Up His Decision On What He Has Seen. He Is Thoroughly Persuaded Of The Truths Of Arithmetic. There Is Always A Reason, In The Man, For His Good Or Bad Fortune In Making Money. Men Talk As If There Were Some Magic About This. He Knows That All Goes On The Old Road, Pound For Pound, Cent For Cent - For Every Effect A Perfect Cause - And That Good Luck Is Another Name For Tenacity Of Purpose.

A Just Thinker Will Allow Full Swing To His Scepticism. I Dip My Pen In The Blackest Ink, Because I Am Not Afraid Of Falling Into My Inkpot.... We Are Of Different Opinions At Different Hours, But We Always May Be Said To Be At Heart On The Side Of Truth.

Open The Doors Of Opportunity To Talent And Virtue And They Will Do Themselves Justice, And Property Will Not Be In Bad Hands.

In A Tavern Everybody Puts On Airs Except The Landlord.

Human Condition

There Are Twenty Ways Of Going To A Point, And One Is The Shortest; But Set Out At Once On One. A Man Who Has That Presence Of Mind Which Can Bring To Him On The Instant All He Knows, Is Worth For Action A Dozen Men Who Know As Much, But Can Only Bring It To Light Slowly.

Presence Of Mind

Nothing Is Dead: Men Feign Themselves Dead, And Endure Mock Funerals And Mournful Obituaries, And There They Stand Looking Out Ofthe Window, Sound And Well, In Some New And Strange Disguise.

We Are As Much Strangers In Nature, As We Are Aliens From God. We Do Not Understand The Notes Of Birds. The Fox And The Deer Run Away From Us; The Bear And Tiger Rend Us. We Do Not Know The Uses Of More Than A Few Plants, As Corn And The Apple, The Potato And The Vine. Is Not The Landscape, Every Glimpse Of Which Hath A Grandeur, A Face Of Him?

Our Civility, England Determines The Style Of, Inasmuch As England Is The Strongest Of The Family Of Existing Nations, And As We Are The Expansion Of That People. It Is That Of A Trading Nation; It Is A Shopkeeping Civility. The English Lord Is A Retired Shopkeeper, And Has The Prejudices And Timidities Of That Profession.

The University Must Be Retrospective. The Gale That Gives Direction To The Vanes On All Its Towers Blows Out Of Antiquity.

Every Burned Book Enlightens The World.

The Soul Is The Perceiver And Revealer Of Truth. We Know Truth When We See It, Let Skeptic And Scoffer Say What They Choose ... We Distinguish The Announcements Of The Soul, Its Manifestations Of Its Own Nature, By The Term Revelation. These Are Always Attended By The Emotion Of The Sublime. For This Communication Is An Influx Of The Divine Mind Into Our Mind. It Is An Ebb Of The Individual Rivulet Before The Flowing Surges Of The Sea Of Life. Every Distinct Apprehension Of This Central Commandment Agitates Men With Awe And Delight.

Sometimes We Receive The Power To Say Yes To Life. Then Peace Enters Us And Makes Us Whole.

A Self-denial, No Less Austere Than The Saint's, Is Demanded Of The Scholar. He Must Worship Truth, And Forgo All Things For That,and Choose Defeat And Pain, So That His Treasure In Thought Is Thereby Augmented.

Why Should All Virtue Work In One And The Same Way? Why Should All Give Dollars? It Is Very Inconvenient To Us Country Folk, And We Do Not Think Any Good Will Come Of It. We Have Not Dollars; Merchants Have; Let Them Give Them. Farmers Will Give Corn; Poets Will Sing; Women Will Sew; Laborers Will Lend A Hand; The Children Will Bring Flowers.

Culture Is One Thing And Varnish Is Another.

Heroism Feels And Never Reasons, And Therefore Is Always Right.

Wisdom Has Its Root In Goodness, Not Goodness Its Root In Wisdom.

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

The History Of Persecution Is A History Of Endeavors To Cheat Nature, To Make Water Run Up Hill, To Twist A Rope Of Sand.

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

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

He Who Should Inspire And Lead His Race Must Be Defended From Travelling With The Souls Of Other Men, From Living, Breathing, Reading, And Writing In The Daily, Time-worn Yoke Of Their Opinions.

The Glance Is Natural Magic. The Mysterious Communication Established Across A House Between Two Entire Strangers, Moves All The Springs Of Wonder.

Earth Laughs In Flowers To See Her Boastful Boys Earth-proud, Proud Of The Earth Which Is Not Theirs; Who Steer The Plough, But Cannot Steer Their Feet Clear Of The Grave.

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Edward Fitzgerald

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