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But I Go With My Friend To The Shore Of Our Little River, And With One Stroke Of The Paddle, I Leave The Village Politics And Personalities, Yes, And The World Of Villages And Personalities Behind, And Pass Into A Delicate Realm Of Sunset And Moonlight, Too Bright Almost For Spotted Man To Enter Without Novitiate And Probation.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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But I Go With

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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But I Go With My Friend To The Shore Of Our Little River, And With One Stroke Of The Paddle, I Leave The Village Politics And Personalities, Yes, And The World Of Villages And Personalities Behind, And Pass Into A Delicate Realm Of Sunset And Moonlight, Too Bright Almost For Spotted Man To Enter Without Novitiate And Probation.

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I Find It A Great And Fatal Difference Whether I Court The Muse, Or The Muse Courts Me. That Is The Ugly Disparity Between Age And Youth.

Nature Is Too Thin A Screen; The Glory Of The Omnipresent God Bursts Through Everywhere

So All That Is Said Of The Wise Man By Stoic Or Oriental Or Modern Essayist, Describes To Each Reader His Own Idea, Describes His Unattained But Attainable Self.

The Poet Alone Knows Astronomy, Chemistry, Vegetation, And Animation, For He Does Not Stop At These Facts, But Employs Them As Signs. He Knows Why The Plain, Or Meadow Of Space, Was Strown With These Flowers We Call Suns, And Moons, And Stars; Why The Deep Is Adorned With Animals, With Men, And Gods; For, In Every Word He Speaks He Rides On Them As The Horses Of Thought.

The Universe Is The Externalization Of The Soul.

Steam Was Till The Other Day The Devil Which We Dreaded. Every Pot Made By Any Human Potter Or Brazier Had A Hole In Its Cover, To Let Off The Enemy, Lest He Should Lift Pot And Roof And Carry The House Away.

Almost All People Descend To Meet. All Association Must Be A Compromise, And, What Is Worst, The Very Flower And Aroma Of The Flower Of Each Of The Beautiful Natures Disappears As They Approach Each Other.

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

A Moment Is A Concentrated Eternity.

The Way Of Providence Is A Little Rude. The Habit Of Snake And Spider, The Snap Of The Tiger And Other Leapers And Bloody Jumpers, The Crackle Of The Bones Of His Prey In The Coil Of The Anaconda-these Are In The System, And Our Habits Are Like Theirs.

Moderation In All Things, Especially Moderation.

Moderation In All Things

Our Friendships Hurry To Short And Poor Conclusions, Because We Have Made Them A Texture Of Wine And Dreams, Instead Of The Toughfibre Of The Human Heart. The Laws Of Friendship Are Austere And Eternal, Of One Web With The Laws Of Nature And Of Morals.

There Is Properly No History, Only Biography.

A Good Indignation Makes An Excellent Speech.

She Shows Us Only Surfaces, But She Is Million-fathoms Deep.

Every Man Has A Vocation. The Talent Is The Call.

A Great Man Is Always Willing To Be Little.

It Is Defeat Which Educates Us.

Men Are What Their Mothers Made Them. You May As Well Ask A Loom Which Weaves Huckabuck Why It Does Not Make Cashmere As To Expect Poetry From This Engineer Or A Chemical Discovery From That Jobber.

It Is Bad Enough That Our Geniuses Cannot Do Anything Useful, But It Is Worse That No Man Is Fit For Society Who Has Fine Traits.he Is Admired At A Distance, But He Cannot Come Near Without Appearing A Cripple.

When Friendships Are Real, They Are Not Glass Threads Or Frost-work , But The Solidest Thing We Know.

To Be Great Is To Be Misunderstood.

The Eye Obeys Exactly The Action Of The Mind.

Pride Is Handsome, Economical; Pride Eradicates So Many Vices, Letting None Subsist But Itself, That It Seems As If It Were A Great Gain To Exchange Vanity For Pride.

If You Believe In Fate, Believe In It, At Least, For Your Good.

Let Us Not Forget The Genial Miraculous Force We Have Known To Proceed From A Book.

I Ought To Go Upright And Vital, And Speak The Rude Truth In All Ways.

Do Not Be Too Timid And Squeamish About Your Actions.

Will And Determination

To Speak Truly, Few Adult Persons Can See Nature. Most Persons Do Not See The Sun.

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

If I Could Put My Hand On The North Star, Would It Be As Beautiful? The Sea Is Lovely, But When We Bathe In It The Beauty Forsakesall The Near Water. For The Imagination And Senses Cannot Be Gratified At The Same Time.

We Are Impressed And Even Daunted By The Immense Universe To Be Explored. "what We Know Is A Point To What We Do Not Know."

For Poetry Was All Written Before Time Was, And Whenever We Are So Finely Organized That We Can Penetrate Into That Region Where The Air Is Music, We Hear Those Primal Warblings, And Attempt To Write Them Down, But We Lose Ever And Anon A Word, A Verse, And Substitute Something Of Our Own, And Thus Miswrite The Poem.

Shallow Men Believe In Luck. Strong Men Believe In Cause And Effect.

Go Face The Fire At Sea, Or The Cholera In Your Friend's House, Or The Burglar In Your Own, Or What Danger Lies In The Way Of Duty, Knowing You Are Guarded By The Cherubim Of Destiny. If You Believe In Fate To Your Harm, Believe It, At Least, For Your Good.

Common Sense Is As Rare As Genius.

The Reality Is More Excellent Than The Report.

A Man Is A Hero, Not Because He Is Braver Than Anyone Else, But Because He Is Brave For 10 Minutes Longer.

We Change Whether We Like It Or Not.

Every Burned Book Enlightens The World.

Four Snakes Gliding Up And Down A Hollow For No Purpose That I Could See - Not To Eat, Not For Love, But Only Gliding.

There Is Then Creative Reading As Well As Creative Writing. When The Mind Is Braced By Labor And Invention, The Page Of Whatever Book We Read Becomes Luminous With Manifold Allusion. Every Sentence Is Doubly Significant, And The Sense Of Our Author Is As Broad As The World.

Everything In Nature Contains All The Powers Of Nature. Everything Is Made Of One Hidden Stuff.

The World Leaves No Track In Space, And The Greatest Action Of Man No Mark In The Vast Idea.

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

Everything Runs To Excess; Every Good Quality Is Noxious If Unmixed.

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.

Five Minutes Of Today Are Worth As Much To Me, As Five Minutes In The Next Millennium. Let Us Be Poised, And Wise, And Our Own, Today.

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

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

Every Word Which Is Used To Express A Moral Or Intellectual Fact, If Traced To Its Root, Is Found To Be Borrowed From Some Material Appearance.

The Nonchalance Of Boys Who Are Sure Of A Dinner, And Would Disdain As Much As A Lord To Do Or Say Aught To Conciliate One, Is The Healthy Attitude Of Human Nature.

People Are Very Inclined To Set Moral Standards For Others.

All Our Progress Is An Unfolding, Like The Vegetable Bud. You Have First An Instinct, Then An Opinion, Then A Knowledge, As The Plant Has Root, Bud, And Fruit. Trust The Instinct To The End, Though You Can Render No Reason. It Is Vain To Hurry It. By Trusting It To The End It Shall Ripen Into Truth, And You Shall Know Why You Believe.

Nature Is A Language And Every New Fact One Learns Is A New Word; But It Is Not A Language Taken To Pieces And Dead In The Dictionary, But The Language Put Together Into A Most Significant And Universal Sense. I Wish To Learn This Language - Not That I May Know A New Grammar, But That I May Read The Great Book Which Is Written In That Tongue.

The Lessons Of Science Should Be Experimental Also. The Sight Of A Planet Through A Telescope Is Worth All The Course On Astronomy; The Shock Of The Electric Spark In The Elbow Outvalues All Theories; The Taste Of The Nitrous Oxide, The Firing Of An Artificial Volcano, Are Better Than Volumes Of Chemistry.

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

God Hides Things By Putting Them Near Us.

Every Man Is An Impossibility Until He Is Born.

If A Man Is At Heart Just, Then In So Far Is He God; The Safety Of God, The Immortality Of God, The Majesty Of God Do Enter Into That Man With Justice.

Culture Is The Suggestion, From Certain Best Thoughts, That A Man Has A Range Of Affinities Through Which He Can Modulate The Violence Of Any Master-tones That Have A Droning Preponderance In His Scale, And Succor Him Against Himself. Culture Redresses This Imbalance, Puts Him Among Equals And Superiors, Revives The Delicious Sense Of Sympathy, And Warns Him Of The Dangers Of Solitude And Repulsion.

A Man Passes For That He Is Worth. What He Is Engraves Itself On His Face, On His Form, On His Fortunes, In Letters Of Light. Concealment Avails Him Nothing; Boasting Nothing. There Is Confession In The Glances Of Our Eyes; In Our Smiles; In Salutations; And The Grasp Of Hands.

I Do Not Speak With Any Fondness But The Language Of Coolest History, When I Say That Boston Commands Attention As The Town Whichwas Appointed In The Destiny Of Nations To Lead The Civilization Of North America.

He Who Loves Goodness Harbors Angels, Reveres Reverence, And Lives With God.

But To Most Of Us Society Shows Not Its Face And Eye, But Its Side And Back. To Stand In True Relations With Men In A False Age Isworth A Fit Of Insanity, Is It Not?

I Am Not Engaged To Christianity By Decent Forms, Or Saving Ordinances; It Is Not Usage, It Is Not What I Do Not Understand, That Binds Me To It -- Let These Be The Sandy Foundations Of Falsehoods. What I Revere And Obey In It Is Its Reality, Its Boundless Charity, Its Deep Interior Life, The Rest It Gives To My Mind, The Echo It Returns To My Thoughts, The Perfect Accord It Makes With My Reason Through All Its Representation Of God And His Providence; And The Persuasion And Courage That Come Out Thence To Lead Me Upward And Onward.

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.

The Sentence Must Also Contain Its Own Apology For Being Spoken.

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

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

The Pest Of Society Is Egotists.

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

It Never Was In The Power Of Any Man Or Any Community To Call The Arts Into Being. They Come To Serve His Actual Wants, Never To Please His Fancy.

Every Revolution Was First A Thought In One Man's Mind; And When The Same Thought Occurs To Another Man, It Is The Key To That Era.

Proverbs, Words, And Grammar Inflections Convey The Public Sense With More Purity And Precision, Than The Wisest Individual.

An Institution Is The Lengthened Shadow Of One Man; As, Monachism Of The Hermit Anthony, The Reformation Of Luther, Quakerism Of Fox, Methodism Of Wesley, Abolition Of Clarkson. Scipio, Milton Called "the Height Of Rome;" And All History Resolves Itself Easily Into The Biography Of A Few Stout And Earnest Persons. Let A Man, Then, Know His Worth, And Keep Things Under His Feet.

The Louder He Talked Of His Honor, The Faster We Counted Our Spoons.

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.

We Shun The Rugged Battle Of Fate Where Strength Is Born.

When A Natural King Becomes A Titular King, Every Body Is Pleased And Satisfied.

Truth, And Goodness, And Beauty, Are But Different Faces Of The Same All

Different Faces

It Is Never Too Late To Do Right.

A Man Should Not Be A Silkworm; Nor A Nation A Tent Of Caterpillars.

Therefore Is Nature Ever The Ally Of Religion: Lends Her All Her Pomp And Riches To The Religious Sentiment.

What King Has He Not Taught State, As Talma Taught Napoleon? What Maiden Has Not Found Him Finer Than Her Delicacy? What Lover Has He Not Outloved? What Sage Has He Not Outseen? What Gentleman Has He Not Instructed In The Rudeness Of His Behavior?

Every Thought Which Genius And Piety Throw Into The World Alters The World.

Every Individual Man Has A Bias Which He Must Obey, And...it Is Only As He Feels And Obeys This That He Rightly Develops And Attains His Legitimate Power In The World. It Is His Magnetic Needle, Which Points Always In One Direction To His Proper Path.... He Is Never Happy Nor Strong Until He Finds It, Keeps It.

Love Is The Essence Of God.

The Young Man Reveres Men Of Genius, Because, To Speak Truly, They Are More Himself Than He Is.

The Greek Epigram Intimates That The Force Of Love Is Not Shown By The Courting Of Beauty, But Where The Like Desire Is Inflamed For One Who Is Ill-favored.

In The Learned Journal, In The Influential Newspaper, I Discern No Form; Only Some Irresponsible Shadow; Oftener Some Monied Corporation, Or Some Dangler, Who Hopes, In The Mask And Robes Of His Paragraph, To Pass For Somebody. But Through Every Clause And Part Of Speech Of The Right Book I Meet The Eyes Of The Most Determined Men; His Force And Terror Inundate Every Word: The Commas And Dashes Are Alive; So That The Writing Is Athletic And Nimble,--can Go Far And Live Long.

The Secret Is The Answer To All That Has Been, All That Is, And All That Will Ever Be.

Law Of Attraction

Men Seek To Be Great; They Would Have Offices, Wealth, Power, And Fame. They Think That To Be Great Is To Possess One Side Of Nature,--the Sweet, Without The Other Side,--the Bitter.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage. Whatever Course You Decide Upon, There Is Always Someone To Tell You That You Are Wrong. There Are Always Difficulties Arising That Tempt You To Believe Your Critics Are Right. To Map Out A Course Of Action And Follow It To An End Requires Some Of The Same Courage That A Soldier Needs. Peace Has Its Victories, But It Takes Brave Men And Women To Win Them.

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 Am Grown By Sympathy A Little Eager And Sentimental, But Leave Me Alone, And I Should Relish Every Hour And What It Brought Me, The Pot-luck Of The Day, As Heartily As The Oldest Gossip In The Bar-room.

Where The Heart Is, There The Muses, There The Gods Sojourn, And Not In Any Geography Of Fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, And Boston Bay, You Think Paltry Places, And The Ear Loves Names Of Foreign And Classic Topography. But Here We Are; And, If We Tarry A Little, We May Come To Learn That Here Is Best. See To It, Only, That Thyself Is Here;--and Art And Nature, Hope And Fate, Friends, Angels, And The Supreme Being, Shall Not Absent From The Chamber Where Thou Sittest.

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.

The People Are To Be Taken In Very Small Doses.

Public Speaking

Love And You Shall Be Loved. All Love Is Mathematically Just, As Much As Two Sides Of An Algebraic Equation.

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

The Two Terrors That Discourage Creativity And Creative Living Are Fear Of Public Opinion And Undue Reverence For One's Own Consistency.

Postpone Not Your Life.

Procrastination

The Writer, Like A Priest, Must Be Exempted From Secular Labor. His Work Needs A Frolic Health; He Must Be At The Top Of His Condition.

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

We Know That Madness Belongs To Love,--what Power To Paint A Vile Object In Hues Of Heaven.

In A Library We Are Surrounded By Many Hundreds Of Dear Friends, But They Are Imprisoned By An Enchanter In These Paper And Leathern Boxes.

Every Natural Fact Is A Symbol Of Some Spiritual Fact. Every Appearance In Nature Corresponds To Some State Of The Mind, And That State Of The Mind Can Only Be Described By Presenting That Natural Appearance As Its Picture.

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

The Universal Soul Is The Alone Creator Of The Useful And The Beautiful; Therefore To Make Anything Useful Or Beautiful, The Individual Must Be Submitted To The Universal Mind.

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.

A Man Of Genius Is Privileged Only As Far As He Is Genius. His Dullness Is As Insupportable As Any Other Dullness.

Practice Radical Humility." He (or She)who Masters The Art Of Humility Cannot Be Humiliated.

Society Never Advances. It Recedes As Fast On One Side As It Gains On The Other. Society Acquires New Arts, And Loses Old Instincts.

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

Those Who Listened To Lord Chatham Felt That There Was Something Finer In The Man, Than Anything Which He Said.

Self Confidence

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.

Youth Is Everywhere In Place.

Surely Nobody Would Be A Charlatan, Who Could Afford To Be Sincere.

We Surround Ourselves With The True Image Of Ourselves.

The God Or Hero Of The Sculptor Is Always Represented In A Transition From That Which Is Representable To The Senses, To That Which Is Not.

The Most Indian Thing About The Indian Is Surely Not His Moccasins Or His Calumet, His Wampum Or His Stone Hatched, But Traits Of Character And Sagacity, Skill, Or Passion.

Native American

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

Necessity Does Everything Well. In Our Condition Of Universal Dependence, It Seems Heroic To Let The Petitioner Be The Judge Of His Necessity, And To Give All That Is Asked, Though At Great Inconvenience.

The Poem Is A Confession Of Faith.

Motion Or Change, And Identity Or Rest, Are The First And Second Secrets Of Nature: Motion And Rest. The Whole Code Of Her Laws May Be Written On The Thumbnail, Or The Signet Of A Ring.

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.

For He That Feeds Men Serveth Few; He Serves All Who Dares Be True.

All I Have Seen Teaches Me To Trust The Creator For All I Have Not Seen.

The Man Is Only Half Himself, The Other Half Is His Expression.

He Who Has A Thousand Friends Has Not A Friend To Spare, While He Who Has One Enemy Shall Meet Him Everywhere.

Everything Has Its Price - And If That Price Is Not Paid, Not That Thing But Something Else Is Obtained... It Is Impossible To Get Anything Without This Price.

The Shot Heard Round The World.

Revolutionary War

Augusta National

April And Spring

Classics Which At Home Are Drowsily Read Have A Strange Charm In A Country Inn, Or In The Transom Of A Merchant Brig.

Polarity, Or Action And Reaction, We Meet In Every Part Of Nature; In Darkness And Light; In Heat And Cold; In The Ebb And Flow Of Water; In Male And Female; In The Equation Of Quantity And Quality; In The Fluids Of The Animal Body; In The Systole An

I Wish To Write Such Rhymes As Shall Not Suggest A Restraint, But Contrariwise The Wildest Freedom.

Even In The Mud And Scum Of Things, Something Always, Always Sings.

Every Reform Was Once A Private Opinion.

Only The Great Generalizations Survive. The Sharp Words Of The Declaration Of Independence, Lampooned Then And Since As 'glittering Generalities,' Have Turned Out Blazing Ubiquities That Will Burn Forever And Ever.

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

A Ruddy Drop Of Manly Blood The Surging Sea Outweighs; The World Uncertain Comes And Goes, The Lover Rooted Stays.

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

Science Is Nothing But The Finding Of Analogy, Identity, In The Most Remote Parts.

A Woman Should Always Challenge Our Respect, And Never Move Our Compassion.

Greatness Once And Forever Has Down With Opinion.

Cut These Words And They Would Bleed; They Are Vascular And Alive.

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

Shakspeare Is The Only Biographer Of Shakspeare; And Even He Can Tell Nothing, Except To The Shakspeare In Us; That Is, To Our Most Apprehensive And Sympathetic Hour.

The Finest And Noblest Ground On Which People Can Live Is Truth; The Real With The Real; A Ground On Which Nothing Is Assumed.

Proverbs Are The Literature Of Reason, Or The Statements Of Absolute Truth, Without Qualification. Like The Sacred Books Of Each Nation, They Are The Sanctuary Of Its Intuitions.

As The Gardener, By Severe Pruning, Forces The Sap Of The Tree Into One Or Two Vigorous Limbs, So Should You Stop Off Your Miscellaneous Activity And Concentrate Your Force On One Or A Few Points.

We Mark With Light In The Memory The Few Interviews We Have Had With Souls That Made Our Souls Wiser, That Spoke What We Thought, That Told Us What We Knew, That Gave Us Leave To Be What We Inly Are.

We Gain The Strength Of The Temptation We Resist.

Conservatism Is Affluent And Openhanded, But There Is A Cunning Juggle In Riches. I Observe That They Take Somewhat For Everythingthey Give. I Look Bigger, But Am Less; I Have More Clothes, But Am Nit So Warm; More Armor, But Less Courage; More Books, But Less Wit.

I Look On Trade And Every Mechanical Craft As Education Also. But Let Me Discriminate What Is Precious Herein. There Is In Each Ofthese Works An Act Of Invention, An Intellectual Step, Or Short Series Of Steps Taken; That Act Or Step Is The Spiritual Act; All The Rest Is Mere Repetition Of The Same A Thousand Times.

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.

What You Are Comes To You.

Law Of Attraction

It Is In Bad Taste," Is The Most Formidable Word An Englishman Can Pronounce.

I Am Thankful For Small Mercies. I Compared Notes With One Of My Friends Who Expect Everything Of The Universe, And Is Disappointed When Anything Is Less Than The Best, And I Found That I Begin At The Other Extreme, Expecting Nothing, And Am Always Full Of Thanks For Moderate Good. . . . If We Will Take The Good We Find, . . . We Shall Have Heaping Measures. . . .

Enlarge Not Thy Destiny, Said The Oracle: Endeavor Not To Do More Than Is Given Thee In Charge.

Why Should I Hasten To Solve Every Riddle Which Life Offers Me? I Am Well Assured That The Questioner, Who Brings Me So Many Problems, Will Bring Me The Answers Also, In Due Time.

The Blazing Evidence Of Immortality Is Our Dissatisfaction With Any Other Solution.

A Cultivated Man, Wise To Know And Bold To Perform, Is The End To Which Nature Works.

Prudence Is The Virtue Of The Senses. It Is The Science Of Appearances. It Is The Outmost Action Of The Inward Life.

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

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.

The Finished Man Of The World Must Eat Of Every Apple At Once. He Must Hold His Hatreds Also At Arm's Length, And Not Remember Spite. He Has Neither Friends Nor Enemies, But Values Men Only As Channels Of Power.

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

For Every Grain Of Wit There Is A Grain Of Folly.

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.

Nature, Through All Her Kingdoms, Insures Herself.

No Man Has Ever Had A Point Of Pride That Was Not Injurious To Him.

A Man Of Good Sense But Of Little Faith, Whose Compassion Seemed To Lead Him To Church As Often As He Went There, Said To Me; 'that He Liked To Have Concerts, And Fairs, And Churches, And Other Public Amusements Go On.

But I Shall Hear Without Pain, That I Play The Courtier Very Ill, And Talk Of That Which I Do Not Well Understand.

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.

The Tempered Light Of The Woods Is Like A Perpetual Morning.

Another Sort Of False Prayers Are Our Regrets. Discontent Is The Way Of Self-reliance: It Is Infirmity Of Will. Regret Calamities, If You Can Thereby Help The Sufferer; If Not, Attend Your Own Work, And Already The Evil Begins To Be Repaired.

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.

One Lesson We Learn Early, That In Spite Of Seeming Difference, Men Are All Of One Pattern. We Readily Assume This With Our Mates, And Are Disappointed And Angry If We Find That We Are Premature, And That Their Watches Are Slower Than Ours. In Fact, The Only Sin Which We Never Forgive In Each Other Is Difference Of Opinion.

Fashion Which Affects To Be Honor, Is Often, In All Men's Experience, Only A Ballroom-code.

There Is No Thought In Any Mind, But It Quickly Tends To Convert Itself Into Power.

A Bullet Had Found Him, His Blood Ran Out As He Cried. No Money Could Save Him, So He Laid Down And Died. Ooh, What A Lucky Man He Was.

An English Family Consists Of A Few Persons, Who, From Youth To Age, Are Found Revolving Within A Few Feet Of Each Other, As If Tied By Some Invisible Ligature, Tense As That Cartilage Which We Have Seen Attaching The Two Siamese.

Oxford Is A Little Aristocracy In Itself, Numerous And Dignified Enough To Rank With Other Estates In The Realm; And Where Fame And Secular Promotion Are To Be Had For Study, And In A Direction Which Has The Unanimous Respect Of All Cultivated Nations.

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.

I Like A Man Who Likes To See A Fine Barn As Well As A Good Tragedy.

The Imagination And The Senses Cannot Be Gratified At The Same Time.

The Indian Who Was Laid Under A Curse, That The Wind Should Not Blow On Him, Nor Water Flow To Him, Nor Fire Burn Him, Is A Type Of Us All. The Dearest Events Are Summer-rain, And We The Para Coats That Shed Every Drop. Nothing Is Left Us Now But Death. We Look To That With A Grim Satisfaction, Saying, There At Least Is Reality That Will Not Dodge Us.

For What Are They All In Their High Conceit, When Man In The Bush With God May Meet?

[a]s If Life Were A Thunder-storm Wherein You Can See By A Flash The Horizon, And Then Cannot See Your Hand.

When A Man Speaks The Truth In The Spirit Of Truth, His Eye Is As Clear As The Heavens. When He Has Base Ends, And Speaks Falsely, The Eye Is Muddy, And Sometimes Asquint.

All Life Is An Experiment. Place Yourself In The Middle Of The Stream Of Power And Wisdom Which Animates All Whom It Floats, And You Are Without Effort Impelled To Truth, To Right And A Perfect Contentment. I Wish To Write Such Rhymes As Shall Not Suggest A Restraint, But Contrariwise The Wildest Freedom. Immortality. I Notice That As Soon As Writers Broach This Question They Begin To Quote. I Hate Quotation. Tell Me What You Know.

What I Need Is Someone Who Will Make Me Do What I Can.

I Suppose You Could Never Explain To The Most Ingenous Molusk That Such A Creature As A Whale Existed.

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

When The Literary Class Betray A Destitution Of Faith, It Is Not Strange That Society Should Be Disheartened And Sensualized By Unbelief.

Society Is A Hospital Of Incurables.

The Hard Soil And Four Months Of Snow Make The Inhabitants Of The Northern Temperate Zone Wiser And Abler Than His Fellow Who Enjoys The Fixed Smile Of The Tropics.

A Friend Is A Person Who Goes Around Saying Nice Things About You Behind Your Back.

Cute Friendship

Behind Your Back

All History Is But The Lengthened Shadow Of A Great Man.

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Lurlene McDaniel

Harold MacMillan

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