Background Image

...

But, If We Explore The Literature Of Heroism, We Shall Quickly Come To Plutarch, Who Is Its Doctor And Historian. To Him We Owe The Brasidas, The Dion, The Epaminodas, The Scipio Of Old, And I Must Think We Are More Deeply Indebted To Him Than To All The Ancient Writers. Each Of His "lives" Is A Refutation To The Despondency And Cowardice Of Our Religious And Political Theorists. A Wild Courage, A Stoicism Not Of The Schools, But Of The Blood, Shines In Every Anecdote, And Had Given That Book Immense Fame.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

But, If We Explore

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

But, If We Explore The Literature Of Heroism, We Shall Quickly Come To Plutarch, Who Is Its Doctor And Historian. To Him We Owe The Brasidas, The Dion, The Epaminodas, The Scipio Of Old, And I Must Think We Are More Deeply Indebted To Him Than To All The Ancient Writers. Each Of His "lives" Is A Refutation To The Despondency And Cowardice Of Our Religious And Political Theorists. A Wild Courage, A Stoicism Not Of The Schools, But Of The Blood, Shines In Every Anecdote, And Had Given That Book Immense Fame.

Views: 11

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Genius Of The Platonists, Is Intoxicating To The Student, Yet How Few Particulars Of It Can I Detach From All Their Books.

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

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.

Words Are Finite Expressions Of The Infinite Mind.

Men Are What Their Mothers Made Them.

Greatness Is A Property For Which No Man Gets Credit Too Soon; It Must Be Possessed Long Before It Is Acknowledged.

The Only Reward Of Virtue Is Virtue.

I Would Have The Studies Elective. Scholarship Is To Be Created Not By Compulsion, But By Awakening A Pure Interest In Knowledge. The Wise Instructor Accomplishes This By Opening To His Pupils Precisely The Attractions The Study Has For Himself. The Marking Is A System For Schools, Not For The College; For Boys, Not For Men; And It Is An Ungracious Work To Put On A Professor.

A Man Is Usually More Careful Of His Money Than He Is Of His Principles.

Youth Is Everywhere In Place.

To Aim To Convert A Man By Miracles Is A Profanation Of The Soul.

What Opium Is Instilled Into All Disaster? It Shows Formidable As We Approach It, But There Is At Last No Rough Rasping Friction,but The Most Slippery Sliding Surfaces. We Fall Soft On A Thought.

Nobody Can Bring You Peace But Yourself.

Throw A Stone Into The Stream And The Ripples That Propagate Themselves Are The Beautiful Type Of All Influence.

A Man's Library Is A Sort Of Harem.

Nature And Literature Are Subjective Phenomena; Every Evil And Every Good Thing Is A Shadow Which We Cast

A Party Is Perpetually Corrupted By Personality.

For Nonconformity The World Will Whip You With Its Displeasure.

Among The Multitude Of Scholars And Authors, We Feel No Hallowing Presence; We Are Sensible Of A Knack And Skill Rather Than Of Inspiration; They Have A Light, And Know Not Whence It Comes, And Call It Their Own; Their Talent Is Some Exaggerated Faculty, Some Overgrown Member, So That Their Strength Is A Disease.

It Depends Little On The Object, Much On The Mood, In Art.

The Charm Of The Best Courages Is That They Are Inventions, Inspirations, Flashes Of Genius.

What If You Do Fail, And Get Fairly Rolled In The Dirt Once Or Twice. Up Again, You Shall Never Be So Afraid Of A Tumble.

People Only See What They Are Prepared To See. If You Look For What Is Good And What You Can Be Grateful For You Will Find It Everywhere.

The Power Which Resides In Him Is New In Nature, And None But He Knows What That Is Which He Can Do, Nor Does He Know Until He Has Tried.

We Say The Cows Laid Out Boston. Well, There Are Worse Surveyors.

Genius, Even, As It Is The Greatest Good, Is He Greatest Harm.

What Is Man Born For But To Be A Reformer, A Remaker Of What Man Has Made? A Renouncer Of Lies; A Restorer Of Truth And Good? Imitating That Great Nature Which Embossoms Us All, And Which Sleeps No Moment On An Old Past, But Every Hour Repairs Herself, Yielding Us Every Morning A New Day, With Every Breath A New Life?

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.

I Must Be Myself. I Cannot Break Myself Any Longer For You, Or You. If You Can Love Me For What I Am, We Shall Be The Happier. If You Cannot, I Will Still Seek To Seserve That You Should.

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

He Is Great Who Is What He Is From Nature, And Who Never Reminds Us Of Others.

When We Have Arrived At The Question, The Answer Is Already Near.

Everything Is Beautiful Seen From The Point Of The Intellect, Or As Truth. But All Is Sour If Seen As Experience.

Let The Bird Sing Without Deciphering The Song.

There Is Some Awe Mixed With The Joy Of Our Surprise, When This Poet, Who Lived In Some Past World, Two Or Three Hundred Years Ago, Says That Which Lies Close To My Own Soul, That Which I Also Had Wellnigh Thought And Said.

Nature And Books Belong To The Eyes That See Them. It Depends On The Mood Of The Man, Whether He Shall See The Sunset Or The Fine Poem. There Are Always Sunsets, And There Is Always Genius; But Only A Few Hours So Serene That We Can Relish Nature Or Criticism. The More Or Less Depends On Structure Or Temperament. Temperament Is The Iron Wire On Which The Beads Are Strung. Of What Use Is Fortune Or Talent To A Cold And Defective Store?

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

The Hero Is A Mind Of Such Balance That No Disturbances Can Shake His Will, But Pleasantly, And, As It Were, Merrily, He Advancesto His Own Music, Alike In Frightful Alarms And In The Tipsy Mirth Of Universal Dissoluteness.

It Does Not Need That A Poem Should Be Long. Every Word Was Once A Poem.

Courage Of The Soldier Awakes The Courage Of Woman.

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.

Love Of Beauty Is Taste. The Creation Of Beauty Is Art.

If You Want To Be Great And Successful, Choose People Who Are Great And Successful And Walk Side By Side With Them.

Justice Satisfies Everybody, And Justice Alone.

Great Causes Are Never Tried On Their Merits; But The Cause Is Reduced To Particulars To Suit The Size Of The Partizans, And The Contention Is Ever Hottest On Minor Matters.

Heroism Works In Contradiction To The Voice Of Mankind And In Contradiction, For A Time, To The Voice Of The Great And Good. Heroism Is An Obedience To A Secret Impulse Of An Individual

The Men Who Carry Their Points Do Not Need To Inquire Of Their Constituents What They Should Say, But Are Themselves The Country Which They Represent: Nowhere Are Its Emotions Or Opinions So Instant And So True As In Them; Nowhere So Pure From A Selfish Infusion.

The Wise Know That Foolish Legislation Is A Rope Of Sand, Which Perishes In The Twisting.

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

To Believe In Luck, If It Were Not A Solecism So To Use The Word Believe, Is Skepticism.

A Man Is Relieved And Gay When He Has Put His Heart Into His Work And Done His Best; But What He Has Said Or Done Otherwise Shall Give Him No Peace.

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.

The Believing We Do Something When We Do Nothing Is The First Illusion Of Tobacco.

Time Is Indeed The Theater And Seat Of Illusions; Nothing Is So Ductile And Elastic. The Mind Stretches An Hour To A Century, And Dwarfs An Age To An Hour.

American Mind A Wilderness Of Opportunities.

A New Person Is To Me A Great Event, And Hinders Me From Sleep. I Have Often Had Fine Fancies About Persons Which Have Given Me Delicious Hours; But The Joy Ends In The Day; It Yields No Fruit.

To Fill The Hour; That Is Happiness To Fill The Hour, And Leave No Crevice For A Repentance Or An Approval.

We Shall One Day Learn To Supersede Politics By Education. What We Call Our Root-and-branch Reforms Of Slavery, War, Gambling, Intemperance, Is Only Medicating The Symptoms. We Must Begin Higher Up, Namely, In Education.

Great Country, Diminutive Minds. America Is Formless, Has No Terrible And No Beautiful Condensation.

Society Always Consists, In Greatest Part, Of Young And Foolish Persons. The Old, Who Have Seen Through The Hypocrisy Of The Courts And Statesmen, Die, And Leave No Wisdom To Their Sons. They Believe Their Own Newspaper, As Their Fathers Did At Their Age.

Religious Literature Has Eminent Examples, And If We Run Over Our Private List Of Poets, Critics, Philanthropists And Philosophers, We Shall Find Them Infected With This Dropsy And Elephantiasis, Which We Ought To Have Tapped.

I--this Thought Which Is Called I--is The Mould Into Which The World Is Poured Like Melted Wax.

There Are As Many Pillows Of Illusion As Flakes In A Snow-storm. We Wake From One Dream Into Another Dream.

The Years Teach Much Which The Days Never Know.

To Be Gret Is To Be Misunderstood.

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

Books Are For Nothing But To Inspire

Nature Is What You May Do. There Is Much You May Not Do.

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

Instead Of Feeling A Poverty When We Encounter A Great Man, Let Us Treat The New Comer Like A Travelling Geologist, Who Passes Through Our Estate, And Shows Us Good Slate, Or Limestone, Or Anthracite, In Our Brush Pasture.

We Live Amid Surfaces, And The True Art Of Life Is To Skate Well On Them

In The Country, Without Any Interference From The Law, The Agricultural Life Favors The Permanence Of Families.

We Are Sure That, Though We Know Not How, Necessity Does Comport With Liberty, The Individual With The World, My Polarity With Thespirit Of The Times. The Riddle Of The Age Has For Each A Private Solution.

Government Has Come To Be A Trade, And Is Managed Solely On Commercial Principles. A Man Plunges Into Politics To Make His Fortune, And Only Cares That The World Shall Last His Days.

Keep Cool: It Will Be All One A Hundred Years Hence.

Nothing Divine Dies. All Good Is Eternally Reproductive. The Beauty Of Nature Re-forms Itself In The Mind, And Not For Barren Contemplation, But For New Creation.

The Moment We Indulge Our Affections, The Earth Is Metamorphosed, There Is No Winter And No Night; All Tragedies, All Ennui S, Vanish, All Duties Even.

There Is No God Dare Wrong A Worm.

There Is No God

Wild Liberty Develops Iron Conscience. Want Of Liberty, By Strengthening Law And Decorum, Stupefies Conscience.

Nothing Shall Warp Me From The Belief That Every Man Is A Lover Of Truth. There Is No Pure Lie, No Pure Malignity In Nature. The Entertainment Of The Proposition Of Depravity Is The Last Profligacy And Profanation. There Is No Skepticism, No Atheism But That. Could It Be Received Into Common Belief, Suicide Would Unpeople The Planet.

The Powers Of The Soul Are Commensurate With Its Needs.

It Is Said That The World Is In A State Of Bankruptcy, That The World Owes The World More Than The World Can Pay.

There Is Creative Reading As Well As Creative Writing.

Each Age, It Is Found, Must Write Its Own Books; Or Rather, Each Generation For The Next Succeeding.

Every Mind Must Make Its Choice Between Truth And Repose. It Cannot Have Both.

No Love Can Be Bound By Oath Or Covenant To Secure It Against A Higher Love.

The Amount Of A Man's Wealth Consists In The Number Of Things He Can Do Without.

The Whole World Is An Omen And A Sign. Why Look So Wistfully In A Corner? Man Is The Image Of God. Why Run After A Ghost Or A Dream? The Voice Of Divination Resounds Everywhere And Runs To Waste Unheard, Unregarded, As The Mountains Echo With The Bleatings Of Cattle.

Blessed Are Those Who Have No Talent!

Blessed Are Those

There The Great Planter Plants Of Fruitful Worlds The Grain, And With A Million Spells Enchants The Souls That Walk In Pain.

How Cunningly Nature Hides Every Wrinkle Of Her Inconceivable Antiquity Under Roses And Violets And Morning Dew!

For All Symbols Are Fluxional; All Language Is Vehicular And Transitive, And Is Good, As Ferries And Horses Are, For Conveyance, Not As Farms And Houses Are, For Homestead.

I Must Feel Pride In My Friend's Accomplishments As If They Were Mine,--and A Property In His Virtues. I Feel As Warmly When He Ispraised, As The Lover When He Hears Applause Of His Engaged Maiden.

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

Men Are Conservatives When They Are Least Vigorous, Or When They Are Most Luxurious. They Are Conservatives After Dinner, Or Before Taking Their Rest; When They Are Sick Or Aged. In The Morning, Or When Their Intellect Or Their Conscience Has Been Aroused, When They Hear Music, Or When They Read Poetry, They Are Radicals.

Preaching Is The Expression Of Moral Sentiments Applied To The Duties Of Life.

Let Me Admonish You, First Of All, To Go Alone; To Refuse The Good Models, Even Those Which Are Sacred In The Imagination Of Men, And Dare To Love God Without Mediator Or Veil.

The Virtues Of Society Are The Vices Of The Saints.

Those Who Have Ruled Human Destinies, Like Planets, For Thousands Of Years, Were Not Handsome Men.

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.

It Is For Want Of Self-culture That The Superstition Of Travelling, Whose Idols Are Italy, England, Egypt, Retains Its Fascinationfor All Educated Americans.

The Life Of Truth Is Cold.

We Fetch Fire And Water, Run About All Day Among The Shops And Markets, And Get Our Clothes And Shoes Made And Mended, And Are Thevictims Of These Details, And Once In A Fortnight We Arrive Perhaps At A Rational Moment.

Every Man I Meet Is In Some Way My Superior...

My Life Should Be Unique; It Should Be An Alms, A Battle, A Conquest, A Medicine.

Nothing In Nature Is Exhausted In Its First Use...in God, Every End Is Converted Into A New Means.

Sugar Is Not So Sweet To The Palate As Sound To The Healthy Ear.

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

Generalization Is Always A New Influx Of Divinity Into The Mind. Hence The Thrill That Attends It.

It Is A Sign Of Our Times, Conspicuous To The Coarsest Observer, That Many Intelligent And Religious Persons Withdraw Themselves From The Common Labors And Competitions Of The Market And The Caucus, And Betake Themselves To A Certain Solitary And Critical Way Of Living, From Which No Solid Fruit Has Yet Appeared To Justify Their Separation.

We Are Taught By Great Actions That The Universe Is The Property Of Every Individual In It.

I Think It Is The Best Of Humanity That Goes Out To Walk. In Happy Hours, I Think All Affairs May Be Wisely Postponed For Walking.

In Nature, All Is Useful, All Is Beautiful. It Is Therefore Beautiful, Because It Is Alive, Moving, Reproductive; It Is Thereforeuseful, Because It Is Symmetrical And Fair. Beauty Will Not Come At The Call Of A Legislature, Nor Will It Repeat In England Or America Its History In Greece. It Will Come, As Always, Unannounced, And Spring Up Between The Feet Of Brave And Earnest Men.

There Is Nothing Settled In Manners, But The Laws Of Behavior Yield To The Energy Of The Individual.

If I Should Go Out Of Church Whenever I Hear A False Statement I Could Never Stay There Five Minutes. But Why Come Out? The Streetis As False As The Church, And When I Get To My House, Or To My Manners, Or To My Speech, I Have Not Got Away From The Lie.

When All Shoot At One Mark, The Gods Join In The Combat.

I Do Not See How A Barbarous Community And A Civilized Community Can Constitute A State. I Think We Must Get Rid Of Slavery Or We Must Get Rid Of Freedom.

Welcome Evermore To Gods And Men Is The Self-helping Man.

If I Am The Devil's Child, I Will Live Then, By The Devil.

The Spirit Only Can Teach. Not Any Profane Man, Not Any Sensual, Not Any Liar, Not Any Slave Can Teach, But Only He Can Give, Whohas; He Only Can Create, Who Is. The Man On Whom The Soul Descends, Through Whom The Soul Speaks, Alone Can Teach. Courage, Piety, Love, Wisdom, Can Teach; And Every Man Can Open His Door To These Angels, And They Shall Bring Him The Gift Of Tongues. But The Man Who Aims To Speak As Books Enable, As Synods Use, As The Fashion Guides, And As Interest Commands, Babbles. Let Him Hush.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage.

The Frost Which Kills The Harvest Of A Year Saves The Harvest Of A Century, By Destroying The Weevil Or The Locust.

Shallow Men Believe In Luck, Believe In Circumstances: It Was Somebody's Name, Or He Happened To Be There At Right Time, Or It Was So Then, And Another Day It Would Have Been Otherwise. Strong Men Believe In Cause And Effect.

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

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

We Are A Puny And Fickle Folk. Avarice, Hesitation, And Following Are Our Diseases.

There Is No Good Theory Of Disease Which Does Not At Once Suggest A Cure.

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

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.

Cities Give Not The Human Senses Room Enough. We Go Out Daily And Nightly To Feed The Eyes On The Horizon, And Require So Much Scope, Just As We Need Water For Our Bath.

There Is Always A Certain Meanness In The Argument Of Conservatism, Joined With A Certain Superiority In Its Fact.

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.

Life Is In Short Cycles Or Periods; We Are Quickly Tired, But We Have Rapid Rallies. A Man Is Spent By His Work, Starved, Prostrate; He Will Not Lift His Hand To Save His Life; He Can Never Think More. He Sinks Into Deep Sleep And Wakes With Renewed Youth, With Hope, Courage, Fertile In Resources, And Keen For Daring Adventure.

The Instinct Of The People Is Right.

Circumstance Does Not Make The Man. Circumstance Reveals Man To Himself.

For You, O Broker, There Is No Other Principle But Arithmetic. For Me, Commerce Is Of Trivial Import; Love, Faith, Truth Of Character, The Aspiration Of Man, These Are Sacred; Nor Can I Detach One Duty, Like You, From All Other Duties, And Concentrate My Forces Mechanically On The Payment Of Moneys.

Men Are So Charmed With Valor That They Have Pleased Themselves With Being Called Lions, Leopards, Eagles And Dragons, From The Animals Contemporary With Us In The Geologic Formations.

If You Would Lift Me Up, You've Got To Be On Higher Ground.

Each Man Has His Own Vocation; His Talent Is His Call. There Is One Direction In Which All Space Is Open To Him.

Marriage Is The Perfection Which Love Aimed At, Ignorant Of What It Sought.

Freedom Is The Essence Of This Faith. It Has For Its Object Simply To Make Men Good And Wise. Its Institutions Then Should Be As Flexible As The Wants Of Men. That Form Out Of Which The Life And Suitableness Have Departed Should Be As Worthless In Its Eyes As The Dead Leaves That Are Falling Around Us.

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

Traveling Is A Fool's Paradise.

The Subject Is Said To Have The Property Of Making Dull Men Eloquent.

Astrology Is Astronomy Brought Down To Earth And Applied Toward The Affairs Of Men.

Our Housekeeping Is Mendicant, Our Arts, Our Occupations, Our Marriages, Our Religion We Have Not Chosen But Society Has Chosen For Us.

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.

I Am Ready To Die Out Of Nature, And Be Born Again Into This New Yet Unapproachable America I Have Found In The West.

Nature Has Made Up Her Mind That What Cannot Defend Itself Shall Not Be Defended.

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.

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

A Great Licentiousness Treads On The Heels Of A Reformation.

By The Irresistible Maturing Of The General Mind, The Christian Traditions Have Lost Their Hold.

Genius Is The Power To Labor Better And More Availably. Deserve Thy Genius: Exalt It.

We Are Symbols, And Inhabit Symbols.

This Book Of Montaigne The World Has Endorsed By Translating It Into All Tongues.

Do Not Require A Description Of The Countries Towards Which You Sail. The Description Does Not Describe Them To You, And To- Morrow You Arrive There, And Know Them By Inhabiting Them.

Men Cease To Interest Us When We Find Their Limitations

What I Must Do Is All That Concerns Me, Not What The People Think. This Rule, Equally Arduous In Actual And In Intellectual Life, May Serve For The Whole Distinction Between Greatness And Meanness.

Man Was Born To Be Rich, Or Grow Rich By Use Of His Faculties, By The Union Of Thought With Nature. Property Is An Intellectual Production. The Game Requires Coolness, Right Reasoning, Promptness, And Patience In The Players.

Instead Of Making Christianity A Vehicle Of Truth, You Make Truth Only A Horse For Christianity.

To Different Minds, The Same World Is A Hell, And A Heaven.

Manners Are Very Communicable: Men Catch Them From Each Other.

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.

Men Lose Their Tempers In Defending Their Taste.

There Is No Event Greater In Life Than The Appearance Of New Persons About Our Hearth, Except It Be The Progress Of The Characterwhich Draws Them.

The Aspect Of Nature Is Devout. Like The Figure Of Jesus, She Stands With Bended Head, And Hands Folded Upon The Breast. The Happiest Man Is He Who Learns From Nature The Lesson Of Worship.

The Sign And Credentials Of The Poet Are That He Announces That Which No Man Foretold

Whatever Limits Us We Call Fate.

Yet These Uneasy Pleasures And Fine Pains Are For Curiosity, And Not For Life.

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.

Can Rules Or Tutors Educate The Semigod Whom We Await? He Must Be Musical, Tremulous, Impressional, Alive To Gentle Influence Of Landscape And Of Sky And Tender To The Spirit-touch Of Man's Or Maiden's Eye.

Nature Is No Sentimentalist, - Does Not Cosset Or Pamper Us. We Must See That The World Is Rough And Surly, And Will Not Mind Drowning A Man Or A Woman; But Swallows Your Ship Like A Grain Of Dust. The Cold, Inconsiderate Of Persons, Tingles Your Blood, Benumbs Your Feet, Freezes A Man Like An Apple. The Diseases, The Elements, Fortune, Gravity, Lightning, Respect No Persons.

To Get Up Each Morning With The Resolve To Be Happy Is To Set Your Own Conditions To The Events Of Each Day. To Do This Is To Condition Circumstances Instead Of Being Conditioned By Them.

Men Imagine That They Communicate Their Virtue Or Vice Only By Overt Actions, And Do Not See That Virtue Or Vice Emit A Breath Every Moment.

And I Myself, In Rome, Heard It Said Openly In The Streets, "if There Is A Hell, Then Rome Is Built On It." Martin Luther, Against The Roman Papacy, An Institution Of The Devil London Is The Epitome Of Our Times, And The Rome Of To-day.

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

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.

A Friend Is A Person With Whom I May Be Sincere. Before Him I May Think Aloud.

The Word Unto The Prophet Spoken Was Writ On Tablets Yet Unbroken: The Word By Seers Or Sibyls Told, In Groves Of Oak Or Fanes Of Gold, Still Floats Upon The Morning Wind, Still Whispers To The Willing Mind.

Life Is Too Short To Waste . . . 'twill Soon Be Dark; Up! Mind Thine Own Aim, And God Speed The Mark!

We Know More From Nature Than We Can At Will Communicate.

No One Can Cheat You Out Of Ultimate Success But Yourself.

And, In Fine, The Ancient Precept, "know Thyself," And The Modern Precept, "study Nature," Become At Last One Maxim.

If You Have Something To Say, You Will Be Given The Power To Say It.

Intellectual Tasting Of Life Will Not Supersede Muscular Activity.

Why Should I Cumber Myself With Regrets That The Receiver Is Not Capacious? It Never Troubles The Sun That Some Of His Rays Fall Wide And Vain Into Ungrateful Space, And Only A Small Part On The Reflecting Planet. Let Your Greatness Educate The Crude And Cold Companion.

A Friend Is The Hope Of The Heart.

Common Sense Is As Rare As Genius.

You Cannot Institute, Without Peril Of Charlatanism.

There Are Two Classes Of Poets - The Poets By Education And Practice, These We Respect; And Poets By Nature, These We Love.

In Dealing With The State, We Ought To Remember That Its Institutions Are Not Aboriginal, Though They Existed Before We Were Born; That They Are Not Superior To The Citizen; That Every One Of Them Was Once The Act Of A Single Man; Every Law And Usage Was A Man's Expedient To Meet A Particular Case; That They All Are Imitable, All Alterable; We May Make As Good; We May Make Better.

The Conservative Assumes Sickness As A Necessity, And His Social Frame Is A Hospital, His Total Legislation Is For The Present Distress, A Universe In Slippers And Flannels, With Bib And Papspoon, Swallowing Pills And Herb-tea.

Belief And Love,--a Believing Love Will Relieve Us Of A Vast Load Of Care. O My Brothers, God Exists. There Is A Soul At The Centre Of Nature, And Over The Will Of Every Man, So That None Of Us Can Wrong The Universe.

One Of Our Statesmen Said, "the Curse Of This Country Is Eloquent Men."

Happy Is He Who Looks Only Into His Work To Know If It Will Succeed, Never Into The Times Or The Public Opinion; And Who Writes From The Love Of Imparting Certain Thoughts And Not From The Necessity Of Sale - Who Writes Always To The Unknown Friend.

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

You Cannot Do Wrong Without Suffering Wrong.

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

He Thought It Happier To Be Dead, To Die For Beauty, Than Live For Bread

Trending Author

Category