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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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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But The Best Read

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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.

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The Reason Why The World Lacks Unity, And Lies Broken And In Heaps, Is, Because Man Is Disunited With Himself.

Every Man Alone Is Sincere. At The Entrance Of A Second Person, Hypocrisy Begins

America Is Not Civil, Whilst Africa Is Barbarous.

The Affections Cannot Keep Their Youth Any More Than Men.

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.

To The Attentive Eye, Each Moment Of The Year Has Its Own Beauty, And In The Same Fields, It Beholds, Every Hour, A Picture Which Was Never Seen Before, And Which Shall Never Be Seen Again.

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

So Each Man, Like Each Plant, Has His Parasites. A Strong, Astringent, Bilious Nature Has More Truculent Enemies Than The Slugs And Moths That Fret My Leaves. Such A One Has Curculios, Borers, Knife-worms; A Swindler Ate Him First, Then A Client, Then A Quack, Then Smooth, Plausible Gentlemen, Bitter And Selfish As Moloch.

Humility Is The Secret Of The Wise.

With The Past, I Have Nothing To Do; Nor With The Future. I Live Now.

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.

Slavery It Is That Makes Slavery; Freedom, Freedom. The Slavery Of Women Happened When The Men Were Slaves Of Kings.

Without Ambition One Starts Nothing. Without Work One Finishes Nothing. The Prize Will Not Be Sent To You. You Have To Win It. The Man Who Knows How Will Always Have A Job. The Man Who Also Knows Why Will Always Be His Boss. As To Methods There May Be A Million And Then Some, But Principles Are Few. The Man Who Grasps Principles Can Successfully Select His Own Methods. The Man Who Tries Methods, Ignoring Principles, Is Sure To Have Trouble.

A Garden Is Like Those Pernicious Machineries Which Catch A Man's Coat-skirt Or His Hand, And Draw In His Arm, His Leg , And His Whole Body To Irresistible Destruction.

Best Masters For The Young Writer And Speaker Are The Fault- Finding Brothers And Sisters At Home Who Will Not Spare Him, But Willpick And Cavil, And Tell The Odious Truth.

Every True Man Is A Cause, A Country, And An Age; Requires Infinite Spaces And Numbers And Time Fully To Accomplish His Design;--and Posterity Seem To Follow His Steps As A Train Of Clients.

But There Are Higher Secrets Of Culture, Which Are Not For The Apprentices, But For Proficients. These Are Lessons Only For The Brave. We Must Know Our Friends Under Ugly Masks. The Calamities Are Our Friends.

Steam Is No Stronger Now Than It Was A Hundred Years Ago, But It Is Put To Better Use.

Every Man Supposes Himself Not To Be Fully Understood Or Appreciated.

Nothing External To You Has Any Power Over You.

What Is Originality? It Is Being One's Self, And Reporting Accurately What We See And Are.

Men Do Not Believe In The Power Of Education. We Do Not Think We Can Speak To Divine Sentiments In Man, And We Do Not Try. We Renounce All High Aims.

Let Not The Author Eat Up The Man, So That He Shall Be All Balcony And No House.

The Highest Revelation Is That God Is In Every Man.

My Life Is For Itself And Not For A Spectacle.

A Moody Child And Wildly Wise Pursued The Game With Joyful Eyes, Which Chose, Like Meteors, Their Way, And Rived The Dark With Private Ray.

An Actually Existing Fly Is More Important Than A Possibly Existing Angel.

Not Always Can Flowers, Pearls, Poetry, Protestations, Nor Even Home In Another Heart, Content The Awful Soul That Dwells In Clay.

I Am Become A Transparent Eyeball.

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

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

Health Is The Condition Of Wisdom, And The Sign Is Cheerfulness, - An Open And Noble Temper.

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

Insist On Yourself. Never Imitate.

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

Go Out Of The House To See The Moon, And 't Is Mere Tinsel; It Will Not Please As When Its Light Shines Upon Your Necessary Journey. The Beauty That Shimmers In The Yellow Afternoons Of October, Who Could Ever Clutch It? Go Forth To Find It, And It Is Gone: 't Is Only A Mirage As You Look From The Windows Of Diligence.

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

Who Gave Thee, O Beauty, The Keys Of This Breast,-- Too Credulous Lover Of Blest And Unblest? Say, When In Lapsed Ages Thee Knew I Of Old? Or What Was The Service For Which I Was Sold?

Nature Never Sends A Great Man Into The Planet, Without Confiding The Secret To Another Soul.

New Arts Destroy The Old.

Every Reform Was Once A Private Opinion, And When It Shall Be A Private Opinion Again, It Will Solve The Problem Of The Age.

Tobacco And Opium Have Broad Backs, And Will Cheerfully Carry The Load Of Armies, If You Choose To Make Them Pay High For Such Joy As They Give And Such Harm As They Do.

The Adventitious Beauty Of Poetry May Be Felt In The Greater Delight With A Verse Given In A Happy Quotation Than In The Poem.

The Life Of Man Is The True Romance, Which When It Is Valiantly Conduced, Will Yield The Imagination A Higher Joy Than Any Fiction.

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

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.

He Is Only Rich Who Owns The Day. There Is No King, Rich Man, Fairy, Or Demon Who Possesses Such Power As That.

The Death Of A Dear Friend, Wife, Brother, Lover, Which Seemed Nothing But Privation, Somewhat Later Assumes The Aspect Of A Guide Or Genius; For It Commonly Operates Revolutions In Our Way Of Life, Terminates An Epoch Of Infancy Or Of Youth Which Was Waiting To Be Closed, Breaks Up A Wonted Occupation, Or A Household, Or Style Of Living, And Allows The Formation Of New Ones More Friendly To The Growth Of Character.

Progress Is The Activity Of Today And The Assurance Of Tomorrow

I Cannot Marry The Facts Of William Shakespeare To His Verse: Other Men Had Led Lives In Some Sort Of Keeping With Their Thought, But This Man Is In Wide Contrast.

A Poet Is No Rattlebrain, Saying What Comes Uppermost, And, Because He Says Every Thing, Saying, At Last, Something Good; But A Heart In Unison With His Time And Country. There Is Nothing Whimsical Or Fantastic In His Production, But Sweet And Sad Earnest, Freighted With The Weightiest Convictions, And Pointed With The Most Determined Aim Which Any Man Or Class Knows Of In His Times.

Wealth Brings With It Its Own Checks And Balances. The Basis Of Political Economy Is Noninterference. The Only Safe Rule Is Found In The Self-adjusting Meter Of Demand And Supply. 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 Free And Just Commonwealth, Property Rushes From The Idle And Imbecile To The Industrious, Brave And Persevering.

All Goes To Show That The Soul In Man Is Not An Organ, But Animates And Exercises All The Organs; Is Not A Function, Like The Power Of Memory, Of Calculation, Of Comparison, But Uses These As Hands And Feet; Is Not A Faculty, But A Light, Is Not The Intellect Or The Will, But The Master Of The Intellect And The Will; Is The Background Of Our Being, In Which They Lie,--an Immensity Not Possessed And That Cannot Be Possessed.

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.

All Men In The Abstract Are Just And Good.

The God Who Made New Hampshire Taunted The Lofty Land With Little Men.

The Compensations Of Calamity Are Made Apparent To The Understanding Also, After Long Intervals Of Time. A Fever, A Mutilation, A Cruel Disappointment, A Loss Of Wealth, A Loss Of Friends, Seems At The Moment Unpaid Loss, And Unpayable. But The Sure Years Reveal The Deep Remedial Force That Underlies All Facts.

No Law Can Be Sacred To Me But That Of My Nature. Good And Bad Are But Names Very Readily Transferable To That Or This; The Only Right Is What Is After My Constitution; The Only Wrong Is What Is Against It.

Drudgery, Calamity, Exasperation, Want, Are Instructors In Eloquence And Wisdom.

Although Knaves Win In Every Political Struggle, Although Society Seems To Be Delivered Over From The Hands Of One Set Of Criminals Into The Hands Of Another Set Of Criminals, As Fast As The Government Is Changed, And The March Of Civilization Is A Train Of Felonies, Yet, General Ends Are Somehow Answered.

Experience Is The Only Teacher, And We Get His Lesson Indifferently In Any School.

You Cannot Make A Cheap Palace.

Every Man Is A Borrower And A Mimic, Life Is Theatrical And Literature A Quotation.

Not Gold But Only Men Can Makea People Great And Strong;men Who For Truth And Honors Sakestand Fast And Suffer Long. Brave Men Who Work While Others Sleep,who Dare While Others Flythey Build A Nations Pillars Deepand Lift Them To The Sky.

Sickness Is Poor-spirited, And Cannot Serve Anyone; It Must Husband Its Resources To Live. But Health Or Fullness Answers Its Own Ends, And Has To Spare, Runs Over, And Inundates The Neighborhoods And Creeks Of Other Men's Necessities.

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

Great Geniuses Have The Shortest Biographies.

The True Ship Is The Ship Builder.

The Youth, Intoxicated With His Admiration Of A Hero, Fails To See, That It Is Only A Projection Of His Own Soul, Which He Admires.

All Forms Of Government Symbolize An Immortal Government, Common To All Dynasties And Independent Of Numbers, Perfect Where Two Men Exist, Perfect Where There Is Only One Man.

Do Not Speak Of God Much. After A Very Little Conversation On The Highest Nature, Thought Deserts Us And We Run Into Formalism.

If In The Least Particular, One Could Derange The Order Of Nature, Who Would Accept The Gift Of Life?

God Has Delegated Himself To A Million Deputies.

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.

The Force Of Character Is Cumulative.

Get Health. No Labor, Effort Nor Exercise That Can Gain It Must Be Grudged.

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

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.

Men Lose Their Tempers In Defending Their Taste.

In Nature Nothing Can Be Given. All Things Are Sold.

What Is Life But The Angle Of Vision? A Man Is Measured By The Angle At Which He Looks At Objects.

Every Hero Becomes A Bore At Last.

We Surround Ourselves With The True Image Of Ourselves.

One Thing Is Forever Good; That One Thing Is Success.

Sympathy Is A Supporting Atmosphere, And In It We Unfold Easily And Well.

In Dreams We Are True Poets; We Create The Persons Of The Drama; We Give Them Appropriate Figures Faces, Costumes; They Are Perfect In Their Organs, Attitudes, Manners; Moreover They Speak After Their Own Characters, Not Ours; And We Listen With Surprise To What They Say.

Let A Stoic Open The Resources Of Man, And Tell Men They Are Not Leaning Willows, But Can And Must Detach Themselves; That With The Exercise Of Self-trust, New Powers Shall Appear.

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

Daughter Of Heaven And Earth, Coy Spring, With Sudden Passion Languishing, Teaching Barren Moors To Smile, Painting Pictures Mile On Mile, Holds A Cup Of Cowslip Wreaths Whence A Smokeless Incense Breathes.

He Who Is In Love Is Wise And Is Becoming Wiser.

Every Thing Admonishes Us How Needlessly Long Life Is.

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

Calmness Is Always Godlike.

Cities Degrade Us By Magnifying Trifles.

The Masters Painted For Joy, And Knew Not That Virtue Had Gone Out Of Them. They Could Not Paint The Like In Cold Blood. The Masters Of English Lyric Wrote Their Songs So. It Was A Fine Efflorescence Of Fine Powers.

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.

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.

Every Sweet Has Its Sour; Every Evil Its Good.

He Only Is A Well-made Man Who Has A Good Determination. And The End Of Culture Is Not To Destroy This, God Forbid! But To Train Away All Impediment And Mixture And Leave Nothing But Pure Power.

A Divine Person Is The Prophecy Of The Mind; A Friend Is The Hope Of The Heart.

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

A Child Is A Curly, Dimpled Lunatic.

The Artists Must Be Sacrificed To Their Art. Like The Bees, They Must Put Their Lives Into The Sting They Give.

Youth Is Everywhere In Place.

Art Is A Jealous Mistress.

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

In The Highest Civilization, The Book Is Still The Highest Delight. He Who Has Once Known Its Satisfactions Is Provided With A Resource Against Calamity.

Evil Is Merely Privative, Not Absolute: It Is Like Cold, Which Is The Privation Of Beat.

Man Thinking Must Not Be Subdued By His Instruments. Books Are For The Scholar's Idle Times. When He Can Read God Directly, The Hour Is Too Precious To Be Wasted In Other Men's Transcripts Of Their Readings.

It Is Said, No Man Can Write But One Book; And If A Man Have A Defect, It Is Apt To Leave Its Impression On All His Performances.

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

Solitude Is Impractical And Yet Society Is Fatal.

When Half-gods Go The Gods Arrive.

The Great Man Is Not Convulsible Or Tormentable; Events Pass Over Him Without Much Impression.

Perhaps Love Is Only The Highest Symbol Of Friendship, As All Other Things Seem Symbols Of Love.

Test Of The Poet Is Knowledge Of Love, For Eros Is Older Than Saturn Or Jove; Never Was Poet, Of Late Or Of Yore, Who Was Not Tremulous With Love-lore.

You May Regret Calamities If You Can Thereby Help The Sufferer, But If You Cannot, Mind Your Own Business.

Mind Your Own Business

Don't Ever Give Up On Something Or Someone That You Can't Go A Full Day Without Thinking About.

In The Great Books Of India, An Empire Spoke To Us, Nothing Small Or Unworthy, But Large, Serene, Consistent, The Voice Of An Old Intelligence, Which In Another Age And Climate Had Pondered And Thus Disposed Of The Questions That Exercise Us.

Why Need I Volumes, If One Word Suffice?

Concentration Is The Secret Of Srength.

The Quality Of The Thought Differences The Egyptian And The Roman, The Austrian And The American.

No Man Gains Credit For His Cowardly Courtesies.

Shall We Then Judge A Country By The Majority, Or By The Minority? By The Minority, Surely. 'tis Pedantry To Estimate Nations By The Census, Or By Square Miles Of Land, Or Other Than By Their Importance To The Mind Of The Time.

There Are Only Ten Minutes In The Life Of A Pear When It Is Perfect To Eat.

Moderation In All Things, Especially Moderation.

Moderation In All Things

The World We Live In Is But Thickened Light.

The Inquiry Leads Us To That Source, At Once The Essence Of Genius, Of Virtue, And Of Life, Which We Call Spontaneity Or Instinct.

I Fear The Popular Notion Of Success Stands In Direct Opposition In All Points To The Real And Wholesome Success. One Adores Public Opinion, The Other, Private Opinion; One, Fame, The Other, Desert; One, Feats, The Other, Humility; One, Lucre, The Other, Love; One, Monopoly, And The Other, Hospitality Of Mind.

Obedience Alone Gives The Right To Command.

Time Dissipates To Shining Ether The Solid Angularity Of Facts.

Tell Them Dear, That If Eyes Were Made For Seeing, Then Beauty Is Its Own Excuse For Being: Why Thou Wert There, O Rival Of The Rose! I Never Sought To Ask, I Never Knew: But, In My Simple Ignorance Suppose The Selfsame Power That Brought Me There Brought You.

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

Begin And Proceed On A Settled Conviction That But Little Is Permitted To Any Man To Do Or To Know, And If He Complies With The First Grand Laws, He Shall Do Well.

A Breath Of Will Blows Eternally Through The Universe Of Souls In The Direction Of Right And Necessity. It Is The Air Which All Intellects Inhale And Exhale, And It Is The Wind Which Blows The Worlds Into Order And Orbit.

I Have Sometimes Thought That, In Order To Be A Good Minister, It Was Necessary To Leave The Ministry. The Profession Is Antiquated. In An Altered Age, We Worship In The Dead Forms Of Our Forefathers.

There Is Nothing In History To Parallel The Influence Of Jesus Christ.

He Then Learns That In Going Down Into The Secrets Of His Own Mind, He Has Descended Into The Secrets Of All Minds.

Besides The General Infusion Of Wit To Heighten Civility, The Direct Splendor Of Intellectual Power Is Ever Welcome In Fine Society, As The Costliest Addition To Its Rule And Its Credit.

Of All The Ways To Lose A Person, Death Is The Kindest

Meet Your Failure Nobly, And It Will Not Differ From Success.

This Immediate Dependence Of Language Upon Nature, This Conversion Of An Outward Phenomenon Into A Type Of Somewhat In Human Life,never Loses Its Power To Affect Us. It Is This Which Gives That Piquancy To The Conversation Of A Strong-natured Farmer Or Backwoodsman, Which All Men Relish.

We Aim Above The Mark, To Hit The Mark. Every Act Hath Some Falsehood Of Exaggeration In It.

Things Refuse To Be Mismanaged For Long.

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

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

The Sea Is Masculine, The Type Of Active Strength. Look, What Egg-shells Are Drifting All Over It, Each One, Like Ours, Filled With Men In Ecstasies Of Terror, Alternating With Cockney Conceit, As The Sea Is Rough Or Smooth. Is This Sad-colored Circle An Eternal Cemetery?

A Man Builds A Fine House; And Now He Has A Master, And A Task For Life.

There Are Always Difficulties Arising That Tempt You To Believe Your Critics Are Right.

Draw, If Thou Canst, The Mystic Line, Severing Rightly His From Thine, Which Is Human, Which Divine.

Men Are Like Geneva Watches With Crystal Faces, Which Expose The Whole Movement.

The Paid Wealth Which Hundreds In The Community Acquire In Trade, Or By The Incessant Expansions Of Our Population And Arts, Enchants The Eyes Of All The Rest; The Luck Of One Is The Hope Of Thousands, And The Bribe Acts Like The Neighborhood Of A Gold Mine To Impoverish The Farm, The School, The Church, The House, And The Very Body And Feature Of Man.

Go Where He Will, The Wise Man Is At Home, His Hearth The Earth, His Hall The Azure Dome.

The Land Is The Appointed Remedy For Whatever Is False And Fantastic In Our Culture. The Continent We Inhabit Is To Be Physic Andfood For Our Mind, As Well As Our Body. The Land, With Its Tranquilizing, Sanative Influences, Is To Repair The Errors Of A Scholastic And Traditional Education, And Bring Us To Just Relations With Men And Things.

Hither Rolls The Storm Of Heat; I Feel Its Finer Billows Beat Like A Sea Which Me Infolds; Heat With Viewless Fingers Moulds, Swells, And Mellows, And Matures, Paints, And Flavors, And Allures, Bird And Brier Inly Warms, Still Enriches And Transforms, Gives The Reed And Lily Length, Adds To Oak And Oxen Strength, Transforming What It Doth Infold, Life Out Of Death, New Out Of Old.

The Customer Is The Immediate Jewel Of Our Souls. Him We Flatter, Him We Feast, Compliment, Vote For, And Will Not Contradict.

In A Tavern Everybody Puts On Airs Except The Landlord.

Human Condition

If The Aristocrat Is Only Valid In Fashionable Circles, And Not With Truckmen, He Will Never Be A Leader In Fashion; And If The Man Of The People Cannot Speak On Equal Terms With The Gentleman, So That The Gentleman Shall Perceive That He Is Already Really Of His Own Order, He Is Not To Be Feared.

Wherever The Truth Is Injured, Defend It.

A Man Is A Method, A Progressive Arrangement; A Selecting Principle, Gathering His Like To Him; Wherever He Goes.

I Shun Father And Mother And Wife And Brother, When My Genius Calls Me.

The Stars Awaken A Certain Reverence, Because Though Always Present, They Are Inaccessible.

We Seldom See Anybody Who Is Not Uneasy Or Afraid To Live.

We Learn Geology The Morning After The Earthquake, On Ghastly Diagrams Of Cloven Mountains, Upheaved Plains, And The Dry Bed Of The Sea.

...as There Is No Screen Or Ceiling Between Our Heads And The Infinite Heavens, So Is There No Bar Or Wall In The Soul Where Man, The Effect, Ceases, And God, The Cause, Begins. The Walls Are Taken Away. We Lie Open On One Side To The Deeps Of Spiritual Nature, To The Attributes Of God. Justice We See And Know, Love, Freedom, Power. These Natures No Man Ever Got Above, But They Tower Over Us, And Most In The Moment When Our Interests Tempt Us To Wound Them.

The Delicious Faces Of Children, The Beauty Of School-girls, "the Sweet Seriousness Of Sixteen," The Lofty Air Of Well-born, Well-bred Boys, The Passionate Histories In The Looks And Manners Of Youth And Early Manhood, And The Varied Power In All That Well-known Company That Escort Us Through Life,--we Know How These Forms Thrill, Paralyze, Provoke, Inspire, And Enlarge Us.

The Wise And Just Man Will Always Feel That He Stands On His Own Feet; That He Imparts Strength To The State, Not Receives Security From It; And If All Went Down, He And Such As He Would Quite Easily Combine In A New And Better Constitution.

If You Visit Your Friend, Why Need You Apologize For Not Having Visited Him, And Waste His Time And Deface Your Own Act? Visit Him Now.

Accept Your Genius And Say What You Think.

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

We Over-estimate The Conscience Of Our Friend. His Goodness Seems Better Than Our Goodness, His Nature Finer, His Temptations Less. Everything That Is His,--his Name, His Form, His Dress, Books, And Instruments,--fancy Enhances. Our Own Thought Sounds New And Larger From His Mouth.

Blame Is Safer Than Praise

Be As Beneficent As The Sun Or The Sea, But If Your Rights As A Rational Being Are Trenched On, Die On The First Inch Of Your Territory.

Curiosity Is Lying In Wait For Every Secret.

Each Man Has An Aptitude Born With Him. Do Your Work.

The Disease With Which The Human Mind Now Labors Is Want Of Faith

I Now Require This Of All Pictures, That They Domesticate Me, Not That They Dazzle Me. Pictures Must Not Be Too Picturesque. Nothing Astonishes Men So Much As Common-sense And Plain Dealing. All Great Actions Have Been Simple, And All Great Pictures Are.

In Like Manner The Effect Of Every Action Is Measured By The Depth Of The Sentiment From Which It Proceeds. The Great Man Knew Not That He Was Great. It Took A Century Or Two For That Fact To Appear. What He Did, He Did, He Did Because He Must; It Was The Most Natural Thing In The World, And Grew Out Of The Circumstances Of The Moment.

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

I Awoke This Morning With Devout Thanksgiving For My Friends, The Old And The New.

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.

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

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?

The Teaching Of Politics Is That The Government, Which Was Set For Protection And Comfort Of All Good Citizens, Becomes The Principal Obstruction And Nuisance With Which We Have To Contend... The Cheat And Bully And Malefactor We Meet Everywhere Is The Government.

If I Should Go Out Of Church Whenever I Hear A False Sentiment, I Could Never Stay There Five Minutes.

A Wise Writer Will Feel That The Ends Of Study And Composition Are Best Answered By Announcing Undiscovered Regions Of Thought, And So Communicating, Through Hope, New Activity To The Torpid Spirit.

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.

Do Not Craze Yourself With Thinking, But Go About Your Business Anywhere.

Coal Is A Portable Climate. It Carries The Heat Of The Tropics To Labrador And The Polar Circle; And It Is The Means Of Transporting Itself Whithersoever It Is Wanted. Watt And Stephenson Whispered In The Ear Of Mankind Their Secret, That A Half-ounce Of Coal Will Draw Two Tons A Mile, And Coal Carries Coal, By Rail And By Boat, To Make Canada As Warm As Calcutta, And With Its Comfort Brings Its Industrial Power.

The Only Right Is What Is After My Constitution; The Only Wrong Is What Is Against It.

The Greatest Homage To Truth Is To Use It.

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.

Science Does Not Know Its Debt To Imagination. Goethe Did Not Believe That A Great Naturalist Could Exist Without This Faculty.

When A Happy Person Comes Into The Room, It Is As If Another Candle Has Been Lit.

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

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

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

Nothing Is Great But The Inexhaustible Wealth Of Nature.

A Judge May Be A Farmer; But He Is Not To Geld His Own Pigs.

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