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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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Can Rules Or Tutors

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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.

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

The True Thrift Is Always To Spend On The Higher Plane; To Invest And Invest, With Keener Avarice, That He May Spend In Spiritualcreation, And Not In Augmenting Animal Existence. Nor Is The Man Enriched, In Repeating The Old Experiments Of Animal Sensation; Nor Unless Through New Powers And Ascending Pleasures He Knows Himself By The Actual Experience Of Higher Good To Be Already On The Way To The Highest.

An Empire Is An Immense Egotism.

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

Gross And Obscure Natures, However Decorated, Seem Impure Shambles; But Character Gives Splendor To Youth, And Awe To Wrinkled Skin And Gray Hairs.

The Test Of Civilization Is The Power Of Drawing The Most Benefit Out Of Cities.

The Permanence Of All Books Is Fixed By No Effort Friendly Or Hostile, But By Their Own Specific Gravity, Or The Intrinsic Importance Of Their Contents To The Constant Mind Of Man.

A Man Must Consider What A Rich Realm He Abdicates When He Becomes A Conformist.

Being Different

One Idea Lights A Thousand Candles.

Is It Not Better To Intimate Our Astonishment As We Pass Through This World If It Be Only For A Moment Ere We Are Swallowed Up In The Yeast Of The Abyss? I Will Lift Up My Hands And Say Kosmos.

Put God In Your Debt. Every Stroke Shall Be Repaid. The Longer The Payment Is With-held, The Better For You; For Compound Interest On Compound Interest Is The Rate And Usage Of This Exchequer.

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.

Every Rational Creature Has All Nature For His Dowry And Estate. It Is His, If He Will. He May Divest Himself Of It; He May Creepinto A Corner, And Abdicate His Kingdom, As Most Men Do, But He Is Entitled To The World By His Constitution.

The Delicate Muses Lose Their Head If Their Attention Is Once Diverted. Perhaps If You Were Successful Abroad In Talking And Dealing With Men, You Would Not Come Back To Your Bookshelf And Your Task. When The Spirit Chooses You For Its Scribe To Publish Some Commandment, It Makes You Odious To Men And Men Odious To You, And You Shall Accept That Loathsomeness With Joy. The Moth Must Fly To The Lamp, And You Must Solve Those Questions Though You Die.

It Is Noticed, That The Consideration Of The Great Periods And Spaces Of Astronomy Induces A Dignity Of Mind, And An Indifferenceto Death.

For The Time Of Towns Is Tolled From The World By Funereal Chimes, But In Nature The Universal Hours Are Counted By Succeeding Tribes Of Animals And Plants, And By Growth Of Joy On Joy.

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.

Everything Is Made Of One Hidden Stuff.

Earth And Nature

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.

I Remember An Answer Which When Quite Young I Was Prompted To Make A Valued Adviser Who Was Wont To Importune Me With The Dear Old Doctrines Of The Church. On My Saying, What Have I To Do With The Sacredness Of Traditions, If I Live Wholly From Within? My Friend Suggested, - "but These Impulses May Be From Below, Not From Above." I Replied, 'they Do Not Seem To Me To Be Such; But If I Am The Devil's Child, I Will Live Then From The Devil.'

The President Proclaims War, And Those Senators Who Dissent Are Not Those Who Know Better, But Those Who Can Afford To...democracy Becomes A Government Of Bullies Tempered By Editors.

Money, Which Represents The Prose Of Life, And Which Is Hardly Spoken Of In Parlors Without An Apology, Is, In Its Effects And Laws, As Beautiful As Roses.

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.

It Seems To Be A Rule Of Wisdom Never To Rely On Your Memory Alone, Scarcely Even In Acts Of Pure Memory, But To Bring The Past For Judgment Into The Thousand-eyed Present, And Live Ever In A New Day.

The Intellect Is Vagabond, And Our System Of Education Fosters Restlessness. Our Minds Travel When Our Bodies Are Forced To Stay At Home. We Imitate; And What Is Imitation But The Travelling Of The Mind?

Other Men Are Lenses Through Which We Read Our Own Minds. Each Man Seeks Those Of Different Quality From His Own, And Such As Are Good Of Their Kind; That Is, He Seeks Other Men, And The Rest.

And Truly It Demands Something God Like In Him Who Has Cast Off The Common Motives Of Humanity, And Has Ventured To Trust Himself For A Taskmaster. High Be His Heart, Faithful His Will, Clear His Sight, That He May In Good Earnest Be Doctrine, Society, Law, To Himself, That A Simple Purpose May Be To Him As Strong As Iron Necessity Is To Others!

It Was A Pleasure And A Privilege To Walk With Him [h.d. Thoreau]. He Knew The Country Like A Fox Or A Bird, And Passed Through It As Freely By Paths Of His Own.

Let Us Unlearn Our Wisdom Of The World. Let Us Lie Low In The Lord's Power, And Learn That Truth Alone Makes Rich And Great.

There Is No Beautifier Of Complexion, Or Form, Or Behavior, Like The Wish To Scatter Joy And Not Pain Around Us.

Religion Is As Effectively Destroyed By Bigotry As By Indifference.

To A Dull Mind All Of Nature Is Leaden. To The Illumined Mind The Whole World Burns And Sparkles With Light.

The Energetic Action Of The Times Develops Individualism, And The Religious Appear Isolated. I Esteem This A Step In The Right Direction. Heaven Deals With Us On No Representative System. Souls Are Not Saved In Bundles.

Nothing Is More Disgusting Than The Crowing About Liberty By Slaves, As Most Men Are, And The Flippant Mistaking For Freedom Of Some Paper Preamble Like A Declaration Of Independence, Or The Statute Right To Vote, By Those Who Have Never Dared To Think Or To Act.

I Like Man, But Not Men.

We Will Walk On Our Own Feet; We Will Work With Our Own Hands; We Will Speak Our Own Minds... A Nation Of Men Will For The First Time Exist, Because Each Believes Himself Inspired By The Divine Soul Which Also Inspires All Men.

Strong Men Greet War, Tempest, Hard Times. They Wish, As Pindar Said, To Tread The Floors Of Hell, With Necessities As Hard As Iron.

Every Man Is An Infinitely Repelling Orb, And Holds His Individual Being On That Condition.

Society Is Frivolous, And Shreds Its Day Into Scraps, Its Conversation Into Ceremonies And Escapes.

A Philosopher Must Be More Than A Philosopher.

In My Dealing With My Child, My Latin And Greek, My Accomplishments And My Money Stead Me Nothing; But As Much Soul As I Have Avails. If I Am Wilful, He Sets His Will Against Mine, One For One, And Leaves Me, If I Please, The Degradation Of Beating Him By My Superiority Of Strength. But If I Renounce My Will, And Act For The Soul, Setting That Up As Umpire Between Us Two, Out Of His Young Eyes Looks The Same Soul; He Reveres And Loves With Me.

Wit Makes Its Own Welcome, And Levels All Distinction. No Dignity, No Learning, No Force Of Character, Can Make Any Stand Against Good Wit. It Is Like Ice, On Which No Beauty Of Form, No Majesty Of Carriage, Can Plead Any Immunity; They Must Walk Gingerly, According To The Laws Of Ice, Or Down They Must Go, Dignity And All.

If, At Any Time, It Comes Into My Head, That A Present Is Due From Me To Somebody, I Am Puzzled What To Give, Until The Opportunity Is Gone.

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

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?

The Boxer's Ring Is The Enjoyment Of The Part Of Society Whose Animal Nature Alone Has Been Developed.

It Is Greatest To Believe And To Hope Well Of The World, Because He Who Does So, Quits The World Of Experience, And Makes The World He Lives In.

Stand Guard At The Portal Of Your Mind.

Never Lose An Opportunity Of Seeing Anything Beautiful, For Beauty Is God's Handwriting.

All Is A Riddle, And The Key To A Riddle...is Another Riddle.

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

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.

Thou Art To Me A Delicious Torment.

Character Teaches Above Our Wills.

It Is Wonderful How Soon A Piano Gets Into A Log-hut On The Frontier. You Would Think They Found It Under A Pine-stump. With It Comes A Latin Grammar, And One Of Those Tow-head Boys Has Written A Hymn On Sunday. Now Let Colleges, Now Let Senates Take Heed! For Here Is One Who, Opening These Fine Tastes On The Basis Of The Pioneer's Iron Constitution, Will Gather All Their Laurels In His Strong Hands.

To Aim To Convert A Man By Miracles Is A Profanation Of The Soul. A True Conversion, A True Christ, Is Now, As Always, To Be Madeby The Reception Of Beautiful Sentiments.

The Private Life Of One Man Shall Be A More Illustrious Monarchy,--more Formidable To Its Enemy, More Sweet And Serene In Its Influence To Its Friend, Than Any Kingdom In History. For A Man, Rightly Viewed, Comprehendeth The Particular Natures Of All Men.

But I Cannot Recite, Even Thus Rudely, Laws Of The Intellect, Without Remembering That Lofty And Sequestered Class Of Men Who Have Been Its Prophets And Oracles, The High-priesthood Of The Pure Reason, The Trismegisti, The Expounders Of The Principles Of Thought From Age To Age.

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

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

When I Go Into The Garden With A Spade And Dig A Bed I Feel Such An Exhilaration And Health That I Discover That I Have Been Defrauding Myself All This Time In Letting Others Do For Me What I Should Have Done With My Own Hands.

My Giant Goes With Me Wherever I Go.

Friendship Buys Friendship.

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.

Venus, When Her Son Was Lost, Cried Him Up And Down The Coast, In Hamlets, Palaces, And Parks, And Told The Truant By His Marks,- Golden Curls, And Quiver, And Bow.

The Invariable Mark Of Wisdom Is To See The Miraculous In The Common.

Thought Is The Property Of Him Who Can Entertain It, And Of Him Who Can Adequately Place It.

Men Talk As If Victory Were Something Fortunate. Work Is Victory.

It Is Doubtless A Vice To Turn One's Eyes Inward Too Much, But I Am My Own Comedy And Tragedy.

There Is Also Something Excellent In Every Audience,--the Capacity Of Virtue. They Are Ready To Be Beatified.

Only So Much Of Life Do I Know As I Have Lived.

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

When Summer Opens, I See How Fast It Matures, And Fear It Will Be Short; But After The Heats Of July And August, I Am Reconciled, Like One Who Has Had His Swing, To The Cool Of Autumn.

Gold And Iron Are Good To Buy Iron And Gold.

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.

Adopt The Pace Of Nature: Her Secret Is Patience.

Many Eyes Go Through The Meadow, But Few See The Flowers In It

Many A Profound Genius, I Suppose, Who Fills The World With Fame Of His Exploding Renowned Errors, Is Yet Everyday Posed And Baffled By Trivial Questions At His Own Supper Table.

Happy Is The House That Shelters A Friend.

...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.

Every Man Has A Choice Between Love Of Truth And Love Of Repose. Love Of Repose Brings Him A Solid Reputation And Peaceful Life; Love Of Truth Keeps Him In Suspense. A Man Who Loves Truth Respects The Highest Law Of His Being.

Conversation In Society Is Found To Be On A Platform So Low As To Exclude Science, The Saint, And The Poet.

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

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.

When A Man Meets His Make, Society Begins.

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

In A Tavern Everybody Puts On Airs Except The Landlord.

Human Condition

The Pest Of Society Is Egotists.

Power Is In Nature The Essential Measure Of Right.

A Man In The View Of Absolute Goodness, Adores, With Total Humility. Every Step Downward, Is A Step Upward. The Man Who Renounceshimself, Comes To Himself.

Treat Your Friend As A Spectacle.

I Am Defeated All The Time, Yet To Victory I Am Born.

Of All Debts, Men Are Least Willing To Pay Their Taxes; What A Satire This Is On Government.

If Eyes Were Made For Seeing, Then Beauty Is Its Own Excuse For Being.

I Like The Silent Church Before The Service Begins, Better Than Any Preaching. How Far Off, How Cool, How Chaste The Persons Look,begirt Each One With A Precinct Or Sanctuary!

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.

It Is Vain To Keep A Secret From One Who Has A Right To Know It. It Will Tell Itself.

It Is Very Odd That Nature Should Be So Unscrupulous. She Is No Saint . . .

There Is No Luck In Literary Reputation. They Who Make Up The Final Verdict Upon Every Book Are Not The Partial And Noisy Readers Of The Hour When It Appears; But A Court As Of Angels, A Public Not To Be Bribed, Not To Be Entreated, And Not To Be Overawed, Decides Upon Every Man's Title To Fame.

These Times Of Ours Are Series And Full Of Calamity, But All Times Are Essentially Alike. As Soon As There Is Life There Is Danger.

You Send Your Child To The Schoolmaster, But 'tis The Schoolboys Who Educate Him. You Send Him To The Latin Class, But Much Of Histuition Comes, On His Way To School, From The Shop- Windows.

Conversation Is Our Account Of Ourselves...conversation Is The Vent Of Character As Well As Thoughts...it Is The Laboratory Of The Student.

Each Man Reserves To Himself Alone The Right Of Being Tedious.

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.

All Things Are Known To The Soul.

There Is No Better Way To Exercise The Imagination Than The Study Of The Law.

Power And Speed Be Hands And Feet.

Every Body We Know Surrounds Himself With A Fine House, Fine Books, Conservatory, Gardens, Equipage, And All Manner Of Toys, As Screens To Interpose Between Himself And His Guest. Does It Not Seem As If Man Was Of A Very Sly, Elusive Nature, And Dreaded Nothing So Much As A Full Rencontre Front To Front With His Fellow?

Though Thou Loved Her As Thyself, As A Self Of Purer Clay, Tho' Her Parting Dims The Day, Stealing Grace From All Alive, Heartily Know, When Half-gods Go, The Gods Arrive.

The Manly Part Is To Do With Might And Main What You Can Do.

The Secret Of Education Lies In Respecting The Pupil. It Is Not For You To Choose What He Shall Know, What He Shall Do. It Is Chosen And Foreordained And He Only Holds The Key To His Own Secret.

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.

Let Us Take Our Bloated Nothingness Out Of The Path Of The Divine Circuits.

No Power Of Genius Has Ever Yet Had The Smallest Success In Explaining Existence. The Perfect Enigma Remains.

A Few Strong Instincts And A Few Plain Rules Suffice Us

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.

Our Religion Vulgarly Stands On Numbers Of Believers. Whenever The Appeal Is Made--no Matter How Indirectly--to Numbers, Proclamation Is Then And There Made, That Religion Is Not. He That Finds God A Sweet, Enveloping Presence, Who Shall Dare To Come In?

He Who Would Be A Great Soul In The Future, Must Be A Great Soul Now.

Whenever You Are Sincerely Pleased You Are Nourished.

The World-spirit Is A Good Swimmer, And Storms And Waves Can Not Drown Him. He Snaps His Fingers At Laws; And So, Throughout History, Heaven Seems To Affect Low And Poor Means. Through The Years And The Centuries, Through Evil Agents, Through Toys And Atoms, A Great And Beneficent Tendency Irresistibly Streams.

There Is No Man Of Nature's Worth In The Circle Of The Earth.

The End Of Being Is To Know; And If You Say, The End Of Knowledge Is Action,-why, Yes, But The End Of That Action Again, Is Knowledge.

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.

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

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

My Own Mind Is The Direct Revelation Which I Have From God And Far Least Liable To Mistake In Telling His Will Of Any Revelation.

Skepticism Is Unbelief In Cause And Effect.

Cause And Effect

The Cruelest Foe Is A Masked Benefactor. The Wars Which Make History So Dreary Have Served The Cause Of Truth And Virtue.

The Consciousness In Each Man Is A Sliding Scale, Which Identifies Him Now With The First Cause, And Now With The Flesh Of His Body; Life Above Life, In Infinite Degrees.

Music Is The Poor Man's Parnassus.

A Beautiful Behavior Is Better Than A Beautiful Form; It Gives A Higher Pleasure Than Statues Or Pictures; It Is The Finest Of Fine Arts.

Fashion, Though In A Strange Way, Represents All Manly Virtue. It Is Virtue Gone To Seed: It Is A Kind Of Posthumous Honor. It Does Not Often Caress The Great, But The Children Of The Great: It Is A Hall Of The Past.

The Young Men Were Born With Knives In Their Brain, A Tendency To Introversion, Self-dissection, Anatomizing Of Motives.

If You Would Serve Your Brother It Is Fit For You To Serve Him, Do Not Take Back Your Words When You Find That Prudent People Do Not Commend You. Be True To Your Own Act, And Congratulate Yourself If You Have Done Something Strange And Extravagant And Broken The Monotony Of A Decorous Age.

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.

The Way To Write Is To Throw Your Body At The Mark When Your Arrows Are Spent.

Human Beings Cannot Endure The Geological Chaos They Encounter Under The Soil Of Their Own Gardens.

I Am Not Much An Advocate For Traveling, And I Observe That Men Run Away To Other Countries Because They Are Not Good In Their Own, And Run Back To Their Own Because They Pass For Nothing In The New Places. For The Most Part, Only The Light Characters Travel. Who Are You That Have No Task To Keep You At Home?

Language Is A City, To The Building Of Which Every Human Being Brought A Stone; Yet He Is No More To Be Credited With The Grand Result Than The Acaleph Which Adds A Cell To The Coral Reef Which Is The Basis Of The Continent.

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.

Great Men Are More Distinguished By Range And Extent Than By Originality.

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

And So The Reliance On Property, Including The Reliance On Governments Which Protect It, Is The Want Of Self-reliance.

For The World Was Built In Order Around The Atoms March In Tune; Rhyme The Pipe, And Time The Warder, The Sun Obeys Them, And The Moon.

The Secret Of Ugliness Consists Not In Irregularity, But In Being Uninteresting.

Funny Relationship

Friends Should Be Like Books, Easy To Find When You Need Them, But Seldom Used.

He Is A Good Man Who Can Receive A Gift Well.

Life Is March Weather, Savage And Serene In One Hour.

Evermore In The World Is This Marvelous Balance Of Beauty And Disgust, Magnificence And Rats.

Imitation Cannot Go Above Its Model.

Delicious Is A Just And Firm Encounter Of Two In A Thought, In A Feeling.

Guard Well Your Spare Moments. They Are Like Uncut Diamonds. Discard Them And Their Value Will Never Be Known. Improve Them And They Will Become The Brightest Gems In A Useful Life.

The Resources Of The Scholar Are Proportioned To His Confidence In The Attributes Of The Intellect.

Be An Opener Of Doors

It Is The Property Of The Religious Spirit To Be The Most Refining Of All Influences. No External Advantages, No Culture Of The Tastes, No Habit Of Command, No Association With The Elegant, Or Even Depth Of Affection, Can Bestow That Delicacy And That Grandeur Of Bearing Which Belong Only To The Mind Accustomed To Celestial Conversation,--all Else Is But Gilt And Cosmetics, Beside This, As Expressed In Every Look And Gesture.

The Compensations Of Calamity Are Made Apparent To The Understanding Also, After Long Intervals Of Time.

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.

Desire Is Possibility Seeking Expression.

We Grant No Dukedoms To The Few, We Hold Like Rights And Shall; Equal On Sunday In The Pew, On Monday In The Mall. For What Avail The Plough Or Sail, Or Land, Or Life, If Freedom Fail?

Every Opinion Reacts On Him Who Utters It.

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.

Every Fact Is Related On One Side To Sensation, And, On The Other, To Morals. The Game Of Thought Is, On The Appearance Of One Of These Two Sides, To Find The Other: Given The Upper, To Find The Under Side.

Conservatism, Ever More Timorous And Narrow, Disgusts The Children, And Drives Them For A Mouthful Of Fresh Air Into Radicalism.

Beware Of Jokes From Which We Go Away Hollow And Ashamed.

As Soon As There Is Life There Is Danger.

The Hearing Ear Is Always Found Close To The Speaking Tongue; And No Genius Can Long Or Often Utter Anything Which Is Not Invited And Gladly Entertained By Men Around Him.

The Action Of The Soul Is Oftener In That Which Is Felt And Left Unsaid Than In That Which Is Said In Any Conversation. It Broods Over Every Society, And Men Unconsciously Seek For It In Each Other.

[on Thoreau:] For Not A Particle Of Respect Had He To The Opinions Of Any Man Or Body Of Men, But Homage Solely To Truth Itself.

Great Conversation ... Requires An Absolute Running Of Two Souls Into One.

Deep Insight Will Always, Like Nature, Ultimate Its Thought In A Thing.

Is Not Prayer A Study Of Truth, A Sally Of The Soul Into The Unfound Infinite? No Man Ever Prayed Heartily Without Learning Something.

A Man Is Like A Bit Of Labrador Spar, Which Has No Lustre As You Turn It In Your Hand Until You Come To A Particular Angle; Then It Shows Deep And Beautiful Colors. There Is No Adaptation Or Universal Applicability In Men, But Each Has His Special Talent, And The Mastery Of Successful Men Consists In Adroitly Keeping Themselves Where And When That Turn Shall Be Oftenest To Be Practiced.

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

A Man Must Thank His Defects, And Stand In Some Terror Of His Talents. A Transcendent Talent Draws So Largely On His Forces As Tolame Him; A Defect Pays Him Revenues On The Other Side.

When Nature Removes A Great Man, People Explore The Horizon For A Successor; But None Comes, And None Will. His Class Is Extinguished With Him. In Some Other And Quite Different Field, The Next Man Will Appear.

Eloquence Must Be Grounded On The Plainest Narrative.

Imagination Is A Very High Sort Of Seeing, Which Does Not Come By Study, But By The Intellect Being Where And What It Sees, By Sharing The Path, Or Circuits Of Things Through Forms, And So Making Them Translucid To Others.

The Selfish Man Suffers More From His Selfishness Than He From Whom That Selfishness Withholds Some Important Benefit.

To The Young Mind Every Thing Is Individual, Stands By Itself. By And By, It Finds How To Join Two Things And See In Them One Nature; Then Three, Then Three Thousand; And So, Tyrannized Over By Its Own Unifying Instinct, It Goes On Tying Things Together, Diminishing Anomalies, Discovering Roots Running Under Ground Whereby Contrary And Remote Things Cohere And Flower Out From One Stem.

A Man's Growth Is Seen In The Successive Choirs Of His Friends.

Our Globe Discovers Its Bidden Virtues, Not Only In Heroes And Arch-angels, But In Gossips And Nurses.

As I Walked In The Woods I Felt What I Often Feel That Nothing Can Befall Me In Life, No Calamity, No Disgrace (leaving Me My Eyes) To Which Nature Will Not Offer A Sweet Consolation. Standing On The Bare Ground With My Head Bathed By The Blithe Air, & Uplifted Into The Infinite Space, I Become Happy In My Universal Relations. The Name Of The Nearest Friend Sounds Then Foreign & Accidental. I Am The Heir Of Uncontained Beauty And Power.

Who Hears Me, Who Understands Me, Becomes Mine, A Possession For All Time.

Fashion Understands Itself; Good-breeding And Personal Superiority Of Whatever Country Readily Fraternize With Those Of Every Other. The Chiefs Of Savage Tribes Have Distinguished Themselves In London And Paris, By The Purity Of Their Tournure.

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

We Grizzle Every Day. I See No Need Of It. Whilst We Converse With What Is Above Us, We Do Not Grow Old, But Grow Young.

The One Thing In The World, Of Value, Is The Active Soul

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

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.

Sorrow Makes Us All Children Again - Destroys All Differences Of Intellect. The Wisest Know Nothing.

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

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

The Hero Is Not Fed On Sweets, Daily His Own Heart He Eats; Chambers Of The Great Are Jails, And Head-winds Right For Royal Sails.

The Beautiful Laws Of Time And Space, Once Dislocated By Our Inaptitude, Are Holes And Dens. If The Hive Be Disturbed By Rash And Stupid Hands, Instead Of Honey, It Will Yield Us Bees.

Behind Every Individual Closes Organization; Before Him Opens Liberty,--the Better, The Best. The First And Worse Races Are Dead.the Second And Imperfect Races Are Dying Out, Or Remain For The Maturing Of The Higher. In The Latest Race, In Man, Every Generosity, Every New Perception, The Love And Praise He Extorts From His Fellows, Are Certificates Of Advance Out Of Fate Into Freedom.

To Accomplish Excellence Or Anything Outstanding, You Must Listen To That Whisper Which Is Heard By You Alone.

It Really Is Considered One Of The Blessings Of Previous Mates Which You Could Manage Being Silly With Them.

The Primary Wisdom Is Intuition.

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

You Shall Not Come Nearer A Man By Getting Into His House.

No One Can Read The History Of Astronomy Without Perceiving That Copernicus, Newton, Laplace, Are Not New Men, Or A New Kind Of Men, But That Thales, Anaximenes, Hipparchus, Empodocles, Aristorchus, Pythagorus, Oenipodes, Had Anticipated Them.

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Juan Manuel Santos

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