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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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Coal Is A Portable

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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.

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Do What You Know And Perception Is Converted Into Character.

"though Many Painters And Sculptors Talk Glibly Of "going In For Photography," You Will Find That Very Few Of Them Can Ever Make A Picture By Photography; They Lack The Science, Technical Knowledge, And Above All The Practice. Most People Think They Can Play Tennis, Shoot, Write Novels, And Photograph As Well As Any Other Person - Until They Try."

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

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

He Is A Good Man, Who Can Receive A Gift Well. We Are Either Glad Or Sorry At A Gift, And Both Emotions Are Unbecoming.

The Craft Of The Merchant Is This Bringing A Thing Where It Abounds To Where It Is Costly.

Eyes Are Bold As Lions,--roving, Running, Leaping, Here And There, Far And Near. They Speak All Languages. They Wait For No Introduction; They Are No Englishmen; Ask No Leave Of Age Or Rank; They Respect Neither Property Nor Riches, Neither Learning Nor Power, Nor Virtue, Nor Sex, But Intrude, And Come Again, And Go Through And Through You In A Moment Of Time. What Inundation Of Life And Thought Is Discharged From One Soul Into Another Through Them!

Each Of Us Sees In Others What We Carry In Our Own Hearts.

The Effect Of The Indulgence Of Human Affection Is A Certain Cordial Exhilaration.

The Soul Is The Perceiver And The Revealer Of Truth.

When It Is Dark Enough, Men See The Stars.

O Day Of Days When We Can Read! The Reader And The Book, Either Without The Other Is Naught.

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?

It All Begins When The Soul Would Have Its Way With You.

The Reason Why Any One Refuses His Assent To Your Opinion, Or His Aid To Your Benevolent Design, Is In You: He Refuses To Accept You As A Bringer Of Truth, Because, Though You Think You Have It, He Feels That You Have It Not. You Have Not Given Him The Authentic Sign.

Nature Is Thoroughly Mediate. It Is Made To Serve. It Receives The Dominion Of Man As Meekly As The Ass On Which The Saviour Rode.it Offers All Its Kingdoms To Man As The Raw Material Which He May Mould Into What Is Useful. Man Is Never Weary Of Working It Up.

We Do Not Quite Forgive A Giver. The Hand That Feeds Us Is In Some Danger Of Being Bitten. We Can Receive Anything From Love, Forthat Is A Way Of Receiving It From Ourselves; But Not From Any One Who Assumes To Bestow. We Sometimes Hate The Meat Which We Eat, Because There Seems Something Of Degrading Dependence In Living It.

The Church Seems To Totter To Its Fall, Almost All Life Extinct. On This Occasion, Any Complaisance Would Be Criminal Which Told You, Whose Hope And Commission It Is To Preach The Faith Of Christ, That The Faith Of Christ Is Preached.

Nature Abhors The Old.

The Domestic Man, Who Loves No Music So Well As His Kitchen Clock, And The Airs Which The Logs Sing To Him As They Burn On The Hearth, Has Solaces Which Others Never Dream Of.

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

Every Really Able Man, In Whatever Direction He Works - A Man Of Large Affairs, An Inventor, A Statesman, An Orator, A Poet, A Painter - If You Talk Sincerely With Him, Considers His Work, However Much Admired, As Far Short Of What It Should Be. What Is This Better, This Flying Ideal, But The Perpetual Promise Of His Creator?

Every Man's Nature Is A Sufficient Advertisement To Him Of The Character Of His Fellows.

Then Climate Is A Great Impediment To Idle Persons; We Often Resolve To Give Up The Care Of The Weather, But Still We Regard The Clouds And The Rain.

We Can See Well Into The Past; We Can Guess Shrewdly Into The Future, But That Which Is Rolled Up And Muffled In Impenetrable Folds Is Today.

Universities Are Of Course Hostile To Geniuses, Which, Seeing And Using Ways Of Their Own, Discredit The Routine: As Churches And Monasteries Persecute Youthful Saints.

A Home Kept To The End Of Display Is Impossible To All But A Few Women, And Their Success Is Dearly Bought.

Every Great Man Is Unique.

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

By His Machines Man Can Dive And Remain Under Water Like A Shark; Can Fly Like A Hawk In The Air; Can See Atoms Like A Gnat; Can See The System Of The Universe Of Uriel, The Angel Of The Sun; Can Carry Whatever Loads A Ton Of Coal Can Lift; Can Knock Down Cities With His Fist Of Gunpowder; Can Recover The History Of His Race By The Medals Which The Deluge, And Every Creature, Civil Or Savage Or Brute, Has Involuntarily Dropped Of Its Existence; And Divine The Future Possibility Of The Planet And Its Inhabitants By His Perception Of Laws Of Nature.

These Arts Open Great Gates Of A Future, Promising To Make The World Plastic And To Lift Human Life Out Of Its Beggary To A God- Like Ease And Power.

The Public Values The Invention More Than The Inventor Does. The Inventor Knows There Is Much More And Better Where This Came From.

Art Is Not To Be Found By Touring To Egypt, China, Or Peru; If You Cannot Find It At Your Own Door, You Will Never Find It.

All Minds Quote. Old And New Make The Warp And Woof Of Every Moment. There Is No Thread That Is Not A Twist Of These Two Strands. By Necessity, By Proclivity, And By Delight, We All Quote. We Quote Not Only Books And Proverbs, But Arts, Sciences, Religion, Customs, And Laws; Nay, We Quote Temples And Houses, Tables And Chairs, By Imitation.

The World Is His Who Has Money To Go Over It.

The "times," "the Age" What Is That, But A Few Profound Persons And A Few Active Persons Who Epitomize The Times?

The Secret Of Success In Society Is A Certain Heartiness And Sympathy. A Man Who Is Not Happy In Company, Cannot Find Any Word In His Memory That Will Fit The Occasion; All His Information Is A Little Impertinent. A Man Who Is Happy There, Finds In Every Turn Of The Conversation Occasions For The Introduction Of What He Has To Say. The Favorites Of Society Are Able Men, And Of More Spirit Than Wit, Who Have No Uncomfortable Egotism, But Who Exactly Fill The Hour And The Company, Contended And Contenting.

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

A Mind Does Not Receive Truth As A Chest Receives Jewels That Are Put Into It, But As The Stomach Takes Up Food Into The System. It Is No Longer Food, But Flesh, And Is Assimilated. The Appetite And The Power Of Digestion Measure Our Right To Knowledge. He Has It Who Can Use It. As Soon As Our Accumulation Overruns Our Invention Or Power To Use, The Evils Of Intellectual Gluttony Begin,— Congestion Of The Brain, Apoplexy And Strangulation.

Genius Appeals To The Future.

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.

A Man Should Carry Nature In His Head.

He That Writes To Himself Writes To An Eternal Public.

Was Never Secret History But Birds Tell It In The Bowers.

Men Admire The Man Who Can Organize Their Wishes And Thoughts In Stone And Wood And Steel And Brass.

Of Immortality, The Soul, When Well Employed, Is Incurious. It Is So Well, That It Is Sure That It Will Be Well. It Asks No Questions Of The Supreme Power.

Poverty Demoralizes. A Man In Debt Is So Far A Slave; And Wall-street Thinks It Easy For A Millionaire To Be A Man Of His Word, Aman Of Honor, But, That, In Failing Circumstances, No Man Can Be Relied On To Keep His Integrity.

How Casually And Unobservedly We Make All Our Most Valued Acquaintances.

Accept Your Genius And Say What You Think.

To A Physician, Each Man, Each Woman, Is An Amplification Of One Organ.

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.

The Sensual Man Conforms Thoughts To Things; The Poet Conforms Things To His Thoughts.

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

The Element Running Through Entire Nature, Which We Popularly Call Fate, Is Known To Us As Limitation. Whatever Limits Us, We Callfate.

The Use Of Natural History Is To Give Us Aid In Supernatural History: The Use Of The Outer Creation, To Give Us Language For The Beings And Changes Of The Inward Creation.

The Bhagavad-gita Is An Empire Of Thought And In Its Philosophical Teachings Krishna Has All The Attributes Of The Full-fledged Montheistic Deity And At The Same Time The Attributes Of The Upanisadic Absolute.

Lovers Should Guard Their Strangeness. If They Forgive Too Much, All Slides Into Confusion And Meanness.

There Are Many Things Of Which A Wise Man Might Wish To Be Ignorant

The Only Thing That Can Grow Is The Thing You Give Energy To.

Difficulties Exist To Be Surmounted.

People Wish To Be Settled; Only As Far As They Are Unsettled Is There Any Hope For Them.

Whilst We Want Cities As The Centres Where The Best Things Are Found, Cities Degrade Us By Magnifying Trifles.

Character Teaches Above Our Wills.

A Man Must Consider What A Blindman's-buff Is This Game Of Conformity.

Perception Is A Mirror Not A Fact. And What I Look On Is My State Of Mind, Reflected Outward.

Love Is The Bright Foreigner, The Foreign Self.

There Is A Third Silent Party To All Our Bargains. The Nature And Soul Of Things Takes On Itself The Guaranty Of The Fulfillment Of Every Contract, So That Honest Service Cannot Come To Loss. If You Serve An Ungrateful Master, Serve Him The More. Put God In Your Debt. Every Stroke Shall Be Repaid. The Longer The Payment Is Withholden, The Better For You; For Compound Interest On Compound Interest Is The Rate And Usage Of This Exchequer.

The Imaginative Faculty Of The Soul Must Be Fed With Objects Immense And Eternal.

It Seems As If Nature, In Regarding The Geologic Night Behind Her, When, In Five Or Six Millenniums, She Had Turned Out Five Or Six Men, As Homer, Phidias, Menu, And Columbus, Was No Wise Discontented With The Result. These Samples Attested The Virtue Of The Tree.

There Is Simply The Rose; It Is Perfect In Every Moment Of Its Existence.

It Is Never Too Late To Do Right.

The Basis Of Good Manners Is Self-reliance. Necessity Is The Law Of All Who Are Not Self-possessed.

Art Is A Jealous Mistress; And If A Man Have A Genius For Painting, Poetry, Music, Architecture Or Philosophy, He Makes A Bad Husband And An Ill Provider.

By Persisting In Your Path, Though You Forfeit The Little, You Gain The Great.

Poetry Teaches The Enormous Force Of A Few Words, And, In Proportion To The Inspiration, Checks Loquacity.

Other World? There Is No Other World; Here Or Nowhere Is The Whole Fact.

Happy Will The House Be In Which The Relationships Are Formed From Character.

Fate Is Nothing But The Deeds Committed In A Prior State Of Existence.

Let No One Honour Me With Tears, Or Bury Me With Lamentation. Why? Because I Fly Hither And Thither, Living In The Mouths Of Me.

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

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

The Remedy For All Blunders, The Cure Of Blindness, The Cure Of Crime, Is Love.

Meek Young Men Grow Up In Colleges And Believe It Is Their Duty To Accept The Views Which Books Have Given, And Grow Up Slaves.

The Human Body Is A Magazine Of Inventions, The Patent Office, Where Are The Models From Which Every Hint Is Taken. All The Tools And Engines On Earth Are Only Extensions Of Its Limbs And Senses.

The Course Of Everything Goes To Teach Us Faith.

Rude Poets Of The Tavern Hearth, Squandering Your Unquoted Mirth, Which Keeps The Ground, And Never Soars, While Jake Retorts, And Reuben Roars; Tough And Screaming, As Birch-bark, Goes Like Bullet To Its Mark; While The Solid Curse And Jeer Never Balk The Waiting Ear.

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.

Government Exists To Defend The Weak And The Poor And The Injured Party; The Rich And The Strong Can Better Take Care Of Themselves.

A Friend May Well Be Reckoned The Masterpiece Of Nature.

It In Every Fair Face, Every Fair Sky, Every Fair Flower.

The Day Is Always His, Who Works In It With Serenity And Great Aims.

Health Is The First Muse, Comprising The Magical Benefits Of Air, Landscape, And Bodily Exercise On The Mind.

Five Great Enemies Of Peace Inhabit Us: Avarice, Ambition, Envy, Anger And Pride.

We Do Not Yet Possess Ourselves, And We Know At The Same Time That We Are Much More.

If We Walk In The Woods, We Must Feed Mosquitoes.

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.

Cowardice Shuts The Eyes Till The Sky Is Not Larger Than A Calf-skin: Shuts The Eyes So That We Cannot See The Horse That Is Running Away With Us; Worse, Shuts The Eyes Of The Mind And Chills The Heart.

Doubt Not, O Poet, But Persist. Say 'it Is In Me, And Shall Out.' Stand There, Balked And Dumb, Stuttering And Stammering, Hissed And Hooted, Stand And Strive, Until At Last Rage Draw Out Of Thee That Dream-power Which Every Night Shows Thee Is Thine Own; A Power Transcending All Limit And Privacy, And By Virtue Of Which A Man Is The Conductor Of The Whole River Of Electricity.

A Man Is Related To All Nature.

As Long As Civilization Is Essentially One Of Property, Of Fences, Of Exclusiveness, It Will Be Mocked By Delusions. Our Riches Will Leave Us Sick; There Will Be Bitterness In Our Laughter, And Our Wine Will Burn Our Mouth. Only That Good Profits Which We Can Taste With All Doors Open, And Which Serves All Men.

No Member Of A Crew Is Praised For The Rugged Individuality Of His Rowing.

Let The Stoics Say What They Please, We Do Not Eat For The Good Of Living, But Because The Meat Is Savory And The Appetite Is Keen.

Now That Is The Wisdom Of A Man, In Every Instance Of His Labor, To Hitch His Wagon To A Star, And See His Chore Done By The Gods Themselves. That Is The Way We Are Strong, By Borrowing The Might Of The Elements. The Forces Of Steam, Gravity, Galvanism, Light, Magnets, Wind, Fire, Serve Us Day By Day And Cost Us Nothing.

Let A Man Learn To Look For The Permanent In The Mutable And Fleeting; Let Him Learn To Bear The Disappearance Of Things He Was Wont To Reverence; Without Losing His Reverence; Let Him Learn That He Is Here, Not To Work, But To Be Worked Upon; And That, Though Abyss Open Under Abyss, And Opinion Displace Opinion, All Are At Last Contained In The Eternal Cause.

The Child Realizes To Every Man His Own Earliest Remembrance, And So Supplies A Defect In Our Education, Or Enables Us To Live Over The Unconscious History With A Sympathy So Tender As To Be Almost Personal Experience.

When There Is Sympathy, There Needs But One Wise Man In A Company And All Are Wise,--so, A Blockhead Makes A Blockhead Of His Companion. Wonderful Power To Benumb Possesses This Brother.

The Rain Has Spoiled The Farmer's Day; Shall Sorrow Put My Books Away? Thereby Are Two Days Lost.

If You Cannot Be Free Be As Free As You Can.

Enthusiasm Is The Height Of Man; It Is The Passing From The Human To The Divine.

The Lover Is Made Happier By His Love Than The Object Of His Affection.

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

The Inmost In Due Time Becomes The Outmost.

Every Word We Speak Is Million-faced Or Convertible To An Indefinite Number Of Applications. If It Were Not So We Could Read No Book. Your Remark Would Only Fit Your Case, Not Mine.

None Of Us Will Ever Accomplish Anything Excellent Or Commanding Except When He Listens To This Whisper Which Is Heard By Him Alone.

Solitude, The Safeguard Of Mediocrity, Is To Genius, The Stern Friend, The Cold, Obscure Shelter Where Moult The Wings Which Will Bear It Farther Than Suns And Stars.

There Are No Days In Life So Memorable As Those Which Vibrate To Some Stroke Of The Imagination.

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.

Our Chief Want In Life, Is, Someone Who Shall Make Us Do What We Can. This Is The Service Of A Friend. With Him We Are Easily Great.

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

Our High Respect For A Well-read Man Is Praise Enough For Literature. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The World Is Emblematic. Parts Of Speech Are Metaphors, Because The Whole Of Nature Is A Metaphor Of The Human Mind.

Ah, If The Rich Were Rich As The Poor Fancy Riches.

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

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

He Walks Abreast With His Days And Feels No Shame In Not 'studying A Profession', For He Does Not Postpone His Life, But Lives Already. He Has Not One Chance, But A Hundred Chances.

The Purpose Of Life Seems To Be To Acquaint A Man With Himself And Whatever Science Or Art Or Course Of Action He Engages In Reacts Upon And Illuminates The Recesses Of His Own Mind. Thus Friends Seem To Be Only Mirrors To Draw Out And Explain To Us Ourselves; And That Which Draws Us Nearer Our Fellow Man, Is, That The Deep Heart In One, Answers The Deep Heart In Another, - That We Find We Have (a Common Nature) - One Life Which Runs Through All Individuals, And Which Is Indeed Divine.

There Are Other Measures Of Self-respect For A Man, Than The Number Of Clean Shirts He Puts On Every Day.

There Is No Architect Can Build As The Muse Can; She Is Skilful To Select Materials For Her Plan.

The World Is All Gates, All Opportunities, Strings Of Tension Waiting To Be Struck.

Ability Without Honor Has No Value.

When A Thought Of Plato Becomes A Thought To Me,--when A Truth That Fired The Soul Of Pindar Fires Mine, Time Is No More. When I Feel That We Two Meet In A Perception, That Our Two Souls Are Tinged With The Same Hue, And Do As It Were Run Into One, Why Should I Measure Degrees Of Latitude, Why Should I Count Egyptian Years?

Nature Is Saturated With Deity.

Adopt The Pace Of Nature: Her Secret Is Patience.

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

I Do Not Wonder At A Snowflake, A Shell, A Summer Landscape, Or The Glory Of The Stars; But At The Necessity Of Beauty Under Which The Universe Lies.

The Tendencies Of The Times Favor The Idea Of Self-government, And Leave The Individual, For All Code, To The Rewards And Penalties Of His Own Constitution, Which Work With More Energy Than We Believe, Whilst We Depend On Artificial Restraints.

A Fly Is As Untamable As A Hyena.

Man Carries The World In His Head, The Whole Astronomy And Chemistry Suspended In A Thought. Because The History Of Nature Is Charactered In His Brain, Therefore He Is The Prophet And Discoverer Of Her Secrets. Every Known Fact In Natural Science Was Divined By The Presentiment Of Somebody, Before It Was Actually Verified.

I'm Happier. I Guess I Made Up My Mind To Be That Way.

To Me, However, The Question Of The Times Resolved Itself Into A Practical Question Of The Conduct Of Life. How Shall I Live? We Are Incompetent To Solve The Times. Our Geometry Cannot Span The Huge Orbits Of The Prevailing Ideas, Behold Their Return, And Reconcile Their Opposition. We Can Only Obey Our Own Polarity.

Private, Accidental, Confidential Conversation Breeds Thought. Clubs Produce Oftener Words.

Of Nature Itself Upon The Soul; The Sunrise, The Haze Of Autumn, The Winter Starlight Seem Interlocutors; The Prevailing Sense Is That Of An Exposition In Poetry; A High Discourse, The Voice Of The Speaker Seems To Breathe As Much From The Landscape As From His Own Breast; It Is Nature Communing With The Seer.

There Is No Doctrine Of The Reason Which Will Bear To Be Taught By The Understanding.

The Earth Is A Machine Which Yields Almost Gratuitous Service To Every Application Of Intellect. Every Plant Is A Manufacturer Of Soil. In The Stomach Of The Plant Development Begins. The Tree Can Draw On The Whole Air, The Whole Earth, On All The Rolling Main. The Plant Is All Suction-pipe,--imbibing From The Ground By Its Root, From The Air By Its Leaves, With All Its Might.

As Soon As The Man Is At One With God, He Will Not Beg. He Will Then See Prayer In All Action.

An Individual Is An Encloser. Time And Space, Liberty And Necessity, Truth And Thought, Are Left At Large No Longer.

There Are Three Wants Which Never Can Be Satisfied: That Of The Rich, Who Wants Something More; That Of The Sick, Who Wants Something Different; And That Of The Traveler, Who Says Anywhere But Here.

A Great Man Will Find A Great Subject, Or Which Is The Same Thing, Make Any Subject Great.

The True Scholar Grudges Every Opportunity Of Action Passed, By, As A Loss Of Power.

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.

We Must Leave Our Pets At Home, When We Go Into The Street, And Meet Men On Broad Grounds Of Good Meaning And Good Sense.

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.

Be Yourself; No Base Imitator Of Another, But Your Best Self. There Is Something Which You Can Do Better Than Another. Listen To The Inward Voice And Bravely Obey That. Do The Things At Which You Are Great, Not What You Were Never Made For.

The Soul Is The Perceiver And Revealer Of Truth. We Know Truth When We See It, Let Skeptic And Scoffer Say What They Choose. Foolish People Ask You, When You Have Spoken What They Do Not Wish To Hear, 'how Do You Know It Is Truth, And Not An Error Of Your Own?' We Know Truth When We See It, From Opinion, As We Know When We Are Awake That We Are Awake.

In The Sublimest Flights Of The Soul, Rectitude Is Never Surmounted, Love Is Never Outgrown.

I Believe That Our Own Experience Instructs Us That The Secret Of Education Lies In Respecting The Pupil.

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

Wisdom Is Infused Into Every Form.

War, To Sane Men At The Present Day, Begins To Look Like An Epidemic Insanity, Breaking Out Here And There Like The Cholera Or Influenza, Infecting Men's Brains Instead Of Their Bowels.

Be Silly. Be Honest. Be Kind.

Foolish Consistencies Are The Hobgoblins Of Small Minds!

Self-trust Is The First Secret Of Success, The Belief That If You Are Here The Authorities Of The Universe Put You Here, And For Cause, Or With Some Task Strictly Appointed You In Your Constitution, And So Long As You Work At That You Are Well And Successful

The Torpid Artist Seeks Inspiration At Any Cost, By Virtue Or By Vice, By Friend Or By Fiend, By Prayer Or By Wine.

Good Writing Is A Kind Of Skating Which Carries Off The Performer Where He Would Not Go, And Is Only Right Admirable When To All Its Beauty And Speed A Subserviency To The Will, Like That Of Walking, Is Added.

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

I Am Present At The Sowing Of The Seed Of The World. With A Geometry Of Sunbeams, The Soul Lays The Foundations Of Nature.

If Thou Fill Thy Brain With Boston And New York, With Fashion And Covetousness, And Wilt Stimulate Thy Jaded Senses With Wine And French Coffee, Thou Shalt Find No Radiance Of Wisdom In The Lonely Waste Of The Pinewoods.

What A Benefit Would The American Government, Not Yet Relieved Of Its Extreme Need, Render To Itself, And To Every City, Village And Hamlet In The States, If It Would Tax Whiskey And Rum Almost To The Point Of Prohibition! Was It Bonaparte Who Said That He Found Vices Very Good Patriots? "he Got Five Millions From The Love Of Brandy, And He Should Be Glad To Know Which Of The Virtues Would Pay Him As Much." 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.

We Resent All Criticism Which Denies Us Anything That Lies In Our Line Of Advance.

I Wish That Life Should Not Be Cheap, But Sacred. I Wish The Days To Be As Centuries, Loaded, Fragrant.

We Must Hold A Man Amenable To Reason For The Choice Of His Daily Craft Or Profession. It Is Not An Excuse Any Longer For His Deeds That They Are The Custom Of His Trade. What Business Has He With An Evil Trade?

If There Is Any Period One Would Desire To Be Born In, Is It Not The Age Of Revolution; When The Old And The New Stand Side By Side, And Admit Of Being Compared; When The Energies Of All Men Are Searched By Fear And By Hope; When The Historic Glories Of The Old Can Be Compensated By The Rich Possibilities Of The New Era?

Eyes...they Speak All Languages.

Continual Failure Is A Road To Success - If You Have The Strength To Go On.

Road To Success

In The Morning A Man Walks With His Whole Body; In The Evening, Only With His Legs.

Morning Inspirational

Real Men Don't Conform To The Beliefs Of Others, Even When Society Has Concluded On What Is Good And True, But Maintain The Integrity Of Their Own Mind.

A Beautiful Soul Always Dwells In A Beautiful World.

A Garden Has This Advantage, That It Makes It Indifferent Where You Live. A Well-laid Garden Makes The Face Of The Country Of No Account; Let That Be Low Or High, Grand Or Mean, You Have Made A Beautiful Abode Worthy Of Man.

The Same, The Same: Friend And Foe Are Of One Stuff; The Ploughman, The Plough, And The Furrow, Are Of One Stuff; And The Stuff Is Such, And So Much, That The Variations Of Form Are Unimportant.

What Is There Of The Divine In A Load Of Brick? What ... In A Barber Shop? ... Much. All.

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

Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things; Each One A Stroke Of Genius Or Of Love, Now Repeated And Hardened Into Usage, They Form At Last A Rich Varnish, With Which The Routine Of Life Is Washed, And Its Details Adorned. If They Are Superficial, So Are The Dew-drops Which Give Such A Depth To The Morning Meadows.

The Mass Of Men Worry Themselves Into Nameless Graves While Here And There A Great Unselfish Soul Forgets Himself Into Immortality.

The Soul Comes From Without Into The Human Body, As Into A Temporary Abode, And It Goes Out Of It Anew It Passes Into Other Habitations, For The Soul Is Immortal.

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

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.

We Put Our Love Where We Have Put Our Labor.

The Pleasure Of Eloquence Is In Greatest Part Owing Often To The Stimulus Of The Occasion Which Produces It- - To The Magic Of Sympathy, Which Exalts The Feeling Of Each By Radiating On Him The Feeling Of All.

It Is The Eye Which Makes The Horizon.

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.

Whoever Is Open, Loyal, True; Of Humane And Affable Demeanour; Honourable Himself, And In His Judgement Of Others; Faithful To His Word As To Law, And Faithful Alike To God And Man....such A Man Is A True Gentleman.

The Mystic Must Be Steadily Told,-all That You Say Is Just As True Without The Tedious Use Of That Symbol As With It. Let Us Have A Little Algebra, Instead Of This Trite Rhetoric,-universal Signs, Instead Of These Village Symbols,-and We Shall Both Be Gainers. The History Of Hierarchies Seems To Show That All Religious Error Consisted In Making The Symbol Too Stark And Solid, And Was At Last Nothing But An Excess Of The Organ Of Language.

No Facts To Me Are Sacred; None Are Profane.

The Laws Of Each Are Convertible Into The Laws Of Any Other.

Every Actual State Is Corrupt. Good Men Must Not Obey The Laws Too Well. What Satire On Government Can Equal The Severity Of Censure Conveyed In The Word Politics ....?

Prayer That Craves A Particular Commodity, Anything Less Than All Good, Is Vicious.

If A Man Can Write A Better Book, Preach A Better Sermon, Or Make A Better Mousetrap Than His Neighbor, Though He Build His House In The Woods, The World Will Make A Beaten Path To His Door.

Therefore We Value The Poet. All The Argument And All The Wisdom Is Not In The Encyclopedia, Or The Treatise On Metaphysics, Or The Body Of Divinity, But In The Sonnet Or The Play.

In The Order Of Nature, We Cannot Render Benefits To Those From Whom We Receive Them, Or Only Seldom. But The Benefit We Receive Must Be Rendered Again, Line For Line, Deed For Deed, Cent For Cent, To Somebody. Beware Of Too Much Good Staying In Your Hand. It Will Fast Corrupt And Worm Worms. Pay It Away Quickly In Some Sort.

Friendship Should Be Surrounded With Ceremonies And Respects, And Not Crushed Into Corners.

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Robin G. Collingwood

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