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Consider What You Have In The Smallest Well-chosen Library-a Company Of The Wisest And Wittiest Men Which Can Be Plucked Out Of All Civilized Countries In A Thousand Years. The Men Themselves Were Then Hidden And Inaccessible. They Were Solitary, Impatient Of Interruption, And Fenced By Etiquette. But Now They Are Immortal, And The Thought They Did Not Reveal, Even To Their Bosom Friends, Is Here Written Out In Transparent Words Of Light To Us, Who Are Strangers Of Another Age.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Consider What You Have

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Consider What You Have In The Smallest Well-chosen Library-a Company Of The Wisest And Wittiest Men Which Can Be Plucked Out Of All Civilized Countries In A Thousand Years. The Men Themselves Were Then Hidden And Inaccessible. They Were Solitary, Impatient Of Interruption, And Fenced By Etiquette. But Now They Are Immortal, And The Thought They Did Not Reveal, Even To Their Bosom Friends, Is Here Written Out In Transparent Words Of Light To Us, Who Are Strangers Of Another Age.

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Genius Borrows Nobly.

We Boast Our Emancipation From Many Superstitions; But If We Have Broken Any Idols, It Is Through A Transfer Of Idolatry.

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

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

For The Resolute And Determined, There Is Time And Opportunity.

Poetry Makes Its Own Pertinence, And A Single Stanza Outweighs A Book Of Prose.

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.

As The Farmer Casts Into The Ground The Finest Ears Of His Grain, The Time Will Come When We Too Shall Hold Nothing Back, But Shall Eagerly Convert More Than We Now Possess Into Means And Powers, When We Shall Be Willing To Sow The Sun And The Moon For Seeds.

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.

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

We Want Men And Women Who Shall Renovate Life And Our Social State But We See That Most Natures Are Insolvent, Cannot Satisfy Their Own Wants, Have An Ambition Out Of All Proportion To Their Practical Force, And So Do Lean And Beg Day And Night Continually.

If A Man Will Kick A Fact Out Of The Window, When He Comes Back He Finds It Again In The Chimney Corner.

Postpone Not Your Life.

Procrastination

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

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

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.

I Believe In Eternity. I Can Find Greece, Palestine, Italy, Spain, And The Islands, - The Genius And Creative Principle Of Each And Of All Eras, In My Own Mind.

I Like Sayers Of No Better Than I Like Sayers Of Yes.

Unless You Try To Do Something Beyond What You Have Already Mastered, You Will Never Grow.

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?

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.

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

Sanity Consists In Not Being Subdued By Your Means. Fancy Prices Are Paid For Position, And For The Culture Of Talent, But To Thegrand Interests, Superficial Success Is Of No Account.

The Corruption Of Man Is Followed By The Corruption Of Language. ... In Due Time, The Fraud Is Manifest, And Words Lose All Power To Stimulate The Understanding Or The Affections.

There Is No Planet, Sun, Or Star Could Hold You If You But Knew What You Are.

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.

It Is A Mischievous Notion That We Are Come Late Into Nature; That The World Was Finished A Long Time Ago. As The World Was Plastic And Fluid In The Hands Of God, So It Is Ever To So Much Of His Attributes As We Bring To It. To Ignorance And Sin, It Is Flint. They Adapt To Themselves To It As They May; But In Proportion As A Man Has Anything In Him Divine, The Firmament Flows Before Him And Takes His Signet And Form.

The Passive Master Lent His Hand, To The Vast Soul Which O'er Him Planned.

It Is Very Unhappy, But Too Late To Be Helped, The Discovery We Have Made, That We Exist

Sleep Is Not, Death Is Not; Who Seem To Die Live. House You Were Born In, Friends Of Your Spring-time, Old Man And Young Maid, Day's Toil And It's Guerdon, They Are All Vanishing, Fleeing To Fables, Cannot Be Moored

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

In The Fiji Islands, It Appears, Cannibalism Is Now Familiar. They Eat Thier Own Wives And Children. We Only Devour Widows' Houses, And Great Merchants Outwit And Absorb The Substance Of Small Ones, And Every Man Feeds On His Neighbor's Labor If He Can. It Is A Milder Form Of Cannibalism.

For Each Thorn, There's A Rosebud... For Each Twilight - A Dawn... For Each Trial - The Strength To Carry On, For Each Storm Cloud - A Rainbow... For Each Shadow - The Sun... For Each Parting - Sweet Memories When Sorrow Is Done.

For, Though The Origin Of Most Of Our Words Is Forgotten, Each Word Was At First A Stroke Of Genius, And Obtained Currency, Because For The Moment It Symbolized The World To The First Speaker And To The Hearer. The Etymologist Finds The Deadest Word To Have Been Once A Brilliant Picture.

Man Is The End Of Nature; Nothing So Easily Organizes Itself In Every Part Of The Universe As He; No Moss, No Lichen Is So Easilyborn; And He Takes Along With Him And Puts Out From Himself The Whole Apparatus Of Society And Condition Extempore, As An Army Encamps In A Desert, And Where All Was Just Now Blowing Sand, Creates A White City In An Hour, A Government, A Market, A Place For Feasting, For Conversation, And For Love.

Heaven Walks Among Us Ordinarily Muffled In Such Triple Or Tenfold Disguises That The Wisest Are Deceived And No One Suspects The Days To Be Gods.

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

Let Us Advance On Chaos And The Dark

Persons Are Fine Things, But They Cost So Much! For Thee I Must Pay Me.

As Much Wisdom May Be Expended On A Private Economy As On An Empire, And As Much Wisdom May Be Drawn From It.

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

Public Opinion, I Am Sorry To Say, Will Bear A Great Deal Of Nonsense. There Is Scarcely Any Absurdity So Gross, Whether In Religion, Politics, Science Or Manners, Which It Will Not Bear.

Fear Is Cruel And Mean. The Political Reigns Of Terror Have Been Reigns Of Madness And Malignity,--a Total Perversion Of Opinion;society Is Upside Down, And Its Best Men Are Thought Too Bad To Live.

Let Us, If We Must Have Great Actions, Make Our Own So. All Action Is Of Infinite Elasticity, And The Least Admits Of Being Inflated With Celestial Air, Until It Eclipses The Sun And Moon.

Great Men Are They Who See That Spiritual Is Stronger Than Any Material Force - That Thoughts Rule The World.

Trust Men And They Will Be True To You; Treat Them Greatly And They Will Show Themselves Great.

But What Is Classification But The Perceiving That These Objects Are Not Chaotic, And Are Not Foreign, But Have A Law Which Is Also The Law Of The Human Mind?

Ideas Must Work Through The Brains And The Arms Of Good And Brave Men Or They Are No Better Than Dreams.

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

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

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.

When We Are Exalted By Ideas, We Do Not Owe This To Plato, But To The Idea, To Which Also Plato Was Debtor.

You Have Just Dined, And However Scrupulously The Slaughterhouse Is Concealed In The Graceful Distance Of Miles, There Is Complicity.

The Voyage Of The Best Ship Is A Zigzag Line Of A Hundred Tacks. See The Line From A Sufficient Distance, And It Straightens Itself To The Average Tendency. Your Genuine Action Will Explain Itself, And Will Explain Your Other Genuine Actions. Your Conformity Explains Nothing. Act Singly, And What You Have Already Done Singly Will Justify You Now. Greatness Appeals To The Future.

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

The Days Are Made On A Loom Whereof The Warp And Woof Are Past And Future Time. They Are Majestically Dressed, As If Every God Brought A Thread To The Skyey Web.

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

If We Shall Take The Good We Find, Asking No Questions, We Shall Have Heaping Measures.

The Crime Which Bankrupts Men And States Is Job-work-declining From Your Main Design, To Serve A Turn Here And There. Nothing Is Beneath You, If It Is In The Direction Of Your Life, Nothing Is Great Or Desirable If It Is Off From That. I Think We Are Entitled Here To Draw A Straight Line And Say That Society Can Never Prosper But Must Always Be Bankrupts, Until Every Man Does That Which He Was Created To Do.

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

Some Of The Sweetest Hours In Life, In Retrospect Will Be Found To Have Been Spent With Books.

There Is A Power In Love To Divine Another's Destiny Better Than That Other Can, And By Heroic Encouragements, Hold Him To His Task. What Has Friendship So Signal As Its Sublime Attraction To Whatever Virtue Is In Us?

Sometimes A Scream Is Better Than A Thesis.

When The Night Is Darkest, The Stars Come Out.

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

The Proof Of A High Education Is The Ability To Speak About Complex Matters As Simply As Possible.

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 Lord Is The Peasant That Was, The Peasant Is The Lord That Shall Be.

He Is A Dull Observer Whose Experience Has Not Taught Him The Reality And Force Of Magic, As Well As Of Chemistry.

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

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

Conversation Is The Laboratory And Workshop Of The Student.

There Are Two Laws Discretenot Reconciled,law For Man, And Law For Thing.

Things Have Their Laws As Well As Men, And Things Refuse To Be Trifled With.

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

The Universe Is The Externalization Of The Soul.

How Much Finer Things Are In Composition Than Alone.

Never Self-possessed, Or Prudent, Love Is All Abandonment.

It Is One Of The Biggest Blessing That You Can Be Stupid With Your True Friends And Behave Like You Shame To Do Elsewhere

Every Noble Activity Makes Room For Itself.

I Hate The Giving Of The Hand Unless The Whole Man Accompanies It.

Though We Travel The World Over To Find Beauty, We Must Carry It With Us Or We Find It Not . . . The Difference Between Landscape And Landscape Is Small, But There Is A Great Difference In Beholders.

Each Mind Has Its Own Method.

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.

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.

Many A Reformer Perishes In His Removal Of Rubbish,--and That Makes The Offensiveness Of The Class. They Are Partial; They Are Notequal To The Work They Pretend. They Lose Their Way; In The Assault On The Kingdom Of Darkness, They Expend All Their Energy On Some Accidental Evil, And Lose Their Sanity And Power Of Benefit.

I Do Not Wish To Remove From My Present Prison To A Prison A Little Larger. I Wish To Break All Prisons.

Do What You Know And Perception Is Converted Into Character.

I Have Never Met A Man Who Was Not My Superior In Some Particular.

The Wonder Is Always New That Any Sane Man Can Be A Sailor.

Well, The World Has A Million Writers. One Would Think, Then, That Good Thought Would Be As Familiar As Air And Water, And The Gifts Of Each New Hour Would Exclude The Last. Yet We Can Count All Our Good Books; Nay, I Remember Any Beautiful Verse For Twenty Years.

By Going One Step Further Back In Thought, Discordant Opinions Are Reconciled By Being Seen To Be Two Extremes Of One Principle, And We Can Never Go So Far Back As To Preclude A Still Higher Vision.

A Poem Is Made Up Of Thoughts, Each Of Which Filled The Whole Sky Of The Poet In Its Turn.

Sooner Or Later That Which Is Now Life Shall Be Poetry, And Every Fair And Manly Trait Shall Add A Richer Strain To The Song.

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

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

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.

Science Does Not Know Its Debt To Imagination.

In Our Large Cities, The Population Is Godless, Materialized,--no Bond, No Fellow-feeling, No Enthusiasm. These Are Not Men, But Hungers, Thirsts, Fevers, And Appetites Walking. How Is It People Manage To Live On,--so Aimless As They Are? After Their Peppercorn Aims Are Gained, It Seems As If The Lime In Their Bones Alone Held Them Together, And Not Any Worthy Purpose.

A Man Must Know How To Estimate A Sour Face. The Sour Face Of The Multitude, Like Thier Sweet Faces, Have No Deep Cause, But Are Put On And Off As The Wind Blows And The Newspaper Directs.

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.

Something Is Wanting To Science Until It Has Been Humanised.

If The Stars Should Appear One Night In A Thousand Years, How Would Men Believe And Adore; And Preserve For Many Generations The Remembrance Of The City Of God Which Had Been Shown! But Every Night Come Out These Envoys Of Beauty, And Light The Universe With Their Admonishing Smile.

In Actions Of Enthusiasm, This Drawback Appears: But In Those Lower Activities, Which Have No Higher Aim Than To Make Us More Comfortable And More Cowardly, In Actions Of Cunning, Actions That Steal And Lie, Actions That Divorce The Speculative From The Practical Faculty, And Put A Ban On Reason And Sentiment, There Is Nothing Else But Drawback And Negation.

In A Tavern Everybody Puts On Airs Except The Landlord.

Human Condition

The Health Of The Eye Seems To Demand A Horizon. We Are Never Tired, So Long As We Can See Far Enough.

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." "it Is The Secret Of The World That All Things Subsist And Do Not Die, But Only Retire A Little From Sight And Afterwards Return Again. Nothing Is Dead; Men Feign Themselves Dead, And Endure Mock Funerals... And There They Stand Looking Out Of The Window, Sound And Well, In Some Strange New Disguise.

The World Always Had The Same Bankrupt Look, To Foregoing Ages As To Us.

The Only Gift Is A Portion Of Thyself . . . The Poet Brings His Poem; The Shepherd His Lamb. . . .

The Most Advanced Nations Are Always Those Who Navigate The Most. The Power Which The Sea Requires In The Sailor Makes A Man Of Him Very Fast, And The Change Of Shores And Population Clears His Head Of Much Nonsense Of His Wigwam.

Stay At Home In Your Mind. Don't Recite Other People's Opinions.

There Is No Calamity That Right Words Will Not Begin To Redress

To Finish The Moment, To Find The Journey's End In Every Step Of The Road, To Live The Greatest Number Of Good Hours, Is Wisdom. It Is Not The Part Of Men, But Of Fanatics, Or Of Mathematicians, If You Will, To Say, That, The Shortness Of Life Considered, It Is Not Worth Caring Whether For So Short A Duration We Were Sprawling In Want, Or Sitting High. Since Our Office Is With Moments, Let Us Husband Them.

We Do Not Know Today Whether We Are Busy Or Idle. In Times When We Thought Ourselves Indolent, We Have Afterwards Discovered That Much Was Accomplished, And Much Was Begun In Us.

Self Improvement

Don't Hang A Dismal Picture On The Wall, And Do Not Daub With Sables And Glooms In Your Conversation. Don't Be A Cynic And Disconsolate Preacher. Don't Bewail And Bemoan. Omit The Negative Propositions. Nerve Us With Incessant Affirmatives. Don't Waste Yourself In Rejection, Nor Bark Against The Bad, But Chant The Beauty Of The Good. When That Is Spoken Which Has A Right To Be Spoken, The Chatter And The Criticism Will Stop. Set Down Nothing That Will Not Help Somebody.

Sanity Is Very Rare; Every Man Almost And Every Woman Has A Dash Of Madness.

In Every Company, There Is Not Only The Active And Passive Sex, But, In Both Men And Women, A Deeper And More Important Sex Of Mind, Namely, The Inventive Or Creative Class Of Both Men And Women, And The Uninventive Or Accepting Class.

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.

When I Bought My Farm, I Did Not Know What A Bargain I Had In The Bluebirds, Daffodils And Thrushes; As Little Did I Know What Sublime Mornings And Sunsets I Was Buying.

The World We Live In Is But Thickened Light.

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.

I Will Not Live Out Of Me I Will Not See With Others' Eyes My Good Is Good, My Evil Ill I Would Be Free.

Repose And Cheerfulness Are The Badge Of The Gentleman - Repose In Energy. The Greek Battle Pieces Are Calm; The Heroes, In Whatever Violent Actions Engaged, Retain A Serene Aspect.

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.

My Tongue Is Prone To Lose The Way,not So My Pen, For In A Letterwe Have Not Better Things To Say,but Surely Put Them Better.

Proverbs, Like The Sacred Books Of Each Nation, Are The Sanctuary Of The Intuitions. That Which The Droning World, Chained To Appearances, Will Not Allow The Realist To Say In His Own Words, It Will Suffer Him To Say In Proverbs Without Contradiction.

A Man Is Related To All Nature.

And Dazzling Memory Revive.refresh The Faded Tints, Recut The Aged Prints, And Write My Old Adventures, With The Pen Which, On The First Day, Drew Upon The Tablets Blue The Dancing Pleiads, And The Eternal Men.

Self Esteem::"it Is Very Easy In The World To Live By The Opinion Of The World. It Is Very Easy In Solitude To Be Self-centered. But The Finished Man Is He Who In The Midst Of The Crowd Keeps With Perfect Sweetness The Independence Of Solitude. I Knew A Man Of Simple Habits And Earnest Character Who Never Put Out His Hands Nor Opened His Lips To Court The Public, And Having Survived Several Rotten Reputations Of Younger Men, Honor Came At Last And Sat Down With Him Upon His Private Bench From Which He Had Never Stirred."

Why Needs A Man Be Rich? Why Must He Have Horses, Fine Garments, Handsome Apartments, Access To Public Houses, And Places Of Amusement? Only For Want Of Thought.

No One Has A Prosperity So High And Firm That Two Or Three Words Can't Dishearten It.

Men Are Not Philosophers, But Are Rather Very Foolish Children, Who, By Reason Of Their Partiality, See Everything In The Most Absurd Manner, And Are The Victims At All Times Of The Nearest Object. There Is Even No Philosopher Who Is A Philosopher At All Times. Our Experience, Our Perception Is Conditioned By The Need To Acquire In Parts And In Succession, That Is, With Every Truth A Certain Falsehood.

Men Are Born To Write. The Gardener Saves Every Slip, And Seed, And Peach-stone: His Vocation Is To Be A Planter Of Plants. Not Less Does The Writer Attend His Affair. Whatever He Beholds Or Experiences, Comes To Him As A Model, And Sits For Its Picture. He Counts It All Nonsense That They Say, That Some Things Are Undescribable. He Believes That All That Can Be Thought Can Be Written, First Or Last; And He Would Report The Holy Ghost, Or Attempt It.

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.

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 Soul Answers Never By Words, But By The Thing Itself That Is Inquired After.

Power Ceases In The Instant Of Repose; It Resides In The Moment Of Transition From A Past To A New State, In The Shooting Of The Gulf, In The Darting To An Aim.

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

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.

Life Is Our Dictionary.

Overhead The Sanctities Of The Stars Shine Forever-more... Pouring Satire On The Pompous Business Of The Day Which They Close, And Making The Generations Of Men Show Slight And Evanescent.

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

The German Intellect Wants The French Sprightliness, The Fine Practical Understanding Of The English, And The American Adventure; But It Has A Certain Probity, Which Never Rests In A Superficial Performance, But Asks Steadily, To What End? A German Public Asks For A Controlling Sincerity.

The Philosophy Of Waiting Is Sustained By All The Oracles Of The Universe.

Whenever The Pulpit Is Usurped By A Formalist, Then Is The Worshipper Defrauded And Disconsolate.

The Civility Of No Race Can Be Perfect Whilst Another Race Is Degraded. It Is A Doctrine Alike Of The Oldest And Of The Newest Philosophy, That Man Is One, And That You Cannot Injure Any Member, Without A Sympathetic Injury To All The Members

All Great Successes Are The Triumph Of Persistence.

The Picture Waits For My Verdict; It Is Not To Command Me, But I Am To Settle Its Claim To Praise.

Our Books Approach Very Slowly The Things We Most Wish To Know.

The Highest Virtue Is Always Against The Law.

Though Love Repine, And Reason Chafe, There Came A Voice Without Reply,- "'tis Man's Perdition To Be Safe, When For The Truth He Ought To Die."

Art Is A Jealous Mistress.

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

The Soul Knows No Persons.

Nothing Is At Last Sacred But The Integrity Of Your Own Mind. Absolve You To Yourself, And You Shall Have The Suffrage Of The World.

Art Should Exhilarate, And Throw Down The Walls Of Circumstance On Every Side, Awakening In The Beholder The Same Sense Of Universal Relation And Power Which The Work Evinced In The Artist.

Next To The Originator Of A Good Sentence Is The First Quoter Of It.

At The Gates Of The Forest, The Surprised Man Of The World Is Forced To Leave His City Estimates Of Great And Small, Wise And Foolish.

Bad Times Have A Scientific Value. These Are Occasions A Good Learner Would Not Miss.

We Are Reformers In The Spring And Summer, But In Autumn We Stand By The Old. Reformers In The Morning, And Conservers At Night.

I Quote Another Man's Saying; Unluckily, That Other Withdraws Himself In The Same Way, And Quotes Me.

A Beautiful Woman Is A Practical Poet, Taming Her Savage Mate, Planting Tenderness, Hope And Eloquence In All Whom She Approaches.

The Moment Our Discourse Rises Above The Ground-line Of Familiar Facts, And Is Inflamed With Passion Or Exalted Thought, It Clothes Itself In Images. A Man Conversing In Earnest, If He Watch His Intellectual Processes, Will Find That Always A Material Image, More Or Less Luminous, Arises In His Mind, Contemporaneous With Every Thought, Which Furnishes The Vestment Of The Thought.... This Imagery Is Spontaneous. It Is The Blending Of Experience With The Present Action Of The Mind. It Is Proper Creation.

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

If The Whole Of History Is In One Man, It Is All To Be Explained From Individual Experience.

What Your Heart Thinks Is Great, Is Great. The Soul's Emphasis Is Always Right.

But Only That Soul Can Be My Friend Which I Encounter On The Line Of My Own March, That Soul To Which I Do Not Decline, And Which Does Not Decline Me, But, Native Of The Same Celestial Latitude, Repeats In Its Own All My Experience.

The Englishman Who Has Lost His Fortune Is Said To Have Died Of A Broken Heart.

Every Mind Is Different; And The More It Is Unfolded, The More Pronounced Is That Difference.

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

Mankind Have Such A Deep Stake In Inward Illumination, That There Is Much To Be Said By The Hermit Or Monk In Defence Of His Life Of Thought And Prayer.

There Was Never Anything That Did Not Proceed From A Thought.

I Give You Joy Of Your Free And Brave Thought. I Have Great Joy In It. I Find Incomparable Things Said Incomparably Well, As They Must Be. I Find The Courage Of Treatment Which So Delights Us, And Which Large Perception Only Can Inspire.

If With Love Thy Heart Has Burned; If Thy Love Is Unreturned; Hide Thy Grief Within Thy Breast, Though It Tear Thee Unexpressed; For When Love Has Once Departed From The Eyes Of The False-hearted, And One By One Has Torn Off Quite The Bandages Of Purple Light; Though Thou Wert The Loveliest Form The Soul Had Ever Dressed, Thou Shalt Seem, In Each Reply, A Vixen To His Altered Eye; Thy Softest Pleadings Seem Too Bold, Thy Praying Lute Will Seem To Scold; Though Thou Kept The Straightest Road, Yet Thou Errest Far And Broad.

The Craft With Which The World Is Made Runs Also Into The Mind And Character Of Men. No Man Is Quite Sane; Each Has A Vein Of Folly In His Composition, A Slight Determination Of Blood To The Head, To Make Sure Of Holding Him Hard To Some One Point Which Nature Has Taken To Heart.

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

A Right Rule For A Club Would Be, Admit No Man Whose Presence Excludes Any One Topic. It Requires People Who Are Not Surprised Andshocked, Who Do And Let Do, And Let Be, Who Sink Trifles, And Know Solid Values, And Who Take A Great Deal For Granted.

A Man Must Keep An Eye On His Servants, If He Would Not Have Them Rule Him.

It Is Said That When Manners Are Licentious, A Revolution Is Always Near: The Virtue Of Woman Being The Main Girth And Bandage Ofsociety; Because A Man Will Not Lay Up An Estate For Children Any Longer Than Whilst He Believes Them To Be His Own.

If A Teacher Have Any Opinion Which He Wishes To Conceal, His Pupils Will Become As Fully Indoctrinated Into That As Into Any Which He Publishes.

Children And Savages Use Only Nouns Or Names Of Things, Which They Convert Into Verbs, And Apply To Analogous Mental Acts.

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

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.

To Laugh Often And Love Much; To Win The Respect Of Intelligent Persons And The Affection Of Children; To Earn The Approbation Of Honest Critics And Endure The Betrayal Of False Friends; To Appreciate Beauty.

Culture Opens The Sense Of Beauty.

Beware When The Great God Lets Loose A Thinker On This Planet. Then All Things Are At Risk. It Is As When A Conflagration Has Broken Out In A Great City, And No Man Knows What Is Safe, Or Where It Will End.

But In Our Experience, Man Is Cheap And Friendship Wants Its Deep Sense. We Affect To Dwell With Our Friends In Their Absence, But We Do Not; When Deed, Word, Or Letter Comes Not, They Let Us Go.

Is Not Prayer Also A Study Of Truth,--a Sally Of The Soul Into The Unfound Infinite? No Man Ever Prayed Heartily, Without Learningsomething. But When A Faithful Thinker, Resolute To Detach Every Object From Personal Relations, And See It In The Light Of Thought, Shall, At The Same Time, Kindle Science With The Fire Of The Holiest Affections, Then Will God Go Forth Anew Into Creation.

If You Act, You Show Character; If You Sit Still, You Show It; If You Sleep You Show It.

How Silent, How Spacious, What Room For All, Yet Without Place To Insert An Atom--in Graceful Succession, In Equal Fullness, In Balanced Beauty, The Dance Of The Hours Goes Forward Still. Like An Odor Of Incense, Like A Strain Of Music, Like A Sleep, It Is Inexact And Boundless. It Will Not Be Dissected, Nor Unraveled, Nor Shown.

How Much Better When The Whole Land Is A Garden, And The People Have Grown Up In The Bowers Of A Paradise.

The Glory Of The Farmer Is That, In The Division Of Labors, It Is His Part To Create. All Trade Rests At Last On His Primitive Activity. He Stands Close To Nature; He Obtains From The Earth The Bread And The Meat. The Food Which Was Not, He Causes To Be.

Division Of Labor

The History Of Mankind Interests Us Only As It Exhibits A Steady Gain Of Truth And Right, In The Incessant Conflict Which It Records Between The Material And The Moral Nature.

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

The Moral Sense Is Always Supported By The Permanent Interest Of The Parties. Else, I Know Not How, In Our World, Any Good Would Ever Get Done.

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.

If I Know Your Sect, I Anticipate Your Argument

That Which Befits Us, Embosomed In Beauty And Wonder As We Are, Is Cheerfulness, And Courage, And The Endeavor To Realize Our Aspirations. Shall Not The Heart Which Has Received So Much, Trust The Power By Which It Lives? May It Not Quit Other Leadings, And Listen To The Soul That Has Guided It So Gently, And Taught It So Much, Secure That The Future Will Be Worthy Of The Past?

Every Advantage Has Its Tax.

A Weed Is A Plant Whose Virtue Is Not Yet Known.

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