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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.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Cowardice Shuts The Eyes

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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.

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I Have Thought A Sufficient Measure Of Civilization Is The Influence Of Good Women.

Who Loses A Day Loses Life.

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

I Am Always Insincere, As Always Knowing There Are Other Moods.

A Man's Personal Defects Will Commonly Have With The Rest Of The World Precisely That Importance Which They Have To Himself. If He Makes Light Of Them, So Will Other Men.

No Man Has A Right Perception Of Any Truth, Who Has Not Been Reacted On By It, So As To Be Ready To Be Its Martyr.

If It Costs Ten Years, And Ten To Recover The General Prosperity, The Destruction Of The South Is Worth So Much.

Jesus And Shakespeare Are Fragments Of The Soul, And By Love I Conquer And Incorporate Them In My Own Conscious Domain. His Virtue,--is Not That Mine? His Wit,--if It Cannot Be Made Mine, It Is Not Wit.

With Consistency A Great Soul Has Simply Nothing To Do. He May As Well Concern Himself With His Shadow On The Wall.

I Hate To Be Defended In A Newspaper. As Long As All That Is Said Is Said Against Me, I Feel A Certain Assurance Of Success. But As Soon As Honeyed Words Of Praise Are Spoken For Me, I Feel As One That Lies Unprotected Before His Enemies.

There Is A Blessed Necessity By Which The Interest Of Men Is Always Driving Them To The Right; And, Again, Making All Crime Mean And Ugly.

A Great Mind Is A Good Sailor, As A Great Heart Is.

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

The Effects Of Opposition Are Wonderful. There Are Men Who Rise Refreshed On Hearing Of A Threat, Men To Whom A Crisis, Which Intimidates And Paralyzes The Majority, Comes As Graceful And Beloved As A Bride!

Use Makes A Better Soldier Than The Most Urgent Considerations Of Duty,--familiarity With Danger Enabling Him To Estimate The Danger. He Sees How Much Is The Risk, And Is Not Afflicted With Imagination; Knows Practically Marshal Saxe's Rule, That Every Soldier Killed Costs The Enemy His Weight In Lead.

We Must Have Kings, We Must Have Nobles; Nature Is Always Providing Such In Every Society; Only Let Us Have The Real Instead Of The Titular. In Every Society Some Are Born To Rule, And Some To Advise. The Chief Is The Chief All The World Over, Only Not His Cap And Plume. It Is Only This Dislike Of The Pretender Which Makes Men Sometimes Unjust To The True And Finished Man.

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

The Greatest Difficulty Is That Men Do Not Think Enough Of Themselves, Do Not Consider What It Is That They Are Sacrificing When They Follow In A Herd, Or When They Cater For Their Establishment.

Live In The Sunshine.

It The Proof Of High Culture To Say The Greatest Matters In The Simplest Way.

Nor Sequent Centuries Could Hitorbit And Sum Of Shakespeare's Wit.

Fear, When Your Friends Say To You What You Have Done Well, And Say It Through; But When They Stand With Uncertain Timid Looks Of Respect And Half-dislike, And Must Suspend Their Judgement For Years To Come, You May Begin To Hope.

Nature Is Not Always Tricked In Holiday Attire, But The Same Scene Which Yesterday Breathed Perfume And Glittered As For The Frolic Of The Nymphs, Is Overspread With Melancholy Today. Nature Always Wears The Colors Of The Spirit.

We Live In Succession, In Division, In Parts And Particles. Meantime, Within Man, Is The Soul Of The Whole; The Wise Silence; The Universal Beauty To Which Every Part And Particle Is Equally Related; The Eternal One.

In Failing Circumstances No One Can Be Relied On To Keep Their Integrity.

Whoso Would Be A Man Must Be A Nonconformist.

Being Different

There Never Was A Strong Character That Was Not Made Strong By Discipline Of The Will; There Never Was A Strong People That Did Not Rank Subordination And Discipline Among The Signal Virtues. Subjection To Moods Is The Mark Of A Deteriorating Morality. There Is No Baser Servitude Than That Of The Man Whose Caprices Are His Masters, And A Nation Composed Of Such Men Could Not Long Preserve Its Liberties.

Happy Is The House That Shelters A Friend! It Might Well Be Built, Like A Festal Bower Or Arch, To Entertain Him A Single Day. Happier, If He Know The Solemnity Of That Relation, And Honor Its Law! He Offers Himself A Candidate For That Covenant Comes Up, Like An Olympian, To The Great Games, Where The First- Born Of The World Are The Competitors.

I Cannot Find Language Of Sufficient Energy To Convey My Sense Of The Sacredness Of Private Integrity. All Men, All Things, The State, The Church, Yea The Friends Of The Heart Are Phantasms And Unreal Beside The Sanctuary Of The Heart. With So Much Awe, With So Much Fear, Let It Be Respected.

What Is Civilization? I Answer, The Power Of Good Women.

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

The Imagination And The Senses Cannot Be Gratified At The Same Time.

The Way Of Providence Is A Little Rude. The Habit Of Snake And Spider, The Snap Of The Tiger And Other Leapers And Bloody Jumpers, The Crackle Of The Bones Of His Prey In The Coil Of The Anaconda-these Are In The System, And Our Habits Are Like Theirs.

Not Out Of Those, On Whom Systems Of Education Have Exhausted Their Culture, Comes The Helpful Giant To Destroy The Old Or To Build The New, But Out Of Unhandselled Savage Nature, Out Of Terrible Druids And Berserkirs, Come At Last Alfred And Shakespeare.

Logic Is The Procession Or Proportionate Unfolding Of The Intuition; But Its Virtue Is As Silent Method; The Moment It Would Appear As Propositions, And Have A Separate Value, It Is Worthless.

By God, I Will Not Obey This Filthy Enactment!

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

Each Truth That A Writer Acquires Is A Lantern, Which He Turns Full On What Facts And Thoughts Lay Already In His Mind, And Behold, All The Mats And Rubbish Which Had Littered His Garret Become Precious. Every Trivial Fact In His Private Biography Becomes An Illustration Of This New Principle, Revisits The Day, And Delights All Men By Its Piquancy And New Charm.

Some Men Are Born To Own, And Can Animate All Their Possessions. Others Cannot: Their Owning Is Not Graceful; Seems To Be A Compromise Of Their Character: They Seem To Steal Their Own Dividends.

A Man Is Related To All Nature.

In The Woods, Too, A Man Casts Off His Years, As The Snake His Slough, And At What Period Soever Of Life, Is Always A Child. In The Woods Is Perpetual Youth. Within These Plantations Of God A Decorum And Sanctity Reign, A Perennial Festival Is Dressed, And The Guest Sees Not How He Should Tire Of Them In A Thousand Years. In The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

The Virtues Of Society Are The Vices Of The Saints.

In A Tavern Everybody Puts On Airs Except The Landlord.

Human Condition

A Party Is Perpetually Corrupted By Personality.

Wise Men Read Very Sharply All Your Private History In Your Look And Gait And Behavior. The Whole Economy Of Nature Is Bent On Expression. The Tell-tale Body Is All Tongues. Men Are Like Geneva Watches With Crystal Faces Which Expose The Whole Movement.

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

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

A Friend Is A Person With Whom I May Be Sincere. Before Him I May Think Aloud. I Am Arrived At Last In The Presence Of A Man So Real And Equal, That I May Drop Even Those Undermost Garments Of Dissimulation, Courtesy, And Second Thought, Which Men Never Put Off, And May Deal With Him With The Simplicity And Wholeness With Which One Chemical Atom Meets Another.

The Poet A Moody Child And Wildly Wise Pursued The Game With Joyful Eyes, Which Chose, Like Meteors, Their Way, And Rived The Dark With Private Ray: They Overleapt The Horizon's Edge, Searched With Apollo's Privilege; Through Man, And Woman, And Sea, And Star, Saw The Dance Of Nature Forward Far; Through Worlds, And Races, And Terms, And Times, Saw Musical Order, And Pairing Rhymes. Olympian Bards Who Sung Divine Ideas Below, Which Always Find Us Young, And Always Keep Us So.

Everything In Nature Goes By Law, And Not By Luck.

I Think I Have Done Well, If I Have Acquired A New Word From A Good Author; And My Business With Him Is To Find My Own, Though Itwere Only To Melt Him Down Into An Epithet Or An Image For Daily Use.

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

Lose Yourself In Nature And Find Peace

In The Morning A Man Walks With His Whole Body; In The Evening, Only With His Legs. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals And Miscellaneous Notebooks Greek Architecture Is The Perfect Flowering Of Geometry.

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

The Most Dangerous Thing Is Illusion.

If A Man Sits Down To Think, He Is Immediately Asked If He Has A Headache.

Shallow Men Believe In Luck.

Nature Avenges Herself Speedily On The Hard Pedantry That Would Chain Her Waves. She Is No Literalist. Every Thing Must Be Taken Genially, And We Must Be At The Top Of Our Condition, To Understand Any Thing Rightly.

We Are Amphibious Creatures, Weaponed For Two Elements, Having Two Sets Of Faculties, The Particular And The Catholic.

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

Every Natural Fact Is A Symbol Of Some Spiritual Fact.

By Virtue Of This Science The Poet Is The Namer, Or Language-maker, Naming Things Sometimes After Their Appearance, Sometimes After Their Essence, And Giving To Every One Its Own Name And Not Another's, Thereby Rejoicing The Intellect, Which Delights In Detachment Or Boundary.

The Enthusiast Always Finds The Master, The Masters, Whom He Seeks. Always Genius Seeks Genius, Desires Nothing So Much As To Be A Pupil And To Find Those Who Can Lend It Aid To Perfect Itself.

All Poets Have Signalized Their Consciousness Of Rare Moments When They Were Superior To Themselves, -when A Light, A Freedom, A Power Came To Them Which Lifted Them To Performances Far Better Than They Could Reach At Other Times.

A Man Is Like A Bit Of Labrador Spar, Which Has No Luster As You Turn It In Your Hand, Until You Come To A Particular Angle; Then It Shows Deep And Beautiful Colors.

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

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

Each Man Is A Hero And An Oracle To Somebody.

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

If Speculation Tends Thus To A Terrific Unity, In Which All Things Are Absorbed, Action Tends Directly Back To Diversity. The First Is The Course Or Gravitation Of Mind; The Second Is The Power Of Nature. Nature Is Manifold. The Unity Absorbs, And Melts Or Reduces. Nature Opens And Creates. These Two Principles Reappear And Interpenetrate All Things, All Thought; The One, The Many.

The State Of Society Is One In Which The Members Have Suffered Amputation From The Trunk, And Strut About So Many Walking Monsters,—a Good Finger, A Neck, A Stomach, An Elbow, But Never A Man.

There Is No One Who Does Not Exaggerate. In Conversation, Men Are Encumbered With Personality, And Talk Too Much.

Exaggeration Is

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

When The Boys Come Into My Yard For Leave To Gather Horse-chestnuts, I Own I Enter Into Nature's Game, And Affect To Grant The Permission Reluctantly, Fearing That Any Moment They Will Find Out The Imposture Of That Showy Chaff. But This Tenderness Is Quite Unnecessary; The Enchantments Are Laid On Very Thick. Their Young Life Is Thatched With Them. Bare And Grim To Tears Is The Lot Of The Children In The Hovel I Saw Yesterday; Yet Not The Less They Hang It Round With Frippery Romance, Like The Children Of The Happiest Fortune.

To Laugh Often And Much ... This Is To Have Succeeded. Probably Not From Emerson: Here's The Full Quotation And The Story.

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

In Self-trust All The Virtues Are Comprehended.

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

The Chief Value Of The New Fact Is To Enhance The Great And Constant Fact Of Life.

I Think No Virtue Goes With Size.

The Genius Of Reading And Of Gardening Are Antagonistic, Like Resinous And Vitreous Electricity. One Is Concentrative In Sparks And Shocks: The Other Is Diffuse Strength; So That Each Disqualifies Its Workman For The Other's Duties.

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

We Do Not Quite Forgive A Giver. The Hand That Feeds Us Is In Some Danger Of Being Bitten.

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.

A Man Is But A Little Thing In The Midst Of The Objects Of Nature, Yet, By The Moral Quality Radiating From His Countenance, He May Abolish All Considerations Of Magnitude, And In His Manners Equal The Majesty Of The World.

The Music That Can Deepest Reach And Cure All Ill Is Cordial Speech.

The Yankee Is One Who, If He Once Gets His Teeth Set On A Thing, All Creation Can't Make Him Let Go.

Money Often Costs Too Much, And Power And Pleasure Are Not Cheap.

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."

I Shun Father And Mother And Wife And Brother When My Genius Calls Me. I Would Write On The Lintels Of The Door-post, Whim. I Hope That It Is Somewhat Better Than Whim At Last, But We Cannot Spend The Day In Explanation.

The Measure Of A Master Is His Success In Bringing All Men Around To His Opinion Twenty Years Later.

Congratulations

Men Have Sometimes Exchanged Names With Their Friends, As If They Would Signify That In Their Friend Each Loved His Own Soul.

The Soul Circumscribes All Things.

Each Philosopher, Each Bard, Each Actor Has Only Done For Me, As By A Delegate, What One Day I Can Do For Myself.

Knowledge Is The Antidote To Fear,- Knowledge, Use And Reason, With Its Higher Aids.

Riding A Horse Is Not A Gentle Hobby, To Be Picked Up And Laid Down Like A Game Of Solitaire. It Is A Grand Passion. It Seizes A Person Whole And Once It Has Done So, He/she Will Have To Accept That His Life Will Be Radically Changed.

A Hero Is A Man Who Is Afraid To Run Away.

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.

Adult Males Are What Their Moms Designed Them.

Our Culture, Therefore, Must Not Omit The Arming Of The Man. Let Him Hear In Season, That He Is Born Into The State Of War, And That The Commonwealth And His Own Well-being Require That He Should Not Go Dancing In The Weeds Of Peace, But Warned, Self- Collected, And Neither Defying Nor Dreading The Thunder, Let Him Take Both Reputation And Life In His Hand, And, With Perfect Urbanity, Dare The Gibbet And The Mob By The Absolute Truth Of His Speech, And The Rectitude Of His Behaviour.

All Sensible People Are Selfish, And Nature Is Tugging At Every Contract To Make The Terms Of It Fair.

There Is Always A Best Way Of Doing Everything.

We Aim Above The Mark To Hit The Mark.

Poetry Being ... When We Look From The Center Outward.

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.

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

I May Say It Of Our Preposterous Use Of Books,--he Knew Not What To Do, And So He Read.

Sentimentalists ... Adopt Whatever Merit Is In Good Repute, And Almost Make It Hateful With Their Praise. The Warmer Their Expressions, The Colder We Feel.... Cure The Drunkard, Heal The Insane, Mollify The Homicide, Civilize The Pawnee, But What Lessons Can Be Devised For The Debauchee Of Sentiment?

The Axioms Of Physics Translate The Laws Of Ethics. Thus, "the Whole Is Greater Than Its Part;" "reaction Is Equal To Action;" "the Smallest Weight May Be Made To Lift The Greatest, The Difference Of Weight Being Compensated By Time;" And Many The Like Propositions, Which Have An Ethical As Well As Physical Sense. These Propositions Have A Much More Extensive And Universal Sense When Applied To Human Life, Than When Confined To Technical Use.

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

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

The Reason Of Idleness And Of Crime Is The Deferring Of Our Hopes. Whilst We Are Waiting, We Beguile The Time With Jokes, With Sleep, With Eating, And With Crimes.

Nature Wishes That Woman Should Attract Man, Yet She Often Cunningly Moulds Into Her Face A Little Sarcasm, Which Seems To Say, 'yes, I Am Willing To Attract, But To Attract A Little Better Kind Of A Man Than Any I Yet Behold

People Are Timid And Apologetic; They Are No Longer Upright; They Dare Not Say "i Think," "i Am," But Quote Some Saint Or Sage. They Are Ashamed Before The Blade Of Grass Or The Blowing Rose. These Roses Under My Window Make No Reference To Former Roses Or To Better Ones; They Are For What They Are; They Exist With God To-day.

What We Seek We Shall Find; What We Flee From Flees From Us.

The Civilized Man Has Built A Coach, But Has Lost The Use Of His Feet.

Every Man In His Lifetime Needs To Thank His Faults.

My Life Is For Itself And Not For A Spectacle.

We Owe To Genius Always The Same Debt, Of Lifting The Curtain From The Common, And Showing Us That Divinities Are Sitting Disguised In The Seeming Gang Of Gypsies And Peddlars.

We Are Like Travellers Using The Cinders Of A Volcano To Roast Their Eggs. Whilst We See That It Always Stands Ready To Clothe What We Would Say, We Cannot Avoid The Question Whether The Characters Are Not Significant Of Themselves.

Envy Is The Tax Which All Distinction Must Pay.

Headwinds Are Sore Vexations And The More Passengers The Sorer.

Let Us Not Look East And West For Materials Of Conversation, But Rest In Presence And Unity. A Just Feeling Will Fast Enough Supply Fuel For Discourse, If Speaking Be More Grateful Than Silence. When People Come To See Us, We Foolishly Prattle, Lest We Be Inhospitable. But Things Said For Conversation Are Chalk Eggs. Don't Say Things. What You Are Stands Over You The While, And Thunders So That I Cannot Hear What You Say To The Contrary.

When A Man Thinks Happily, He Finds No Foot-track In The Field He Traverses. All Spontaneous Thought Is Irrespective Of All Else.

The Reward Of Commercial Civilization Is The Ability To Consume A Never-ending Array Of Products.there Are Limits Beyond Which Commodities Cannot Be Multiplied Without Preventing Their Consumers From Affirming Themselves Through The Exercise Of Their Personal Freedom.when Market Dependence Reaches A Certain Threshold It Deprives People Of Their Power To Live Creatively And To Act Autonomously. And Precisely Because This New Impotence Is So Deeply Experienced, It Is Expressed With Difficulty.

The Student Is To Read History Actively And Not Passively.

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 Days Come And Go But They Say Nothing, And If We Do Not Use The Gifts They Bring, They Carry Them As Silently Away.

The Terrible Tabulation Of The French Statists Brings Every Piece Of Whim And Humor To Be Reducible Also To Exact Numerical Ratios. If One Man In Twenty Thousand, Or In Thirty Thousand, Eats Shoes, Or Marries His Grandmother, Then, In Every Twenty Thousand, Or Thirty Thousand, Is Found One Man Who Eats Shoes, Or Marries His Grandmother.

Every Individual Strives To Grow And Exclude, To The Extremities Of The Universe, And To Impose The Law Of Its Being On Every Other Creature.

History - A Biography Of A Few Stout And Earnest Persons

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

Railroad Iron Is A Magician's Rod, In Its Power To Evoke The Sleeping Energies Of Land And Water.

The Profoundest Thought Or Passion Sleeps As In A Mine, Until An Equal Mind And Heart Finds And Publishes It.

It Is The Doctrine Of The Popular Music-masters, That Whoever Can Speak Can Sing. So, Probably, Every Man Is Eloquent Once In His Life. Our Temperaments Differ In Capacity Of Heat, Or

Society Is Always Taken By Surprise At Any New Example Of Common Sense.

A Sturdy Lad From New Hampshire Or Vermont Who In Turn Tries All The Professions, Who Teams It, Farms It, Peddles, Keeps A School,preaches, Edits A Newspaper, Goes To Congress, Buys A Township, And So Forth, In Successive Years, And Always Like A Cat Falls On His Feet, Is Worth A Hundred Of These City Dolls. 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.

Nations Have Lost Their Old Omnipotence; The Patriotic Tiedoes Not Hold. Nations Are Getting Obsolete, We Go And Live Where We Will.

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

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 Song Is No Song Unless The Circumstance Is Free And Fine. If A Singer Sing From A Sense Of Duty Or From Seeing No Way To Escape,i Had Rather Have None. Those Only Can Sleep Who Do Not Care To Sleep; And Those Only Write Or Speak Best Who Do Not Too Much Respect The Writing Or The Speaking.

Only That Mind Draws Me Which I Cannot Read.

We Animate What We Can See, And We See Only What We Animate.

Nature May Be As Selfishly Studied As Trade. Astronomy To The Selfish Becomes Astrology; Psychology, Mesmerism (with Intent To Show Where Aour Spoons Are Gone); And Anatomy And Physiology Become Phrenology And Palmistry.

Perhaps It Is The Lowest Of The Qualities Of An Orator, But It Is, On So Many Occasions, Of Chief Importance,--a Certain Robust And Radiant Physical Health; Or--shall I Say?--great Volumes Of Animal Heat.

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

I Do Not Count The Hours I Spend In Wandering By The Sea; The Forest Is My Loyal Friend, Like God It Useth Me.

The Magnanimous Know Very Well That They Who Give Time, Or Money, Or Shelter, To The Stranger--so It Be Done For Love, And Not Forostentation--do, As It Were, Put God Under Obligation To Them, So Perfect Are The Compensations Of The Universe.

The Two Parties Which Divide The State, The Party Of Conservation And That Of Innovation, Are Very Old, And Have Disputed The Possession Of The World Ever Since It Was Made.

Let Us Leave Hurry To Slaves.

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.

Honor And Fortune Exist For Him Who Always Recognizes The Neighborhood Of The Great, Always Feels Himself In The Presence Of High Causes.

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.

Artists Must Be Sacrificed To Their Art.

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

Let Us Be Poised, And Wise, And Our Own, Today. Let Us Treat Men And Women Well; Treat Them As If They Were Real; Perhaps They Are.

Make The Most Of Yourself, For That Is All There Is Of You.

I Suffer Whenever I See That Common Sight Of A Parent Or Senior Imposing His Opinion And Way Of Thinking And Being On A Young Soul To Which They Are Totally Unfit. Cannot We Let People Be Themselves, And Enjoy Life In Their Own Way? You Are Trying To Make That Man Another You. One's Enough.

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

Genius Is Power, Talent Is Applicability.

I Know Nothing Which Life Has To Offer So Satisfying As The Profound Good Understanding, Which Can Subsist, After Much Exchange Ofgood Offices, Between Two Virtuous Men, Each Of Whom Is Sure Of Himself, And Sure Of His Friend. It Is A Happiness Which Postpones All Other Gratifications, And Makes Politics, And Commerce, And Churches, Cheap.

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?

The Next Best Thing To Saying A Good Thing Yourself Is To Quote One.

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

Look Sharply After Your Own Thoughts. They Come Unlooked For, Like A New Bird Seen On Your Trees, And, If You Turn To Your Usual Task, Disappear; And You Shall Never Find That Perception Again; Never, I Say-but Perhaps Years, Ages, And I Know Not What Events And Worlds My Lie Between You And Its Return.

The Hues Of The Opal, The Light Of The Diamond, Are Not To Be Seen If The Eye Is Too Near.

All Men Are Poets At Heart.

Beware Of What You Want-for You Will Get It.

Every Burned Book Or House Enlightens The World; Every Suppressed Or Expunged Word Reverberates Through The Earth From Side To Side.

A Few Years Ago, The Liberal Churches Complained That The Calvinistic Church Denied To Them The Name Of Christian. I Think The Complaint Was Confession; A Religious Church Would Not Complain.

Motion Or Change, And Identity Or Rest, Are The First And Second Secrets Of Nature: Motion And Rest. The Whole Code Of Her Laws May Be Written On The Thumbnail, Or The Signet Of A Ring.

The Finished Man Of The World Must Eat Of Every Apple At Once. He Must Hold His Hatreds Also At Arm's Length, And Not Remember Spite. He Has Neither Friends Nor Enemies, But Values Men Only As Channels Of Power.

Really, All Things And Persons Are Related To Us, But According To Our Nature, They Act On Us Not At Once, But In Succession, Andwe Are Made Aware Of Their Presence One At A Time. All Persons, All Things Which We Have Known, Are Here Present, And Many More Than We See; The World Is Full.

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.

Sleep Lingers All Our Lifetime About Our Eyes, As Night Hovers All Day In The Boughs Of The Fir-tree.

Character Wants Room; Must Not Be Crowded On By Persons, Nor Be Judged From Glimpses Got In The Press Of Affairs, Or On Few Occasions. It Needs Perspective, As A Great Building.

I Wish That Friendship Should Have Feet, As Well As Eyes And Eloquence. It Must Plant Itself On The Ground, Before It Vaults Overthe Moon. I Wish It To Be A Little Of A Citizen, Before It Is Quite A Cherub.

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

No Performance Is Worth Loss Of Geniality. 'tis A Cruel Price We Pay For Certain Fancy Goods Called Fine Arts And Philosophy.

Another Success Is The Post-office, With Its Educating Energy Augmented By Cheapness And Guarded By A Certain Religious Sentimentin Mankind; So That The Power Of A Wafer Or A Drop Of Wax Or Gluten To Guard A Letter, As It Flies Over Sea Over Land And Comes To Its Address As If A Battalion Of Artillery Brought It, I Look Upon As A Fine Meter Of Civilization.

Every Man's Task [his 'great Dream' And Impassioned Life-goal] Is His Life Preserver.

The Only Way To Have A Friend Is To Be One.

Culture Implies All Which Gives The Mind Possession Of Its Own Powers, As Languages To The Critic, Telescope To The Astronomer. Culture Alters The Political Status Of An Individual. It Raises A Rival Royalty In A Monarchy. 'tis King Against King. It Is Ever A Romance Of History In All Dynasties--the Co-presence Of The Revolutionary Force In Intellect. It Creates A Personal Independence Which The Monarch Cannot Look Down, And To Which He Must Often Succumb.

Yourself A Newborn Bard Of The Holy Ghost, Cast Behind You All Conformity, And Acquaint Men At First Hand With Deity.

Practice Makes Perfect - The Sooner You Start, The Sooner You Will Be A Happy Nonsmoker

Pictures Must Not Be Too Picturesque.

History No Longer Shall Be A Dull Book. It Shall Walk Incarnate In Every Just And Wise Man. You Shall Not Tell Me By Language And Titles A Catalogue Of The Volumes You Have Read. You Shall Make Me Feel What Periods You Have Lived.

Culture Is One Thing And Varnish Is Another.

When You Have Worn Out Your Shoes, The Strength Of The Show Fiber Has Passed Into Your Body.

When A Resolute Young Fellow Steps Up To The Great Bully, The World, And Takes Him Boldly By The Beard, He Is Often Surprised To Find It Comes Off In His Hand, And That It Was Only Tied On To Scare Away The Timid Adventurers.

The Man For Whom The Law Exists - The Man Of Forms, The Conservative - Is A Tame Man.

Literature Is Eavesdropping.

The Arts And Inventions Of Each Period Are Only Its Costume, And Do Not Invigorate Men.

The Efforts Which We Make To Escape From Our Destiny Only Serve To Lead Us Into It.

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.

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.

Every Ship Is A Romantic Object, Except That We Sail In.

We Believe That The Defects Of So Many Perverse And So Many Frivolous People, Who Make Up Society, Are Organic, And Society Is A Hospital Of Incurables.

People Who Wash Much Have A High Mind About It, And Talk Down To Those Who Wash Little.

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