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Criticism Is Infested With The Cant Of Materialism, Which Assumes That Manual Skill And Activity Is The First Merit Of All Men, And Disparages Such As Say And Do Not, Overlooking The Fact, That Some Men, Namely, Poets, Are Natural Sayers, Sent Into The World To The End Of Expression, And Confounds Them With Those Whose Province Is Action, But Who Quit To Imitate The Sayers.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Criticism Is Infested With

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Criticism Is Infested With The Cant Of Materialism, Which Assumes That Manual Skill And Activity Is The First Merit Of All Men, And Disparages Such As Say And Do Not, Overlooking The Fact, That Some Men, Namely, Poets, Are Natural Sayers, Sent Into The World To The End Of Expression, And Confounds Them With Those Whose Province Is Action, But Who Quit To Imitate The Sayers.

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Let Us Learn The Meaning Of Economy. Economy Is A High Human Office,--a Sacrament When Its Aim Is Grand, When It Is The Prudence Of Simple Tastes, When It Is Practised For Freedom Or For Love Or Devotion.

What Forests Of Laurel We Bring, And The Tears Of Mankind, To Those Who Stood Firm Against The Opinion Of Their Contemporaries!

When Some External Event Raises Your Spirits And You Think Good Days Are Preparing For You, Do Not Believe It. It Can Never Be So. Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself.

The Common Experience Is, That The Man Fits Himself As Well As He Can To The Customary Details Of That Work Or Trade He Falls Into, And Tends It As A Dog Turns A Spit. Then He Is Part Of The Machine He Moves; The Man Is Lost.

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

We Mark With Light In The Memory The Few Interviews We Have Had 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 Inly Are.

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

Fear God, And Where You Go Men Shall Think They Walk In Hallowed Cathedrals.

Friendship Is An Order Of Nobility; From Its Revelations We Come More Worthily Into Nature.

If You Love And Serve Man, You Cannot, By Any Hiding Or Stratagem, Escape Remuneration.

Let Not A Man Guard His Dignity, But Let His Dignity Guard Him.

If Your Friend Has Displeased You, You Shall Not Sit Down To Consider It, For He Has Already Lost All Memory Of The Passage, And Has Doubled His Power To Serve You, And, Ere You Can Rise Up Again, Will Burden You With Blessings.

Man Is Timid And Apologetic; He Is No Longer Upright; He Dares Not Say "i Think," "i Am," But Quotes Some Saint Or Sage.

This One Fact The World Hates; That The Soul Becomes; For That Forever Degrades The Past, Turns All Riches To Poverty, All Reputation To A Shame, Confounds The Saint With The Rogue, Shoves Jesus And Judas Equally Aside.

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 Live In A New And Exceptional Age. America Is Another Word For Opportunity. Our Whole History Appears Like A Last Effort Of The Divine Providence In Behalf Of The Human Race; And A Literal, Slavish Following Of Precedents, As By A Justice Of The Peace, Is Not For Those Who At This Hour Lead The American Civilization.

A Character Is Like An Acrostic Or Alexandrian Stanza; - Read It Forward, Backward, Or Across, It Still Spells The Same Thing.

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

When It's Darkest, Men See The Stars.

A Foolish Consistency Is The Hobgoblin Of Little Minds, Adored By Little Statesmen And Philosophers And Divines.

The Best University That Can Be Recommended To A Man Of Ideas Is The Gauntlet Of The Mob.

The Condition Which High Friendship Demands Is Ability To Do Without It.

Eyes...they Speak All Languages.

We Are Thus Assisted By Natural Objects In The Expression Of Particular Meanings. But How Great A Language To Convey Such Pepper-corn Informations!

Vanity Costs Money, Labor, Horses, Men, Women, Health And Peace, And Is Still Nothing At Last,--a Long Way Leading Nowhere.

In The Learned Journal, In The Influential Newspaper, I Discern No Form; Only Some Irresponsible Shadow; Oftener Some Monied Corporation, Or Some Dangler, Who Hopes, In The Mask And Robes Of His Paragraph, To Pass For Somebody. But Through Every Clause And Part Of Speech Of The Right Book I Meet The Eyes Of The Most Determined Men; His Force And Terror Inundate Every Word: The Commas And Dashes Are Alive; So That The Writing Is Athletic And Nimble,--can Go Far And Live Long.

Do You Love Me? Means At Last Do You See The Same Truth I See? If You Do, We Are Happy Together; But When Presently One Of Us Passes Into The Perception Of A New Truth, We Are Divorced And The Force Of All Nature Cannot Hold Us To Each Other.

He Only Is Rich Who Owns The Day.

All The Mistakes I Make Arise From Forsaking My Own Station And Trying To See The Object From Another Person's Point Of View.

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.

A Good Indignation Makes An Excellent Speech.

If You Want To Be Great And Successful, Choose People Who Are Great And Successful And Walk Side By Side With Them.

Take Egotism Out And You Would Castrate The Benefactors.

Thus Grows Up Fashion, An Equivocal Semblance, The Most Puissant, The Most Fantastic And Frivolous, The Most Feared And Followed, And Which Morals And Violence Assault In Vain.

Pain, Indolence, Sterility, Endless Ennui Have Also Their Lesson For You, If You Are Great.

I Cannot Go To The Houses Of My Nearest Relatives, Because I Do Not Wish To Be Alone. Society Exists By Chemical Affinity, And Not Otherwise.

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

The Progress Of Religion Is Steadily To Its Identity With Morals. Strength Enters Just As Much As The Moral Element Prevails.

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."

The Colleges, While They Provide Us With Libraries, Furnish No Professors Of Books; And I Think No Chair Is So Much Needed.

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

People Only See What They Are Prepared To See.

Do That Which You Fear To Do, And The Fear Will Die.

Whatever It Is, It's Better In The Wind.

A Man Must Ride Alternately On The Horses Of His Private And His Public Nature.

Do Not You See That Every Misfortune Is Misconduct; That Every Honour Is Desert; That Every Effort Is An Insolence Of Your Own?...you Carry Your Fortune In Your Own Hand.

The World Is Upheld By The Veracity Of Good Men: They Make The Earth Wholesome.

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

Nature Is Full Of Freaks, And Now Puts An Old Head On Young Shoulders, And Then Takes A Young Heart Heating Under Fourscore Winters.

Personal Beauty Is Then First Charming And Itself, When It Dissatisfies Us With Any End; When It Becomes A Story Without An End; When It Suggests Gleams And Visions, And Not Earthly Satisfactions; When It Makes The Beholder Feel His Unworthiness; When He Cannot Feel His Right To It, Though He Were Caesar; He Cannot Feel More Right To It Than To The Firmament And The Splendors Of A Sunset.

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

The Wise Man In The Storm Prays God Not For Safety From Danger But For Deliverance From Fear. It Is The Storm Within Which Endangers Him[,] Not The Storm Without.

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.

To Be A Man Is To Be A Nonconformist.

When I Was Praised I Lost My Time, For Instantly I Turned Around To Look At The Work I Had Thought Slightly Of, And That Day I Made Nothing New.

Whatever Games Are Played With Us, We Must Play No Games With Ourselves, But Deal In Our Privacy With The Last Honesty And Truth.

Science Corrects The Old Creeds, Sweeps Away, With Every New Perception, Our Infantile Catechisms, And Necessitates A Faith Commensurate With The Grander Orbits And Universal Laws Which It Discloses Yet It Does Not Surprise The Moral Sentiment That Was Older And Awaited Expectant These Larger Insights.

Men Over Forty Are No Judges Of A Book Written In A New Spirit.

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

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

The Hearing Ear Is Always Found Close To The Speaking Tongue.

The Nonchalance Of Boys Who Are Sure Of A Dinner, And Would Disdain As Much As A Lord To Do Or Say Aught To Conciliate One, Is The Healthy Attitude Of Human Nature.

An Action Is The Perfection And Publication Of Thought. A Right Action Seems To Fill The Eye, And To Be Related To All Nature.

The Difference Between Talent And Genius Is That Talent Says Things Which He Has Never Heard But Once, And Genius Things Which He Has Never Heard.

We Rail At Trade, But The Historian Of The World Will See That It Was The Principle Of Liberty; That It Settled America, And Destroyed Feudalism, And Made Peace And Keeps Peace; That It Will Abolish Slavery.

Welcome Evermore To Gods And Men Is The Self-helping Man.

The Experience Of Each New Age Requires A New Confession, And The World Seems Always Waiting For Its Poet

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

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

Is Not Marriage An Open Question, When It Is Alleged, From The Beginning Of The World, That Such As Are In The Institution Wish To Get Out, And Such As Are Out Wish To Get In?

We Lie In The Lap Of Immense Intelligence.

He Cumbers Himself Never About Consequences, About Interests; He Gives An Independent, Genuine Verdict. You Must Court Him: He Does Not Court You. But The Man Is, As It Were, Clapped Into Jail By His Consciousness.

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

He Who Travels In Search Of Something Which He Has Not Got, Travels Away From Himself And Grows Old Even In Youth Among Old Things.

The Mob Is Man Voluntarily Descending To The Nature Of The Beast.

Wisdom Is Not Found With Those Who Dwell At Their Ease; Rather Nature, When She Adds Brain, Adds Difficulty.

Life Is To Be Lived, Not Controlled.

You Have A Place To Live In This World Which No Other Man Can Occupy; Hence No Competitors.

It Is Long Ere We Discover How Rich We Are. Our History, We Are Sure, Is Quite Tame: We Have Nothing To Write, Nothing To Infer. But Our Wiser Years Still Run Back To The Despised Recollections Of Childhood. . . .

How Can We Speak Of The Action Of The Mind Under Any Divisions, As Of Its Knowledge, Of Its Ethics, Of Its Works, And So Forth, Since It Melts Will Into Perception, Knowledge Into Act? Each Becomes The Other. Itself Alone Is.

An Institution Is The Lengthened Shadow Of One Man.

A Great Man Scarcely Knows How He Dines, How He Dresses; But Without Railing Or Precision, His Living Is Natural And Poetic.

Goodness That Preaches Undoes Itself.

Truth Has Not Single Victories; All Things Are Its Organs,--not Only Dust And Stones, But Errors And Lies.

Politics Is A Deleterious Profession, Like Some Poisonous Handicrafts.

We Take Care Of Our Health; We Lay Up Money; We Make Our Roof Tight, And Our Clothing Sufficient; But Who Provides Wisely That He Shall Not Be Wanting In The Best Property Of All, -friends?

Successful Is The Person Who Has Lived Well, Laughed Often And Loved Much, Who Has Gained The Respect Of Children, Who Leaves The World Better Than They Found It, Who Has Never Lacked Appreciation For The Earth's Beauty, Who Never Fails To Look For The Best In Others Or Give The Best Of Themselves.

The Americans Have No Faith, They Rely On The Power Of A Dollar; They Are Deaf To Sentiment.

The Martyr Cannot Be Dishonored. Every Lash Inflicted Is A Tongue Of Fame; Every Prison A More Illustrious Abode.

People That Seem So Glorious Are All Show; Underneath They Are Like Everyone Else.

I Honor Health As The First Muse, And Sleep As The Condition Of Health. Sleep Benefits Mainly By The Sound Health It Produces; Incidentally Also By Dreams, Into Whose Farrago A Divine Lesson Is Sometimes Slipped.

Be Silly. Be Honest. Be Kind.

I Have Heard That Whoever Loves Is In No Condition Old. I Have Heard That Whenever The Name Of Man Is Spoken, The Doctrine Of Immortality Is Announced; It Cleaves To His Constitution. The Mode Of It Baffles Our Wit, And No Whisper Comes To Us From The Other Side. But The Inference From The Working Of Intellect, Hiving Knowledge, Hiving Skill,--at The End Of Life Just Ready To Be Born,--affirms The Inspirations Of Affection And Of The Moral Sentiment.

Nature Encourages No Looseness; Pardons No Errors.

Many Times The Reading Of A Book Has Made The Future Of A Man.

Every Man Has A Vocation. The Talent Is The Call.

Calmness Is Always Godlike.

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

Though We Travel The World Over To Find The Beautiful, We Must Carry It With Us, Or We Find It Not. The Best Of Beauty Is A Finer Charm Than Skill In Surfaces, In Outlines, Or Rules Of Art Can Ever Teach, Namely, A Radiation From The Work Of Art Of Human Character, — A Wonderful Expression Through Stone, Or Canvas, Or Musical Sound, Of The Deepest And Simplest Attributes Of Our Nature, And Therefore Most Intelligible At Last To Those Souls Which Have These Attributes.

The Charming Landscape Which I Saw This Morning Is Indubitably Made Up Of Some Twenty Or Thirty Farms. Miller Owns This Field, Locke That, And Manning The Woodland Beyond. But None Of Them Owns The Landscape. There Is Property In The Horizon Which No Man Has But He Whose Eye Can Integrate All Parts, That Is, The Poet. This Is The Best Part Of These Men's Farms, Yet To This Their Warranty-deeds Give No Title.

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.

We Live In Succession, In Division, In Parts, In 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.

The Best Effort Of A Fine Person Is Felt After We Have Left Their Presence.

I Read The Other Day Some Verses Written By An Eminent Painter Which Were Original And Not Conventional. The Soul Always Hears An Admonition In Such Lines, Let The Subject Be What It May. The Sentiment They Instil Is Of More Value Than Any Thought They May Contain. To Believe Your Own Thought, To Believe That What Is True For You In Your Private Heart Is True For All Men, - That Is Genius.

A Great Man Is Always Willing To Be Little.

To The Men Of This World, To The Animal Strength And Spirits, To The Men Of Practical Power, Whilst Immersed In It, The Man Of Ideas Appears Out Of His Reason. They Alone Gave Reason.

We Sometimes Meet An Original Gentleman, Who, If Manners Had Not Existed, Would Have Invented Them.

Let Us Advance On Chaos And The Dark

Every Thought Is Public, Every Nook Is Wide; Thy Gossips Spread Each Whisper, And The Gods From Side To Side.

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.

The Three Practical Rules, Then, Which I Have To Offer, Are, --/ Never Read A Book That Is Not A Year Old./ Never Read Any But The Famed Books./ Never Read Any But What You Like.

Adopt The Pace Of Nature: Her Secret Is Patience.

The Wonder Is That We Can See These Trees And Not Wonder More.

In Nature, All Is Useful, All Is Beautiful

The Sign And Credentials Of The Poet Are That He Announces That Which No Man Foretold

The Sea, Washing The Equator And The Poles, Offers Its Perilous Aid, And The Power And Empire That Follow It... ''beware Of Me,'' It Says, ''but If You Can Hold Me, I Am The Key To All The Lands.

Art, In The Artist, Is Proportion, Or, A Habitual Respect To The Whole By An Eye Loving Beauty In Details. And The Wonder And Charm Of It Is The Sanity In Insanity Which It Denotes.

Speech Is Power: Speech Is To Persuade, To Convert, To Compel. It Is To Bring Another Out Of His Bad Sense Into Your Good Sense.

Power Of Speech

Men Seek To Be Great; They Would Have Offices, Wealth, Power, And Fame. They Think That To Be Great Is To Possess One Side Of Nature,--the Sweet, Without The Other Side,--the Bitter.

The Moment We Indulge Our Affections, The Earth Is Metamorphosed.

America Is Not Civil, Whilst Africa Is Barbarous.

Tobacco, Coffee, Alcohol, Hashish, Prussic Acid, Strychnine, Are Weak Dilutions; The Surest Poison Is Time. This Cup Which Nature Puts To Our Lips, Has A Wonderful Virtue, Surpassing That Of Any Other Draught. It Opens The Senses, Adds Power, Fills Us With Exalted Dreams, Which We Call Hope, Love, Ambition, Science; Especially It Creates A Craving For Larger Draughts Of Itself.

Without A Rich Heart, Wealth Is An Ugly Beggar.

He Who Does A Good Deed Is Instantly Ennobled. He Who Does A Mean Deed Is By The Action Itself Contracted.

Let Me Admonish You, First Of All, To Go Alone; To Refuse The Good Models, Even Those Which Are Sacred In The Imagination Of Men, And Dare To Love God Without Mediator Or Veil.

Great Genial Power, One Would Almost Say, Consists In Not Being Original At All; In Being Altogether Receptive; In Letting The World Do All, And Suffering The Spirit Of The Hour To Pass Unobstructed Through The Mind.

Pride Eradicates All Vices But Itself.

Five Minutes Of Today Are Worth As Much To Me, As Five Minutes In The Next Millennium. Let Us Be Poised, And Wise, And Our Own, Today.

Nature Will Not Let Us Fret And Fume. She Does Not Like Our Benevolence Or Our Learning Much Better Than She Likes Our Frauds Andwars. When We Come Out Of The Caucus, Or The Bank, Or The Abolition-convention, Or The Temperance-meeting, Or The Transcendental Club, Into The Fields And Woods, She Says To Us, "so Hot? My Little Sir.

I Always Seem To Suffer Some Loss Of Faith On Entering Cities.

No Book Was Ever Written Down By Any But Itself.

Scholarship Is To Be Created Not By Compulsion, But By Awakening A Pure Interest In Knowledge.

The Only Reward Of Virtue Is Virtue.

Some Of Your Griefs You Have Cured, And The Sharpest You Still Have Survived, But What Torments Of Grief You've Endured From Evils That Never Arrived.

Health, South Wind, Books, Old Trees, A Boat, A Friend.

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

In Every Landscape, The Point Of Astonishment Is The Meeting Of The Sky And The Earth, And That Is Seen From The First Hillock Aswell As From The Top Of The Alleghanies. The Stars At Night Stoop Down Over The Brownest, Homeliest Common, With All The Spiritual Magnificence Which They Shed On The Campagna, Or On The Marble Deserts Of Egypt.

Only An Inventor Knows How To Borrow, And Every Man Is Or Should Be An Inventor.

The World Is Always Childish, And With Each New Gewgaw Of A Revolution Or New Constitution That It Finds, Thinks It Shall Never Cry Any More.

I Am Constrained Every Moment To Acknowledge A Higher Origin For Events Than The Will I Call Mine.

Prudence Is The Virtue Of The Senses. It Is The Science Of Appearances. It Is The Outmost Action Of The Inward Life.

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

It Is True That The Discerning Intellect Of The World Is Always Much In Advance Of The Creative, So That There Are Competent Judges Of The Best Book, And Few Writers Of The Best Books.

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

We Imperatively Require A Perception Of And A Homage To Beauty In Our Companions. Other Virtues Are In Request In The Field And Workyard, But A Certain Degree Of Taste Is Not To Be Spared In Those We Sit With.

The Things We Now Esteem Fixed Shall, One By One, Detach Themselves, Like Ripe Fruit, From Our Experience, And Fall. The Wind Shall Blow Them None Knows Whither.

Knowledge, Virtue, Power Are The Victories Of Man Over His Necessities, His March To The Dominion Of The World.

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

Life Has A Way Of Demanding That You Live It.

In All Conversation Between Two Persons, Tacit Reference Is Made, As To A Third Party, To A Common Nature. That Third Party Or Common Nature Is Not Social; It Is Impersonal; Is God.

We Pass For What We Are. Character Teaches Above Our Wills. Men Imagine That They Communicate Thier Virtue Or Vice By Overt Actions, And Do Not See That Virtue Or Vice Emit A Breath Ever Moment....one Tendency Unites Them All. The Voyage Of The Best Ship Is A Zsig Zag Line Of A Hundred Tacks. See The Line From A Sufficent Distance And It Straightens Itslef To The Average Tendency.

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

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

One Idea Lights A Thousand Candles.

Every Man In His Lifetime Needs To Thank His Faults.

A Man Makes Inferiors His Superiors By Heat; Self Control Is The Rule. Anger Is An Uncontrollable Feeling That Betrays What You Are When You Are Not Yourself. Anger Is That Powerful Internal Force That Blows Out The Light Of Reason. Know This To Be The Enemy: It Is Anger, Born Of Desire.

We Live In Succession, In Division, In Parts, In 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. And This Deep Power In Which We Exist And Whose Beatitude Is All Accessible To Us, Is Not Only Self-sufficing And Perfect In Every Hour, But The Act Of Seeing And The Thing Seen, The Seer And The Spectacle, The Subject And The Object, Are One. We See The World Piece By Piece, As The Sun, The Moon, The Animal, The Tree; But The Whole, Of Which These Are Shining Parts, Is The Soul.

The Task Ahead Of Us Is Never As Great As The Power Behind Us.

A Man Known To Us Only As A Celebrity In Politics Or In Trade, Gains Largely In Our Esteem If We Discover That He Has Some Intellectual Taste Or Skill.

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.

Throw A Stone Into The Stream And The Ripples That Propagate Themselves Are The Beautiful Type Of All Influence.

There Is No Den In The Wide World To Hide A Rogue. Commit A Crime, And The Earth Is Made Of Glass. Commit A Crime, And It Seems As If A Coat Of Snow Fell On The Ground, Such As Reveals In The Woods The Track Of Every Partridge And Fox And Squirrel And Mole.

As Every Man Is Hunted By His Own Daemon, Vexed By His Own Disease, This Checks All His Activity.

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

God Will Not Have His Work Made Manifest By Cowards. Always, Always, Always, Always, Always Do What You Are Afraid To Do. Do The Thing You Fear And The Death Of Fear Is Certain.

Who Can . . . Guess How Much Industry And Providence And Affection We Have Caught From The Pantomime Of Brutes?

As We Are, So We Do; And As We Do, So Is It Done To Us; We Are The Builders Of Our Fortunes.

The Pest Of Society Are The Egotist, They Are Dull And Bright, Sacred And Profane, Course And Fine. It Is A Disease That Like The Flu Falls On All Constitutions.

Keep The Town For Occasions, But The Habits Should Be Formed In Retirement.

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

The Torments Of Martyrdom Are Probably Most Keenly Felt By The Bystanders.

Great Hearts Steadily Send Forth The Secret Forces That Incessantly Draw Great Events.

Law Of Attraction

Traveling Is A Fool's Paradise. Our First Journeys Discover To Us The Indifference Of Places.

I See My Trees Repair Their Boughs.

He Who Loves Goodness Harbors Angels, Reveres Reverence, And Lives With God.

What I Must Do Is All That Concerns Me, Not What People Think. This Rule,equally Arduous In Actual And Intellectual Life, May Serve For The Whole Distinction Between Greatness And Meanness. It Is The Harder, Because You Will Always Find Those Who Think They Know What Is Your Duty Better Than You Know It. It Is Easy In The World To Live After The World's Opinion; It Is Easy In Solitude To Live After Our Own; But The Great Man Is He Who In The Midst Of The Crowd Keeps With Perfect Sweetness The Independence Of Solitude.

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

The Genius Is A Genius By The First Look He Casts On Any Object. Is His Eye Creative? Does He Not Rest In Angles And Colors, But Beholds The Design,--he Will Presently Undervalue The Actual Object.

Good Manners Are Made Up Of Petty Sacrifices.

The Glance Is Natural Magic. The Mysterious Communication Established Across A House Between Two Entire Strangers, Moves All The Springs Of Wonder.

We Do Not Make A World Of Our Own, But Fall Into Institutions Already Made, And Have To Accommodate Ourselves To Them To Be Useful At All.

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

I Ought To Go Upright And Vital, And Speak The Rude Truth In All Ways.

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

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.

There Is Nothing Capricious In Nature And The Implanting Of A Desire Indicates That Its Gratification Is In The Constitution Of The Creature That Feel It.

I Should As Soon Think Of Swimming Across Charles River, When I Wish To Go To Boston, As Of Reading All My Books In Originals, When I Have Them Rendered For Me In My Mother Tongue.

One Man's Justice Is Another's Injustice; One Man's Beauty Another's Ugliness; One Man's Wisdom Anpther's Folly.

I Wish To Say What I Think And Feel Today, With The Proviso That Tomorrow Perhaps I Shall Contradict It All.

When It's Dark Enough Men See Stars.

The Subject Is Said To Have The Property Of Making Dull Men Eloquent.

It Is Not Length Of Life, But Depth Of Life.

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.

It Is Easy In The World To Live After The World's Opinion; It Is Easy In Solitude To Live After Our Own; But The Great Man Is He Who In The Midst Of The Crowd Keeps With Perfect Sweetness The Independence Of Solitude.

Men Grind And Grind In The Mill Of A Truism, And Nothing Comes Out But What Was Put In. But The Moment They Desert The Tradition For A Spontaneous Thought, Then Poetry, Wit, Hope, Virtue, Learning, Anecdote, And All Flock To Their Aid.

The Soul Rules Over Matter. Matter May Pass Away Like A Mote In The Sunbeam, May Be Absorbed Into The Immensity Of God, As A Mistis Absorbed Into The Heat Of The Sun--but The Soul Is The Kingdom Of God, The Abode Of Love, Of Truth, Of Virtue.

Heat Of The Sun

To Different Minds, The Same World Is A Hell, And A Heaven.

The Good Rain, Like A Bad Preacher, Does Not Know When To Leave Off.

As The Sandwich Islander Believes That The Strength And Valor Of The Enemy He Kills Passes Into Himself, So We Gain The Strength Of The Temptation We Resist.

I Do Not Speak With Any Fondness But The Language Of Coolest History, When I Say That Boston Commands Attention As The Town Whichwas Appointed In The Destiny Of Nations To Lead The Civilization Of North America.

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Bruno Bettelheim

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