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Do Not Fear To Put Novels Into The Hands Of Young People As An Occasional Holiday Experiment, But Above All, Good Poetry In All Kinds,--epic, Tragedy, Lyric. If We Can Touch The Imagination, We Serve Them; They Will Never Forget It.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Do Not Fear To

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Do Not Fear To Put Novels Into The Hands Of Young People As An Occasional Holiday Experiment, But Above All, Good Poetry In All Kinds,--epic, Tragedy, Lyric. If We Can Touch The Imagination, We Serve Them; They Will Never Forget It.

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do Not Tell Me Of My Obligation To Put All Poor Men In Good Situations. Are They My Poor? I Tell Thee, Thou Foolish Philanthropist, That I Grudge The Dollar, The Dime, The Cent, I Give To Such Men As Do Not Belong To Me And To Whom I Do Not Belong

Pines A Thousand Years Old. Every Year They Must Go Farther For Them: They Recede, Like Beavers And Indians, Before The White Man.

A Man Is A Little Thing Whilst He Works By And For Himself, But, When He Gives Voice To The Rules Of Love And Justice, Is Godlike, His Word Is Current In All Countries; And All Men, Though His Enemies, Are Made His Friends And Obey It As Their Own.

The Peril Of Every Fine Faculty Is The Delight Of Playing With It For Pride. Talent Is Commonly Developed At The Expense Of Character, And The Greater It Grows, The More Is The Mischief. Talent Is Mistaken For Genius, A Dogma Or System For Truth, Ambition For Greatness, Ingenuity For Poetry, Sensuality For Art.

In The Greek Cities, It Was Reckoned Profane, That Any Person Should Pretend A Property In A Work Of Art, Which Belonged To All Who Could Behold It.

We Infer The Spirit Of The Nation In Great Measure From The Language, Which Is A Sort Of Monument, To Which Each Forcible Individual In A Course Of Many Hundred Years Has Contributed A Stone.

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

When It Is Darkest, We Can See The Stars.

Suicide Inspirational

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.

An Institution Is The Lengthened Shadow Of One Man; As, Monachism Of The Hermit Anthony, The Reformation Of Luther, Quakerism Of Fox, Methodism Of Wesley, Abolition Of Clarkson. Scipio, Milton Called "the Height Of Rome;" And All History Resolves Itself Easily Into The Biography Of A Few Stout And Earnest Persons. Let A Man, Then, Know His Worth, And Keep Things Under His Feet.

You Cannot Kindle A Fire In Any Other Heart Until It Is Burning In Your Own.

I Am Not So Foolish As To Declaim Against Forms. Forms Are As Essential As Bodies; But To Exalt Particular Forms, To Adhere To Oneform A Moment After It Is Outgrown, Is Unreasonable, And It Is Alien To The Spirit Of Christ.

If A Man Fasten His Attention On A Single Aspect Of Truth And Apply Himself To That Alone For A Long Time, The Truth Becomes Distorted And Not Itself But Falsehood.

I Would Study, I Would Know, I Would Admire Forever.

Our Prayers Are Prophets.

There Are As Many Pillows Of Illusion As Flakes In A Snow-storm. We Wake From One Dream Into Another Dream.

Knowledge Is The Knowing That We Cannot Know.

The Life Of Man Is A Self-evolving Circle.

Why Should We Grope Among The Dry Bones Of The Past, Or Put The Living Generation Into Masquerade Out Of Its Faded Wardrobe?

He, Who Loves The Bristle Of Bayonets, Only Sees In Their Glitter What Beforehand He Feels In His Hand.

The Good News Is That The Moment You Decide That What You Know Is More Important Than What You Have Been Taught To Believe, You Will Have Shifted Gears In Your Quest For Abundance. Success Comes From Within, Not From Without.

The Soul Lets No Man Go Without Some Visitations And Holy-days Of A Diviner Presence.

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.

A Cheerful Intelligent Face Is The End Of Culture, And Success Enough. For It Indicates The Purpose Of Nature And Wisdom Attained.

Everywhere I Am Hindered Of Meeting God In My Brother, Because He Has Shut His Own Temple Doors And Recites Fables Merely Of His Brother's, Or His Brother's Brother's God.

We See Young Men Who Owe Us A New World, So Readily And Lavishly They Promise, But They Never Acquit The Debt; They Die Young Anddodge The Account: Or If They Live, They Lose Themselves In The Crowd.

There Is No Good Theory Of Disease Which Does Not At Once Suggest A Cure.

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.

Progress Is The Activity Of Today And The Assurance Of Tomorrow

Philosophically Considered, The Universe Is Composed Of Nature And The Soul.

I Have Heard That Stiff People Lose Something Of Their Awkwardness Under High Ceilings, And In Spacious Halls. I Think, Sculptureand Painting Have An Effect To Teach Us Manners, And Abolish Hurry.

We Want But Two Or Three Friends, But These We Cannot Do Without, And They Serve Us In Every Thought We Think.

Little Thinks, In The Field, Yon Red-cloaked Clown, Of Thee, From The Hill-top Looking Down; And The Heifer, That Lows In The Upland Farm, Far-heard, Lows Not Thine Ear To Charm; The Sexton Tolling The Bell At Noon, Dreams Not That Great Napoleon Sto

Cultivate An Attitude Of Gratitude, Of Giving And Forgiving. Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself.

I Look On Sculpture As History. I Do Not Think The Apollo And The Jove Impossible In Flesh And Blood. Every Trait The Artist Recorded In Stone, He Had Seen In Life, And Better Than His Copy.

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.

It Is Frivolous To Fix Pedantically The Date Of Particular Inventions. They Have All Been Invented Over And Over Fifty Times. Man Is The Arch Machine, Of Which All These Shifts Drawn From Himself Are Toy Models. He Helps Himself On Each Emergency By Copying Or Duplicating His Own Structure, Just So Far As Then Need Is.

Truth Is The Property Of No Individual But Is The Treasure Of All Men.

The Finest Poetry Was First Experience.

If The Gatherer Gathers Too-much, Nature Takes Out Of The Man What She Puts Into His Chest; Swells The Estate, But Kills The Owner. Nature Hates, Monopolies And Exceptions.

Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without Enthusiasm.

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

A Friend, Therefore, Is A Sort Of Paradox In Nature. I Who Alone Am, I Who See Nothing In Nature Whose Existence I Can Affirm With Equal Evidence To My Own, Behold Now The Semblance Of My Being, In All Its Height, Variety, And Curiosity, Reiterated In A Foreign Form; So That A Friend May Well Be Reckoned The Masterpiece Of Nature.

Science Surpasses The Old Miracles Of Mythology.

I Suppose An Entire Cabinet Of Shells Would Be An Expression Of The Whole Human Mind; A Flora Of The Whole Globe Would Be So Likewise, Or A History Of Beasts; Or A Painting Of All The Aspects Of The Clouds. Everything Is Significant.

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

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.

My Friends Have Come To Me Unsought. The Great God Gave Them To Me. By Oldest Right, By The Divine Affinity Of Virtue With Itself,i Find Them, Or Rather Not I, But The Deity In Me And In Them Derides And Cancels The Thick Walls Of The Individual Character, Relation, Age, Sex, Circumstance, At Which He Usually Connives, And Now Makes Many One.

Neither Is Life Long Enough For Friendship. That Is A Serious And Majestic Affair.

The Bitterest Tragic Element In Life To Be Derived From An Intellectual Source Is The Belief In A Brute Fate Or Destiny.

In Different Hours, A Man Represents Each Of Several Of His Ancestors, As If There Were Seven Or Eight Of Us Rolled Up In Each Man's Skin, - Seven Or Eight Ancestors At Least, And They Constitute The Variety Of Notes For That New Piece Of Music Which His Life Is.

'tis A Superstition To Insist On A Special Diet. All Is Made At Last Of The Same Chemical Atoms.

Let The Amelioration In Our Laws Of Property Proceed From The Concession Of The Rich, Not From The Grasping Of The Poor. Let Us Understand That The Equitable Rule Is, That No One Should Take More Than His Share, Let Him Be Ever So Rich.

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

There Are Only Ten Minutes In The Life Of A Pear When It Is Perfect To Eat.

We Put Our Love Where We Have Put Our Labor.

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

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.

A Chief Event Of Life Is The Day In Which We Have Encountered A Mind That Startled Us.

There Is A Time When A Man Distinguishes The Idea Of Felicity From The Idea Of Wealth; It Is The Beginning Of Wisdom.

The Unsaid Part Is The Best Of Every Discourse.

There Are Faces So Fluid With Expression, So Flushed And Rippled By The Play Of Thought, That We Can Hardly Find What The Mere Features Really Are. When The Delicious Beauty Of Lineament Loses Its Power, It Is Because A More Delicious Beauty Has Appeared, That An Interior And Durable Form Has Been Disclosed.

The Force Of Character Is Cumulative.

To Speak Truly, Few Adult Persons Can See Nature. Most Persons Do Not See The Sun. At Least They Have A Very Superficial Seeing. The Sun Illuminates Only The Eye Of The Man, But Shines Into The Eye And Heart Of The Child.

The Delicious Faces Of Children, The Beauty Of School-girls, "the Sweet Seriousness Of Sixteen," The Lofty Air Of Well-born, Well-bred Boys, The Passionate Histories In The Looks And Manners Of Youth And Early Manhood, And The Varied Power In All That Well-known Company That Escort Us Through Life,--we Know How These Forms Thrill, Paralyze, Provoke, Inspire, And Enlarge Us.

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

The Corruption Of Man Is Followed By The Corruption Of Language.

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.

The Great Man, That Is, The Man Most Imbued With The Spirit Of The Time, Is The Impressionable Man.

The Ancestor Of Every Action Is A Thought.

Positive Thinking

Let Him Be Great, And Love Shall Follow Him. Nothing Is More Deeply Punished Than The Neglect Of The Affinities By Which Alone Society Should Be Formed, And The Insane Levity Of Choosing Associates By Others Eyes.

We Read Often With As Much Talent As We Write.

To Eat Bread Is One Thing; To Love The Precepts Of Christ And Resolve To Obey Them Is Quite Another.

Never Mind The Ridicule, Never Mind The Defeat: Up Again, Old Heart!-it Seems To Say,-there Is Victory Yet For All Justice; And The True Romance Which The World Exists To Realize, Will Be The Transformation Of Genius Into Practical Power.

Self-love Is, In Almost All Men, Such An Over-weight That They Are Incredulous Of A Man's Habitual Preference Of The General Good To His Own; But When They See It Proved By Sacrifices Of Ease, Wealth, Rank, And Of Life Itself, There Is No Limit To Their Admiration.

Let Every Man Shovel Out His Own Snow And The Whole City Will Be Passable.

Man Is The Dwarf Of Himself.

You Think Me The Child Of Circumstance; I Make My Circumstance.

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.

If The Tongue Had Not Been Framed For Articulation, Man Would Still Be A Beast In The Forest.

Very Idle Is All Curiosity Concerning Other People's Estimate Of Us, And All Fear Of Remaining Unknown Is Not Less So.

No Nation Has Produced Anything Like His Equal. There Is No Quality In The Human Mind, There Is No Class Of Topics, There Is No Region Of Thought, In Which He Has Not Soared Or Descended, And None In Which He Has Not Said The Commanding Word.

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

The Soul Is No Traveller; The Wise Man Stays At Home, And When His Necessities, His Duties, On Any Occasion Call Him From His House, Or Into Foreign Lands, He Is At Home Still, And Shall Make Men Sensible By The Expression Of His Countenance, That He Goes The Missionary Of Wisdom And Virtue, And Visits Cities And Men Like A Sovereign, And Not Like An Interloper Or A Valet.

The Intellectual Man Requires A Fine Bait; The Sots Are Easily Amused. But Everybody Is Drugged With His Own Frenzy, And The Pageant Marches At All Hours, With Music And Banner And Badge.

It Is Very Hard To Be Simple Enough To Be Good.

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

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

I Wiped Away The Weeds And Foam, I Fetched My Sea-born Treasures Home; But The Poor, Unsightly, Noisome Things Had Left Their Beauty On The Shore, With The Sun And The Sand And The Wild Uproar.

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

The Stars Awaken A Certain Reverence, Because Though Always Present, They Are Inaccessible; But All Natural Objects Make A Kindred Impression, When The Mind Is Open To Their Influence. Nature Never Wears A Mean Appearance. Neither Does The Wisest Man Extort Her Secret, And Lose His Curiosity By Finding Out All Her Perfection. Nature Never Became A Toy To A Wise Spirit. The Flowers, The Animals, The Mountains, Reflected The Wisdom Of His Best Hour, As Much As They Had Delighted The Simplicity Of His Childhood.

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.

In Youth, We Clothe Ourselves With Rainbows, And Go As Brave As The Zodiac.

Knowledge Is The Only Elegance.

The Lover Of Nature Is He Whose Inward And Outward Senses Are Still Truly Adjusted To Each Other.

Every Spirit Makes Its House, And We Can Give A Shrewd Guess From The House To The Inhabitant.

That Which Shows God In Me, Fortifies Me. That Which Shows God Out Of Me, Makes Me A Wart And A Wen.

Positive Atheism

Life Is A Perpetual Instruction In Cause And Effect.

Never Try To Make Anyone Like You: You Know, And God Knows, That One Of You Is Enough.

Men Are Conservatives When They Are Least Vigorous Or When They Are Most Luxurious-they Are Conservatives After Dinner.

We Cannot Let Our Angels Go; We Do Not See That They Only Go Out That Archangels May Come In.

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.

Dare To Live The Life You Have Dreamed For Yourself. Go Forward And Make Your Dreams Come True.

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

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

If I Should Go Out Of Church Whenever I Hear A False Statement I Could Never Stay There Five Minutes. But Why Come Out? The Streetis As False As The Church, And When I Get To My House, Or To My Manners, Or To My Speech, I Have Not Got Away From The Lie.

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

For Everything You Have Missed, You Have Gained Something Else, And For Everything You Gain, You Lose Something Else.

We Are Shut Up In School And College Recitation Rooms For Ten To Fifteen Years, And Come Out At Last With A Bellyful Of Words And Do Not Know A Thing. We Cannot Use Our Hands, Or Our Legs, Or Our Eyes, Or Our Arms. We Do Not Know An Edible Root In The Woods. We Cannot Tell Our Course By The Stars, Nor The Hour Of Day By The Sun. It Is Well If We Can Swim And Skate. We Are Afraid Of A Horse Or A Cow, Of A Dog, Of A Cat, Of A Spider. Far Better Was The Roman Rule To Teach A Boy Nothing That He Could Not Learn Standing.

Who Makes And Keeps The Jew Or The Negro Base, Who But You, Who Exclude Them From The Rights Which Others Enjoy?

Nothing Will Supply The Want Of Sunshine To Peaches, And, To Make Knowledge Valuable, You Must Have The Cheerfulness Of Wisdom. Whenever You Are Sincerely Pleased You Are Nourished. The Joy Of The Spirit Indicates Its Strength. All Healthy, Things Are Sweet-tempered. Genius Works In Sport, And Goodness Smiles To The Last.

Shall We Then Judge A Country By The Majority, Or By The Minority? By The Minority, Surely. 'tis Pedantry To Estimate Nations By The Census, Or By Square Miles Of Land, Or Other Than By Their Importance To The Mind Of The Time.

The Instinct Of The People Is Right.

Imagination Is A Very High Sort Of Seeing.

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?

Government Has Come To Be A Trade, And Is Managed Solely On Commercial Principles. A Man Plunges Into Politics To Make His Fortune, And Only Cares That The World Shall Last His Days.

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

Our First Mistake Is The Belief That The Circumstance Gives The Joy Which We Give To The Circumstance.

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

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.

Every Man Is A Divinity In Disguise, A God Playing The Fool.

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

A Man Must Be Clothed With Society, Or We Shall Feel A Certain Bareness And Poverty, As Of A Displaced And Unfurnished Member. He Is To Be Dressed In Arts And Institutions, As Well As In Body Garments. Now And Then A Man Exquisitely Made Can Live Alone, And Must; But Coop Up Most Men And You Undo Them.

How Painful To Give A Gift To Any Person Of Sensibility, Or Of Equality! It Is Next Worst To Receiving One

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.

We Know Truth When We See It, From Opinion, As We Know When We Are Awake That We Are Awake.

Literature Is The Effort Of Man To Indemnify Himself For The Wrongs Of His Condition.

Self Trust Is The Essence Of Heroism.

We Shun The Rugged Battle Of Fate Where Strength Is Born.

The Eye Is The Best Of Artists.

If You Have Something To Say, You Will Be Given The Power To Say It.

Speech Is Better Than Silence; Silence Is Better Than Speech.

The Secret Of The Illusoriness Is In The Necessity Of A Succession Of Moods Or Objects. Gladly We Would Anchor, But The Anchorageis Quicksand.

He Presents Me With What Is Always An Acceptable Gift Who Brings Me News Of A Great Thought Before Unknown. He Enriches Me Without Impoverishing Himself.

Ever The Words Of The Gods Resound; But The Porches Of Man's Ear Seldom In This Low Life's Round Are Unsealed, That He May Hear.

The Desire Of Gold Is Not For Gold. It Is Not The Love Of Much Wheat, And Wool And Household Stuff. It Is The Means Of Freedom And Benefit.

Character Repudiates Intellect, Yet Excites It; And Character Passes Into Thought, Is Published So, And Then Is Ashamed Before Newflashes Of Moral Worth.

Trust Thyself: Every Heart Vibrates To That Iron String.

Our Life Is An Apprenticeship To The Truth That Around Every Circle Another Can Be Drawn; That There Is No End In Nature, But Every End Is A Beginning, And Under Every Deep A Lower Deep Opens.

The Antidote To This Abuse Of Formal Government, Is, The Influence Of Private Character, The Growth Of The Individual.

The Time Is Coming When All Men Will See That The Gift Of God To The Soul Is Not A Vaunting, Overpowering, Excluding Sanctity, Buta Sweet, Natural Goodness, A Goodness Like Thine And Mine, And That So Invites Thine And Mine To Be And To Grow.

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

The World Proceeds From The Same Spirit As The Body Of Man. It Is A Remoter And Inferior Incarnation Of God, A Projection Of God In The Unconscious.

Men Of God Have Always, From Time To Time, Walked Among Men, And Made Their Commission Felt In The Heart And Soul Of The Commonest Hearer.

Calmness Is Always Godlike.

The Foundation Of Culture, As Of Character, Is At Last The Moral Sentiment.

In The Presence Of Nature, A Wild Delight Runs Through The Man, In Spite Of Real Sorrows.

The Pleasure Of Life Is According To The Man That Lives It, And Not According To The Work Or Place.

None Shall Rule But The Humble,and None But Toil Shall Have.

It Is Dainty To Be Sick If You Have Leisure And Convenience For It.

Philanthropic And Religious Bodies Do Not Commonly Make Their Executive Officers Out Of Saints.

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

A Third Felicity Of Age Is That It Has Found Expression. The Youth Suffers Not Only From Ungratified Desires, But From Powers Untried, And From A Picture In His Mind Of A Career Which Has As Yet No Outward Reality. He Is Tormented With The Want Of Correspondence Between Things And Thoughts.

Eyes...they Speak All Languages.

Society Is A Wave. The Wave Moves Onward, But The Water Of Which It Is Composed Does Not.

We Thirst For Approbation, Yet Cannot Forgive The Approver.

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.

Four Snakes Gliding Up And Down A Hollow For No Purpose That I Could See - Not To Eat, Not For Love, But Only Gliding.

The South-wind Brings Life, Sunshine And Desire, And On Every Mount And Meadow Breathes Aromatic Fire; But Over The Dead He Has No Power, The Lost, The Lost, He Cannot Restore; And, Looking Over The Hills, I Mourn The Darling Who Shall Not Return.

To Live The Greatest Number Of Good Hours Is Wisdom.

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

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

The Frost Which Kills The Harvest Of A Year Saves The Harvest Of A Century, By Destroying The Weevil Or The Locust.

The World Is Nothing, The Man Is All; In Yourself Is The Law Of All Nature, And You Know Not Yet How A Globule Of Sap Ascends; In Yourself Slumbers The Whole Of Reason; It Is For You To Know All, It Is For You To Dare All.

There Is No Eloquence Without A Man Behind It.

The Service A Man Renders His Friend Is Trivial And Selfish, Compared With The Service He Knows His Friend Stood In Readiness To Yield Him, Alike Before He Had Begun To Serve His Friend, And Now Also. Compared With That Good-will I Bear My Friend, The Benefit It Is In My Power To Render Him Seems Small.

A Man Should Learn To Detect And Watch That Gleam Of Light Which Flashes Across His Mind From Within, More Than The Lustre Of The Firmament Of Bards And Sages. Yet He Dismisses Without Notice His Thought, Because It Is His. In Every Work Of Genius We Recognize Our Own Rejected Thoughts: They Come Back To Us With A Certain Alienated Majesty.

History - A Biography Of A Few Stout And Earnest Persons

Up And Away For Life! Be Fleet!- The Frost-king Ties My Fumbling Feet, Sings In My Ears, My Hands Are Stones, Curdles The Blood To The Marble Bones, Tugs At The Heart-strings, Numbs The Sense, And Hems In Life With Narrowing Fence. Well, In This Broad Bed Lie And Sleep,- The Punctual Stars Will Vigil Keep,- Embalmed By Purifying Cold; The Winds Shall Sing Their Dead-march Old, The Snow Is No Ignoble Shroud, The Moon Thy Mourner, And The Cloud.

It Is Easy To See That What Is Best Written Or Done By Genius In The World, Was No Man's Work But Came By Wide Social Labor, Whena Thousand Wrought Like One, Sharing The Same Impulse.

Imagination Is Not A Talent Of Some Men But Is The Health Of Every Man.

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

The Man, Who Has Seen The Rising Moon Break Out Of The Clouds At Midnight, Has Been Present Like An Archangel At The Creation Of Light And Of The World.

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

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

Humility Is The Secret Of The Wise.

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

It Requires A Great Deal Of Boldness And A Great Deal Of Caution To Make A Great Fortune, And When You Have It, It Requires Ten Times As Much Skill To Keep It.

We Wake From One Dream Into Another Dream.

I Could Better Eat With One Who Did Not Respect The Truth Or The Laws, Than With A Sloven And Unpresentable Person. Moral Qualities Rule The World, But At Shorter Distances, The Senses Are Despotic.

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

I See That Sensible Men And Conscientious Men All Over The World Were Of One Religion Of Well-doing And Daring.

Philanthropies And Charities Have A Certain Air Of Quackery.

Every Chair Should Be A Throne And Hold A King.

The Thief Steals From Himself. The Swindler Swindles Himself. For The Real Price Is Knowledge And Virtue, Whereof Wealth And Credit Are Signs. These Signs, Like Paper Money, May Be Counterfeited Or Stolen, But That Which They Represent, Namely, Knowledge And Virtue, Cannot Be Counterfeited Or Stolen.

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

We Sometimes Observe That Spoiled Children Contract A Habit Of Annoying Quite Wantonly Those Who Have Charge Of Them, And Seem Tomeasure Their Own Sense Of Well-being, Not By What They Do, But By The Degree Of Reaction They Can Cause. It Is Vain To Get Rid Of Them By Not Minding Them: If Purring And Humming Is Not Noticed, They Squeal And Screech; Then If You Chide And Console Them, They Find The Experiment Succeeds, And They Begin Again. The Child Will Sit In Your Arms Contented If You Do Nothing. If You Take A Book And Read, He Commences Hostile Operations.

What Omniscience Has Music! So Absolutely Impersonal, And Yet Every Sufferer Feels His Secret Sorrow Soothed.

Nature Is A Language And Every New Fact One Learns Is A New Word; But It Is Not A Language Taken To Pieces And Dead In The Dictionary, But The Language Put Together Into A Most Significant And Universal Sense. I Wish To Learn This Language - Not That I May Know A New Grammar, But That I May Read The Great Book Which Is Written In That Tongue.

Every Book Is A Quotation; And Every House Is A Quotation Out Of All Forests, And Mines, And Stone Quarries; And Every Man Is A Quotation From All His Ancestors.

War Educates The Senses, Calls Into Action The Will, Perfects The Physical Constitution, Brings Men Into Such Swift And Close Collision In Critical Moments That Man Measures Man.

Saving Private Ryan

Life Is A Boundless Privilege, And When You Pay For Your Ticket, And Get Into The Car, You Have No Guess What Good Company You Shall Find There.

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

Morning Inspirational

There Is No Strong Performance Without A Little Fanaticism In The Performer.

Skepticism Is Unbelief In Cause And Effect.

Cause And Effect

In Talking With Scholars, I Observe That They Lost On Ruder Companions Those Years Of Boyhood Which Alone Could Give Imaginative Literature A Religious And Infinite Quality In Their Esteem.

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

Youth Is Everywhere In Place.

All History Is A Record Of The Power Of Minorities, And Of Minorities Of One.

The World When Seen Through A Little Child's Eyes, Greatly Resembles Paradise. Happiness Is Doing With A Smile What You Have To Do Anyway. This Time, Like All Time, Is A Very Good One If We But Know What To Do With It.

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Ernest Rutherford

Richard Dean Anderson

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