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Don't Choose The Better Person, Choose The Person Who Makes A Better You.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Don't Choose The Better

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Don't Choose The Better Person, Choose The Person Who Makes A Better You.

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Two Sorts Of Writers Possess Genius: Those Who Think, And Those Who Cause Others To Think.

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.

Hidden Away In The Inner Nature Of The Real Man Is The Law Of His Life, And Someday He Will Discover It And Consciously Make Use Of It. He Will Heal Himself, Make Himself Happy And Prosperous, And Life In An Entirely Different World. For He Will Have Discovered That Life Is From Within And Not From Without.

I Knew A Witty Physician Who Found Theology In The Biliary Duct, And Used To Affirm That If There Was A Disease In The Liver, The Man Became A Calvinist, And If That Organ Was Sound, He Became A Unitarian.

There Is, In All Great Poets, A Wisdom Of Humanity Which Is Superior To Any Talents They Exercise.

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

Immortality. I Notice That As Soon As Writers Broach This Question They Begin To Quote. I Hate Quotation. Tell Me What You Know.

If The Single Man Plant Himself Indomitably On His Instincts, And There Abide, The Huge World Will Come Round To Him.

Every Experiment, By Multitudes Or By Individuals, That Has A Sensual And Selfish Aim, Will Fail.

I Once Heard A Preacher Who Sorely Tempted Me To Go To Church No More.

The Student Is To Read History Actively And Not Passively.

The Ragged Cliff Has Thousand Faces In A Thousand Hours.

The First Steps In Agriculture, Astronomy, Zoology, (those First Steps Which The Farmer, The Hunter, And The Sailor Take,) Teach That Nature's Dice Are Always Loaded; That In Her Heaps And Rubbish Are Concealed Sure And Useful Results.

A Self-denial, No Less Austere Than The Saint's, Is Demanded Of The Scholar. He Must Worship Truth, And Forgo All Things For That,and Choose Defeat And Pain, So That His Treasure In Thought Is Thereby Augmented.

Only That Mind Draws Me Which I Cannot Read.

Earth Proudly Wears The Parthenon As The Best Gem Upon Her Zone.

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.

The Borrower Runs In His Own Debt.

The Light By Which We See In This World Comes Out From The Soul Of The Observer. Wherever Any Noble Sentiment Dwelt, It Made The Faces And Houses Around To Shine. Nay, The Powers Of This Busy Brain Are Miraculous And Illimitable.

Talents Differ; All Is Well And Wisely Put; If I Cannot Carry Forests On My Back, Neither Can You Crack A Nut.

I Am Ashamed To See What A Shallow Village Tale Our So-called History Is.

Sport Is The Bloom And Glow Of A Perfect Health. The Great Will Not Condescend To Take Anything Seriously; All Must Be As Gay As The Song Of A Canary, Though It Were The Building Of Cities, Or The Eradication Of Old And Foolish Churches And Nations, Which Have Cumbered The Earth Long Thousands Of Years.

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.

Every Mind Has A New Compass, A New Direction Of Its Own, Differencing Its Genius And Aim From Every Other Mind.--we Call This Specialty The Bias Of Each Individual. And None Of Us Will Ever Accomplish Anything Excellent Or Commanding Except When He Listens To This Whisper Which Is Heard By Him Alone.

Teaching Is The Perpetual End And Office Of All Things. Teaching, Instruction Is The Main Design That Shines Through The Sky And Earth.

Make Yourself Necessary To Somebody.

Self Improvement

Friendship Love

Explore, And Explore, And Explore. Be Neither Chided Nor Flattered Out Of Your Position Of Perpetual Inquiry. Neither Dogmatise Yourself, Nor Accept Another's Dogmatism. Why Should You Renounce Your Right To Traverse The Star-lit Deserts Of Truth, For The Premature Comforts Of An Acre, House, And Barn? Truth Also Has Its Roof, And Bed, And Board. Make Yourself Necessary To The World, And Mankind Will Give You Bread, And If Not Store Of It, Yet Such As Shall Not Take Away Your Property In All Men's Possessions, In All Men's Affections, In Art, In Nature, And In Hope.

I Can Believe A Miracle Because I Can Raise My Own Arm. I Can Believe A Miracle Because I Can Remember. I Can Believe It Because I Can Speak And Be Understood By You.

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 Most Dangerous Thing Is Illusion.

A Low Self-love In The Parent Desires That His Child Should Repeat His Character And Fortune.

Circumstance Does Not Make The Man. Circumstance Reveals Man To Himself.

Solvency Is Maintained By Means Of A National Debt, On The Principle, "if You Will Not Lend Me The Money, How Can I Pay You?"

Wherever There Is Failure, There Is Some Giddiness, Some Superstition About Luck, Some Step Omitted, Which, Nature Never Pardons.

Who Heeds The Waste Abyss Of Possibility? The Ocean Is Everywhere The Same, But It Has No Character Until Seen With The Shore Or The Ship.

The Finest Wits Have Their Sediment.

I Thought As I Rode In The Cold Pleasant Light Of Sunday Morning How Silent & Passive Nature Offers, Every Morn, Her Wealth To Man; She Is Immensely Rich, He Is Welcome To Her Entire Goods, Which He Speaks No Word, Only Leaves Over Doors Ajar, Hall, Store Room, & Cellar. He May Do As He Will: If He Takes Her Hint & Uses Her Goods, She Speaks No Word; If He Blunders & Starves, She Says Nothing.

If You Take In A Lie, You Must Take In All That Belongs To It.

But It Is A Cold, Lifeless Business When You Go To The Shops To Buy Something, Which Does Not Represent Your Life And Talent, But A Goldsmith's.

The Eyes Of Men Converse As Much As Their Tongues, With The Advantage That The Ocular Dialect Needs No Dictionary, But Is Understood All The World Over.

When Good Is Near You, When You Have Life In Yourself, It Is Not By Any Known Or Accustomed Way; You Shall Not Discern The Foot-prints Of Any Other; You Shall Not See The Face Of Man; You Shall Not Hear Any Name; The Way, The Thought, The Good, Shall Be Wholly Strange And New. It Shall Exclude Example And Experience.

He Then Learns That In Going Down Into The Secrets Of His Own Mind, He Has Descended Into The Secrets Of All Minds.

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

Shallow Men Believe In Luck. Strong Men Believe In Cause And Effect.

There Is No Beautifier Of Complexion, Or Form, Or Behavior, Like The Wish To Scatter Joy And Not Pain Around Us. 'tis Good To Give A Stranger A Meal, Or A Night's Lodging. 'tis Better To Be Hospitable To His Good Meaning And Thought, And Give Courage To A Companion. We Must Be As Courteous To A Man As We Are To A Picture, Which We Are Willing To Give The Advantage Of A Good Light.

When A Happy Person Comes Into The Room, It Is As If Another Candle Has Been Lit.

The Difference Between Talent And Genius Is In The Direction Of The Current: In Genius, It Is From Within Outward; In Talent From Without Inward.

And, In Fine, The Ancient Precept, "know Thyself," And The Modern Precept, "study Nature," Become At Last One Maxim.

Respect The Child. Be Not Too Much His Parent. Trespass Not On His Solitude.

The Cold, Inconsiderate Of Persons, Tingles Your Blood, Benumbs Your Feet, Freezes A Man Like An Apple.

Every Young Man Is Prone To Be Misled By The Suggestions Of His Own Ill-founded Ambition Which He Mistakes For The Promptings Of Asecret Genius, And Thence Dreams Of Unrivaled Greatness.

That Which We Call Sin In Others Is Experiment For Us.

Every Man's Condition Is A Solution In Hieroglyph To Those Inquiries He Would Put. He Acts It As Life Before He Apprehends It As Truth.

We Talk Of Choosing Our Friends, But Friends Are Self-elected.

Each Man Has His Own Vocation. The Talent Is The Call. There Is One Direction In Which All Space Is Open To Him. He Has Faculties Silently Inviting Him Thither To Endless Exertion. He Is Like A Ship In The River; He Runs Against Obstructions On Every Side But One; On That Side All Obstruction Is Taken Away, And He Sweeps Serenely Over A Deepening Channel Into An Infinite Sea.

We Are All Inventors, Each Sailing Out On A Voyage Of Discovery, Guided Each By A Private Chart, Of Which There Is No Duplicate. The World Is All Gates, All Opportunities.

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

The Universal Soul Is The Alone Creator Of The Useful And The Beautiful; Therefore To Make Anything Useful Or Beautiful, The Individual Must Be Submitted To The Universal Mind.

Life Consists In What A Man Is Thinking Of All Day.

Many A Man Had Taken The First Step. With Every Additional Step You Enhance Immensely The Value Of Your First.

Let Ideas Establish Their Legitimate Sway Again In Society, Let Life Be Fair And Poetic, And The Scholars Will Gladly Be Lovers, Citizens, And Philanthropists.

For, Rightly, Every Man Is A Channel Through Which Heaven Floweth, And, Whilst I Fancied I Was Criticising Him, I Was Censuring Orrather Terminating My Own Soul.

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

Though I Am Weak, Yet God, When Prayed, Cannot Withhold His Conquering Aid.

In The Death Of My Son, Now More Than Two Years Ago, I Seem To Have Lost A Beautiful Estate,--no More. I Cannot Get It Nearer To Me.

The Secret Of Fortune Is Joy In Our Hands. Welcome Evermore To Gods And Men Is The Self-helping Man. For Him All Doors Are Flung Wide. Him All Tongues Greet, All Honors Crown, All Eyes Follow With Desire. Our Love Goes Out To Him And Embraces Him Because He Did Not Need It.

If You Know You Are Right, Stay The Course Even Though The Whole World Seems To Be Against You And Everyone You Know Questions Your Judgment. When You Prevail--and You Eventually Will If You Stick To The Job--they Will All Tell You That They Knew All Along You Could Do It.

The Flowers Talk When The Wind Blows Over Them.

They Think Him The Best Dressed Man, Whose Dress Is So Fit For His Use That You Cannot Notice Or Remember To Describe It.

There Is No Country In Which So Absolute A Homage Is Paid To Wealth. In America There Is A Touch Of Shame When A Man Exhibits Theevidences Of Large Property, As If After All It Needed Apology. But The Englishman Has Pure Pride In His Wealth, And Esteems It A Final Certificate. A Coarse Logic Rules Throughout All English Souls: If You Have Merit, Can You Not Show It By Your Good Clothes And Coach And Horses?

When A Man Does Not Write His Poetry, It Escapes By Other Vents Through Him.

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

[w]e Pity Our Fathers For Dying Before Steam And Galvanism, Sulphuric Ether And Ocean Telegraphs, Photograph And Spectrograph Arrived, As Cheated Out Of Their Human Estate.

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

You May Regret Calamities If You Can Thereby Help The Sufferer, But If You Cannot, Mind Your Own Business.

Mind Your Own Business

I Find The Englishman To Be Him Of All Men Who Stands Firmest In His Shoes. They Have In Themselves What They Value In Their Horses, Mettle And Bottom.

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

A Strenuous Soul Hates Cheap Success.

The Primary Wisdom Is Intuition.

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

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 Ancients Called Beauty The Flowering Of Virtue.

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

The Best Nations Are Those Most Widely Related; And Navigation, As Effecting A World-wide Mixture, Is The Most Potent Advancer Ofnations.

Shall I Tell You The Secret Of The True Scholar? It Is This: Every Man I Meet Is My Master In Some Point, And In That I Learn Of Him.

Debt, Grinding Debt, Whose Iron Face The Widow, The Orphan, And The Sons Of Genius Fear And Hate; Debt, Which Consumes So Much Time, Which So Cripples And Disheartens A Great Spirit With Cares That Seem So Base, Is A Preceptor Whose Lessons Cannot Be Foregone, And Is Needed Most By Those Who Suffer From It Most.

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

The Book, The College, The School Of Art, The Institution Of Any Kind, Stop With Some Past Utterance Of Genius. . . . They Look Backward And Not Forward. But Genius Looks Forward: The Eyes Of Man Are Set In His Forehead, Not In His Hindhead: Man Hopes: Genius Creates. Whatever Talents May Be, If The Man Create Not, The Pure Efflux Of The Deity Is Not His; - Cinders And Smoke There May Be, But Not Yet Flame.

Every Violation Of Truth Is Not Only A Sort Of Suicide In The Liar, But Is A Stab At The Health Of Human Society.

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

The Cardinal Virtue Of A Teacher [is] To Protect The Pupil From His Own Influence.

Earth's A Howling Wilderness, Truculent With Fraud And Force.

Wise Men Are Not Wise At All Times.

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

The Great Majority Of Men Grow Up And Grow Old In Seeming And Following.

Peace Has Its Victories, But It Takes Brave Men And Women To Win Them.

There Is A Genius Of A Nation, Which Is Not To Be Found In The Numerical Citizens, But Which Characterizes The Society.

Wait, And Thy Soul Shall Speak.

Every Particular In Nature, A Leaf, A Drop, A Crystal, A Moment Of Time Is Related To The Whole, And Partakes Of The Perfection Of The Whole.

The Wise Skeptic Does Not Teach Doubt But How] To Look For The Permanent In The Mutable And Fleeting.

For What Avail The Plough Or Sail, Or Land Or Life, If Freedom Fail?

The Reward Of A Thing Well Done, Is To Have Done It.

God Is Unity, But Always Works In Variety.

Men Such As They Are, Very Naturally Seek Money Or Power; And Power Because It Is As Good As Money.

We Dress Our Garden, Eat Our Dinners, Discuss The Household With Our Wives, And These Things Make No Impression, Are Forgotten Next Week; But In The Solitude To Which Every Man Is Always Returning, He Has A Sanity And Revelations, Which In His Passage Into New Worlds He Will Carry With Him. 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.

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

An Imaginative Book Renders Us Much More Service At First, By Stimulating Us Through Its Tropes, Than Afterward, When We Arrive Atthe Precise Sense Of The Author. I Think Nothing Is Of Any Value In Books, Excepting The Transcendental And Extraordinary.

Eloquence Is The Appropriate Organ Of The Highest Personal Energy.

God Said, I Am Tired Of Kings, I Suffer Them No More; Up To My Ear This Morning Brings The Outrage Of The Poor.

Courage Of The Soldier Awakes The Courage Of Woman.

Our Spontaneous Action Is Always The Best. You Cannot, With Your Best Deliberation And Heed, Come So Close To Any Question As Your Spontaneous Glance Shall Bring You.

When The Night Is Darkest, The Stars Come Out.

Men Consort In Camp And Town But The Poet Dwells Alone.

We Teach Boys To Be Such Men As We Are. We Do Not Teach Them To Aspire To Be All They Can. We Do Not Give Them A Training As If Webelieved In Their Noble Nature. We Scarce Educate Their Bodies. We Do Not Train The Eye And The Hand. We Exercise Their Understandings To The Apprehension And Comparison Of Some Facts, To A Skill In Numbers, In Words; We Aim To Make Accountants, Attorneys, Engineers; But Not To Make Able, Earnest, Great- Hearted Men.

Age, Like Woman, Requires Fit Surroundings.

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.

Men Cease To Interest Us When We Find Their Limitations

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

No One Suspects The Days To Be Gods.

We Must Set Up A Strong Present Tense Against All Rumors Of Wrath, Past And To Come.

There Is Nothing Settled In Manners, But The Laws Of Behavior Yield To The Energy Of The Individual.

When The Spirit Is Not Master Of The World, Then It Is Its Dupe.

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

Tis The Good Reader That Makes The Good Book; In Every Book He Finds Passages Which Seem Confidences Or Asides Hidden From All Else And Unmistakenly Meant For His Ear; The Profit Of Books Is According To The Sensibility Of The Reader; The Profoundest Thought Or Passion Sleeps As In A Mine, Until It Is Discovered By An Equal Mind And Heart.

We Sell The Thrones Of Angels For A Short And Turbulent Pleasure.

Every Friend Whom Not Thy Fantastic Will But The Great And Tender Heart In Thee Craveth, Shall Lock Thee In His Embrace. And This Because The Heart In Thee Is The Heart Of All; Not A Valve, Not A Wall, Not An Intersection Is There Anywhere In Nature, But One Blood Rolls Uninterruptedly In Endless Circulation Through All Men, As The Water Of The Globe Is All One Sea, And, Truly Seen, Its Tide Is One.

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

If You Maintain A Dead Church, Contribute To A Dead Bible-society, Vote With A Great Party Either For The Government Or Against It, Spread Your Table Like Base Housekeepers, - Under All These Screens I Have Diffuculty To Detect The Precise Man You Are: And Of Course So Much Force Is Withdrawn From Your Proper Life. But Do Your Work And I Shall Know You. Do Your Work, And You Shall Reinforce Yourself. A Man Must Consider What A Blind-man's Bluff Is This Game Of Conformity. If I Know Your Sect I Anticipate Your Argument.

Every Natural Fact Is A Symbol Of Some Spiritual Fact.

It Depends Little On The Object, Much On The Mood, In Art.

Nature Is A Rag Merchant, Who Works Up Every Shred And Ort And End Into New Creations.

In Every Man There Is Something Wherein I May Learn Of Him, And In That I Am His Pupil.

The Nonconformist And The Rebel Say All Manner Of Unanswerable Things Against The Existing Republic, But Discover To Our Sense No Plan Of House Or State Of Their Own.

Thou Art To Me A Delicious Torment.

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

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.

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

Sorrow Makes Us All Children Again - Destroys All Differences Of Intellect. The Wisest Know Nothing.

He Who Is In Love Is Wise And Is Becoming Wiser, Sees Newly Every Time He Looks At The Object Beloved, Drawing From It With His Eyes And His Mind Those Virtues Which It Possesses.

Truly Speaking, It Is Not Instruction, But Provocation, That I Can Receive From Another Soul. What He Announces, I Must Find True In Me, Or Reject; And On His Word, Or As His Second, Be He Who He May, I Can Accept Nothing.

Pride Ruined The Angels, Their Shame Them Restores; And The Joy That Is Sweetest Lurks In Stings Of Remorse.

The Chief Mourner Does Not Always Attend The Funeral.

Who Gave Thee, O Beauty, The Keys Of This Breast,-- Too Credulous Lover Of Blest And Unblest? Say, When In Lapsed Ages Thee Knew I Of Old? Or What Was The Service For Which I Was Sold?

Eloquence Shows The Power And Possibility Of Man.

He Takes Men Out Of Time And Makes Them Feel Eternity.

Housekeeping Is Not Beautiful; It Cheers And Raises Neither The Husband, The Wife, Nor The Child; Neither The Host Nor The Guest;it Oppresses Women. A House Kept To The End Of Prudence Is Laborious Without Joy; A House Kept To The End Of Display Is Impossible To All But A Few Women, And Their Success Is Dearly Bought.

The Whole Value Of History, Of Biography, Is To Increase My Self-trust, By Demonstrating What Man Can Be And Do.

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.

Every Man Passes His Life In The Search After Friendship.

When We Have Broken Our God Of Tradition, And Ceased From Our God Of Rhetoric, Then May God Fire The Heart With His Presence.

Natural Religion Supplies Still All The Facts Which Are Disguised Under The Dogma Of Popular Creeds. The Progress Of Religion Is Steadily To Its Identity With Morals.

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

Every Man Contemplates An Angel In His Future Self.

When We Attempt To Define And Describe God, Both Language And Thought Desert Us, And We Are As Helpless As Fools And Savages.

The Vocabulary Of An Omniscient Man Would Embrace Words And Images Excluded From Polite Conversation. What Would Be Base, Or Even Obscene, To The Obscene, Becomes Illustrious, Spoken In A New Connexion Of Thought.

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

Congratulations

The Tempered Light Of The Woods Is Like A Perpetual Morning.

It Is Hard To Go Beyond Your Public. If They Are Satisfied With Cheap Performance, You Will Not Easily Arrive At Better. If They Know What Is Good, And Require It. You Will Aspire And Burn Until You Achieve It. But From Time To Time, In History, Men Are Born A Whole Age Too Soon.

The World Belongs To The Energetic.

A Man Is A Beggar Who Only Lives To The Useful, And, However He May Serve As A Pin Or Rivet In The Social Machine, Cannot Be Saidto Have Arrived At Self-possession.

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

The Idea Of God Ends In A Paltry Methodist Meeting-house.

No Great Man Ever Complains Of Want Of Opportunity.

Power Obeys Reality, And Not Appearances; Power Is According To Quality, And Not Quantity.

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

All Substances The Cunning Chemist Time Melts Down Into That Liquor Of My Life.

There Is No One Who Does Not Exaggerate!

Exaggeration Is

Some Will Always Be Above Others.

All Good Conversation, Manners, And Action Come From A Spontaneity Which Forgets Usages And Makes The Moment Great.

What Is The End Of Human Life? It Is Not, Believe Me, The Chief End Of Man That He Should Make A Fortune And Beget Children Whose End Is Likewise To Make A Fortune, But It Is, In Few Words, That He Should Explore Himself.

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

When The Eyes Say One Thing, And The Tongue Another, A Practiced Man Relies On The Language Of The First.

The Wise Man Always Throws Himself On The Side Of His Assailants. It Is More His Interest Than It Is Theirs To Find His Weak Point.

Only That Is Poetry Which Cleanses And Mans Me.

To Aim To Convert A Man By Miracles Is A Profanation Of The Soul.

I Like People Who Can Do Things

Music Takes Us Out Of The Actual And Whispers To Us Dim Secrets That Startles Out Wonder As To Who We Are, And For What, Whence, And Whereto.

The Philanthropists Inquire Whether Transcendentalism Does Not Mean Sloth: They Had As Lief Hear That Their Friend Is Dead, As That He Is A Transcendentalist; For Then Is He Paralyzed, And Can Never Do Anything For Humanity.

He Is Only Rich Who Owns The Day. There Is No King, Rich Man, Fairy, Or Demon Who Possesses Such Power As That.

When I Read A Good Book, I Wish My Life Were Three Thousand Years Long.

Life Is Short But There Is Always Time For Courtesy.

There Is Then Creative Reading As Well As Creative Writing. When The Mind Is Braced By Labor And Invention, The Page Of Whatever Book We Read Becomes Luminous With Manifold Allusion. Every Sentence Is Doubly Significant, And The Sense Of Our Author Is As Broad As The World.

Nor Has Science Sufficient Humanity, So Long As The Naturalist Overlooks The Wonderful Congruity Which Subsists Between Man And The World; Of Which He Is Lord, Not Because He Is The Most Subtile Inhabitant, But Because He Is Its Head And Heart, And Finds Something Of Himself In Every Great And Small Thing, In Every Mountain Stratum, In Every New Law Of Color, Fact Of Astronomy, Or Atmospheric Influence Which Observation Or Analysis Lay Open.

Let There Be Worse Cotton And Better Men.

Yet A Man May Love A Paradox, Without Losing Either His Wit Or His Honesty.

Only Poetry Inspires Poetry.

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.

We Find In Life Exactly What We Put Into It

Any Relation To The Land, The Habit Of Tilling It, Or Mining It, Or Even Hunting On It, Generates The Feeling Of Patriotism. He Who Keeps Shop On It, Or He Who Merely Uses It As A Support To His Desk And Ledger, Or To His Manufactory, Values It Less.

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.

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

Youth Is Everywhere In Place.

I Like To Have A Person's Knowledge Comprehend More Than One Class Of Topics, One Row Of Shelves. I Like A Person Who Likes To See A Fine Barn As Well As A Good Tragedy.

There Are People Who Have An Appetite For Grief; Pleasure Is Not Strong Enough And They Crave Pain. They Have Mithridatic Stomachs Which Must Be Fed On Poisoned Bread, Natures So Doomed That No Prosperity Can Sooth Their Ragged And Dishevelled Desolation.

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

The Age Of A Woman Doesn't Mean A Thing. The Best Tunes Are Played On The Oldest Fiddles.

Insist On Yourself. Never Imitate.

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

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

You Cannot Institute, Without Peril Of Charlatanism.

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