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

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Don't Hang A Dismal

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

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Only That Mind Draws Me Which I Cannot Read.

Life Is A Search After Power; And This Is An Element With Which The World Is So Saturated,-there Is No Chink Or Crevice In Which It Is Not Lodged,-that No Honest Seeking Goes Unrewarded.

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

It Is A Capital Blunder; As You Discover, When Another Man Recites His Charities.

History Is Full, Down To This Day, Of The Imbecility Of Kings And Governors. They Are A Class Of Persons Much To Be Pitied, For They Know Not What They Should Do.

We Can Only Be Valued As We Make Ourselves Valuable.

Life Is Not Intellectual Or Critical, But Sturdy. Its Chief Good Is For Well-mixed People Who Can Enjoy What They Find, Without Question.

He Who Knows What Sweets And Virtues Are In The Ground, The Plants, The Waters, The Heavens, And How To Come At These Enchantments - Is The Rich And Royal Man.

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.

This Day Is All That Is Good And Fair. It Is Too Dear, With Its Hopes And Invitations, To Waste A Moment On The Yesterdays.

No Change Of Circumstances Can Repair A Defect Of Character.

As Soon As A Child Has Left The Room His Strewn Toys Become Affecting.

Nothing Can Be Preserved That Is Not Good.

The House Is A Castle Which The King Cannot Enter.

Intemperance Is The Only Vulgarity.

Be An Opener Of Doors For Such As Come After Thee.

Concentration Is The Secret Of Srength.

Let Us Advance On Chaos And The Dark

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

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

Better Be A Nettle In The Side Of Your Friend Than His Echo.

Draw, If Thou Canst, The Mystic Line, Severing Rightly His From Thine, Which Is Human, Which Divine.

Wouldst Thou Shut Up The Avenues Of Ill, Pay Every Debt As If God Wrote The Bill.

What If You Do Fail, And Get Fairly Rolled In The Dirt Once Or Twice. Up Again, You Shall Never Be So Afraid Of A Tumble.

Don't Be A Cynic, And Bewail And Bemoan. Omit The Negative Propositions. Don't Waste Yourself In Rejection, Nor Bark Against The Bad, But Chant The Beauty Of The Good. Set Down Nothing That Will Help Somebody.

Patience And Fortitude Conquer All Things.

It Is The Ignorant And Childish Part Of Mankind That Is The Fighting Part. Idle And Vacant Minds Want Excitement

Mankind Divides Itself Into Two Classes,--benefactors And Malefactors. The Second Class Is Vast; The First A Handful.

I Take This Evanescence And Lubricity Of All Objects, Which Lets Them Slip Through Our Fingers Then When We Clutch Hardest, To Be The Most Unhandsome Part Of Our Condition.

There Is Not A Piece Of Science, But Its Flank May Be Turned Tomorrow.

Every Thought Which Genius And Piety Throw Into The World Alters The World.

Numbers Serve To Discipline Rhetoric. Without Them It Is Too Easy To Follow Flights Of Fancy, To Ignore The World As It Is And To Remold It Nearer The Heart's Desire.

We Dare Not Trust Our Wit For Making Our House Pleasant To Our Friend, So We Buy Ice Cream.

People With Great Gifts Are Easy To Find, But Symmetrical And Balanced Ones Never.

Things Admit Of Being Used As Symbols, Because Nature Is A Symbol, In The Whole, And In Every Part.

Live, Let Live, And Help Live

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

You Cannot Make A Cheap Palace.

Money Often Costs Too Much.

Greatest Wealth

Those Who Listened To Lord Chatham Felt That There Was Something Finer In The Man, Than Anything Which He Said.

Self Confidence

Infancy Conforms To Nobody: All Conform To It, So That One Babe Commonly Makes Four Or Five Out Of The Adults Who Prattle And Play To It.

Man Is Not A Farmer, Or A Professor, Or An Engineer, But He Is All. Man Is Priest, And Scholar, And Statesman, And Producer, And Soldier.

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.

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.

The Action Of The Soul Is Oftener In That Which Is Felt And Left Unsaid Than In That Which Is Said In Any Conversation. It Broods Over Every Society, And Men Unconsciously Seek For It In Each Other.

To Live The Greatest Number Of Good Hours Is Wisdom.

Courage Charms Us, Because It Indicates That A Man Loves An Idea Better Than All Things In The World, That He Is Thinking Neither Of His Bed, Nor His Dinner, Nor His Money, But Will Venture All To Put In Act The Invisible Thought Of His Mind.

Here Is The World, Sound As A Nut, Perfect, Not The Smallest Piece Of Chaos Left, Never A Stitch Nor An End, Not A Mark Of Haste, Or Botching, Or Second Thought; But The Theory Of The World Is A Thing Of Shreds And Patches.

The Book Written Against Fame And Learning Has The Author's Name On The Title-page.

Literature Is Eavesdropping.

Steam Was Till The Other Day The Devil Which We Dreaded. Every Pot Made By Any Human Potter Or Brazier Had A Hole In Its Cover, To Let Off The Enemy, Lest He Should Lift Pot And Roof And Carry The House Away.

The Only Joy In His Being Mine, Is That The Not Mine Is Mine.

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.

And The Glory Of Character Is In Affronting The Horrors Of Depravity To Draw Thence New Nobilities Of Power: As Art Lives And Thrills In New Use And Combining Of Contrasts, And Mining Into The Dark Evermore For Blacker Pits Of Night.

The Best Of Life Is Conversation.

A True Man Belongs To No Other Time Or Place, But Is The Center Of Things.

Let The Man Stand On His Feet. Let Religion Cease To Be Occasional; And The Pulses Of Thought That Go To The Borders Of The Universe, Let Them Proceed From The Bosom Of The Household.

The Hard Soil And Four Months Of Snow Make The Inhabitants Of The Northern Temperate Zone Wiser And Abler Than His Fellow Who Enjoys The Fixed Smile Of The Tropics.

Times Of Heroism Are Generally Times Of Terror, But The Day Never Shines In Which This Element May Not Work.

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

For It Is Not Metres, But A Metre-making Argument That Makes A Poem.

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

There Is A Tendency For Things To Right Themselves.

Christianity Taught The Capacity, The Element, To Love The All-perfect Without A Stingy Bargain For Personal Happiness. It Taught That To Love Him Was Happiness;--to Love Him In Others' Virtues.

As Long As Our Civilization Is Essentially One Of Property, Of Fences, Of Exclusiveness, It Will Be Mocked By Delusions.

The Faith That Stands On Authority Is Not Faith.

The River Knows The Way To The Sea: Without A Pilot It Runs And Falls, Blessing All Lands With Its Charity.

A Man Must Thank His Defects, And Stand In Some Terror Of His Talents. A Transcendent Talent Draws So Largely On His Forces As Tolame Him; A Defect Pays Him Revenues On The Other Side.

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

The Only Sin That We Never Forgive In Each Other Is A Difference In Opinion.

If The Race Is Good, So Is The Place.

Nature Arms Each Man With Some Faculty Which Enables Him To Do Easily Some Feat Impossible To Any Other, And Thus Makes Him Necessary To Society. ... Society Can Never Prosper, But Must Always Be Bankrupt, Until Every Man Does That Which He Was Created To Do.

What Is It Men Love In Genius, But Its Infinite Hope, Which Degrades All It Has Done? Genius Counts All Its Miracles Poor And Short. Its Own Idea It Never Executed.

The Path Of Things Is Silent. Will They Suffer A Speaker To Go With Them?

I Find It More Credible, Since It Is Anterior Information, That One Man Should Know Heaven, As The Chinese Say, Than That So Many Men Should Know The World.

In Dealing With The State, We Ought To Remember That Its Institutions Are Not Aboriginal, Though They Existed Before We Were Born; That They Are Not Superior To The Citizen; That Every One Of Them Was Once The Act Of A Single Man; Every Law And Usage Was A Man's Expedient To Meet A Particular Case; That They All Are Imitable, All Alterable; We May Make As Good; We May Make Better.

Every Man Supposes Himself Not To Be Fully Understood Or Appreciated.

It Really Is Considered One Of The Blessings Of Previous Mates Which You Could Manage Being Silly With Them.

The History Of The Genesis Or The Old Mythology Repeats Itself In The Experience Of Every Child. He Too Is A Demon Or God Thrown Into A Particular Chaos, Where He Strives Ever To Lead Things From Disorder Into Order.

A Man Comes To Measure His Greatness By The Regrets, Envies And Hatreds Of His Competitors.

The Doctrine Of Necessity Or Destiny Is The Doctrine Of Toleration.

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 Ancestor Of Every Action Is A Thought.

Positive Thinking

The Land Is The Appointed Remedy For Whatever Is False And Fantastic In Our Culture. The Continent We Inhabit Is To Be Physic Andfood For Our Mind, As Well As Our Body. The Land, With Its Tranquilizing, Sanative Influences, Is To Repair The Errors Of A Scholastic And Traditional Education, And Bring Us To Just Relations With Men And Things.

Be A Gift And A Benediction.

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

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

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

A Sect Or Party Is An Elegant Incognito Devised To Save A Man From The Vexation Of Thinking.

If Any Mention Was Made Of Homicide, Madness, Adultery, And Intolerable Tortures, We Would Let The Church-bells Ring Louder, The Church-organ Swell Its Peal And Drown The Hideous Sound. The Sugar They Raised Was Excellent: Nobody Tasted Blood In It.

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

If We Meet No Gods, It Is Because We Harbor None. If There Is Grandeur In You, You Will Find Grandeur In Porters And Sweeps.

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

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

There Is One Mind Common To All Individual Men. Every Man Is An Inlet To The Same And To All Of The Same. He That Is Once Admitted To The Right Of Reason Is Made A Freeman Of The Whole Estate. What Plato Has Thought, He May Think; What A Saint Has Felt, He May Feel; What At Any Time Has Befallen Any Man, He Can Understand. Who Hath Access To This Universal Mind Is A Party To All That Is Or Can Be Done, For This Is The Only And Sovereign Agent

It Is Noticed, That The Consideration Of The Great Periods And Spaces Of Astronomy Induces A Dignity Of Mind, And An Indifferenceto Death.

The Voyage Of The Best Ship Is A Zigzag Line Of A Hundred Tacks.

The Religions Are Obsolete When The Reforms Do Not Proceed From Them.

Surely Nobody Would Be A Charlatan, Who Could Afford To Be Sincere.

To Be Able To Discern That What Is True Is True, And That What Is False Is False,--this Is The Mark And Character Of Intelligence.

Every Sentence Spoken By Napoleon, And Every Line Of His Writing, Deserves Reading, As It Is The Sense Of France.

We Lie In The Lap Of Immense Intelligence, Which Makes Us Receivers Of Its Truth And Organ Of Its Activity. When We Discern Justice, When We Discern Truth, We Do Nothing By Ourselves, But Allow A Passage To Its Beams. If We Ask Whence This Comes, If We Seek To Pry Into The Soul That Causes, All Philosophy Is At Fault. Its Presence Or Its Absence Is All We Can Affirm.

The Greek Epigram Intimates That The Force Of Love Is Not Shown By The Courting Of Beauty, But Where The Like Desire Is Inflamed For One Who Is Ill-favored.

Nothing External To You Has Any Power Over You.

The Foolish Man Wonders At The Unusual, But The Wise Man At The Usual.

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

It Is Easy To Live For Others, Everybody Does. I Call On You To Live For Yourself.

Let The Bird Sing Without Deciphering The Song.

The History Of Persecution Is A History Of Endeavors To Cheat Nature, To Make Water Run Up Hill, To Twist A Rope Of Sand.

I Count Him A Great Man Who Inhabits A Higher Sphere Of Thought, Into Which Other Men Rise With Labor And Difficulty; He Has But To Open His Eyes To See Things In A True Light, And In Large Relations; Whilst They Must Make Painful Corrections, And Keep A Vigilant Eye On Many Sources Of Error.

There Can Be No Excess To Love, None To Knowledge, None To Beauty.

Not For Nothing One Face, One Character, One Fact Makes Much Impression On Him, And Another None.

Greatness Once And Forever Has Down With Opinion.

Our Fear Of Death Is Like Our Fear That Summer Will Be Short, But When We Have Had Our Swing Of Pleasure, Our Fill Of Fruit, And Our Swelter Of Heat, We Say We Have Had Our Day.

Heroism Works In Contradiction To The Voice Of Mankind And In Contradiction, For A Time, To The Voice Of The Great And Good. Heroism Is An Obedience To A Secret Impulse Of An Individual

Sorrow Makes Us All Children Again.

Every Heroic Act Measures Itself By Its Contempt Of Some External Good. But It Finds Its Own Success At Last, And Then The Prudent Also Extol.

Englands Genius Filled All Measureof Heart And Soul, Of Strength And Pleasure,gave To The Mind Its Emperor,and Life Was Larger Than Before:nor Sequent Centuries Could Hitorbit And Sum Of Shakespeares Wit. The Men Who Lived With Him Becamepoets, For The Air Was Fame.

Our Country, Customs, Laws, Our Ambitions, And Our Notions Of Fit And Fair-all These We Never Made; We Found Them Ready-made; We But Quote From Them. What Would Remain To Me If This Art Of Appropriation Were Derogatory To Genius? Every One Of My Writings Has Been Furnished To Me By A Thousand Different Persons, A Thousand Things; Wise And Foolish Have Brought Me, Without Suspecting It, The Offering Of Their Thoughts, Faculties, And Experience. My Work Is An Aggregation Of Beings Taken From The Whole Of Nature. It Bears The Name Of Goethe.

Every Man Who Would Do Anything Well, Must Come To It From A Higher Ground.

Words Are Finite Expressions Of The Infinite Mind.

It Has Been The Office Of Art To Educate The Perception Of Beauty. We Are Immersed In Beauty But Our Eyes Have No Clear Vision.

The Last Change In Our Point Of View Gives The Whole World A Pictorial Air.

The Book Of Nature Is The Book Of Fate. She Turns The Gigantic Pages, Leaf After Leaf Never Returning One.

I Think We Must Get Rid Of Slavery Or We Must Get Rid Of Freedom.

When I Behold A Rich Landscape, It Is Less To My Purpose To Recite Correctly The Order And Superposition Of The Strata, Than To Know Why All Thought Of Multitude Is Lost In A Tranquil Sense Of Unity.

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

It Must Be That When God Speaketh, He Should Communicate, Not One Thing, But All Things; Should Fill The World With His Voice; Should Scatter Forth Light, Nature, Time, Souls, From The Centre Of The Present Thought; And New Date And New Create The Whole.whenever A Mind Is Simple And Receives A Divine Wisdom, Old Things Pass Away, - Means, Teachers, Texts, Temples Fall; It Lives Now, And Absorbs Past And Future Into The Present Hour. All Things Are Made Sacred By Relation To It,-one As Much As Another. All Things Are Disolved To Ther Center By Thier Cause.

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.

The Advantage In Education Is Always With Those Children Who Slip Up Into Life Without Being Objects Of Notice.

Ever Fresh The Broad Creation, A Divine Improvisation, From The Heart Of God Proceeds, A Single Will, A Million Deeds.

Nature Is A Tropical Swamp In Sunshine, On Whose Purlieus We Hear The Song Of Summer Birds, And See Prismatic Dewdrops, - But Her Interiors Are Terrific, Full Of Hydras And Crocodiles.

Or Whipping Its Rough Surface For A Trout.

Great Geniuses Have The Shortest Biographies.

No Man Can Have Society Upon His Own Terms.

Genius Always Finds Itself A Century Too Early.

The First Wealth Is Health.

The Ancients Called Beauty The Flowering Of Virtue.

America Is Another Name For Opportunity.

The Sky Is The Ultimate Art Gallery Just Above Us.

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.

You Shall Not Come Nearer A Man By Getting Into His House.

I Will Not Hide My Tastes Or Aversions. If You Are True, But Not In The Same Truth With Me, Cleave To Your Companions; I Will Seek My Own.

Passion, Though A Bad Regulator, Is A Powerful Spring. Any Absorbing Passion Has The Effect To Deliver From The Little Coils And Cares Of Every Day: 'tis The Heat Which Sets Our Human Atoms Spinning, Overcomes The Friction Of Crossing Thresholds, And First Addresses In Society, And Gives Us A Good Start And Speed, Easy To Continue, When Once It Is Begun.

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.

People Destined To Meet Will Do So, Apparently By Chance, At Precisely The Right Moment.

Self Reliance, The Height And Perfection Of Man, Is Reliance On God.

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.

In My Dealing With My Child, My Latin And Greek, My Accomplishments And My Money Stead Me Nothing; But As Much Soul As I Have Avails. If I Am Wilful, He Sets His Will Against Mine, One For One, And Leaves Me, If I Please, The Degradation Of Beating Him By My Superiority Of Strength. But If I Renounce My Will, And Act For The Soul, Setting That Up As Umpire Between Us Two, Out Of His Young Eyes Looks The Same Soul; He Reveres And Loves With Me.

Only By The Supernatural Is A Man Strong--only By Confiding In The Divinity Which Stirs Within Us. Nothing Is So Weak As An Egotist--nothing Is Mightier Than We, When We Are Vehicles Of A Truth Before Which The State And The Individual Are Alike Ephemeral.

The Stars Awaken A Certain Reverence, Because Though Always Present, They Are Inaccessible.

Sincerity Is The Highest Complement You Can Pay

The Betrothed And Accepted Lover Has Lost The Wildest Charms Of His Maiden By Her Acceptance. She Was Heaven While He Pursued Her, But She Cannot Be Heaven If She Stoops To One Such As He!

The Sentence Must Also Contain Its Own Apology For Being Spoken.

You Will Think Me Very Pedantic, Gentlemen, But Holiday Though It May Be, I Have Not The Smallest Interest In Any Holiday, Except As It Celebrates Real And Not Pretended Joys.

All Our Progress Is An Unfolding, Like The Vegetable Bud. You Have First An Instinct, Then An Opinion, Then A Knowledge, As The Plant Has Root, Bud, And Fruit. Trust The Instinct To The End, Though You Can Render No Reason. It Is Vain To Hurry It. By Trusting It To The End It Shall Ripen Into Truth, And You Shall Know Why You Believe.

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.

All Men, In The Abstract, Are Just And Good; What Hinders Them, In The Particular, Is, The Momentary Predominance Of The Finite And Individual Over The General Truth. The Condition Of Our Incarnation In A Private Self, Seems To Be, A Perpetual Tendency To Prefer The Private Law, To Obey The Private Impulse, To The Exclusion Of The Law Of The Universal Being.

A Man Should Learn To Detect And Watch That Gleam Of Light Which Flashes Across His Mind From Within, More Than The Luster Of The Firmament Of Bards And Sages

The Use Of Natural History Is To Give Us Aid In Supernatural History: The Use Of The Outer Creation, To Give Us Language For The Beings And Changes Of The Inward Creation.

Books Are For Nothing But To Inspire

The Babe In Arms Is A Channel Through Which The Energies We Call Fate, Love, And Reason Visibly Stream.

The Counting-room Maxims Liberally Expounded Are Laws Of The Universe. The Merchant's Economy Is A Coarse Symbol Of The Soul's Economy. It Is, To Spend For Power, And Not For Pleasure.

Wherever There Is Power, There Is Age. Don't Be Deceived By Dimples And Curls. I Tell You That Babe Is A Thousand Years Old.

A Good Deal Of Our Politics Is Physiological.

Where The Banana Grows Man Is Sensual And Cruel.

There Are Other Measures Of Self-respect For A Man, Than The Number Of Clean Shirts He Puts On Every Day.

At Present, Man Applies To Nature But Half His Force. He Works On The World With His Understanding Alone. He Lives In It, And Masters It By A Penny-wisdom; And He That Works Most In It, Is But A Half-man, And Whilst His Arms Are Strong And His Digestion Good, His Mind Is Imbruted, And He Is A Selfish Savage.

Among The Multitude Of Scholars And Authors, We Feel No Hallowing Presence; We Are Sensible Of A Knack And Skill Rather Than Of Inspiration; They Have A Light, And Know Not Whence It Comes, And Call It Their Own; Their Talent Is Some Exaggerated Faculty, Some Overgrown Member, So That Their Strength Is A Disease.

Dreams Have A Poetic Integrity And Truth. This Limbo And Dust-hole Of Thought Is Presided Over By A Certain Reason, Too.

A Man Is A Golden Impossibility. The Line He Must Walk Is A Hair's Breadth. The Wise Through Excess Of Wisdom Is Made A Fool.

Men Lose Their Tempers In Defending Their Taste.

Genial Manners Are Good, And Power Of Accommodation To Any Circumstance, But The High Prize Of Life, The Crowning Fortune Of A Man Is To Be Born With A Bias To Some Pursuit, Which Finds Him In Employment And Happiness, -- Whether It Be To Make Baskets, Or Broadswords, Or Canals, Or Statutes, Or Songs. I Doubt Not This Was The Meaning Of Socrates, When He Pronounced Artists The Only Truly Wise, As Being Actually, Not Apparently So.

Prayer That Craves A Particular Commodity, Anything Less Than All Good, Is Vicious.

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

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.

It Is The Secret Of The World That All Things Subsist And Do Not Die, But Only Retire A Little From Sight And Afterward Return Again.

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.

Homeopathy Is Insignificant As An Act Of Healing, But Of Great Value As Criticism On The Hygeia Or Medical Practice Of The Time.

It Is A Greater Joy To See The Author's Author, Than Himself.

One Must Be An Inventor To Read Well.

Creative Writers

War, To Sane Men At The Present Day, Begins To Look Like An Epidemic Insanity, Breaking Out Here And There Like The Cholera Or Influenza, Infecting Men's Brains Instead Of Their Bowels.

A Human Being Should Beware How He Laughs, For Then He Shows All His Faults.

The Secret Is The Answer To All That Has Been, All That Is, And All That Will Ever Be.

Law Of Attraction

To Educate The Wise Man, The State Exists; And With The Appearance Of The Wise Man, The State Expires. The Appearance Of Charactermakes The State Unnecessary. The Wise Man Is The State.

Solitude, The Safeguard Of Mediocrity, Is To Genius, The Stern Friend, The Cold, Obscure Shelter Where Moult The Wings Which Will Bear It Farther Than Suns And Stars.

Of Course You Will Insist On Modesty In The Children, And Respect To Their Teachers, But If The Boy Stops You In Your Speech, Cries Out That You Are Wrong And Sets You Right, Hug Him!

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

Men Imagine That They Communicate Their Virtue Or Vice Only By Overt Actions, And Do Not See That Virtue Or Vice Emit A Breath Every Moment.

Every Sweet Has Its Sour; Every Evil Its Good.

For It Is Not Metres, But A Metre-making Argument That Makes A Poem, - A Thought So Passionate And Alive That Like The Spirit Of A Plant Or An Animal It Has An Architecture Of Its Own, And Adorns Nature With A New Thing.

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.

Do Not Require A Description Of The Countries Towards Which You Sail. The Description Does Not Describe Them To You, And To- Morrow You Arrive There, And Know Them By Inhabiting Them.

Let Not The Emphasis Of Hospitality Lie In Bed And Board; But Let Truth And Love And Honor And Courtesy Flow In All Thy Deeds.

Though The Wide Universe Is Full Of Good, No Kernel Of Nourishing Corn Can Come To Him But Through His Toil Bestowed On That Plot Of Ground Which Is Given To Him To Till.

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.

The World Is Filled With The Proverbs And Acts And Winkings Of A Base Prudence, Which Is A Devotion To Matter, As If We Possessedno Other Faculties Than The Palate, The Nose, The Touch, The Eye And Ear; A Prudence Which Adores The Rule Of Three, Which Never Subscribes, Which Never Gives, Which Seldom Lends, And Asks But One Question Of Any Project,--will It Bake Bread?

The Word Liberty In The Mouth Of Mr. Webster Sounds Like The Word Love In The Mouth Of A Courtesan.

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.

The Learned And The Studious Of Thought Have No Monopoly Of Wisdom. Their Violence Of Direction In Some Degree Disqualifies Them To Think Truly.

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