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Everything That Is Popular, It Has Been Said, Deserves The Attention Of Philosophers: And This Is For The Obvious Reason, That Although It May Not Be Of Any Worth In Itself, Yet It Characterizes The People.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Everything That Is Popular,

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Everything That Is Popular, It Has Been Said, Deserves The Attention Of Philosophers: And This Is For The Obvious Reason, That Although It May Not Be Of Any Worth In Itself, Yet It Characterizes The People.

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

The World Always Had The Same Bankrupt Look, To Foregoing Ages As To Us.

When The Man Is At Home, His Standing In Society Is Well Known And Quietly Taken; But When He Is Abroad, It Is Problematical, And Is Dependent On The Success Of His Manners.

Our Books Approach Very Slowly The Things We Most Wish To Know.

Trust Men And They Will Be True To You; Treat Them Greatly And They Will Show Themselves Great.

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

And What Avails It That Science Has Come To Treat Space And Time As Simply Forms Of Thought, And The Material World As Hypothetical, And Withal Our Pretension Of Property And Even Of Self-hood Are Fading With The Rest, If, At Last, Even Our Thoughts Are Not Finalities, But The Incessant Flowing And Ascension Reach These Also, And Each Thought Which Yesterday Was A Finality, To-day Is Yielding To A Larger Generalization?

Too Busy With The Crowded Hour To Fear To Live Or Die.

The Men Who Come On The Stage At One Period Are All Found To Be Related To Each Other. Certain Ideas Are In The Air.

We Live In A Very Low State Of The World, And Pay Unwilling Tribute To Government Founded On Force. There Is Not, Among The Most Religious And Instructed Men Of The Most Religious And Civil Nations, A Reliance On The Moral Sentiment, And A Sufficient Belief In The Unity Of Things To Persuade Them That Society Can Be Maintained Without Artificial Restraints, As Well As The Solar System; Or That The Private Citizen Might Be Reasonable, And A Good Neighbor, Without The Hint Of A Jail Or A Confiscation.

I Believe That Our Own Experience Instructs Us That The Secret Of Education Lies In Respecting The Pupil.

The Riddle Of The Age Has For Each A Private Solution.

A Complete Man Should Need No Auxiliaries To His Personal Presence.

Nature Never Wears A Mean Appearance. Neither Does The Wisest Man Extort Her Secret, And Lose His Curiosity By Finding Out All Her Perfection.

Tis Good-will Makes Intelligence.

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

A Sympathetic Person Is Placed In The Dilemma Of A Swimmer Among Drowning Men, Who All Catch At Him, And If He Gives So Much As A Leg Or A Finger, They Will Drown Him.

Let There Be Worse Cotton And Better Men.

One Of The Illusions Of Life Is That The Present Hour Is Not The Critical Decisive Hour. Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day Of The Year. He Only Is Right Who Owns The Day, And No One Owns The Day Who Allows It To Be Invaded By Worry, Fret And Anxiety. Finish Every Day, And Be Done With It. You Have Done What You Could.

I Have No Expectation That Any Man Will Read History Aright Who Thinks That What Was Done In A Remote Age, By Men Whose Names Have Resounded Far, Has Any Deeper Sense Than What He Is Doing Today.

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.

Those Who Cannot Tell What They Desire Or Expect, Still Sigh And Struggle With Indefinite Thoughts And Vast Wishes.

So . . . I Feel In Regard To This Aged England . . . Pressed Upon By Transitions Of Trade And . . . Competing Populations,-i See Her Not Dispirited, Not Weak, But Well Remembering That She Has Seen Dark Days Before;-indeed, With A Kind Of Instinct That She Sees A Little Better In A Cloudy Day, And That, In Storm Of Battle And Calamity, She Has A Secret Vigor And A Pulse Like A Cannon.

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

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.

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.

Society Is Frivolous, And Shreds Its Day Into Scraps, Its Conversation Into Ceremonies And Escapes.

Man Was Born To Be Rich, Or To Inevitably Grow Rich, By The Use Of His Faculties: By The Union Of Thought With Nature.

A Man Should Not Go Where He Cannot Carry His Whole Sphere Or Society With Him,mnot Bodily, The Whole Circle Of His Friends, But Atmospherically. He Should Preserve In A New Company The Same Attitude Of Mind And Reality Of Relation, Which His Daily Associates Draw Him To, Else He Is Shorn Of His Best Beams, And Will Be An Orphan In The Merriest Club.

Friendship Should Be Surrounded With Ceremonies And Respects, And Not Crushed Into Corners.

There Is No History; Only Biography.

One Of The Illusions Of Life Is That The Present Hour Is Not The Critical, Decisive One.

The Voyage Of The Best Ship Is A Zigzag Line Of A Hundred Tacks. See The Line From A Sufficient Distance And It Straightens Itself To The Average Tendency.

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.

Time, Which Shows So Vacant, Indivisible, And Divine In Its Coming, Is Slit And Peddled Into Trifles And Tatters. A Door Is To Bepainted, A Lock To Be Repaired. I Want Wood, Or Oil, Or Meal, Or Salt; The House Smokes, Or I Have A Headache; Then The Tax; And An Affair To Be Transacted With A Man Without Heart Or Brains; And The Stinging Recollection Of An Injurious Or Very Awkward Word,--these Eat Up The Hours.

Behind Every Individual Closes Organization; Before Him Opens Liberty,--the Better, The Best. The First And Worse Races Are Dead.the Second And Imperfect Races Are Dying Out, Or Remain For The Maturing Of The Higher. In The Latest Race, In Man, Every Generosity, Every New Perception, The Love And Praise He Extorts From His Fellows, Are Certificates Of Advance Out Of Fate Into Freedom.

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

Society Has Really No Graver Interest Than The Well-being Of The Literary Class.

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

Congratulations

But, If A Man Would Be Alone, Let Him Look At The Stars. The Rays That Come From These Heavenly Worlds, Will Separate Between Him And What He Touches. One Might Think The Atmosphere Was Made Transparent With This Design, To Give Man, In The Heavenly Bodies, The Perpetual Presence Of The Sublime... But Every Night Come Out These Envoys Of Beauty, And Light The Universe With Their Admonishing Smile.

I Think It Is The Best Of Humanity That Goes Out To Walk. In Happy Hours, I Think All Affairs May Be Wisely Postponed For Walking.

By Necessity, By Proclivity, And By Delight, We All Quote. In Fact, It Is As Difficult To Appropriate The Thoughts Of Others As It Is To Invent.

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

Proverbs, Words, And Grammar Inflections Convey The Public Sense With More Purity And Precision, Than The Wisest Individual.

All Great Successes Are The Triumph Of Persistence.

Go Forth Into The Busy World And Love It. Interest Yourself In Its Life, Mingle Kindly With Its Joys And Sorrows.

A Rush Of Thoughts Is The Only Conceivable Prosperity That Can Come To Us.

Whenever A True Theory Appears, It Will Be Its Own Evidence. Its Test Is, That It Will Explain All Phenomena.

My Life Is For Itself And Not For A Spectacle.

In A Virtuous Action, I Properly Am; In A Virtuous Act, I Add To The World; I Plant Into Deserts Conquered From Chaos And Nothing, And See The Darkness Receding On The Limits Of The Horizon.

Sanity Consists In Not Being Subdued By Your Means. Fancy Prices Are Paid For Position, And For The Culture Of Talent, But To Thegrand Interests, Superficial Success Is Of No Account.

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

When Nature Removes A Great Man, People Explore The Horizon For A Successor; But None Comes, And None Will. His Class Is Extinguished With Him. In Some Other And Quite Different Field, The Next Man Will Appear.

The Disease With Which The Human Mind Now Labors Is Want Of Faith

Every Man In His Lifetime Needs To Thank His Faults.

The Life Of Man Is A Self-evolving Circle, Which, From A Ring Imperceptibly Small, Rushes On All Sides Outwards To New And Largercircles, And That Without End.

Money Is Of No Value; It Cannot Spend Itself. All Depends On The Skill Of The Spender.

Was Never Secret History But Birds Tell It In The Bowers.

It Is Easy To See That A Greater Self-reliance Must Work A Revolution In All The Offices And Relations Of Men; In Their Religion; In Their Education; In Their Pursuits; Their Modes Of Living; Their Association; In Their Property; In Their Speculative Views.

The Noblest Ministry Of Nature Is To Stand As The Apparition Of God.

If The Black Man Is Feeble And Not Important To The Existing Races, Not On A Parity With The Best Race, The Black Man Must Serve,and Be Exterminated. But If The Black Man Carries In His Bosom An Indispensable Element Of A New And Coming Civilization; For The Sake Of That Element, No Wrong Nor Strength Nor Circumstance Can Hurt Him: He Will Survive And Play His Part. So Now, The Arrival In The World Of Such Men As Toussaint, And The Haytian Heroes, Or Of The Leaders Of Their Race In Barbadoes And Jamaica, Outweighs In Good Omen All The English And American Humanity.

At Times The Whole World Seems To Be In Conspiracy To Importune You With Emphatic Trifles.

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

The People Fancy They Hate Poetry, And They Are All Poets And Mystics.

We Say The Cows Laid Out Boston. Well, There Are Worse Surveyors.

The Highest Compact We Can Make With Our Fellow Is - "let There Be Truth Between Us Two Forevermore."

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

There Is No Beautifier Of Complexion, Or Form, Or Behavior, Like The Wish To Scatter Joy And Not Pain Around Us.

Every Noble Activity Makes Room For Itself.

The Sensual Man Conforms Thoughts To Things; The Poet Conforms Things To His Thoughts.

Men Are Conservatives When They Are Least Vigorous, Or When They Are Most Luxurious. They Are Conservatives After Dinner, Or Before Taking Their Rest; When They Are Sick Or Aged. In The Morning, Or When Their Intellect Or Their Conscience Has Been Aroused, When They Hear Music, Or When They Read Poetry, They Are Radicals.

The Scholar Was Not Raised By The Sacred Thoughts Amongst Which He Dwelt, But Used Them To Selfish Ends. He Was A Profane Person,and Became A Showman, Turning His Gifts To Marketable Use, And Not To His Own Sustenance And Growth. It Was Found That The Intellect Could Be Independently Developed, That Is, In Separation From The Man, As Any Single Organ Can Be Invigorated, And The Result Was Monstrous.

Let A Man Attain The Highest And Broadest Culture That Any American Has Possessed, Then Let Him Die By Sea-storm, Railroad Collision, Or Other Accident, And All America Will Acquiesce That The Best Thing Has Happened To Him; That, After The Education Has Gone Far, Such Is The Expensiveness Of America, That The Best Use To Put A Fine Person To Is To Drown Him To Save His Board.

The Pest Of Society Is Egotists.

But Only That Soul Can Be My Friend Which I Encounter On The Line Of My Own March, That Soul To Which I Do Not Decline, And Which Does Not Decline Me, But, Native Of The Same Celestial Latitude, Repeats In Its Own All My Experience.

God Will Have Life To Be Real; We Will Be Damned, But It Shall Be Theatrical.

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.

Life Is To Be Lived, Not Controlled.

Great Men Do Not Content Us. It Is Their Solitude, Not Their Force, That Makes Them Conspicuous.

Don't Be Pushed By Your Problems. Be Led By Your Dreams.

The God Of Victory Is Said To Be One-handed, But Peace Gives Victory To Both Sides.

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

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

At The Gates Of The Forest, The Surprised Man Of The World Is Forced To Leave His City Estimates Of Great And Small, Wise And Foolish.

Magic And All That Is Ascribed To It Is A Deep Presentiment Of The Powers Of Science.

Life Is In Short Cycles Or Periods; We Are Quickly Tired, But We Have Rapid Rallies. A Man Is Spent By His Work, Starved, Prostrate; He Will Not Lift His Hand To Save His Life; He Can Never Think More. He Sinks Into Deep Sleep And Wakes With Renewed Youth, With Hope, Courage, Fertile In Resources, And Keen For Daring Adventure.

Illusion, Temperament, Succession, Surface, Surprise, Reality, Subjectiveness,--these Are The Threads On The Loom Of Time, These Are The Lords Of Life.

Men Who Know The Same Things Are Not Long The Best Company For Each Other.

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.

Research Is Not Seeing What Others Do Not See, It Is Seeing The Same Thing As Other People And Thinking What They Do Not.

We Are Reformers In The Spring And Summer, But In Autumn We Stand By The Old. Reformers In The Morning, And Conservers At Night.

There Is One Topic Peremptorily Forbidden To All Well-bred, To All Rational Mortals, Namely, Their Distempers.

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.

The Englishman Who Has Lost His Fortune Is Said To Have Died Of A Broken Heart.

This Ennui, For Which We Saxons Had No Name,--this Word Of France, Has Got A Terrific Significance. It Shortens Life, And Bereaves The Day Of Its Light.

People Only See What They Are Prepared To See.

We Are Immersed In Beauty, But Our Eyes Have No Clear Vision.

Conservatism Makes No Poetry, Breathes No Prayer, Has No Invention; It Is All Memory. Reform Has No Gratitude, No Prudence, No Husbandry.

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.

The Present Is An Edifice Which God Cannot Rebuild.

We Are Always Getting Ready To Live But Never Living.

Law Of Attraction

Beside All The Moral Benefit Which We May Expect From The Farmer's Profession, When A Man Enters It Considerately, This Promised The Conquering Of The Soil, Plenty, And Beyond This, The Adorning Of The Country With Every Advantage And Ornament Which Labor, Ingenuity, And Affection For A Man's Home, Could Suggest.

Solitude Is Naught And Society Is Naught. Alternate Them And The Good Of Each Is Seen.

If You Tax Too High, The Revenue Will Yield Nothing.

Courage Consists In Equality To The Problem Before Us.

Nature And Books Belong To The Eyes That See Them. It Depends On The Mood Of The Man, Whether He Shall See The Sunset Or The Fine Poem. There Are Always Sunsets, And There Is Always Genius; But Only A Few Hours So Serene That We Can Relish Nature Or Criticism. The More Or Less Depends On Structure Or Temperament. Temperament Is The Iron Wire On Which The Beads Are Strung. Of What Use Is Fortune Or Talent To A Cold And Defective Store?

Every Man Is A Borrower And A Mimic, Life Is Theatrical And Literature A Quotation.

By Fate, Not Option, Frugal Nature Gave One Scent To Hyson And To Wall-flower, One Sound To Pine-groves And To Water-falls, One Aspect To The Desert And The Lake. It Was Her Stern Necessity : All Things Are Of One Pattern Made; Bird, Beast, And Flower, Song, Picture, Form, Space, Thought, And Character Deceive Us, Seeming To Be Many Things, And Are But One.

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

The Superstition Respecting Power And Office Is Going To The Ground. The Stream Of Human Affairs Flows Its Own Way, And Is Very Little Affected By The Activity Of Legislators. What Great Masses Of Men Wish Done, Will Be Done; And They Do Not Wish It For A Freak, But Because It Is Their State And Natural End.

Love Not The Flower They Pluck And Know It Not, And All Their Botany Is Latin Names.

Nature Tells Every Secret Once.

A Little Fact Is Worth A Whole Limbo Of Dreams.

It Is God In You That Responds To God Without, Or Affirms His Own Words Trembling On The Lips Of Another.

We Are As Much Informed Of A Writer's Genius By What He Selects As By What He Originates. We Read The Quotation With His Eyes, Andfind A New And Fervent Sense; As A Passage From One Of The Poets, Well Recited, Borrows New Interest From The Rendering. As The Journals Say, "the Italics Are Ours.

Nature Is No Sentimentalist, - Does Not Cosset Or Pamper Us. We Must See That The World Is Rough And Surly, And Will Not Mind Drowning A Man Or A Woman; But Swallows Your Ship Like A Grain Of Dust. The Cold, Inconsiderate Of Persons, Tingles Your Blood, Benumbs Your Feet, Freezes A Man Like An Apple. The Diseases, The Elements, Fortune, Gravity, Lightning, Respect No Persons.

We Are Taught By Great Actions That The Universe Is The Property Of Every Individual In It.

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 Creation Of A Thousand Forests Is In One Acorn.

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

Sometimes A Scream Is Better Than A Thesis.

For Flowers That Bloom About Our Feet; For Tender Grass, So Fresh, So Sweet; For Song Of Bird, And Hum Of Bee; For All Things Fair We Hear Or See, Father In Heaven, We Thank Thee!

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

The Effect Of The Indulgence Of Human Affection Is A Certain Cordial Exhilaration.

He That Despiseth Small Things Will Perish By Little And Little.

A Cultivated Man, Wise To Know And Bold To Perform, Is The End To Which Nature Works.

The Highest Praise We Can Attribute To Any Writer, Painter, Sculptor, Builder, Is, That He Actually Possessed The Thought Or Feeling With Which He Has Inspired Us.

All Persons Are Puzzles Until At Last We Find In Some Word Or Act The Key To The Man, To The Woman; Straightway All Their Past Words And Actions Lie In Light Before Us.

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

In England Every Man You Meet Is Some Man's Son; In America, He May Be Some Man's Father.

In All Things I Would Have The Island Of A Man Inviolate. Let Us Sit Apart As The Gods, Talking From Peak To Peak All Round Olympus. No Degree Of Affection Need Invade This Religion.

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

In Conversation The Game Is, To Say Something New With Old Words. And You Shall Observe A Man Of The People Picking His Way Along, Step By Step, Using Every Time An Old Boulder, Yet Never Setting His Foot On An Old Place.

The Fatal Trait Of The Times Is The Divorce Between Religion And Morality.

Beware Of Too Much Good Staying In Your Hand. It Will Fast Corrupt And Worm Worms. Pay It Away Quickly In Some Sort.

Character Is Higher Than Intellect. Thinking Is The Function; Living Is The Functionary.

The Unsaid Part Is The Best Of Every Discourse.

There Was Never A Child So Lovely But His Mother Was Glad To Get Him To Sleep.

Crime And Punishment Grow Out Of One Stem.

The Narrow Sectarian Cannot Read Astronomy With Impunity. The Creeds Of His Church Shrivel Like Dried Leaves At The Door Of The Observatory.

Oh, Be My Friend, And Teach Me To Be Thine!

Out Of Plato Come All Things That Are Still Written And Debated About Among Men Of Thought.

Genius, Even, As It Is The Greatest Good, Is He Greatest Harm.

What We Commonly Call Man, The Eating, Drinking, Planting, Counting Man, Does Not, As We Know Him, Represent Himself, But Misrepresents Himself. Him We Do Not Respect, But The Soul, Whose Organ He Is, Would He Let It Appear Through His Action, Would Make Our Knees Bend.

Nature Abhors The Old.

Why Should I Cumber Myself With Regrets That The Receiver Is Not Capacious? It Never Troubles The Sun That Some Of His Rays Fall Wide And Vain Into Ungrateful Space, And Only A Small Part On The Reflecting Planet. Let Your Greatness Educate The Crude And Cold Companion.

Private, Accidental, Confidential Conversation Breeds Thought. Clubs Produce Oftener Words.

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.

Every Man Contemplates An Angel In His Future Self.

The Wonder Is Always New That Any Sane Man Can Be A Sailor.

Every Day Brings A Ship, Every Ship Brings A Word; Well For Those Who Have No Fear, Looking Seaward Well Assured That The Word The Vessel Brings Is The Word They Wish To Hear.

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.

Life Is Wasted In The Necessary Preparation Of Finding What Is The True Way, And We Die Just As We Enter It.

There Is Ever A Slight Suspicion Of The Burlesque About Earnest Good Men.

When A Man Lives With God, His Voice Shall Be As Sweet As The Murmur Of The Brook And Rustle Of The Corn.

The Most Tedious Of All Discourses Are On The Subject Of The Supreme Being.

Power Is What They Want, Not Candy-power To Execute Their Design, Power To Give Legs And Feet, Form And Actuality To Their Thought; Which, To A Clear-sighted Man, Appears The End For Which The Universe Exists, And All Its Resources Might Be Well Applied.

Persecution Readily Knits Friendship Between Its Victims.

Genius Is Power, Talent Is Applicability.

The Faith That Stands On Authority Is Not Faith.

All Public Facts Are To Be Individualized, All Private Facts Are To Be Generalized.

Not In His Goals But In His Transitions, Man Is Great.

The Selfish Man Suffers More From His Selfishness Than He From Whom That Selfishness Withholds Some Important Benefit.

Not The Sun Or Summer Alone, But Every Hour And Season Yields Its Tribute Of Delight.

In Spite Of Virtue And The Muse, Nemesis Will Have Her Dues, And All Our Struggles And Our Toils Tighter Wind The Giant Coils.

A Weed Is A Plant Whose Virtue Is Not Yet Known.

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.

All The Devils Respect Virtue.

All History Is Biography.

The Youth, Intoxicated With His Admiration Of A Hero, Fails To See, That It Is Only A Projection Of His Own Soul, Which He Admires.

I Must Be Myself. I Cannot Break Myself Any Longer For You, Or You. If You Can Love Me For What I Am, We Shall Be The Happier. If You Cannot, I Will Still Seek To Seserve That You Should.

Your Work Should Be In Praise Of What You Love.

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

Persons Are Fine Things, But They Cost So Much! For Thee I Must Pay Me.

When A Man Becomes A Conformist, He Is Sacrificing The Richness Of Independent Thinking.

All The Elements, Whose Aid Man Calls In, Will Sometimes Become Big Masters.

The Poet Knows That He Speaks Adequately, Then, Only When He Speaks Somewhat Wildly.

The Stupidity Of Men Always Invites The Insolence Of Power.

Almost All People Descend To Meet. All Association Must Be A Compromise, And, What Is Worst, The Very Flower And Aroma Of The Flower Of Each Of The Beautiful Natures Disappears As They Approach Each Other.

I Know Of No Such Unquestionable Badge And Ensign Of A Sovereign Mind As That Of Tenacity Of Purpose.

History Is The Action And Reaction Of These Two, Nature And Thought.

Every Man Is A Consumer, And Ought To Be A Producer. He Is By Constitution Expensive, And Needs To Be Rich.

The World We Live In Is But Thickened Light.

We Postpone Our Literary Work Until We Have More Ripeness And Skill To Write, And We One Day Discover That Our Literary Talent Wasa Youthful Effervescence Which We Have Now Lost.

No Man Ever Prayed Heartily Without Learning Something.

There Is No Privacy That Cannot Be Penetrated. No Secret Can Be Kept In The Civilized World. Society Is A Masked Ball Where Everyone Hides His Real Character, Then Reveals It By Hiding

Fear, Craft And Avarice Cannot Rear A State.

What Your Heart Thinks Is Great, Is Great. The Soul's Emphasis Is Always Right.

The Plays Of Children Are Nonsense, But Very Educative Nonsense. So It Is With The Largest And Solemnest Things, With Commerce, Government, Church, Marriage, And So With The History Of Every Man's Bread, And The Ways By Which He Is To Come By It.

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

The Poisons Are Our Principal Medicines, Which Kill The Disease And Save The Life.

Money Often Costs Too Much.

Greatest Wealth

A Man's Style Is His Mind's Voice. Wooden Minds, Wooden Voices.

It Does Not Need That A Poem Should Be Long. Every Word Was Once A Poem.

The Dice Of God Are Always Loaded.

There Is Nothing We Value And Hunt And Cultivate And Strive To Draw To Us, But In Some Hour We Turn And Rend It.

Nature And Books Belong To The Eyes That See Them.

The Evolution Of A Highly Destined Society Must Be Moral; It Must Run In The Grooves Of The Celestial Wheels.

There Is The Illusion Of Time, Which Is Very Deep; Who Has Disposed Of It? Mor Come To The Conviction That What Seems The Succession Of Thought Is Only The Distribution Of Wholes Into Causal Series.

Education Should Be As Broad As Man.

How Can He [today's Writer] Be Honored, When He Does Not Honor Himself; When He Loses Himself In The Crowd; When He Is No Longer The Lawgiver, But The Sycophant, Ducking To The Giddy Opinion Of A Reckless Public.

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