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Examples Are Cited By Soldiers, Of Men Who Have Seen The Cannon Pointed, And The Fire Given To It, And Who Have Stepped Aside From He Path Of The Ball. The Terrors Of The Storm Are Chiefly Confined To The Parlour And The Cabin.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Examples Are Cited By

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Examples Are Cited By Soldiers, Of Men Who Have Seen The Cannon Pointed, And The Fire Given To It, And Who Have Stepped Aside From He Path Of The Ball. The Terrors Of The Storm Are Chiefly Confined To The Parlour And The Cabin.

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More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

Excite The Soul, And The Weather And The Town And Your Condition In The World All Disappear; The World Itself Loses Its Solidity, Nothing Remains But The Soul And The Divine Presence In Which It Lives.

We Must Hold A Man Amenable To Reason For The Choice Of His Daily Craft Or Profession. It Is Not An Excuse Any Longer For His Deeds That They Are The Custom Of His Trade. What Business Has He With An Evil Trade?

Life Is Too Short To Waste.

Life Is Too Short

The Mind Will Quote Whether The Tongue Does Or Not.

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

The Moral Sense Reappears Today With The Same Morning Newness That Has Been From Of Old The Fountain Of Beauty And Strength. You Say There Is No Religion Now. 'tis Like Saying In Rainy Weather, There Is No Sun, When At That Moment We Are Witnessing One Of Its Superlative Effects.

That Which We Persist In Doing Becomes Easier To Do, Not That The Nature Of The Thing Has Changed But That Our Power To Do Has Increased.

The Soul Comes From Without Into The Human Body, As Into A Temporary Abode, And It Goes Out Of It Anew It Passes Into Other Habitations, For The Soul Is Immortal.

The Never-ending Task Of Self Improvement.

Insist On Yourself. Never Imitate.

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

To This Military Attitude Of The Soul We Give The Name Of Heroism... It Is A Self-trust Which Slights The Restraints Of Prudence, In The Plenitude Of Its Energy And Power To Repair The Harms It May Suffer. The Hero Is A Mind Of Such Balance That No Disturbances Can Shake His Will.

We Are Born Believing. A Man Bears Beliefs As A Tree Bears Apples.

All Great Men Come Out Of The Middle Classes.

We Begin With Friendships, And All Our Youth Is A Reconnoitering And Recruiting Of The Holy Fraternity They Shall Combine For Thesalvation Of Men. But So The Remoter Stars Seem A Nebula Of United Light, Yet There Is No Group Which A Telescope Will Not Resolve; And The Dearest Friends Are Separated By Impassable Gulfs.

The Peace Of The Man Who Has Forsworn The Use Of The Bullet Seems To Me Not Quite Peace, But A Canting Impotence.

London Is The Epitome Of Our Times, And The Rome Of To-day.

There Are Many Faculties In Man, Each Of Which Takes Its Turn Of Activity, And That Faculty Which Is Paramount In Any Period And Exerts Itself Through The Strongest Nation, Determines The Civility Of That Age: And Each Age Thinks Its Own The Perfection Of Reason.

Nature Encourages No Looseness; Pardons No Errors.

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.

When All Shoot At One Mark, The Gods Join In The Combat.

Some Men At The Approach Of A Dispute Neigh Like Horses. Unless There Be An Argument, They Think Nothing Is Doing. Some Talkers Excel In The Precision With Which They Formulate Their Thoughts, So That You Get From Them Somewhat To Remember; Others Lay Criticism Asleep By A Charm. Especially Women Use Words That Are Not Words,--as Steps In A Dance Are Not Steps,--but Reproduce The Genius Of That They Speak Of; As The Sound Of Some Bells Makes Us Think Of The Bell Merely, Whilst The Church Chimes In The Distance Bring The Church And Its Serious Memories Before Us.

Culture Is The Suggestion, From Certain Best Thoughts, That A Man Has A Range Of Affinities Through Which He Can Modulate The Violence Of Any Master-tones That Have A Droning Preponderance In His Scale, And Succor Him Against Himself. Culture Redresses This Imbalance, Puts Him Among Equals And Superiors, Revives The Delicious Sense Of Sympathy, And Warns Him Of The Dangers Of Solitude And Repulsion.

The Proof Of A High Education Is The Ability To Speak About Complex Matters As Simply As Possible.

When A Natural King Becomes A Titular King, Every Body Is Pleased And Satisfied.

Persecution Readily Knits Friendship Between Its Victims.

Good Judgment Comes From Experience, And A Lot Of That Comes From Bad Judgment. The One Thing In The World, Of Value, Is The Active Soul.

In The Order Of Nature, We Cannot Render Benefits To Those From Whom We Receive Them, Or Only Seldom. But The Benefit We Receive Must Be Rendered Again, Line For Line, Deed For Deed, Cent For Cent, To Somebody. Beware Of Too Much Good Staying In Your Hand. It Will Fast Corrupt And Worm Worms. Pay It Away Quickly In Some Sort.

I Can Reason Down Or Deny Everything, Except This Perpetual Belly: Feed He Must And Will, And I Cannot Make Him Respectable.

If We Could Have Any Security Against Moods! If The Profoundest Prophet Could Be Holden To His Words, And The Hearer Who Is Readyto Sell All And Join The Crusade, Could Have Any Certificate That To-morrow His Prophet Shall Not Unsay His Testimony!

The Cheapness Of Man Is Every Day's Tragedy. It Is As Real A Loss That Others Should Be Low, As That We Should Be Low; For We Musthave A Society.

The Gates Of Thought, - How Slow And Late They Discover Themselves! Yet When They Appear, We See That They Were Always There, Always Open.

Speak As You Think, Be What You Are, Pay Your Debts Of All Kinds. I Prefer To Be Owned As Sound And Solvent, And My Word As Good As My Bond, And To Be What Cannot Be Skipped, Or Dissipated, Or Undermined, To All The Eclat In The Universe. This Reality Is The Foundation Of Friendship, Religion, Poetry, And Art.

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

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

Life Is A Series Of Surprises.

So Shall We Come To Look At The World With New Eyes. It Shall Answer The Endless Inquiry Of The Intellect, — What Is Truth? And Of The Affections, — What Is Good? By Yielding Itself Passive To The Educated Will. ... Build, Therefore, Your Own World. As Fast As You Conform Your Life To The Pure Idea In Your Mind, That Will Unfold Its Great Proportions. A Correspondent Revolution In Things Will Attend The Influx Of The Spirit.

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.

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.

The Height Of The Pinnacle Is Determined By The Breadth Of The Base.

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

Self Trust Is The Essence Of Heroism.

I Like Man, But Not Men.

Sorrow Looks Back, Worry Looks Around, Faith Looks Up

Idealism Sees The World In God. It Beholds The Whole Circle Of Persons And Things, Of Actions And Events, Of Country And Religion,not As Painfully Accumulated, Atom After Atom, Act After Act, In An Aged Creeping Past, But As One Vast Picture, Which God Paints On The Instant Eternity, For The Contemplation Of The Soul.

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.

How Much More The Seeker Of Abstract Truth, Who Needs Periods Of Isolation, And Rapt Concentration, And Almost A Going Out Of Thebody To Think!

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.

In Science We Have To Consider Two Things: Power And Circumstance.

You Cannot Do A Kindness Too Soon, For You Never Know How Soon It Will Be Too Late.

As Long As A Man Stands In His Own Way, Everything Seems To Be In His Way.

There Are Many Virtues In Books, But The Essential Value Is The Adding Of Knowledge To Our Stock By The Record Of New Facts, And, Better, By The Record Of Intuitions Which Distribute Facts, And Are The Formulas Which Supersede All Histories.

Before A Leaf-bud Has Burst, Its Whole Life Acts; In The Full-blown Flower There Is No More; In The Leafless Root There Is No Less.

A Man's Library Is A Sort Of Harem.

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.

The Magnanimous Know Very Well That They Who Give Time, Or Money, Or Shelter, To The Stranger--so It Be Done For Love, And Not Forostentation--do, As It Were, Put God Under Obligation To Them, So Perfect Are The Compensations Of The Universe.

All History Is Biography.

It Makes A Great Difference In The Force Of A Sentence, Whether A Man Be Behind It Or No.

The Instincts Of The Ant Are Very Unimportant, Considered As The Ants; But The Moment A Ray Of Relation Is Seen To Be A Monitor, A Little Body With A Mighty Heart, Then All Its Habits, Even That Said To Be Recently Observed, That It Never Sleeps, Become Sublime.

Difference Of Opinion Is The One Crime Which Kings Never Forgive.

Any Work Looks Wonderful To Me Except The One Which I Can Do.

Universities Are Of Course Hostile To Geniuses, Which, Seeing And Using Ways Of Their Own, Discredit The Routine: As Churches And Monasteries Persecute Youthful Saints.

All Vigor Is Contagious.

Ideas Must Work Through The Brains And The Arms Of Good And Brave Men Or They Are No Better Than Dreams.

Happiness Is A Perfume You Cannot Pour On Others Without Getting Some On Yourself.

We Live By Our Imagination, Our Admirations, And Our Sentiments.

Everything Is Prospective, And Man Is To Live Hereafter. That The World Is For His Education Is The Only Sane Solution Of The Enigma.

I Have Heard That Whoever Loves Is In No Condition Old.

The Universe Is The Externisation Of The Soul. Wherever The Life Is, That Bursts Into Appearance Around It. Our Science Is Sensual, And Therefore Superficial. The Earth, And The Heavenly Bodies, Physics, And Chemistry, We Sensually Treat, As If They Were Self-existent; But These Are The Retinue Of That Being We Have.

The Farmer After Sacrificing Pleasure, Taste, Freedom, Thought, Love, To His Work, Turns Out Often A Bankrupt, Like The Merchant.this Result Might Well Seem Astounding. All This Drudgery, From Cockcrowing To Starlight, For All These Years, To End In Mortgages And The Auctioneer's Flag, And Removing From Bad To Worse. It Is Time To Have The Thing Looked Into, And With A Sifting Criticism Ascertained Who Is The Fool.

If We Follow The Truth, It Will Bring Us Out Safe At Last.

Concentration Is The Secret Of Srength.

The Virtue Of Art Lies In Detachment, In Sequestering One Object From The Embarrassing Variety. Until One Thing Comes Out From Theconnection Of Things, There Can Be Enjoyment, Contemplation, But No Thought.

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

Writing Should Be The Settlement Of Dew On The Leaf.

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

Heaven Walks Among Us Ordinarily Muffled In Such Triple Or Tenfold Disguises That The Wisest Are Deceived And No One Suspects The Days To Be Gods.

The World Is His Who Can See Through Its Pretension. What Deafness, What Stone-blind Custom, What Overgrown Error You Behold, Is There Only By Sufferance,--by Your Sufferance. See It To Be A Lie, And You Have Already Dealt It Its Mortal Blow.

Shakespeare Possesses The Power Of Subordinating Nature For The Purposes Of Expression, Beyond All Poets. His Imperial Muse Tosses The Creation Like A Bauble From Hand To Hand, And Uses It To Embody Any Caprice Of Thought That Is Uppermost In His Mind. The Remotest Spaces Of Nature Are Visited, And The Farthest Sundered Things Are Brought Together, By Subtle Spiritual Connection. We Are Made Aware That Magnitude Of Material Things Is Relative, And All Objects Shrink And Expand To Serve The Passion Of The Poet.

Courage Consists In Equality To The Problem Before Us.

The Reason Why The World Lacks Unity, And Lies Broken And In Heaps, Is, Because Man Is Disunited With Himself.

My Companion Assumes To Know My Mood And Habit Of Thought, And We Go On From Explanation To Explanation, Until All Is Said That Words Can, And We Leave Matters Just As They Were At First, Because Of That Vicious Assumption.

Make Yourself Necessary To The World, And Mankind Will Give You Bread.

The Thing Done Avails, And Not What Is Said About It.

Our Faith Comes In Moments . . . Yet There Is A Depth In Those Brief Moments Which Constrains Us To Ascribe More Reality To Them Than To All Other Experiences.

A Man Finds Room In The Few Square Inches Of The Face For The Traits Of All His Ancestors; For The Expression Of All His History, And His Wants.

A Garden Has This Advantage, That It Makes It Indifferent Where You Live. A Well-laid Garden Makes The Face Of The Country Of No Account; Let That Be Low Or High, Grand Or Mean, You Have Made A Beautiful Abode Worthy Of Man.

Every Mind Is Different; And The More It Is Unfolded, The More Pronounced Is That Difference.

My Life Is For Itself And Not For A Spectacle.

Knowledge Is The Knowing That We Cannot Know.

To Give Money To A Sufferer Is Only A Come-off. It Is Only A Postponement Of The Real Payment, A Bribe Paid For Silence, A Creditsystem In Which A Paper Promise To Pay Answers For The Time Instead Of Liquidation. We Owe To Man Higher Succors Than Food And Fire. We Owe To Man.

All Great Natures Delight In Stability; All Great Men Find Eternity Affirmed In The Very Promise Of Their Faculties.

Only So Much Of Life Do I Know As I Have Lived.

Contemporary American Psychiatrist It Is A Happy Talent To Know How To Play.

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.

Getting Old Is A Fascination Thing. The Older You Get, The Older You Want To Get.

You Cannot Make A Cheap Palace.

Your Genuine Action Will Explain Itself, And Will Explain Your Other Genuine Actions. Your Conformity Explains Nothing.

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

It Is Commonly Said By Farmers, That A Good Pear Or Apple Costs No More Time Or Pains To Rear, Than A Poor One; So I Would Have No Work Of Art, No Speech, Or Action, Or Thought, Or Friend, But The Best.

Every Ship Is A Romantic Object, Except That We Sail In.

It Is Bad Enough That Our Geniuses Cannot Do Anything Useful, But It Is Worse That No Man Is Fit For Society Who Has Fine Traits.he Is Admired At A Distance, But He Cannot Come Near Without Appearing A Cripple.

Rings And Other Jewels Are Not Gifts, But Apologies For Gifts. The Only Gift Is A Portion Of Thyself.

Let The Soul Be Assured That Somewhere In The Universe It Should Rejoin Its Friend, And It Would Be Content And Cheerful Alone For A Thousand Years.

There Is A Kind Of Latent Omniscience, Not Only In Every Man, But In Every Particle.

People Only See What They Are Prepared To See. If You Look For What Is Good And What You Can Be Grateful For You Will Find It Everywhere.

I Am Ashamed To Think How Easily We Capitulate To Badges And Names, To Large Societies And Dead Institutions.

A Man Is Reputed To Have Thought And Eloquence; He Cannot, For All That, Say A Word To His Cousin Or His Uncle. They Accuse His Silence With As Much Reason As They Would Blame The Insignificance Of A Dial In The Shade. In The Sun It Will Mark The Hour. Among Those Who Enjoy His Thought, He Will Regain His Tongue.

Unless You Try To Do Something Beyond What You Have Already Mastered, You Will Never Grow.

All Life Is An Experiment. Place Yourself In The Middle Of The Stream Of Power And Wisdom Which Animates All Whom It Floats, And You Are Without Effort Impelled To Truth, To Right And A Perfect Contentment. I Wish To Write Such Rhymes As Shall Not Suggest A Restraint, But Contrariwise The Wildest Freedom. Immortality. I Notice That As Soon As Writers Broach This Question They Begin To Quote. I Hate Quotation. Tell Me What You Know.

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.

No Man Gains Credit For His Cowardly Courtesies.

A House Is Made With Walls And Beams; A Home Is Built With Love And Dreams.

The True Scholar Grudges Every Opportunity Of Action Passed, By, As A Loss Of Power.

Art And Power Will Go On As They Have Done,--will Make Day Out Of Night, Time Out Of Space, And Space Out Of Time.

Who Looks Upon A River In A Meditative Hour And Is Not Reminded Of The Flux Of All Things?

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

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.

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.

The Hand That Rounded Peter's Dome, And Groined The Aisles Of Christian Rome, Wrought In A Sad Sincerity; Himself From God He Could Not Free; He Builded Better Than He Knew: The Conscious Stone To Beauty Grew.

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

Imitation Cannot Go Above Its Model.

Cultivate The Habit Of Being Grateful For Every Good Thing That Comes To You, And To Give Thanks Continuously. And Because All Things Have Contributed To Your Advancement, You Should Include All Things In Your Gratitude.

The Results Of Life Are Uncalculated And Uncalculable. The Years Teach Much Which The Days Never Know. The Persons Who Compose Our Company, Converse, And Come And Go, And Design And Execute Many Things, And Somewhat Comes Of It All, But An Unlooked For Result. The Individual Is Always Mistaken. He Designed Many Things, And Drew In Other Persons As Coadjutors, Quarrelled With Some Or All, Blundered Much, And Something Is Done; All Are A Little Advanced, But The Individual Is Always Mistaken. It Turns Out Somewhat New, And Very Unlike What He Promised Himself.

We Aim Above The Mark To Hit The Mark.

It Is Very Certain That The Strong British Race Which Has Now Overrun Much Of This Continent, Must Also Overrun [texas], And Mexico And Oregon Also, And It Will In The Course Of Ages Be Of Small Import By What Particular Occasions And Methods It Was Done.

The Dice Of God Are Always Loaded.

If Men Would Avoid That General Language And General Manner In Which They Strive To Hide All That Is Peculiar, And Would Say Only What Was Uppermost In Their Own Minds, After Their Own Individual Manner, Every Man Would Be Interesting.

To The Young Mind Every Thing Is Individual, Stands By Itself. By And By, It Finds How To Join Two Things And See In Them One Nature; Then Three, Then Three Thousand; And So, Tyrannized Over By Its Own Unifying Instinct, It Goes On Tying Things Together, Diminishing Anomalies, Discovering Roots Running Under Ground Whereby Contrary And Remote Things Cohere And Flower Out From One Stem.

The Democrat Is A Young Conservative; The Conservative Is An Old Democrat. The Aristocrat Is The Democrat Ripe, And Gone To Seed,--because Both Parties Stand On The One Ground Of The Supreme Value Of Property, Which One Endeavors To Get, And The Other To Keep.

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

Let A Stoic Open The Resources Of Man, And Tell Men They Are Not Leaning Willows, But Can And Must Detach Themselves; That With The Exercise Of Self-trust, New Powers Shall Appear.

As Much Wisdom May Be Expended On A Private Economy As On An Empire, And As Much Wisdom May Be Drawn From It.

In Old Persons, When Thus Fully Expressed, We Often Observe A Fair, Plump, Perennial Waxen Complexion, Which Indicates That All The Ferment Of Earlier Days Has Subsided Into Serenity Of Thought And Behavior.

I Am Primarily Engaged To Myself To Be A Public Servant Of All The Gods, To Demonstrate To All Men That There Is Intelligence Andgood Will At The Heart Of All Things, And Even Higher And Yet Higher Leadings. These Are My Engagements; How Can Your Law Further Or Hinder Me In What I Shall Do To Men?

Good As Is Discourse, Silence Is Better, And Shames It. The Length Of The Discourse Indicates The Distance Of Thought Betwixt The Speaker And The Hearer. If They Were At A Perfect Understanding In Any Part, No Words Would Be Necessary Thereon. If At One In All Parts, No Words Would Be Suffered.

Coffee Is Good For Talent, But Genius Wants Prayer.

For What Are They All In Their High Conceit, When Man In The Bush With God May Meet?

We Don't Grow Old. When We Cease To Grow, We Become Old.

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

The Language Of The Street Is Always Strong.

Our Prayers Are Prophets.

As We Refine, Our Checks Become Finer. If We Rise To Spiritual Culture, The Antagonism Takes A Spiritual Form.

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

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

There Is No History; Only Biography.

The State Is A Poor, Good Beast Who Means The Best: It Means Friendly.

The Best Political Economy Is The Care And Culture Of Men; For, In These Crises, All Are Ruined Except Such As Are Proper Individuals, Capable Of Thought, And Of New Choice And The Application Of Their Talent To New Labor.

A More Secret, Sweet, And Overpowering Beauty Appears To Man When His Heart And Mind Open To The Sentiment Of Virtue. Then He Is Instructed In What Is Set Above Him. He Learns That His Being Is Without Bound; That To The Good, To The Perfect, He Is Born, Low As He Now Lies In Evil And Weakness.

The Possibility Of Interpretation Lies In The Identity Of The Observer With The Observed. Each Material Thing Has Its Celestial Side; Has Its Translation, Through Humanity, Into The Spiritual And Necessary Sphere, Where It Plays A Part As Indestructible As Any Other.

One Of The Benefits Of A College Education Is To Show The Boy Its Little Avail.

A Certain Awkwardness Marks The Use Of Borrowed Thoughts; But As Soon As We Have Learned What To Do With Them, They Become Our Own.

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

A Man Should Give Us A Sense Of Mass.

There Is A Time In Every Man's Education When He Arrives At The Conviction That Envy Is Ignorance; That Imitation Is Suicide; That He Must Take Himself For Better, For Worse, As His Portion; That 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. The Power Which Resides In Him Is New In Nature, And None But He Knows What That Is Which He Can Do, Nor Does He Know Until He Has Tried.

This Very Certain That Each Man Carries In His Eye The Exact Indication Of His Rank In The Immense Scale Of Men, And We Are Always Learning To Read It. A Complete Man Should Need No Auxiliaries To His Personal Presence.

In Like Manner The Effect Of Every Action Is Measured By The Depth Of The Sentiment From Which It Proceeds. The Great Man Knew Not That He Was Great. It Took A Century Or Two For That Fact To Appear. What He Did, He Did, He Did Because He Must; It Was The Most Natural Thing In The World, And Grew Out Of The Circumstances Of The Moment.

If It Costs Ten Years, And Ten To Recover The General Prosperity, The Destruction Of The South Is Worth So Much.

Without Looking, Then, To Those Extraordinary Social Influences Which Are Now Acting In Precisely This Direction, But Only At Whatis Inevitably Doing Around Us, I Think We Must Regard The Land As A Commanding And Increasing Power On The Citizen, The Sanative And Americanizing Influence, Which Promises To Disclose New Virtues For Ages To Come.

...man Is An Analogist, And Studies Relations In All Objects. He Is Placed In The Center Of Beings, And A Ray Of Relation Passes From Every Other Being To Him. And Neither Can Man Be Understood Without These Objects, Nor These Objects Without Man.

As Arkwright And Whitney Were The Demi-gods Of Cotton, So Prolific Time Will Yet Bring An Inventor To Every Plant. There Is Not A Property In Nature But A Mind Is Born To Seek And Find It.

I Think That The Heroism Which At This Day Would Make On Us The Impression Of Epaminondas And Phocion Must Be That Of A Domestic Conqueror. He Who Shall Bravely And Gracefully Subdue This Gorgon Of Convention And Fashion, And Show Men How To Lead A Clean, Handsome And Heroic Life Amid The Beggarly Elements Of Our Cities And Villages; Whoso Shall Teach Me How To Eat My Meat And Take My Repose And Deal With Men, Without Any Shame Following, Will Restore The Life Of Man To Splendor, And Make His Own Name Dear To All History.

The Soul Is The Perceiver And Revealer Of Truth. We Know Truth When We See It, Let Skeptic And Scoffer Say What They Choose.

But The Wise Know That Foolish Legislation Is A Rope Of Sand, Which Perishes In The Twisting; That The State Must Follow, And Notlead The Character And Progress Of The Citizen; The Strongest Usurper Is Quickly Got Rid Of; And They Only Who Build On Ideas, Build For Eternity; And That The Form Of Government Which Prevails, Is The Expression Of What Cultivation Exists In The Population Which Permits It.

Great Country, Diminutive Minds. America Is Formless, Has No Terrible And No Beautiful Condensation.

The Revelation Of Thought Takes Men Out Of Servitude Into Freedom.

There Is No Eloquence Without A Man Behind It.

There Is A Class Of Persons To Whom By All Spiritual Affinity I Am Bought And Sold; For Them I Will Go To Prison, If Need Be; But Your Miscellaneous Popular Charities; The Education At College Of Fools; The Building Of Meeting-houses To The Vain End To Which Many Now Stand; Alms To Sots; And The Thousandfold Relief Societies; - Though I Confess With Shame I Sometimes Succumb And Give The Dollar, It Is A Wicked Dollar Which By And By I Shall Have The Manhood To Withhold.

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

The Hero Is Not Fed On Sweets, Daily His Own Heart He Eats; Chambers Of The Great Are Jails, And Head-winds Right For Royal Sails.

Concentration Is The Secret Of Strength In Politics, In War, In Trade, In Short In All Management Of Human Affairs.

Focus And Concentration

Fear Is Cruel And Mean.

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!

Our Moods Do Not Believe In Each Other. To-day I Am Full Of Thoughts, And Can Write What I Please. I See No Reason Why I Should Not Have The Same Thought, The Same Power Of Expression, To-morrow. What I Write, Whilst I Write It, Seems The Most Natural Thing In The World; But Yesterday I Saw A Dreary Vacuity In This Direction In Which Now I See So Much; And A Month Hence, I Doubt Not, I Shall Wonder Who He Was That Wrote So Many Continuous Pages. Alas For This Infirm Faith, This Will Not Strenuous, This Vast Ebb Of A Vast Flow! I Am God In Nature; I Am A Weed By The Wall.

The Soul Is The Perceiver And The Revealer Of Truth.

Give No Bounties: Make Equal Laws: Secure Life And Prosperity And You Need Not Give Alms.

Democracy Is Morose, And Runs To Anarchy, But In The State, And In The Schools, It Is Indispensable To Resist The Consolidation Ofall Men Into A Few Men.

In The Hands Of The Discoverer, Medicine Becomes A Heroic Art . . Wherever Life Is Dear He Is A Demigod.

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.

I Am A Willow Of The Wilderness, Loving The Wind That Bent Me.

No Hope So Bright But Is The Beginning Of Its Own Fulfilment.

I Suppose You Could Never Explain To The Most Ingenous Molusk That Such A Creature As A Whale Existed.

When It Is Dark Enough, Men See The Stars.

When Friendships Are Real, They Are Not Glass Threads Or Frost-work , But The Solidest Thing We Know.

Belief And Love,--a Believing Love Will Relieve Us Of A Vast Load Of Care. O My Brothers, God Exists. There Is A Soul At The Centre Of Nature, And Over The Will Of Every Man, So That None Of Us Can Wrong The Universe.

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

The Eyes Of Men Converse As Much As Their Tongues.

In Every Man's Memory, With The Hours When Life Culminated Are Usually Associated Certain Books Which Met His Views.

All Life Is An Experiment.

How Much We Forgive To Those Who Yield Us The Rare Spectacle Of Heroic Manners! We Will Pardon Them The Want Of Books, Or Arts, And Even Of Gentler Virtues. How Tenaciously We Remember Them!

The Ship Of Heaven Guides Itself And Will Not Accept A Wooden Rudder.

Nature Always Wears The Colors Of The Spirit. To A Man Laboring Under Calamity, The Heat Of His Own Fire Hath Sadness In It.

The Good Lawyer Is Not The Man Who Has An Eye To Every Side And Angle Of Contingency, And Qualifies All His Qualifications, But Who Throws Himself On Your Part So Heartily, That He Can Get You Out Of A Scrape.

Not In Nature But In Man Is All The Beauty And Worth He Sees. The World Is Very Empty, And Is Indebted To This Gilding, Exalting Soul For All Its Pride.

But I Shall Hear Without Pain, That I Play The Courtier Very Ill, And Talk Of That Which I Do Not Well Understand.

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

What Is The City In Which We Sit Here, But An Aggregate Of Incongruous Materials, Which Have Obeyed The Will Of Some Man?

In This Our Talking America, We Are Ruined By Our Good Nature And Listening On All Sides. This Compliance Takes Away The Power Ofbeing Greatly Useful.

The Nobler The Truth Or Sentiment, The Less Imports The Question Of Authorship.

Goodness That Preaches Undoes Itself.

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Michael W. Smith

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