Background Image

...

Herein Is The Explanation Of The Analogies, Which Exist In All The Arts. They Are The Re-appearance Of One Mind, Working In Many Materials To Many Temporary Ends. Raphael Paints Wisdom, Handel Sings It, Phidias Carves It, Shakspeare Writes It, Wren Builds It, Columbus Sails It, Luther Preaches It, Washington Arms It, Watt Mechanizes It. Painting Was Called "silent Poetry," And Poetry "speaking Painting." The Laws Of Each Art Are Convertible Into The Laws Of Every Other.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Herein Is The Explanation

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Herein Is The Explanation Of The Analogies, Which Exist In All The Arts. They Are The Re-appearance Of One Mind, Working In Many Materials To Many Temporary Ends. Raphael Paints Wisdom, Handel Sings It, Phidias Carves It, Shakspeare Writes It, Wren Builds It, Columbus Sails It, Luther Preaches It, Washington Arms It, Watt Mechanizes It. Painting Was Called "silent Poetry," And Poetry "speaking Painting." The Laws Of Each Art Are Convertible Into The Laws Of Every Other.

Views: 10

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

The World Belongs To The Energetic.

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

In Nature Nothing Can Be Given. All Things Are Sold.

Most Of The Great Results Of History Are Brought About By Discreditable Means.

And I Myself, In Rome, Heard It Said Openly In The Streets, "if There Is A Hell, Then Rome Is Built On It." Martin Luther, Against The Roman Papacy, An Institution Of The Devil London Is The Epitome Of Our Times, And The Rome Of To-day.

Of The Shaker Society, It Was Formerly A Sort Of Proverb In The Country, That They Always Sent The Devil To Market.

The Bulk Of Mankind Believe In Two Gods. They Are Under One Dominion Here In The House, As Friend And Parent, In Social Circles, In Letters, In Art, In Love, In Religion; But In Mechanics, In Dealing With Steam And Climate, In Trade, In Politics, They Think They Come Under Another.

A Man Must Be In Sympathy With Society Around Him, Or Else, Not Wish To Be In Sympathy With It. If Neither Of These Two, He Must Be Wretched.

I Appeal Now To The Convictions Of The Communicants, And Ask Such Persons Whether They Have Not Been Occasionally Conscious Of A Painful Confusion Of Thought Between The Worship Due To God And The Commemoration Due To Christ.

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

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

The Search After The Great Men Is The Dream Of Youth, And The Most Serious Occupation Of Manhood.

Without Ambition One Starts Nothing. Without Work One Finishes Nothing. The Prize Will Not Be Sent To You. You Have To Win It. The Man Who Knows How Will Always Have A Job. The Man Who Also Knows Why Will Always Be His Boss. As To Methods There May Be A Million And Then Some, But Principles Are Few. The Man Who Grasps Principles Can Successfully Select His Own Methods. The Man Who Tries Methods, Ignoring Principles, Is Sure To Have Trouble.

The Secret Of Ugliness Consists Not In Irregularity, But In Being Uninteresting.

Funny Relationship

The Universe Is Represented In Every One Of It's Particles. Everything Is Made Of One Hidden Stuff. The World Globes Itself In A Drop Of Dew. The True Doctrine Of Omnipresence Is That God Appears With All His Parts In Every Moss And Cobweb.

It Is A Luxury To Be Understood.

The Poet Needs A Ground In Popular Tradition On Which He May Work, And Which, Again, May Restrain His Art Within The Due Temperance. It Holds Him To The People, Supplies A Foundation For His Edifice; And, In Furnishing So Much Work Done To His Hand, Leaves Him At Leisure, And In Full Strength For The Audacities Of His Imagination.

Friendship Buys Friendship.

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.

A Man Is A God In Ruins.

The Student Is To Read History Actively And Not Passively.

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.

Keep Cool: It Will Be All One A Hundred Years Hence.

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 State Is Our Neighbors; Our Neighbors Are The State.

Washington, Where An Insignificant Individual May Trespass On A Nation's Time.

There Are Men Whose Language Is Strong And Defying Enough, Yet Their Eyes And Their Actions Ask Leave Of Other Men To Live.

Men Succeed When They Realize That Their Failures Are The Preparation For Their Victories.

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.

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

People Disparage Knowing And The Intellectual Life, And Urge Doing. I Am Content With Knowing, If Only I Could Know.

Perception Is A Mirror Not A Fact. And What I Look On Is My State Of Mind, Reflected Outward.

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

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

Do What We Can, Summer Will Have Its Flies.

Why Should We Grope Among The Dry Bones Of The Past? The Sun Shines Today Also.

...as There Is No Screen Or Ceiling Between Our Heads And The Infinite Heavens, So Is There No Bar Or Wall In The Soul Where Man, The Effect, Ceases, And God, The Cause, Begins. The Walls Are Taken Away. We Lie Open On One Side To The Deeps Of Spiritual Nature, To The Attributes Of God. Justice We See And Know, Love, Freedom, Power. These Natures No Man Ever Got Above, But They Tower Over Us, And Most In The Moment When Our Interests Tempt Us To Wound Them.

Religion Is As Effectively Destroyed By Bigotry As By Indifference.

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.

In The Woods Too, A Man Casts Off His Years, As The Snake His Slough, And At What Period Soever Of Life, Is Always A Child. In The Woods, Is Perpetual Youth.

It Is The Doctrine Of The Popular Music-masters, That Whoever Can Speak Can Sing. So, Probably, Every Man Is Eloquent Once In His Life. Our Temperaments Differ In Capacity Of Heat, Or

Nature Hates Calculators.

The American Who Has Been Confined, In His Own Country, To The Sight Of Buildings Designed After Foreign Models, Is Surprised On Entering York Minster Or St. Peter's At Rome, By The Feeling That These Structures Are Imitations Also,--faint Copies Of An Invisible Archetype.

In America The Geography Is Sublime, But The Men Are Not; The Inventions Are Excellent, But The Inventors One Is Sometimes Ashamed Of.

The Energetic Action Of The Times Develops Individualism, And The Religious Appear Isolated. I Esteem This A Step In The Right Direction. Heaven Deals With Us On No Representative System. Souls Are Not Saved In Bundles.

Egotism Is A Kind Of Buckram That Gives Momentary Strength And Concentration To Men, And Seems To Be Much Used In Nature For Fabrics In Which Local And Spasmodic Energy Is Required.

No Power Of Genius Has Ever Yet Had The Smallest Success In Explaining Existence. The Perfect Enigma Remains.

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

There Is A Time In Every Man's Education When He Arrives At The Conviction That Envy Is Ignorance; That Imitation Is Suicide.

For Everything You Gain, You Lose Something.

Missing Someone

The Best Picture Makes Us Say, I Am A Painter Also.

A Little Fact Is Worth A Whole Limbo Of Dreams.

We Rail At Trade, But The Historian Of The World Will See That It Was The Principle Of Liberty; That It Settled America, And Destroyed Feudalism, And Made Peace And Keeps Peace; That It Will Abolish Slavery.

An Individual Man Is A Fruit Which It Cost All The Foregoing Ages To Form And Ripen. He Is Strong, Not To Do, But To Live; Not In His Arms, But In His Heart; Not As An Agent, But As A Fact.

Fear Is A Great Instructor.

Rhodora! If The Sages Ask Thee Why This Charm Is Wasted On The Earth And Sky, Tell Them, Dear, That If Eyes Were Made For Seeing, Then Beauty Is Its Own Excuse For Being.

I Find That The Americans Have No Passions, They Have Appetites.

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

When Science Is Learned In Love, And Its Powers Are Wielded By Love, They Will Appear The Supplements And Continuations Of The Material Creation.

It Is With A Good Book As It Is With Good Company.

Out From The Heart Of Nature Rolled The Burdens Of The Bible Old.

Personal Rights, Universally The Same, Demand A Government Framed On The Ratio Of The Census: Property Demands A Government Framedon The Ratio Of Owners And Of Owning.

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.

Life Is Too Short To Waste.

Life Is Too Short

The Religion That Is Afraid Of Science Dishonors God And Commits Suicide.

The Intellect Searches Out The Absolute Order Of Things As They Stand In The Mind Of God, And Without The Colors Of Affection. The Intellectual And The Active Powers Seem To Succeed Each Other, And The Exclusive Activity Of The One Generates The Exclusive Activity Of The Other. There Is Something Unfriendly In Each To The Other, But They Are Like The Alternate Periods Of Feeding And Working In Animals; Each Prepares And Will Be Followed By The Other.

All Men Are In Some Degree Impressed By The Face Of The World; Some Men Even To Delight. This Love Of Beauty Is Taste. Others Have The Same Love In Such Success That, Not Content With Admiring, They Seek To Embody It In New Forms. The Creation Of Beauty Is Art.

The Beautiful Rests On The Foundations Of The Necessary.

From Within Or From Behind, A Light Shines Through Us Upon Things, And Makes Us Aware That We Are Nothing, But The Light Is All.

A Man Passes For That He Is Worth. What He Is Engraves Itself On His Face, On His Form, On His Fortunes, In Letters Of Light. Concealment Avails Him Nothing; Boasting Nothing. There Is Confession In The Glances Of Our Eyes; In Our Smiles; In Salutations; And The Grasp Of Hands.

A Friend Is The Hope Of The Heart.

The World We Live In Is But Thickened Light.

A Man Cannot Free Himself By Any Self-denying Ordinances, Neither By Water Nor Potatoes, Nor By Violent Possibilities, By Refusing To Swear, Refusing To Pay Taxes, By Going To Jail, Or By Taking Another Man's Crops Or Squatting On His Land. By None Of These Ways Can He Free Himself; No, Nor By Paying His Debts With Money; Only By Obedience To His Own Genius.

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

The Squirrel Hoards Nuts And The Bee Gathers Honey, Without Knowing What They Do, And They Are Thus Provided For Without Selfishness Or Disgrace.

If A Man Lose His Balance, And Immerse Himself In Any Trades Or Pleasures For Their Own Sake, He May Be A Good Wheel Or Pin, But He Is Not A Cultivated Man.

The Education Of The Will Is The Object Of Our Existence.

Some Books Leave Us Free And Some Books Make Us Free.

Books And Reading

The Tendencies Of The Times Favor The Idea Of Self-government, And Leave The Individual, For All Code, To The Rewards And Penalties Of His Own Constitution, Which Work With More Energy Than We Believe, Whilst We Depend On Artificial Restraints.

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.

But A Compassion For That Which Is Not And Cannot Be Useful And Lovely, Is Degrading And Futile.

Blessed Are Those Who Have No Talent!

Blessed Are Those

If You Follow The Suburban Fashion In Building A Sumptuous- Looking House For A Little Money, It Will Appear To All Eyes As A Cheap, Dear House.

This Knot Of Nature Is So Well Tied That Nobody Was Ever Cunning Enough To Find The Two Ends.

We Are Impressed And Even Daunted By The Immense Universe To Be Explored. "what We Know Is A Point To What We Do Not Know."

There Is Some Awe Mixed With The Joy Of Our Surprise, When This Poet, Who Lived In Some Past World, Two Or Three Hundred Years Ago, Says That Which Lies Close To My Own Soul, That Which I Also Had Wellnigh Thought And Said.

The New Statement Is Always Hated By The Old, And, To Those Dwelling In The Old, Comes Like An Abyss Of Skepticism.

If We Shall Take The Good We Find, Asking No Questions, We Shall Have Heaping Measures.

The Day Is Always His, Who Works In It With Serenity And Great Aims.

Behind Us, As We Go, All Things Assume Pleasing Forms, As Clouds Do Far Off. Not Only Things Familiar And Stale, But Even The Tragic And Terrible, Are Comely, As They Take Their Place In The Pictures Of Memory.

Whenever A Mind Is Simple And Receives An Old Wisdom, Old Things Pass Away,--means, Teachers, Texts, Temples Fall; It Lives Now, And Absorbs Past And Future Into Present Hour. All Things Are Made Sacred By Relation To It,--one As Much As Another.

And Yet--it Is Not Beauty That Inspires The Deepest Passion. Beauty Without Grace Is The Hook Without The Bait. Beauty, Without Expression, Tires.

We Aim Above The Mark To Hit The Mark.

Man's Life Is A Progress, Not A Station.

Good Bye, Proud World! I'm Going Home; Thou Art Not My Friend, And I'm Not Thine

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

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.

I Will Not Hide My Tastes Or Aversions. I Will So Trust That What Is Deep Is Holy, That I Will Do Strongly Before The Sun And Moon Whatever Only Rejoices Me, And The Heart Appoints

To The Birds And Trees He Talks: Caesar Of His Leafy Rome, There The Poet Is At Home.

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

There Is A Certain Wisdom Of Humanity Which Is Common To The Greatest Men With The Lowest, And Which Our Ordinary Education Oftenlabors To Silence And Obstruct.

The Great Will Not Condescend To Take Anything Seriously.

Success Goes Thus Invariably With A Certain Plus Or Positive Power: An Ounce Of Power Must Balance An Ounce Of Weight.

And What Fastens Attention, In The Intercourse Of Life, Like Any Passage Betraying Affection Between Two Parties? Perhaps We Never Saw Them Before, And Never Shall Meet Them Again. But We See Them Exchange A Glance, Or Betray A Deep Emotion, And We Are No Longer Strangers. We Understand Them, And Take The Warmest Interest In The Development Of The Romance. All Mankind Love A Lover.

Solitude Is Impractical And Yet Society Is Fatal.

The Advantage Of Riches Remains With Him Who Procured Them, Not With The Heir.

A Bullet Had Found Him, His Blood Ran Out As He Cried. No Money Could Save Him, So He Laid Down And Died. Ooh, What A Lucky Man He Was.

America Means Opportunity, Freedom, Power.

Right Is More Beautiful Than Private Affection, And Is Compatible With Universal Wisdom.

You Cannot Do Wrong Without Suffering Wrong.

What King Has He Not Taught State, As Talma Taught Napoleon? What Maiden Has Not Found Him Finer Than Her Delicacy? What Lover Has He Not Outloved? What Sage Has He Not Outseen? What Gentleman Has He Not Instructed In The Rudeness Of His Behavior?

The Only Compensation Which War Offers For Its Manifold Mischiefs, Is In The Great Personal Qualities To Which It Gives Scope And Occasion.

Personal Qualities

Quotation Confesses Inferiority.

Let The Bird Sing Without Deciphering The Song.

The Divine Gift Is Ever The Instant Life, Which Receives And Uses And Creates, And Can Well Bury The Old In The Omnipotency With Which Nature Decomposes All Her Harvest For Recomposition.

But There Is No End To The Praise Of Books, To The Value Of The Library. Who Shall Estimate Their Influence On Our Population Where All The Millions Read And Write ? It Is The Joy Of Nations That Man Can Communicate All His Thoughts, Discoveries And Virtues To Records That May Last For Centuries.

Among Provocative, The Next Best Thing To Good Preaching Is Bad Preaching.

He Is Great Who Is What He Is From Nature, And Who Never Reminds Us Of Others.

If Thought Makes Free, So Does The Moral Sentiment. The Mixtures Of Spiritual Chemistry Refuse To Be Analyzed.

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

Classics Which At Home Are Drowsily Read Have A Strange Charm In A Country Inn, Or In The Transom Of A Merchant Brig.

We Are Ashamed Of Our Thoughts And Often See Them Brought Forth By Others.

Bare Lists Of Words Are Found Suggestive To An Imaginative And Excited Mind.

It Is Long Ere We Discover How Rich We Are. Our History, We Are Sure, Is Quite Tame: We Have Nothing To Write, Nothing To Infer. But Our Wiser Years Still Run Back To The Despised Recollections Of Childhood. . . .

But A Public Oration Is An Escapade, A Non-committal, An Apology, A Gag, And Not A Communication, Not A Speech, Not A Man.

Marriage (in What Is Called The Spiritual World) Is Impossible, Because Of The Inequality Between Every Subject And Every Object.

The Have A Good Friend Is One Of The Greatest Delights Of Life.

Every Man Beholds His Human Condition With A Degree Of Melancholy. As A Ship Aground Is Battered By The Waves, So Man, Imprisonedin Mortal Life, Lies Open To The Mercy Of Coming Events.

The Fox Has Many Tricks. The Hedgehog Has But One. But That Is The Best Of All.

Every Man In His Lifetime Needs To Thank His Faults.

Men Talk As If Victory Were Something Fortunate. Work Is Victory.

To Say Then, The Majority Are Wicked, Means No Malice, No Bad Heart In The Observer, But, Simply That The Majority Are Unripe, Andhave Not Yet Come To Themselves, Do Not Yet Know Their Opinion.

The Growth Of The Intellect Is Spontaneous In Every Expansion. The Mind That Grows Could Not Predict The Times, The Means, The Mode Of That Spontaneity. God Enters By A Private Door Into Every Individual.

Nature And Books Belong To The Eyes That See Them.

It Is The Fault Of Our Rhetoric That We Cannot Strongly State One Fact Without Seeming To Belie Some Other.

The Secret Of The World Is The Tie Between Person And Event. Person Makes Event And Event Person.

The Roses Under My Window Make No Reference To Former Roses Or Better Ones; They Are What They Are; They Exist With God Today. There Is No Time To Them. There Is Simply The Rose; It Is Perfect In Every Moment Of Its Existence.

Age, Like Woman, Requires Fit Surroundings.

One More Fagot Of These Adamantine Bandages Is The New Science Of Statistics.

Test Of The Poet Is Knowledge Of Love, For Eros Is Older Than Saturn Or Jove; Never Was Poet, Of Late Or Of Yore, Who Was Not Tremulous With Love-lore.

All The Great Speakers Were Bad Speakers At First.

There Is Guidance For Each Of Us, And By Lowly Listening We Shall Hear The Right Word.

Sometimes We Receive The Power To Say Yes To Life. Then Peace Enters Us And Makes Us Whole.

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

As The Eye Is The Best Composer, So Light Is The First Of Painters. There Is No Object So Foul That Intense Light Will Not Make Beautiful; And The Stimulus It Affords To The Sense, And A Sort Of Infinitude Which It Hath Like Space And Time, Make All Matter Gay.

What We Love That We Have, But By Desire We Bereave Ourselves Of The Love.

What We Do Not Call Education Is More Precious Than That Which We Call So. We Form No Guess, At The Time Of Receiving A Thought, Of Its Comparative Value. And Education Often Wastes Its Effort In Attempts To Thwart And Balk This Natural Magnetism, Which Is Sure To Select What Belongs To It.

The Simplest Words,--we Do Not Know What They Mean Except When We Love And Aspire.

A Man Must Ride Alternately On The Horses Of His Private And His Public Nature.

A Vivid Thought Brings The Power To Paint It; And In Proportion To The Depth Of Its Source Is The Force Of Its Projection.

Knowledge Is The Knowing That We Cannot Know.

When The Boys Come Into My Yard For Leave To Gather Horse-chestnuts, I Own I Enter Into Nature's Game, And Affect To Grant The Permission Reluctantly, Fearing That Any Moment They Will Find Out The Imposture Of That Showy Chaff. But This Tenderness Is Quite Unnecessary; The Enchantments Are Laid On Very Thick. Their Young Life Is Thatched With Them. Bare And Grim To Tears Is The Lot Of The Children In The Hovel I Saw Yesterday; Yet Not The Less They Hang It Round With Frippery Romance, Like The Children Of The Happiest Fortune.

Circles, Like The Soul, Are Neverending And Turn Round And Round Without A Stop.

The First Wealth Is Health.

The Shows Of The Day, The Dewy Morning, The Rainbow, Mountains, Orchards In Blossom, Stars, Moonlight, Shadows In Still Water, Andthe Like, If Too Eagerly Hunted, Become Shows Merely, And Mock Us With Their Unreality.

Henceforth, Please God, Forever I Forego The Yolk Of Men's Opinions. I Will Be Light-hearted As A Bird And Live With God. I Find Him In The Bottom Of My Heart, And I Hear Continually His Voice Therein.

Progress Is The Activity Of Today And The Assurance Of Tomorrow

I Suppose Every Old Scholar Has Had The Experience Of Reading Something In A Book Which Was Significant To Him, But Which He Could Never Find Again. Sure He Is That He Read It There, But No One Else Ever Read It, Nor Can He Find It Again, Though He Buy The Book And Ransack Every Page.

If I Know Your Sect, I Anticipate Your Argument

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

There Is Health In Table Talk And Nursery Play. We Must Wear Old Shoes And Have Aunts And Cousins.

There Is A Principle Which Is The Basis Of Things, Which All Speech Aims To Say, And All Action To Evolve, A Simple, Quiet, Undescribed, Undescribable Presence, Dwelling Very Peacefully In Us, Our Rightful Lord: We Are Not To Do, But To Let Do; Not To Work, But To Be Worked Upon.

Because The Soul Is Progressive, It Never Quite Repeats Itself, But In Every Act Attempts The Production Of A New And Fairer Whole.

Nothing Is More Disgusting Than The Crowing About Liberty By Slaves, As Most Men Are, And The Flippant Mistaking For Freedom Of Some Paper Preamble Like A Declaration Of Independence, Or The Statute Right To Vote, By Those Who Have Never Dared To Think Or To Act.

Be As Beneficent As The Sun Or The Sea, But If Your Rights As A Rational Being Are Trenched On, Die On The First Inch Of Your Territory.

The Profoundest Thought Or Passion Sleeps As In A Mine, Until An Equal Mind And Heart Finds And Publishes It.

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

Sometimes A Scream Is Better Than A Thesis.

I Admire Answers To Which No Answers Can Be Made.

A Man Should Give Us A Sense Of Mass.

Sunday Is The Core Of Our Civilization, Dedicated To Thought And Reverence.

We Are A Puny And Fickle Folk. Avarice, Hesitation, And Following Are Our Diseases.

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

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

For, When Men Shall Meet As They Ought, Each A Benefactor, A Shower Of Stars, Clothed With Thoughts, With Deeds, With Accomplishments, It Should Be The Festival Of Nature Which All Things Announce. Of Such Friendship, Love In The Sexes Is The First Symbol, As All Other Things Are Symbols Of Love. Those Relations To The Best Men, Which, At One Time, We Reckoned The Romances Of Youth, Become, In The Progress Of Character, The Most Solid Enjoyment.

Wit Makes Its Own Welcome, And Levels All Distinctions.

The Way Of Providence Is A Little Rude. The Habit Of Snake And Spider, The Snap Of The Tiger And Other Leapers And Bloody Jumpers, The Crackle Of The Bones Of His Prey In The Coil Of The Anaconda-these Are In The System, And Our Habits Are Like Theirs.

We Do What We Must, And Call It By The Best Names.

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.

Murder In The Murderer Is No Such Ruinous Thought As Poets And Romancers Will Have It; It Does Not Unsettle Him, Or Fright Him From His Ordinary Notice Of Trifles; It Is An Act Quite Easy To Be Contemplated.

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

By Degrees We May Come To Know The Primitive Sense Of The Permanent Objects Of Nature, So That The World Shall Be To Us An Open Book, And Every Form Significant Of Its Hidden Life And Final Cause.

Self-reliance Is Its Aversion. It Loves Not Realities And Creators, But Names And Customs.

If A Man Is At Heart Just, Then In So Far Is He God; The Safety Of God, The Immortality Of God, The Majesty Of God Do Enter Into That Man With Justice.

The Crime Which Bankrupts Men And States Is Job-work-declining From Your Main Design, To Serve A Turn Here And There. Nothing Is Beneath You, If It Is In The Direction Of Your Life, Nothing Is Great Or Desirable If It Is Off From That. I Think We Are Entitled Here To Draw A Straight Line And Say That Society Can Never Prosper But Must Always Be Bankrupts, Until Every Man Does That Which He Was Created To Do.

The Line Of Beauty Is The Line Of Perfect Economy.

Go Face The Fire At Sea, Or The Cholera In Your Friend's House, Or The Burglar In Your Own, Or What Danger Lies In The Way Of Duty, Knowing You Are Guarded By The Cherubim Of Destiny. If You Believe In Fate To Your Harm, Believe It, At Least, For Your Good.

If You Will Not Lend Me The Money, How Can I Pay You?

All Are Needed By Each One; Nothing Is Fair Or Good Alone.

The History Of Mankind Interests Us Only As It Exhibits A Steady Gain Of Truth And Right, In The Incessant Conflict Which It Records Between The Material And The Moral Nature.

Men Do Not Believe In The Power Of Education. We Do Not Think We Can Speak To Divine Sentiments In Man, And We Do Not Try. We Renounce All High Aims.

He That Writes To Himself Writes To An Eternal Public.

The Solid, Solid Universe Is Pervious To Love; With Bandaged Eyes He Never Errs, Around, Below, Above. His Blinding Light He Flingeth White On God's And Satan's Brood, And Reconciles By Mystic Wiles The Evil And The Good.

Health, South Wind, Books, Old Trees, A Boat, A Friend.

In Actions Of Enthusiasm, This Drawback Appears: But In Those Lower Activities, Which Have No Higher Aim Than To Make Us More Comfortable And More Cowardly, In Actions Of Cunning, Actions That Steal And Lie, Actions That Divorce The Speculative From The Practical Faculty, And Put A Ban On Reason And Sentiment, There Is Nothing Else But Drawback And Negation.

All High Beauty Has A Moral Element In It.

Slavery Is An Institution For Converting Men Into Monkeys.

In Politics And In Trade, Bruisers And Pirates Are Of Better Promise Than Talkers And Clerks.

The Merit Of Those Who Fill A Space In The World's History, Who Are Borne Forward, As It Were, By The Weight Of Thousands Whom They Lead, Shed A Perfume Less Sweet Than Do The Sacrifices Of Private Virtue.

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.

Trending Author

Louise Slaughter

Category