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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!

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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How Much We Forgive

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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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!

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There Is Virtue Yet In The Hoe And The Spade, For Learned As Well As For Unlearned Hands. And Labor Is Everywhere Welcome; Alwayswe Are Invited To Work.

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.

Nature Is Not Slow To Equip Us In The Prison-uniform Of The Party To Which We Adhere.

There Is One Mind Common To All Individual Men

All Things With Which We Deal Preach To Us. What Is A Farm But A Mute Gospel? The Chaff And The Wheat, Weeds And Plants, Blight, Rain, Insects, Sun,--it Is A Sacred Emblem From The First Furrow Of Spring To The Last Stack Which The Snow Of Winter Overtakes In The Fields.

The Student Is To Read History Actively And Not Passively.

Every Man Takes Care That His Neighbor Shall Not Cheat Him. But A Day Comes When He Begins To Care That He Does Not Cheat His Neighbor. Then All Goes Well. He Has Changed His Market Cart Into A Chariot Of The Sun.

All The Fairy Tales Of Aladdin, Or The Invisible Gyges, Or The Talisman That Opens Kings' Palaces, Or The Enchanted Halls Underground Or In The Sea, Are Only Fictions To Indicated The One Miracle Of Intellectual Enlargement.

When A Thought Of Plato Becomes A Thought To Me,--when A Truth That Fired The Soul Of Pindar Fires Mine, Time Is No More. When I Feel That We Two Meet In A Perception, That Our Two Souls Are Tinged With The Same Hue, And Do As It Were Run Into One, Why Should I Measure Degrees Of Latitude, Why Should I Count Egyptian Years?

Envy Is Ignorance, Imitation Is Suicide.

Scholarship Is To Be Created Not By Compulsion, But By Awakening A Pure Interest In Knowledge.

Live In The Fields, And God Will Give You Lectures On Natural Philosophy Every Day.

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

There Is A Mortifying Experience In Particular, Which Does Not Fail To Wreak Itself Also In The General History; I Mean "the Foolish Face Of Praise," The Forced Smile Which We Put On In Company Where We Do Not Feel At Ease, In Answer To Conversation Which Does Not Interest Us. The Muscles, Not Spontaneously Moved But Moved, By A Low Usurping Wilfulness, Grow Tight About The Outline Of The Face, With The Most Disagreeable Sensation.

Each Man Too Is A Tyrant In Tendency, Because He Would Impose His Idea On Others; And Their Trick Is Their Natural Defence. Jesuswould Absorb The Race; But Tom Paine Or The Coarsest Blasphemer Helps Humanity By Resisting This Exuberance Of Power.

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

If You Criticize A Fine Genius, The Odds Are That You Are Out Of Your Reckoning, And, Instead Of The Poet, Are Censuring Your Owncaricature Of Him.

The Rain Comes When The Wind Calls.

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.

There Is Properly No History, Only Biography.

It Is The Same Among The Men And Women, As Among The Silent Trees; Always A Referred Existence, An Absence, Never A Presence And Satisfaction. Is It, That Beauty Can Never Be Grasped? In Persons And In Landscape Is Equally Inaccessible?

In Our Large Cities, The Population Is Godless, Materialized,--no Bond, No Fellow-feeling, No Enthusiasm. These Are Not Men, But Hungers, Thirsts, Fevers, And Appetites Walking. How Is It People Manage To Live On,--so Aimless As They Are? After Their Peppercorn Aims Are Gained, It Seems As If The Lime In Their Bones Alone Held Them Together, And Not Any Worthy Purpose.

I Will No Longer Confer, Differ, Refer, Defer, Prefer, Or Suffer. I Renounce The Whole Tribe Of Fero. I Embrace Absolute Life.

Really, All Things And Persons Are Related To Us, But According To Our Nature, They Act On Us Not At Once, But In Succession, Andwe Are Made Aware Of Their Presence One At A Time. All Persons, All Things Which We Have Known, Are Here Present, And Many More Than We See; The World Is Full.

A Man Is Related To All Nature.

Do The Thing And You Will Have The Power.

Thought Is The Blossom; Language The Bud; Action The Fruit Behind It.

Such Is The Active Power Of Good Temperament! Great Sweetness Of Temper Neutralizes Such Vast Amounts Of Acid.

Beauty Is The Mark God Sets Upon Virtue.

Truth Is Too Simple For Us: We Do Not Like Those Who Unmask Our Illusions.

All Infractions Of Love And Equity In Our Social Relations Are Speedily Punished-by Fear...be Honest With A Man And You Have No Fear. Try To Deceive And The Relationship Deteriorates.

Let Us Unlearn Our Wisdom Of The World. Let Us Lie Low In The Lord's Power, And Learn That Truth Alone Makes Rich And Great.

Who Hears Me, Who Understands Me, Becomes Mine, A Possession For All Time.

I Would Have The Studies Elective. Scholarship Is To Be Created Not By Compulsion, But By Awakening A Pure Interest In Knowledge. The Wise Instructor Accomplishes This By Opening To His Pupils Precisely The Attractions The Study Has For Himself. The Marking Is A System For Schools, Not For The College; For Boys, Not For Men; And It Is An Ungracious Work To Put On A Professor.

What Is The Hardest Task In The World? To Think.

Traveling Is A Fool's Paradise. Our First Journeys Discover To Us The Indifference Of Places. At Home I Dream That At Naples, At Rome, I Can Be Intoxicated With Beauty, And Lose My Sadness. I Pack My Trunk, Embrace My Friends, Embark On The Sea, And At Last Wake Up In Naples, And There Beside Me Is The Stern Fact, The Sad Self, Unrelenting, Identical, That I Fled From. I Seek The Vatican, And The Palaces. I Affect To Be Intoxicated With Sights And Suggestions, But I Am Not Intoxicated. My Giant Goes With Me Wherever I Go.

Love Is Like Wildflowers; It's Often Found In The Most Unlikely Places.

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.

Whom God Has Put Asunder, Why Should Man Put Together?

Art Should Exhilarate, And Throw Down The Walls Of Circumstance On Every Side, Awakening In The Beholder The Same Sense Of Universal Relation And Power Which The Work Evinced In The Artist.

It Is Better To Be A Thorn In The Side Of A Friend Than An Echo.

Art Is The Need To Create; But In Its Essence, Immense And Universal, It Is Impatient Of Working With Lame Or Tied Hands, And Of Making Cripples And Monsters, Such As All Pictures And Statues Are. Nothing Less Than The Creation Of Man And Nature Is Its End.

Popularity Is For Dolls.

Even In The Mud And Scum Of Things, Something Always, Always Sings.

If A Man Can Write A Better Book, Preach A Better Sermon, Or Make A Better Mousetrap Than His Neighbor, Though He Build His House In The Woods, The World Will Make A Beaten Path To His Door.

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

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

People Only See What They Are Prepared To See.

The Field Cannot Be Well Seen From Within The Field. The Astronomer Must Have His Diameter Of The Earth's Orbit As A Base To Fix The Parallax Of Any Other Star

The Chief Value Of The New Fact Is To Enhance The Great And Constant Fact Of Life.

We Must Learn The Language Of Facts. The Most Wonderful Inspirations Die With Their Subject, If He Has No Hand To Paint Them To The Senses.

The Virtue Of Books Is To Be Readable.

There Is A Property In The Horizon Which No Man Has, But He Whose Eyes Can Integrate All The Parts,--that Is, The Poet.

It Is Only When Mind And Character Slumber That The Dress Can Be Seen. If The Intellect Were Always Awake, And Every Noble Sentiment, The Man Might Go In Huckaback Or Mats, And His Dress Would Be Admired And Imitated.

Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day In The Year. No Man Has Learned Anything Rightly, Until He Knows That Every Day Is Doomsday.

Inspirational Life

We Cannot Describe The Natural History Of The Soul, But We Know That It Is Divine. All Things Are Known To The Soul. It Is Not To Be Surprised By Any Communication. Nothing Can Be Greater Than It, Let Those Fear And Those Fawn Who Will. The Soul Is In Her Native Realm; And It Is Wider Than Space, Older Than Time, Wide As Hope, Rich As Love. Pusillanimity And Fear She Refuses With A Beautiful Scorn; They Are Not For Her Who Putteth On Her Coronation Robes, And Goes Out Through Universal Love To Universal Power.

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.

All Sensible People Are Selfish, And Nature Is Tugging At Every Contract To Make The Terms Of It Fair.

When The Master Of The Universe Has Points To Carry In His Government He Impresses His Will In The Structure Of Minds.

With Each Divine Impulse The Mind Rends The Thin Rinds Of The Visible And Finite, And Comes Out Into Eternity, And Inspires And Expires Its Air. It Converses With Truths That Have Always Been Spoken In The World, And Becomes Conscious Of A Closer Sympathy With Zeno And Arrian, Than With Persons In The House.

Men Grind And Grind In The Mill Of A Truism, And Nothing Comes Out But What Was Put In. But The Moment They Desert The Tradition For A Spontaneous Thought, Then Poetry, Wit, Hope, Virtue, Learning, Anecdote, And All Flock To Their Aid.

If You Meet A Sectary, Or A Hostile Partisan, Never Recognize The Dividing Lines; But Meet On What Common Ground Remains,--if Onlythat The Sun Shines, And The Rain Rains For Both; The Area Will Widen Very Fast, And Ere You Know It The Boundary Mountains, On Which The Eye Had Fastened, Have Melted Into Air.

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.

People Do Not Deserve To Have Good Writing, They Are So Pleased With Bad.

The Efforts Which We Make To Escape From Our Destiny Only Serve To Lead Us Into It.

Skepticism Is Unbelief In Cause And Effect. A Man Does Not See, That, As He Eats, So He Thinks: As He Deals, So He Is, And So He Appears; He Does Not See That His Son Is The Son Of His Thoughts And Of His Actions; That Fortunes Are Not Exceptions But Fruits; That Relation And Connection Are Not Somewhere And Sometimes, But Everywhere And Always; No Miscellany, No Exemption, No Anomaly,--but Method, And An Even Web; And What Comes Out, That Was Put In.

The Ocean Is A Large Drop; A Drop Is A Small Ocean.

Vigor Is Contagious, And Whatever Makes Us Either Think Or Feel Strongly Adds To Our Power And Enlarges Our Field Of Action.

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

What We Have Learned From Other Becomes Our Own Reflection.

Let Not A Man Guard His Dignity, But Let His Dignity Guard Him.

I Like The Silent Church Before The Service Begins, Better Than Any Preaching. How Far Off, How Cool, How Chaste The Persons Look,begirt Each One With A Precinct Or Sanctuary!

When Believers And Unbelievers Live In The Same Manner - I Distrust The Religion.

The Astronomers Said, 'give Us Matter And A Little Motion And We Will Construct The Universe. It Is Not Enough That We Should Have Matter, We Must Also Have A Single Impulse, One Shove To Launch The Mass And Generate The Harmony Of The Centrifugal And Centripetal Forces.' ... There Is No End To The Consequences Of The Act. That Famous Aboriginal Push Propagates Itself Through All The Balls Of The System, And Through Every Atom Of Every Ball.

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.

Works Of The Intellect Are Great Only By Comparison With Each Other.

There Are Twenty Ways Of Going To A Point, And One Is The Shortest; But Set Out At Once On One. A Man Who Has That Presence Of Mind Which Can Bring To Him On The Instant All He Knows, Is Worth For Action A Dozen Men Who Know As Much, But Can Only Bring It To Light Slowly.

Presence Of Mind

The Hero Is Suffered To Be Himself.

The Religion Of One Age Is The Literary Entertainment Of The Next.

Man Exists For His Own Sake And Not To Add A Laborer To The State.

Love, Which Is The Essence Of God, Is Not For Levity, But For The Total Worth Of Man.

Faith Makes Us, And Not We It; And Faith Makes Its Own Forms.

As There Is A Use In Medicine For Poisons, So The World Cannot Move Without Rogues.

The Soul Is The Perceiver And The Revealer Of Truth.

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

The Good News Is That The Moment You Decide That What You Know Is More Important Than What You Have Been Taught To Believe, You Will Have Shifted Gears In Your Quest For Abundance. Success Comes From Within, Not From Without.

The Secret Of Fortune Is Joy In Our Hands.

The Lover Never Sees Personal Resemblances In His Mistress To Her Kindred Or To Others. His Friends Find In Her A Likeness To Hermother, Or Her Sisters, Or To Persons Not Of Her Blood. The Lover Sees No Resemblance Except To Summer Evenings And Diamond Mornings, To Rainbows And The Song Of Birds.

What Is Life But The Angle Of Vision? A Man Is Measured By The Angle At Which He Looks At Objects.

Skepticism Is Slow Suicide.

The World Is So Beautiful That I Can Hardly Believe It Exists.

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!

You Send Your Child To The Schoolmaster, But 'tis The Schoolboys Who Educate Him. You Send Him To The Latin Class, But Much Of Histuition Comes, On His Way To School, From The Shop- Windows.

We Are Of Different Opinions At Different Hours, But We Always May Be Said To Be At Heart On The Side Of Truth.

Different Opinions

The Saint And Poet Seek Privacy To Ends The Most Public And Universal: And It Is The Secret Of Culture, To Interest The Man More In His Public, Than In His Private Quality.

It Is The Eye Which Makes The Horizon.

Life Is A Search After Power.

Pride Ruined The Angels.

We Are Too Civil To Books. For A Few Golden Sentences We Will Turn Over And Actually Read A Volume Of Four Or Five Hundred Pages.

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.

I Cannot Marry The Facts Of William Shakespeare To His Verse: Other Men Had Led Lives In Some Sort Of Keeping With Their Thought, But This Man Is In Wide Contrast.

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

Let Us Not Look East And West For Materials Of Conversation, But Rest In Presence And Unity. A Just Feeling Will Fast Enough Supply Fuel For Discourse, If Speaking Be More Grateful Than Silence. When People Come To See Us, We Foolishly Prattle, Lest We Be Inhospitable. But Things Said For Conversation Are Chalk Eggs. Don't Say Things. What You Are Stands Over You The While, And Thunders So That I Cannot Hear What You Say To The Contrary.

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

Music And Wine Are One.

Let Every Man Shovel Out His Own Snow And The Whole City Will Be Passable.

Other Men Are Lenses Through Which We Read Our Own Minds. Each Man Seeks Those Of Different Quality From His Own, And Such As Are Good Of Their Kind; That Is, He Seeks Other Men, And The Rest.

The Basis Of Good Manners Is Self-reliance. Necessity Is The Law Of All Who Are Not Self-possessed.

Build Therefore Your Own World.

All Poets Have Signalized Their Consciousness Of Rare Moments When They Were Superior To Themselves, -when A Light, A Freedom, A Power Came To Them Which Lifted Them To Performances Far Better Than They Could Reach At Other Times.

Something Is Wanting To Science Until It Has Been Humanised.

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

Man Is The Will, And Woman The Sentiment. In This Ship Of Humanity, Will Is The Rudder, And Sentiment The Sail; When Woman Affects To Steer, The Rudder Is Only A Masked Sail.

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

I Wish To Say What I Think And Feel Today, With The Proviso That Tomorrow Perhaps I Shall Contradict It All.

A Mind Does Not Receive Truth As A Chest Receives Jewels That Are Put Into It, But As The Stomach Takes Up Food Into The System. It Is No Longer Food, But Flesh, And Is Assimilated. The Appetite And The Power Of Digestion Measure Our Right To Knowledge. He Has It Who Can Use It. As Soon As Our Accumulation Overruns Our Invention Or Power To Use, The Evils Of Intellectual Gluttony Begin,— Congestion Of The Brain, Apoplexy And Strangulation.

As The Farmer Casts Into The Ground The Finest Ears Of His Grain, The Time Will Come When We Too Shall Hold Nothing Back, But Shall Eagerly Convert More Than We Now Possess Into Means And Powers, When We Shall Be Willing To Sow The Sun And The Moon For Seeds.

There Is No Architect Can Build As The Muse Can; She Is Skilful To Select Materials For Her Plan.

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

This Book Of Montaigne The World Has Endorsed By Translating It Into All Tongues.

A Man Must Know How To Estimate A Sour Face. The Sour Face Of The Multitude, Like Thier Sweet Faces, Have No Deep Cause, But Are Put On And Off As The Wind Blows And The Newspaper Directs.

Crossing A Bare Common, In Snow Puddles At Twilight, Under A Clouded Sky, Without Having In My Thoughts Any Occurrence Of Special Good Fortune, I Have Enjoyed Perfect Exhilaration. I Am Glad To The Brink Of Fear.

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.

It Takes A Good Deal Of Character To Judge A Person By His Future Instead Of His Past

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

Self Confidence

It Is, In Both Cases, That A Spiritual Life Has Been Imparted To Nature; That The Solid Seeming Block Of Matter Has Been Pervadedand Dissolved By A Thought; That This Feeble Human Being Has Penetrated The Vast Masses Of Nature With An Informing Soul, And Recognised Itself In Their Harmony, That Is, Seized Their Law. In Physics, When This Is Attained, The Memory Disburthens Itself Of Its Cumbrous Catalogues Of Particulars, And Carries Centuries Of Observation In A Single Formula.

Every Day, A Little Sadder, A Little Madder. Will Someone Get Me A Ladder?

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 French Woman Says, 'i Am A Woman And A Parisienne, And Nothing Foreign To Me Appears Altogether Human.'

There Is One Mind Common To All Individual Men. Every Man Is An Inlet To The Same And To All Of The Same.

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.

There Are As Many Pillows Of Illusion As Flakes In A Snow-storm. We Wake From One Dream Into Another Dream.

The Relations Of The Soul To The Divine Spirit Are So Pure, That It Is Profane To Seek To Interpose Helps.

A Man In Pursuit Of Greatness Feels No Little Wants.

If The Red Slayer Think He Slays, Or If The Slain Think He Is Slain, They Know Not Well The Subtle Ways, I Keep And Pass And Turn Again.

Society Acquires New Arts, And Loses Old Instincts.

Transcendentalism

Every Man Is Not So Much A Workman In The World As He Is A Suggestion Of That He Should Be. Men Walk As Prophecies Of The Next Age.

We Are Such Lovers Of Self-reliance, That We Excuse In A Man Many Sins, If He Will Show Us A Complete Satisfaction In His Position, Which Asks No Leave To Be, Of Mine, Or Any Man's Good Opinion.

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.

I Awoke This Morning With Devout Thanksgiving For My Friends, The Old And The New.

To Be Rich Is To Have A Ticket Of Admission To The Masterworks And Chief Men Of Each Race. It Is To Have The Sea, By Voyaging; To Visit The Mountains, Niagara, The Nile, The Desert, Rome, Paris, Constantinople: To See Galleries, Libraries, Arsenals, Manufactories.

We Want A State Of Things In Which Crime Will Not Pay, A State Of Things Which Allows Every Man The Largest Liberty Compatible With The Liberty Of Every Other Man.

The Richest Of All Lords Is Use, And Ruddy Health The Loftiest Muse. Live In The Sunshine, Swim The Sea, Drink The Wild Air's Salubrity.

Things Are Pretty, Graceful, Rich, Elegant, Handsome, But, Until They Speak To The Imagination, Not Yet Beautiful.

So Much Of Our Time Is Spent In Preparation, So Much In Routine, And So Much In Retrospect, That The Amount Of Each Person's Genius Is Confined To A Very Few Hours.

We Learn Geology The Morning After The Earthquake.

Milton Says, That The Lyric Poet May Drink Wine And Live Generously, But The Epic Poet, He Who Shall Sing Of The Gods, And Their Descent Unto Men, Must Drink Water Out Of A Wooden Bowl. For Poetry Is Not "devil's Wine," But God's Wine.

I Have Heard That Death Takes Us Away From Ill Things, Not From Good. I Have Heard That When We Pronounce The Name Of Man We Pronounce The Belief Of Immortality.

We Legislate Against Forestalling And Monopoly; We Would Have A Common Granary For The Poor; But The Selfishness Which Hoards Thecorn For High Prices, Is The Preventative Of Famine; And The Law Of Self-preservation Is Surer Policy Than Any Legislation Can Be.

A Man Is What He Thinks About All Day Long.

Knowledge Is When You Learn Something New Every Day. Wisdom Is When You Let Something Go Every Day.

We Must Be Very Suspicious Of The Deceptions Of The Element Of Time. It Takes A Good Deal Of Time To Eat Or To Sleep, Or To Earn Ahundred Dollars, And A Very Little Time To Entertain A Hope And An Insight Which Becomes The Light Of Our Life.

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

Power Is The First Good.

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.

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

Why Should We Be Cowed By The Name Of Action?.

We Know Who Is Benevolent, By Quite Other Means Than The Amount Of Subscriptions To Soup-societies. It Is Only Low Merits That Canbe Enumerated.

Discontent Is Want Of Self-reliance; It Is Infirmity Of Will.

You Have A Place To Live In This World Which No Other Man Can Occupy; Hence No Competitors.

The Less A Man Thinks Or Knows About His Virtues, The Better We Like Him.

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.

The Etymologist Finds The Deadest Word To Have Been Once A Brilliant Picture.

It Is Only As A Man Puts Off From Himself All External Support, And Stands Alone, That I See Him To Be Strong And To Prevail.

How Cunningly Nature Hides Every Wrinkle Of Her Inconceivable Antiquity Under Roses And Violets And Morning Dew!

Every Man's Task [his 'great Dream' And Impassioned Life-goal] Is His Life Preserver.

All The Tools And Engines On Earth Are Only Extensions Of Man's Limbs And Senses.

Each Man Is A Hero And An Oracle To Somebody.

Our Life Is An Apprenticeship To The Truth That Around Every Circle Another Can Be Drawn; That There Is No End In Nature, But Every End Is A Beginning, And Under Every Deep A Lower Deep Opens.

No Book Was Ever Written Down By Any But Itself.

Pure By Impure Is Not Seen.

There Is No One Who Does Not Exaggerate!

Exaggeration Is

The Soul Is The Perceiver And Revealer Of Truth. We Know Truth When We See It, Let Skeptic And Scoffer Say What They Choose ... We Distinguish The Announcements Of The Soul, Its Manifestations Of Its Own Nature, By The Term Revelation. These Are Always Attended By The Emotion Of The Sublime. For This Communication Is An Influx Of The Divine Mind Into Our Mind. It Is An Ebb Of The Individual Rivulet Before The Flowing Surges Of The Sea Of Life. Every Distinct Apprehension Of This Central Commandment Agitates Men With Awe And Delight.

What Has Been Done In The World - The Works Of Genius - Cost Nothing. There Is No Painful Effort, But It Is The Spontaneous Flowing Of The Thought. Shakespeare Made His Hamlet As A Bird Weaves Its Nest.

The Eye Obeys Exactly The Action Of The Mind.

Go Out Of The House To See The Moon, And 't Is Mere Tinsel; It Will Not Please As When Its Light Shines Upon Your Necessary Journey. The Beauty That Shimmers In The Yellow Afternoons Of October, Who Could Ever Clutch It? Go Forth To Find It, And It Is Gone: 't Is Only A Mirage As You Look From The Windows Of Diligence.

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!

I Look On That Man As Happy, Who, When There Is Question Of Success, Looks Into His Work For A Reply.

A Determined Man, By His Very Attitude And The Tone Of His Voice, Puts A Stop To Defeat, And Begins To Conquer.

The Intellectual Life May Be Kept Clean And Healthful, If Man Will Live The Life Of Nature, And Not Import Into His Mind Difficulties Which Are None Of His.

You Cannot Institute, Without Peril Of Charlatanism.

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

To Be A Star, You Must Shine Your Own Light, Follow Your Path, And Don't Worry About The Darkness, For That Is When The Stars Shine Brightest. Always Do What You Are Afraid To Do.

Few People Have Any Next, They Live From Hand To Mouth Without A Plan, And Are Always At The End Of Their Line.

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

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.

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.

We Pray To Be Conventional. But The Wary Heaven Takes Care You Shall Not Be, If There Is Anything Good In You. Dante Was Very Badcompany, And Was Never Invited To Dinner.

All Nobility In Its Beginnings Was Somebody's Natural Superiority.

Half A Man's Wisdom Goes With His Courage.

The Poor And The Low Have Their Way Of Expressing The Last Facts Of Philosophy As Well As You. "blessed Be Nothing," And "the Worse Things Are, The Better They Are," Are Proverbs Which Express The Transcendentalism Of Common Life.

For Poetry Was All Written Before Time Was, And Whenever We Are So Finely Organized That We Can Penetrate Into That Region Where The Air Is Music, We Hear Those Primal Warblings, And Attempt To Write Them Down, But We Lose Ever And Anon A Word, A Verse, And Substitute Something Of Our Own, And Thus Miswrite The Poem.

Whilst All The World Is In Pursuit Of Power, Culture Corrects The Theory Of Success.

The Spirit Of Our American Radicalism Is Destructive And Aimless; It Is Not Loving; It Has No Ulterior And Divine Ends; But Is Destructive Only Out Of Hatred And Selfishness.

Flowers Are The Earth Laughing.

No Facts Are To Me Sacred; None Are Profane; I Simply Experiment, An Endless Seeker, With No Past At My Back.

Instead Of Making Christianity A Vehicle Of Truth, You Make Truth Only A Horse For Christianity.

We Cannot Overstate Our Debt To The Past, But The Moment Has The Supreme Claim.

Tomorrow Is A New Day; Begin It Well And Serenely And With Too High A Spirit To Be Encumbered With Your Old Nonsense.

Positive Thinking

What The Tender And Poetic Youth Dreams To-day, And Conjures Up With Inarticulate Speech, Is To-morrow The Vociferated Result Of Public Opinion, And The Day After Is The Character Of Nations.

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