Background Image

...

I Am Ashamed To See What A Shallow Village Tale Our So-called History Is. How Many Times Must We Say Rome, And Paris, And Constantinople! What Does Rome Know Of Rat And Lizard? What Are Olympiads And Consulates To These Neighboring Systems Of Being? Nay, What Food Or Experience Or Succor Have They For The Esquimaux Seal-hunter, Or The Kanaka In His Canoe, For The Fisherman, The Stevedore, The Porter?

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I Am Ashamed To

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

I Am Ashamed To See What A Shallow Village Tale Our So-called History Is. How Many Times Must We Say Rome, And Paris, And Constantinople! What Does Rome Know Of Rat And Lizard? What Are Olympiads And Consulates To These Neighboring Systems Of Being? Nay, What Food Or Experience Or Succor Have They For The Esquimaux Seal-hunter, Or The Kanaka In His Canoe, For The Fisherman, The Stevedore, The Porter?

Views: 4

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Power Of A Man Increases Steadily By Continuing In One Direction.

Teaching Is The Perpetual End And Office Of All Things. Teaching, Instruction Is The Main Design That Shines Through The Sky And Earth.

The Paid Wealth Which Hundreds In The Community Acquire In Trade, Or By The Incessant Expansions Of Our Population And Arts, Enchants The Eyes Of All The Rest; The Luck Of One Is The Hope Of Thousands, And The Bribe Acts Like The Neighborhood Of A Gold Mine To Impoverish The Farm, The School, The Church, The House, And The Very Body And Feature Of Man.

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

Talent Alone Cannot Make A Writer. There Must Be A Man Behind The Book; A Personality Which, By Birth And Quality, Is Pledged To The Doctrines There Set Forth, And Which Exists To See And State Things So, And Not Otherwise.

The Element Running Through Entire Nature, Which We Popularly Call Fate, Is Known To Us As Limitation. Whatever Limits Us, We Callfate.

Therefore Is Nature Ever The Ally Of Religion: Lends Her All Her Pomp And Riches To The Religious Sentiment.

I Think I Have Done Well, If I Have Acquired A New Word From A Good Author; And My Business With Him Is To Find My Own, Though Itwere Only To Melt Him Down Into An Epithet Or An Image For Daily Use.

I Covet Truth; Beauty Is Unripe Childhood's Cheat; I Leave It Behind With The Games Of Youth.

Out Of Sleeping A Waking, Out Of Waking A Sleep.

In Failing Circumstances No One Can Be Relied On To Keep Their Integrity.

Truth, And Goodness, And Beauty, Are But Different Faces Of The Same All

Different Faces

The Universal Soul Is The Alone Creator Of The Useful And The Beautiful; Therefore To Make Anything Useful Or Beautiful, The Individual Must Be Submitted To The Universal Mind.

Free Should Be The Scholar - Free And Brave.

Truly Speaking, It Is Not Instruction, But Provocation, That I Can Receive From Another Soul. What He Announces, I Must Find True In Me, Or Reject; And On His Word, Or As His Second, Be He Who He May, I Can Accept Nothing.

I Am Not Much An Advocate For Traveling, And I Observe That Men Run Away To Other Countries Because They Are Not Good In Their Own, And Run Back To Their Own Because They Pass For Nothing In The New Places. For The Most Part, Only The Light Characters Travel. Who Are You That Have No Task To Keep You At Home?

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

A Man Is Relieved And Gay When He Has Put His Heart Into His Work And Done His Best; But What He Has Said Or Done Otherwise Shall Give Him No Peace.

We Have A Great Deal More Kindness Than Is Ever Spoken.

When It's Dark Enough Men See Stars.

Sincerity Is The Highest Complement You Can Pay

The Cities Drain The Country Of The Best Part Of Its Population: The Flower Of The Youth, Of Both Sexes, Goes Into The Towns, Andthe Country Is Cultivated By A So Much Inferior Class. The Land,--travel A Whole Day Together,--looks Poverty-stricken, And The Buildings Plain And Poor.

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.

Nature Encourages No Looseness; Pardons No Errors.

In Every Situation Do The Thing You Fear. If You Do The Thing You Fear, The Death Of Fear Is Certain.

The Law Of Nature Is Alternation For Evermore. Each Electrical State Superinduces The Opposite. The Soul Environs Itself With Friends, That It May Enter Into A Grander Self-acquaintance Or Solitude; And It Goes Alone For A Season, That It May Exalt Its Conversation Or Society.

[d]ivine Providence... Keeps The Universe Open In Every Direction To The Soul.

Life Is To Be Lived, Not Controlled.

Our Expenses Are All For Conformity.

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.

The Antidote To This Abuse Of Formal Government, Is, The Influence Of Private Character, The Growth Of The Individual.

The Faith That Stands On Authority Is Not Faith.

Very Idle Is All Curiosity Concerning Other People's Estimate Of Us, And All Fear Of Remaining Unknown Is Not Less So.

Education Should Be As Broad As Man.

Two Touch The String, The Harp Is Dumb.

He Is A Dull Observer Whose Experience Has Not Taught Him The Reality And Force Of Magic, As Well As Of Chemistry.

If Thou Fill Thy Brain With Boston And New York, With Fashion And Covetousness, And Wilt Stimulate Thy Jaded Senses With Wine And French Coffee, Thou Shalt Find No Radiance Of Wisdom In The Lonely Waste Of The Pinewoods.

A Mob Is A Society Obodies, Voluntarily Bereaving Themselves Oreason, And Traversing Its Work. The Mob Is Man, Voluntarily Descending To The Nature Othe Beast. Its Fit Hour Oactivity Is Night; Its Actions Are Insane, Like Its Whole Constitution.

The Eyes Of Men Converse As Much As Their Tongues.

Wise Men Are Not Wise At All Hours, And Will Speak Five Times From Their Taste Or Their Humor, To Once From Their Reason.

The Motive Of Science Was The Extension Of Man, On All Sides, Into Nature, Till His Hands Should Touch The Stars, His Eyes See Through The Earth, His Ears Understand The Language Of Beast And Bird, And The Sense Of The Wind; And, Through His Sympathy, Heaven And Earth Should Talk With Him. But That Is Not Our Science.

We Sometimes Meet An Original Gentleman, Who, If Manners Had Not Existed, Would Have Invented Them.

The Rain Comes When The Wind Calls.

The Reverence For The Deeds Of Our Ancestors Is A Treacherous Sentiment. Their Merit Was Not To Reverence The Old, But To Honor The Present Moment; And We Falsely Make Them Excuses Of The Very Habit Which They Hated And Defied.

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

We Do Not Want Actions, But Men; Not A Chemical Drop Of Water, But Rain; The Spirit That Sheds And Showers Actions, Countless, Endless Actions.

Now That Is The Wisdom Of A Man, In Every Instance Of His Labor, To Hitch His Wagon To A Star, And See His Chore Done By The Gods Themselves. That Is The Way We Are Strong, By Borrowing The Might Of The Elements. The Forces Of Steam, Gravity, Galvanism, Light, Magnets, Wind, Fire, Serve Us Day By Day And Cost Us Nothing.

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

Society, To Be Sure, Does Not Like This Very Well; It Saith, Whoso Goes To Walk Alone, Accuses The Whole World; He Declares All To Be Unfit To Be His Companions; It Is Very Uncivil, Nay, Insulting; Society Will Retaliate.

All That Can Be Done For You Is Nothing To What You Can Do For Yourself.

The Torpid Artist Seeks Inspiration At Any Cost, By Virtue Or By Vice, By Friend Or By Fiend, By Prayer Or By Wine.

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

The Finest Wits Have Their Sediment.

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

It Is A Mischievous Notion That We Are Come Late Into Nature; That The World Was Finished A Long Time Ago. As The World Was Plastic And Fluid In The Hands Of God, So It Is Ever To So Much Of His Attributes As We Bring To It. To Ignorance And Sin, It Is Flint. They Adapt To Themselves To It As They May; But In Proportion As A Man Has Anything In Him Divine, The Firmament Flows Before Him And Takes His Signet And Form.

Virtue Runs Before The Muse, And Defies Her Skill; She Is Rapt And Doth Refuse To Wait A Painter's Will.

Observe How Every Truth And Every Error, Each A Thought Of Someone's Mind, Clothes Itself With Societies, Houses, Cities, Language, Ceremonies, Newspapers

We Want Men And Women Who Shall Renovate Life And Our Social State But We See That Most Natures Are Insolvent, Cannot Satisfy Their Own Wants, Have An Ambition Out Of All Proportion To Their Practical Force, And So Do Lean And Beg Day And Night Continually.

Speak What You Think Today In Hard Words And Tomorrow Speak What Tomorrow Thinks In Hard Words Again, Though It Contradict Every Thing You Said Today.

The Way To Learn German, Is, To Read The Same Dozen Pages Over And Over A Hundred Times, Till You Know Every Word And Particle In Them, And Can Pronounce And Repeat Them By Heart.

Yet A Man May Love A Paradox, Without Losing Either His Wit Or His Honesty.

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

We May Be Partial, But Fate Is Not.

Is All Literature Eavesdropping, And All Art Chinese Imitation? Our Life A Custom, And Our Body Borrowed, Like A Beggar’s Dinner, From A Hundred Charities?

Of Course, Money Will Do After Its Kind, And Will Steadily Work To Unspiritualize And Unchurch The People To Whom It Was Bequeathed.

Fear Is Cruel And Mean. The Political Reigns Of Terror Have Been Reigns Of Madness And Malignity,--a Total Perversion Of Opinion;society Is Upside Down, And Its Best Men Are Thought Too Bad To Live.

It Is Hard To Go Beyond Your Public. If They Are Satisfied With Cheap Performance, You Will Not Easily Arrive At Better. If They Know What Is Good, And Require It. You Will Aspire And Burn Until You Achieve It. But From Time To Time, In History, Men Are Born A Whole Age Too Soon.

Our Desires Presage The Capacities Within Us; They Are Harbingers Of What We Shall Be Able To Accomplish. What We Can Do And Want To Do Is Projected In Our Imagination, Quite Outside Ourselves, And Into The Future. We Are Attracted To What Is Already Ours In Secret. Thus Passionate Anticipation Transforms What Is Indeed Possible Into Dreamt-for Reality.

Go Into One Of Our Cool Churches, And Begin To Count The Words That Might Be Spared, And In Most Places The Entire Sermon Will Go.

In This Distribution Of Functions, The Scholar Is The Delegated Intellect. In The Right State, He Is, Man Thinking. In The Degenerate State, When The Victim Of Society, He Tends To Become A Mere Thinker, Or, Still Worse, The Parrot Of Other Men's Thinking.

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.

Our High Respect For A Well-read Man Is Praise Enough For Literature. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

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.

No Facts To Me Are Sacred; None Are Profane.

When Fear Enters The Heart Of A Man At Hearing The Names Of Candidates And The Reading Of Laws That Are Proposed, Then Is The State Safe, But When These Things Are Heard Without Regard, As Above Or Below Us, Then Is The Commonwealth Sick Or Dead.

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

Self Confidence

Sunshine Cannot Bleach The Snow, Nor Time Unmake What Poets Know

The World Is The Ring Of His Spells, And The Play Of His Miracles.

The Field Cannot Be Seen From Within The Field.

I Am Grown By Sympathy A Little Eager And Sentimental, But Leave Me Alone, And I Should Relish Every Hour And What It Brought Me, The Pot-luck Of The Day, As Heartily As The Oldest Gossip In The Bar-room.

A Man's Library Is A Sort Of Harem.

The Poise Of A Plant, The Bended Tree Recovering Itself From The Strong Wind, The Vital Resources Of Every Vegetable And Animal, Are Also Demonstrations Of The Self-sufficing, And Therefore Self-relying Soul. All History From Its Highest To Its Trivial Passages Is The Various Record Of This Power.

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

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

Within, I Do Not Find Wrinkles And Used Heart, But Unspent Youth.

Manners Are Very Communicable: Men Catch Them From Each Other.

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

The Poet 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: They Overleapt The Horizon's Edge, Searched With Apollo's Privilege; Through Man, And Woman, And Sea, And Star, Saw The Dance Of Nature Forward Far; Through Worlds, And Races, And Terms, And Times, Saw Musical Order, And Pairing Rhymes. Olympian Bards Who Sung Divine Ideas Below, Which Always Find Us Young, And Always Keep Us So.

If I Am The Devil's Child, I Will Live Then, By The Devil.

There Is A Persuasion In The Soul Of Man That He Is Here For Cause, That He Was Put Down In This Place By The Creator To Do The Work For Which He Inspires Him, That Thus He Is An Overmatch For All Antagonists That Could Combine Against Him.

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

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

We Commonly Say That The Rich Man Can Speak The Truth, Can Afford Honesty, Can Afford Independence Of Opinion And Action;--and That Is The Theory Of Nobility. But It Is The Rich Man In A True Sense, That Is To Say, Not The Man Of Large Income And Large Expenditure, But Solely The Man Whose Outlay Is Less Than His Income And Is Steadily Kept So.

Meek Young Men Grow Up In Libraries, Believing It Their Duty To Accept The Views Which Cicero, Which Locke, Which Bacon, Have Given, Forgetful That Cicero, Locke, And Bacon Were Only Young Men In Libraries, When They Wrote These Books.

There Is No Strong Performance Without A Little Fanaticism In The Performer.

Accept The Place The Divine Providence Has Found For You, The Society Of Your Contemporaries, The Connection Of Events.

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

The Invariable Mark Of Wisdom Is To See The Miraculous In The Common.

The Heroic Cannot Be The Common, Nor The Common The Heroic.

New York Is A Sucked Orange. All Conversation Is At An End, When We Have Discharged Ourselves Of A Dozen Personalities, Domestic Or Imported, Which Make Up Our American Existence.

We Are Thus Assisted By Natural Objects In The Expression Of Particular Meanings. But How Great A Language To Convey Such Pepper-corn Informations!

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

The Powers Of The Soul Are Commensurate With Its Needs.

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

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.

He Who Is In Love Is Wise And Is Becoming Wiser.

Pride Ruined The Angels.

A Man Is A Little Thing Whilst He Works By And For Himself, But, When He Gives Voice To The Rules Of Love And Justice, Is Godlike, His Word Is Current In All Countries; And All Men, Though His Enemies, Are Made His Friends And Obey It As Their Own.

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.

The Mob Is Man Voluntarily Descending To The Nature Of The Beast. Its Fit Hour Of Activity Is Night. Its Actions Are Insane Like Its Whole Constitution. It Persecutes A Principle; It Would Whip A Right; It Would Tar And Feather Justice, By Inflicting Fire And Outrage Upon The Houses And Persons Of Those Who Have These. It Resembles The Prank Of Boys, Who Run With Fire-engines To Put Out The Ruddy Aurora Streaming To The Stars.

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.

Whoever Has Had The Experience Of The Moral Sentiment Cannot Choose But Believe In Unlimited Power. Each Pulse From That Heart Isan Oath From The Most High. I Know Not What The Word Sublime Means, If It Be Not The Intimations, In This Infant, Of A Terrific Force.

There Are Books... Which Rank In Our Life With Parents And Lovers And Passionate Experiences.

People Forget That It Is The Eye Which Makes The Horizon, And The Rounding Mind's Eye Which Makes This Or That Man A Type Or Representative Of Humanity With The Name Of Hero Or Saint.

A Man Should Not Be A Silkworm; Nor A Nation A Tent Of Caterpillars.

Another Success Is The Post-office, With Its Educating Energy Augmented By Cheapness And Guarded By A Certain Religious Sentimentin Mankind; So That The Power Of A Wafer Or A Drop Of Wax Or Gluten To Guard A Letter, As It Flies Over Sea Over Land And Comes To Its Address As If A Battalion Of Artillery Brought It, I Look Upon As A Fine Meter Of Civilization.

Wit Makes Its Own Welcome, And Levels All Distinctions.

An Individual Has A Healthy Personality To The Exact Degree To Which They Have The Propensity To Look For The Good In Every Situation.

Time Is Indeed The Theater And Seat Of Illusions; Nothing Is So Ductile And Elastic. The Mind Stretches An Hour To A Century, And Dwarfs An Age To An Hour.

Man Sheds Grief As His Skin Sheds Rain.

These Are The Voices Which We Hear In Solitude, But They Grow Faint And Inaudible As We Enter Into The World.

He That Loveth Maketh His Own The Grandeur He Loves

Let No One Honour Me With Tears, Or Bury Me With Lamentation. Why? Because I Fly Hither And Thither, Living In The Mouths Of Me.

Beauty Without Grace Is The Hook Without The Bait.

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 Complained That On His Way Home To Dinner He Had Every Day To Pass Through That Long Field Of His Neighbor's. I Advised Him To Buy It, And It Would Never Seem Long Again.

Infancy Conforms To Nobody; All Conform To It.

The Aid We Can Give Each Other Is Only Incidental, Lateral, And Sympathetic.

So Nigh Is Grandeur To Our Dust, So Near Is God To Man, When Duty Whispers Low, 'thou Must,' The Youth Whispers, 'i Can.

All History Is Biography.

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.

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

I Am Thankful For Small Mercies. I Compared Notes With One Of My Friends Who Expect Everything Of The Universe, And Is Disappointed When Anything Is Less Than The Best, And I Found That I Begin At The Other Extreme, Expecting Nothing, And Am Always Full Of Thanks For Moderate Good. . . . If We Will Take The Good We Find, . . . We Shall Have Heaping Measures. . . .

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.

But The Best Read Naturalist Who Lends An Entire And Devout Attention To Truth, Will See That There Remains Much To Learn Of His Relation To The World, And That It Is Not To Be Learned By Any Addition Or Subtraction Or Other Comparison Of Known Quantities, But Is Arrived At By Untaught Sallies Of The Spirit, By A Continual Self-recovery, And By Entire Humility.

Man Begins Life Helpless. The Babe Is In Paroxysms Of Fear The Moment Its Nurse Leaves It Alone, And It Comes So Slowly To Any Power Of Self-protection That Mothers Say The Salvation Of The Life And Health Of A Young Child Is A Perpetual Miracle.

There Can Be No High Civility Without A Deep Morality, Though It May Not Always Call Itself By That Name.

Men Are Better Than This Theology.

The Highest Revelation Is That God Is In Every Man.

The Idiot, The Indian, The Child And Unschooled Farmer's Boy Stand Nearer To The Light By Which Nature Is To Be Read, Than The Dissector Or The Antiquary.

Yourself A Newborn Bard Of The Holy Ghost, Cast Behind You All Conformity, And Acquaint Men At First Hand With Deity.

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

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

Wise Men Read Very Sharply All Of Your Private History In Your Look And Gait And Behavior.

Virtue Alone Is Sweet Society, It Keeps The Key To All Heroic Hearts, And Opens You A Welcome In Them All.

Hidden Away In The Inner Nature Of The Real Man Is The Law Of His Life, And Someday He Will Discover It And Consciously Make Use Of It. He Will Heal Himself, Make Himself Happy And Prosperous, And Life In An Entirely Different World. For He Will Have Discovered That Life Is From Within And Not From Without.

When Some External Event Raises Your Spirits And You Think Good Days Are Preparing For You, Do Not Believe It. It Can Never Be So. Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself.

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.

I Am The Owner Of The Sphere, Of The Seven Stars And The Solar Year, Of Caesar's Hand, And Plato's Brain, Of Lord Christ's Heart, And Shakespeare's Strain.

Many A Profound Genius, I Suppose, Who Fills The World With Fame Of His Exploding Renowned Errors, Is Yet Everyday Posed And Baffled By Trivial Questions At His Own Supper Table.

Great Geniuses Have The Shortest Biographies.

Neither Is Life Long Enough For Friendship. That Is A Serious And Majestic Affair.

When We Quarrel, How We Wish We Had Been Blameless.

Intellectual Tasting Of Life Will Not Supersede Muscular Activity. If A Man Should Consider The Nicety Of The Passage Of A Piece Of Bread Down His Throat, He Would Starve.

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

The Maker Of A Sentence Launches Out Into The Infinite.

Creative Writing

Poetry Teaches The Enormous Force Of A Few Words, And, In Proportion To The Inspiration, Checks Loquacity.

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

Men Of Sense Esteem Wealth To Be The Assimilation Of Nature To Themselves, The Converting Of The Sap And Juices Of The Planet To The Incarnation And Nutriment Of Their Design.

The Mind Does Not Create What It Perceives, Any More Than The Eye Creates The Rose.

Every Man Is Eloquent Once In His Life.

Public Speaking

What Is Excellent, As God Lives, Is Permanent; Hearts Are Dust, Hearts' Loves Remain, Heart's Love Will Meet Thee Again.

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. Within These Plantations Of God A Decorum And Sanctity Reign, A Perennial Festival Is Dressed, And The Guest Sees Not How He Should Tire Of Them In A Thousand Years. In The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

Plants Are The Young Of The World, Vessels Of Health And Vigor; But They Grope Ever Upward Towards Consciousness; The Trees Are Imperfect Men, And Seem To Bemoan Their Imprisonment, Rooted In The Ground.

The Reason Why Any One Refuses His Assent To Your Opinion, Or His Aid To Your Benevolent Design, Is In You: He Refuses To Accept You As A Bringer Of Truth, Because, Though You Think You Have It, He Feels That You Have It Not. You Have Not Given Him The Authentic Sign.

A Weed Is A Plant We've Found No Use For Yet.

There Is Always A Certain Meanness In The Argument Of Conservatism, Joined With A Certain Superiority In Its Fact.

That Which We Do Not Believe, We Cannot Adequately Say; Even Though We May Repeat The Words Ever So Often.

We Live Amid Surfaces, And The True Art Of Life Is To Skate Well On Them

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

A Man's Growth Is Seen In The Successive Choirs Of His Friends.

Society Never Advances. It Recedes As Fast On One Side As It Gains On The Other. It Undergoes Continual Changes: It Is Barbarous, It Is Civilized, It Is Rich, It Is Scientific; But This Change Is Not Amelioration. For Every Thing That Is Given, Something Else Is Taken. Society Acquires New Arts And Loses Old Instincts.

Every Revolution Was First A Thought In One Man's Mind.

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

The President Proclaims War, And Those Senators Who Dissent Are Not Those Who Know Better, But Those Who Can Afford To...democracy Becomes A Government Of Bullies Tempered By Editors.

Wild Liberty Breeds Iron Conscience; Natures With Great Impulses Have Great Resources, And Return From Far.

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

If The Race Is Good, So Is The Place.

The Merit Claimed For The Anglican Church Is That, If You Let It Alone, It Will Let You Alone.

But Hospitality Must Be For Service, And Not For Show, Or It Pulls Down The Host. The Brave Soul Rates Itself Too High To Value Itself By The Splendor Of Its Table And Draperies. It Gives What It Hath, And All It Hath, But Its Own Majesty Can Lend A Better Grace To Bannocks And Fair Water Than Belong To City Feasts.

Whatever You Do, You Need Courage. Whatever Course You Decide Upon, There Is Always Someone To Tell You That You Are Wrong. There Are Always Difficulties Arising That Tempt You To Believe Your Critics Are Right. To Map Out A Course Of Action And Follow It To An End Requires Some Of The Same Courage That A Soldier Needs. Peace Has Its Victories, But It Takes Brave Men And Women To Win Them.

The Secret Of Fortune Is Joy In Our Hands. Welcome Evermore To Gods And Men Is The Self-helping Man. For Him All Doors Are Flung Wide. Him All Tongues Greet, All Honors Crown, All Eyes Follow With Desire. Our Love Goes Out To Him And Embraces Him Because He Did Not Need It.

If There Is Any Period One Would Desire To Be Born In, Is It Not The Age Of Revolution; When The Old And The New Stand Side By Side, And Admit Of Being Compared; When The Energies Of All Men Are Searched By Fear And By Hope; When The Historic Glories Of The Old Can Be Compensated By The Rich Possibilities Of The New Era?

He That Writes To Himself Writes To An Eternal Public. That Statement Only Is Fit To Be Made Public, Which You Have Come At In Attempting To Satisfy Your Own Curiosity.

The Foundation Of Culture, As Of Character, Is At Last The Moral Sentiment.

I Please Myself With The Graces Of The Winter Scenery, And Believe That We Are As Much Touched By It As By The Genial Influences Of Summer.

Each Moment Of The Year Has Its Own Beauty.

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

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

To The Attentive Eye, Each Moment Of The Year Has Its Own Beauty, And In The Same Fields, It Beholds, Every Hour, A Picture Which Was Never Seen Before, And Which Shall Never Be Seen Again.

He Cannot Be Happy And Strong Until He Too Lives With Nature In The Present, Above Time.

Self Sacrifice Is The Real Miracle Out Of Which All The Reported Miracles Grow.

Every Artist Was First An Amateur.

If I Know Your Sect, I Anticipate Your Argument

Much Of The Wisdom Of The World Is Not Wisdom, And The Most Illuminated Class Of Men Are No Doubt Superior To Literary Fame, And Are Not Writers.

The Worthless And Offensive Members Of Society, Whose Existence Is A Social Pest, Invariably Think Themselves The Most Ill-used People Alive, And Never Get Over Their Astonishment At The Ingratitude And Selfishness Of Their Contemporaries.

We Do Not Yet Trust The Unknown Powers Of Thought. Whence Came All These Tools, Inventions, Book Laws, Parties, Kingdoms? Out Of The Invisible World, Through A Few Brains. The Arts And Institutions Of Men Are Created Out Of Thought. The Powers That Make The Capitalist Are Metaphysical, The Force Of Method And Force Of Will Makes Trade, And Builds Towns.

The Sky Is The Ultimate Art Gallery Just Above Us.

The People Know That They Need In Their Representative Much More Than Talent, Namely, The Power To Make His Talent Trusted.

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.

Trending Author

Arthur Henderson

Shirley Hazzard

Laurie Halse Anderson

Category