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I Find Nothing Healthful Or Exalting In The Smooth Conventions Of Society. I Do Not Like The Close Air Of Saloons. I Begin To Suspect Myself To Be A Prisoner, Though Treated With All This Courtesy And Luxury. I Pay A Destructive Tax In My Conformity.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I Find Nothing Healthful

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I Find Nothing Healthful Or Exalting In The Smooth Conventions Of Society. I Do Not Like The Close Air Of Saloons. I Begin To Suspect Myself To Be A Prisoner, Though Treated With All This Courtesy And Luxury. I Pay A Destructive Tax In My Conformity.

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Where Dwells The Religion? Tell Me First Where Dwells Electricity, Or Motion, Or Thought Or Gesture. They Do Not Dwell Or Stay Atall. Electricity Cannot Be Made Fast, Mortared Up And Ended, Like London Monument, Or The Tower, So That You Shall Know Where To Find It, And Keep It Fixed, As The English Do With Their Things, Forevermore; It Is Passing, Glancing, Gesticular; It Is A Traveller, A Newness, A Surprise, A Secret Which Perplexes Them, And Puts Them Out.

A Man Is Known By The Books He Reads, By The Company He Keeps, By The Praise He Gives, By His Dress, By His Tastes, By His Distastes, By The Stories He Tells, By His Gait, By The Notion Of His Eye, By The Look Of His House, Of His Chamber; For Nothing On Earth Is Solitary But Every Thing Hath Affinities Infinite.

Self-trust Is The First Secret Of Success.

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

Successful People Live Well, Laugh Often, And Love Much. They've Filled A Niche And Accomplished Tasks So As To Leave The World Better Than They Found It, While Looking For The Best In Others, And Giving The Best They Have.

Everyone I Meet Is In Some Way My Superior.

[t]omorrow Is A New Day. You Shall Begin It Well & Serenely, & With Too High A Spirit To Be Cumbered With Your Old Nonsense. This Day ... Is Too Dear With Its Hopes & Invitations To Waste A Moment On The Rotten Yesterdays.

...what Torments Of Pain Have You Endured That Haven't As Yet Arrived? And May Never!

You Will Always Find Those Who Think They Know What Is Your Duty Better Than You Know It.

The Visible Heavens And Earth Sympathize With Jesus.

Build Therefore Your Own World.

For What Avail The Plough Or Sail, Or Land Or Life, If Freedom Fail?

The Sun Illuminates Only The Eye Of The Man, But Shines Into The Eye And The Heart Of The Child.

If We Consider What Happens In Conversation, In Reveries, In Remorse, In Times Of Passion, In Surprises, In The Instructions Of Dreams, Wherein Often We See Ourselves In Masquerade,--the Droll Disguises Only Magnifying And Enhancing A Real Element, And Forcing It On Our Distinct Notice,--we Shall Catch Many Hints That Will Broaden And Lighten Into Knowledge Of The Secret Of Nature.

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.

Talent Finds Its Models, Methods, And Ends In Society, Exists For Exhibition, And Goes To The Soul Only For Power To Work. Genius Is Its Own End, And Draws Its Means And The Style Of Its Architecture From Within.

Many Times The Reading Of A Book Has Made The Future Of A Man.

Something Is Wanting To Science Until It Has Been Humanised.

The Aspect Of Nature Is Devout. Like The Figure Of Jesus, She Stands With Bended Head, And Hands Folded Upon The Breast. The Happiest Man Is He Who Learns From Nature The Lesson Of Worship.

Prosperity Is Something The Businessmen Created For Politicians To Take Credit For

To Believe Your Own Thought, To Believe That What Is True For You In Your Private Heart Is True For All Men That Is Genius.

If You Love And Serve Man, You Cannot, By Any Hiding Or Stratagem, Escape Remuneration.

We Live In Succession, In Division, In Parts, In Particles. Meantime Within Man Is The Soul Of The Whole; The Wise Silence; The Universal Beauty, To Which Every Part And Particle Is Equally Related, The Eternal One. And This Deep Power In Which We Exist And Whose Beatitude Is All Accessible To Us, Is Not Only Self-sufficing And Perfect In Every Hour, But The Act Of Seeing And The Thing Seen, The Seer And The Spectacle, The Subject And The Object, Are One. We See The World Piece By Piece, As The Sun, The Moon, The Animal, The Tree; But The Whole, Of Which These Are Shining Parts, Is The Soul.

The Reality Is More Excellent Than The Report.

Teach That God Is, Not Was; That He Speaketh, Not Spake.

The Voyage Of The Best Ship Is A Zigzag Line Of A Hundred Tacks. See The Line From A Sufficient Distance, And It Straightens Itself To The Average Tendency. Your Genuine Action Will Explain Itself, And Will Explain Your Other Genuine Actions. Your Conformity Explains Nothing. Act Singly, And What You Have Already Done Singly Will Justify You Now. Greatness Appeals To The Future.

You Never Know How You Look Through Other People's Eyes.

I Do Not Wish To Remove From My Present Prison To A Prison A Little Larger. I Wish To Break All Prisons.

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

Whoever Is Open, Loyal, True; Of Humane And Affable Demeanour; Honourable Himself, And In His Judgement Of Others; Faithful To His Word As To Law, And Faithful Alike To God And Man....such A Man Is A True Gentleman.

Sleep Lingers All Our Lifetime About Our Eyes, As Night Hovers All Day In The Boughs Of The Fir-tree.

There Is No Chance And Anarchy In The Universe. All Is System And Gradation. Every God Is There Sitting In His Sphere.

And Of Poetry, The Success Is Not Attained When It Lulls And Satisfies, But When It Astonishes And Fires Us With New Endeavours After The Unattainable.

Health Is The Condition Of Wisdom, And The Sign Is Cheerfulness, - An Open And Noble Temper.

Good Churches Are Not Built By Bad Men; At Least, There Must Be Probity And Enthusiasm Somewhere In The Society. These Minsters Were Neither Built Nor Filled By Atheists.

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

My Book Should Smell Of Pines And Resound With The Hum Of Insects.

Why Should All Virtue Work In One And The Same Way? Why Should All Give Dollars? It Is Very Inconvenient To Us Country Folk, And We Do Not Think Any Good Will Come Of It. We Have Not Dollars; Merchants Have; Let Them Give Them. Farmers Will Give Corn; Poets Will Sing; Women Will Sew; Laborers Will Lend A Hand; The Children Will Bring Flowers.

I See It Only That Thyself Is Here, And Art And Nature, Hope And Fate, Friends, Angels And The Supreme Being Shall Not Be Absent From The Chamber Where Thou Sittest.

Fashion, Though In A Strange Way, Represents All Manly Virtue. It Is Virtue Gone To Seed: It Is A Kind Of Posthumous Honor. It Does Not Often Caress The Great, But The Children Of The Great: It Is A Hall Of The Past.

Our Thinking Is A Pious Reception.

Do Not Shut Up The Young People Against Their Will In A Pew, And Force The Children To Ask Them Questions For An Hour Against Their Will.

A Nation, Like A Tree, Does Not Thrive Well Till It Is Engraffed With A Foreign Stock.

When You Have Worn Out Yourshoes, The Strength Of The Shoe Leather Has Passed Into The Fiber Ofyour Body. I Measure Your Health By The Number Of Shoes And Hats Andclothes You Have Worn Out.

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 Condition Which High Friendship Demands Is Ability To Do Without It.

Every Word We Speak Is Million-faced Or Convertible To An Indefinite Number Of Applications. If It Were Not So We Could Read No Book. Your Remark Would Only Fit Your Case, Not Mine.

The Great Poet Makes Us Feel Our Own Wealth, And Then We Think Less Of His Compositions. His Best Communication To Our Mind Is To Teach Us To Despise All He Has Done.

Men Love To Wonder, And That Is The Seed Of Our Science, And Such Is The Mechanical Determination Of Our Age, And So Recent Are Our Best Contrivances, That Use Has Not Dulled Our Joy And Pride In Them. These Arts Open Great Gates Of A Future, Promising To Make The World Plastic And To Lift Human Life Out Of Its Beggary To A Godlike Ease And Power.

Since Everything In Nature Answers To A Moral Power, If Any Phenomenon Remains Brute And Dark, It Is That The Corresponding Faculty In The Observer Is Not Yet Active.

He That Can Heroically Endure Adversity Will Bear Prosperity With Equal Greatest Of The Soul; For The Mind That Cannot Be Dejected By The Former Is Not Likely To Be Transported Without The Latter.

The Great Make Its Feel, First Of All, The Indifference Of Circumstances. They Call Into Activity The Higher Perceptions, And Subdue The Low Habits Of Comfort And Luxury; But The Higher Perceptions Find Their Objects Everywhere; Only The Low Habits Need Palaces And Banquets.

Pride Is Handsome, Economical; Pride Eradicates So Many Vices, Letting None Subsist But Itself, That It Seems As If It Were A Great Gain To Exchange Vanity For Pride.

What We Call Results Are Beginnings.

In Private Places, Among Sordid Objects, An Act Of Truth Or Heroism Seems At Once To Draw To Itself The Sky As Its Temple, The Sun As Its Cradle. Nature Stretches Out Her Arms To Embrace Man, Only Let His Thoughts Be Of Equal Greatness.

Nature Is Methodical, And Doeth Her Work Well. Time Is Never To Be Hurried.

The Civility Of No Race Can Be Perfect Whilst Another Race Is Degraded. It Is A Doctrine Alike Of The Oldest And Of The Newest Philosophy, That Man Is One, And That You Cannot Injure Any Member, Without A Sympathetic Injury To All The Members

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

The Domestic Man, Who Loves No Music So Well As His Kitchen Clock, And The Airs Which The Logs Sing To Him As They Burn On The Hearth, Has Solaces Which Others Never Dream Of.

Shakespeare Will Never Be Made By The Study Of Shakespeare.

There Is No Country In Which So Absolute A Homage Is Paid To Wealth. In America There Is A Touch Of Shame When A Man Exhibits Theevidences Of Large Property, As If After All It Needed Apology. But The Englishman Has Pure Pride In His Wealth, And Esteems It A Final Certificate. A Coarse Logic Rules Throughout All English Souls: If You Have Merit, Can You Not Show It By Your Good Clothes And Coach And Horses?

For Each New Morning With Its Light, For Rest And Shelter Of The Night, For Health And Food, For Love And Friends, For Everything Thy Goodness Sends.

No One Can Read The History Of Astronomy Without Perceiving That Copernicus, Newton, Laplace, Are Not New Men, Or A New Kind Of Men, But That Thales, Anaximenes, Hipparchus, Empodocles, Aristorchus, Pythagorus, Oenipodes, Had Anticipated Them.

Every Roof Is Agreeable To The Eye, Until It Is Lifted; Then We Find Tragedy And Moaning Women, And Hard-eyed Husbands.

[w]e Pity Our Fathers For Dying Before Steam And Galvanism, Sulphuric Ether And Ocean Telegraphs, Photograph And Spectrograph Arrived, As Cheated Out Of Their Human Estate.

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

The Rain Has Spoiled The Farmer's Day; Shall Sorrow Put My Books Away? Thereby Are Two Days Lost.

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.

Wise Men Read Very Sharply All Your Private History In Your Look And Gait And Behavior. The Whole Economy Of Nature Is Bent On Expression. The Tell-tale Body Is All Tongues. Men Are Like Geneva Watches With Crystal Faces Which Expose The Whole Movement.

There Is Nothing Capricious In Nature And The Implanting Of A Desire Indicates That Its Gratification Is In The Constitution Of The Creature That Feel It.

Great Conversation ... Requires An Absolute Running Of Two Souls Into One.

I Pay The Schoolmaster, But 'tis The Schoolboys That Educate My Son.

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 Passages Of Shakespeare That We Most Prize Were Never Quoted Until Within This Century.

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.

The Life Of Man Is The True Romance, Which When It Is Valiantly Conduced, Will Yield The Imagination A Higher Joy Than Any Fiction.

Common Sense Is As Rare As Genius.

There Is Always A Best Way Of Doing Everything, If It Be To Boil An Egg. Manners Are The Happy Ways Of Doing Things.

Do Your Work, But Do Your Thing.

Funny Basketball

Imagination Is Not A Talent Of Some Men But Is The Health Of Every Man.

The Next Best Thing To Saying A Good Thing Yourself Is To Quote One.

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.

An Expense Of Ends To Means Is Fate;morganization Tyrannizing Over Character. The Menagerie, Or Forms And Powers Of The Spine, Is A Book Of Fate: The Bill Of The Bird, The Skull Of The Snake, Determines Tyrannically Its Limits.

Beware When The Great God Lets Loose A Thinker On This Planet. Then All Things Are At Risk. It Is As When A Conflagration Has Broken Out In A Great City, And No Man Knows What Is Safe, Or Where It Will End.

Truth Has Already Ceased To Be Itself If Polemically Said.

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

When He Is Pushed, Tormented, Defeated, He Has A Chance To Learn Something; He Has Been Put On His Wits, On His Manhood; He Has Gained Facts; Learns His Ignorance; Is Cured Of The Insanity Of Conceit; Has Got Moderation And Real Skill.

My Joy In Friends, Those Sacred People, Is My Consolation.

The Things We Now Esteem Fixed Shall, One By One, Detach Themselves, Like Ripe Fruit, From Our Experience, And Fall. The Wind Shall Blow Them None Knows Whither.

When A Man Speaks The Truth In The Spirit Of Truth, His Eye Is As Clear As The Heavens. When He Has Base Ends, And Speaks Falsely, The Eye Is Muddy, And Sometimes Asquint.

The Walking Of Man Is Falling Forwards.

Fine Manners Need The Support Of Fine Manners In Others.

At Present, Man Applies To Nature But Half His Force. He Works On The World With His Understanding Alone. He Lives In It, And Masters It By A Penny-wisdom; And He That Works Most In It, Is But A Half-man, And Whilst His Arms Are Strong And His Digestion Good, His Mind Is Imbruted, And He Is A Selfish Savage.

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

The Philanthropists Inquire Whether Transcendentalism Does Not Mean Sloth: They Had As Lief Hear That Their Friend Is Dead, As That He Is A Transcendentalist; For Then Is He Paralyzed, And Can Never Do Anything For Humanity.

Make The Most Of Yourself, For That Is All There Is Of You.

It Is Always So Pleasant To Be Generous, Though Very Vexatious To Pay Debts.

Self Esteem::"it Is Very Easy In The World To Live By The Opinion Of The World. It Is Very Easy In Solitude To Be Self-centered. But The Finished Man Is He Who In The Midst Of The Crowd Keeps With Perfect Sweetness The Independence Of Solitude. I Knew A Man Of Simple Habits And Earnest Character Who Never Put Out His Hands Nor Opened His Lips To Court The Public, And Having Survived Several Rotten Reputations Of Younger Men, Honor Came At Last And Sat Down With Him Upon His Private Bench From Which He Had Never Stirred."

There Was Never Anything That Did Not Proceed From A Thought.

All Reform Aims, In Some One Particular, To Let The Soul Have Its Way Through Us; In Other Words, To Engage Us To Obey.

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

A Man Comes To Measure His Greatness By The Regrets, Envies And Hatreds Of His Competitors.

We Are The Prisoners Of Ideas.

By Necessity, By Proclivity, And By Delight, We All Quote.

Great Hearts Steadily Send Forth The Secret Forces That Incessantly Draw Great Events.

Law Of Attraction

Spartans, Stoics, Heroes, Saints And Gods Use Short And Positive Speech.

Character Is An Invincible Force, Which Acts By Presence And Without Means

It Happens To Us Once Or Twice In A Lifetime To Be Drunk With Some Book Which Probably Has Some Extraordinary Relative Power To Intoxicate Us And None Other; And Having Exhausted That Cup Of Enchantment We Go Groping In Libraries All Our Years Afterwards In The Hope Of Being In Paradise Again.

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

Fear Defeats More People Than Any Other One Thing In The World.

A Little Integrity Is Better Than Any Career.

God May Forgive Sins, He Said, But Awkwardness Has No Forgiveness In Heaven Or Earth.

The World Of Men Show Like A Comedy Without Laughter: Populations, Interests, Government, History; 't Is All Toy Figures In A Toyhouse.

A Hero Is A Man Who Is Afraid To Run Away.

Every True Man Is A Cause, A Country, And An Age; Requires Infinite Spaces And Numbers And Time Fully To Accomplish His Design;--and Posterity Seem To Follow His Steps As A Train Of Clients.

The Mind, Once Stretched By A New Idea, Never Returns To Its Original Dimensions.

Don't Choose The Better Person, Choose The Person Who Makes A Better You.

I Am So Much A Unitarian As This: That I Believe The Human Mind Can Admit But One God, And That Every Effort To Pay Religious Homage To More Than One Being Goes To Take Away All Right Ideas.

We May Like Well To Know What Is Plato’s And What Is Montesquieu’s Or Goethe’s Part, And What Thought Was Always Dear To The Writer Himself; But The Worth Of The Sentences Consists In Their Radiancy And Equal Aptitude To All Intelligence. They Fit All Our Facts Like A Charm. We Respect Ourselves The More That We Know Them.

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.

I See That Sensible Men And Conscientious Men All Over The World Were Of One Religion Of Well-doing And Daring.

Colleges, In Like Manner, Have Their Indispensable Office,--to Teach Elements. But They Can Only Highly Serve Us, When They Aim Not To Drill, But To Create; When They Gather From Far Every Ray Of Various Genius To Their Hospitable Halls, And, By The Concentrated Fires, Set The Hearts Of Their Youth On Flame.

Poetry Being ... When We Look From The Center Outward.

A Child Reminds Us That Playtime Is An Essential Part Of Our Daily Routine.

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

How Casually And Unobservedly We Make All Our Most Valued Acquaintances.

Those Who Stay Away From The Election Think That One Vote Will Do No Good. 'tis But One Step More To Think One Vote Will Do No Harm.

What A Benefit Would The American Government, Not Yet Relieved Of Its Extreme Need, Render To Itself, And To Every City, Village And Hamlet In The States, If It Would Tax Whiskey And Rum Almost To The Point Of Prohibition! Was It Bonaparte Who Said That He Found Vices Very Good Patriots? "he Got Five Millions From The Love Of Brandy, And He Should Be Glad To Know Which Of The Virtues Would Pay Him As Much." Tobacco And Opium Have Broad Backs, And Will Cheerfully Carry The Load Of Armies, If You Choose To Make Them Pay High For Such Joy As They Give And Such Harm As They Do.

There Will Be An Agreement In Whatever Variety Of Actions, So They Be Each Honest And Natural In Their Hour. For Of One Will, The Actions Will Be Harmonious, However Unlike They Seem. These Varieties Are Lost Sight Of At A Little Distance, At A Little Height Of Thought. One Tendency Unites Them All. The Voyage Of The Best Ship Is A Zigzag Line Of A Hundred Tacks. See The Line From A Sufficient Distance, And It Straightens Itself To The Average Tendency.

I Do Not Count The Hours I Spend In Wandering By The Sea; The Forest Is My Loyal Friend, Like God It Useth Me.

God Hides Things By Putting Them Near Us.

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.

Philanthropies And Charities Have A Certain Air Of Quackery.

The Finest And Noblest Ground On Which People Can Live Is Truth; The Real With The Real; A Ground On Which Nothing Is Assumed.

Let The Words Be Gazetted And Ridiculous Henceforward.

It Is Noticed, That The Consideration Of The Great Periods And Spaces Of Astronomy Induces A Dignity Of Mind, And An Indifferenceto Death.

It Is One Light Which Beams Out Of A Thousand Stars. It Is One Soul Which Animates All Men.

No Man Acquires Property Without Acquiring With It A Little Arithmetic Also.

Is Not Prayer A Study Of Truth, A Sally Of The Soul Into The Unfound Infinite? No Man Ever Prayed Heartily Without Learning Something.

Those Who Live To The Future Must Always Appear Selfish To Those Who Live To The Present.

The Truth, The Hope, Of Any Time Must Be Sought In The Minorities. Michael Angelo Was The Conscience Of Italy. We Grow Free With His Name, And Find It Ornamental Now, But In His Own Day His Friends Were Few.

How Much Better When The Whole Land Is A Garden, And The People Have Grown Up In The Bowers Of A Paradise.

Let Us Be Silent — So We May Hear The Whisper Of The Gods.

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.

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

The World When Seen Through A Little Child's Eyes, Greatly Resembles Paradise. Happiness Is Doing With A Smile What You Have To Do Anyway. This Time, Like All Time, Is A Very Good One If We But Know What To Do With It.

Every Man's Nature Is A Sufficient Advertisement To Him Of The Character Of His Fellows.

The Effects Of Opposition Are Wonderful. There Are Men Who Rise Refreshed On Hearing Of A Threat, Men To Whom A Crisis, Which Intimidates And Paralyzes The Majority, Comes As Graceful And Beloved As A Bride!

The Most Dangerous Thing Is Illusion.

We Must Be Lovers, And At Once The Impossible Becomes Possible.

Impossible Becomes Possible

Power Is In Nature The Essential Measure Of Right.

Prayer That Craves A Particular Commodity—anything Less Than All Good, Is Vicious. Prayer Is The Contemplation Of The Facts Of Life From The Highest Point Of View. It Is The Soliloquy Of A Beholding And Jubilant Soul. It Is The Spirit Of God Pronouncing His Works Good. But Prayer As A Means To Effect A Private End Is Theft And Meanness. It Supposes Dualism And Not Unity In Nature And Consciousness. As Soon As The Man Is At One With God, He Will Not Beg.

In The Country, Without Any Interference From The Law, The Agricultural Life Favors The Permanence Of Families.

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.

The Cruelest Foe Is A Masked Benefactor. The Wars Which Make History So Dreary Have Served The Cause Of Truth And Virtue.

Nature Hates Monopolies And Exceptions.

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

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.

I Will Not Hide My Tastes Or Aversions. If You Are True, But Not In The Same Truth With Me, Cleave To Your Companions; I Will Seek My Own.

The Flowering Of Civilization Is The Finished Man, The Man Of Sense, Of Grace, Of Accomplishment, Of Social Power--the Gentleman.

I Will Not Live Out Of Me I Will Not See With Others' Eyes My Good Is Good, My Evil Ill I Would Be Free.

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

Our Chief Want In Life, Is, Someone Who Shall Make Us Do What We Can. This Is The Service Of A Friend. With Him We Are Easily Great.

Is Not, Indeed, Every Man A Student, And Do Not All Things Exist For The Student's Behoof?

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.

Worst, When This Sensualism Intrudes Into The Education Of Young Women, And Withers The Hope And Affection Of Human Nature, By Teaching That Marriage Signifies Nothing But A Housewife's Thrift, And That Woman's Life Has No Other Aim.

The State Of Society Is One In Which The Members Have Suffered Amputation From The Trunk, And Strut About So Many Walking Monsters,—a Good Finger, A Neck, A Stomach, An Elbow, But Never A Man.

There Is More In Every Person's Soul Than We Think.

The Rhyme Of The Poet Modulates The King's Affairs.

No Man Ever Prayed Heartily Without Learning Something.

In The Death Of My Son, Now More Than Two Years Ago, I Seem To Have Lost A Beautiful Estate,--no More. I Cannot Get It Nearer To Me.

They Who Talk Much Of Destiny, Their Birth-star, Etc., Are In A Lower Dangerous Plane, And Invite The Evils They Fear.

Many Of The Historical Proverbs Have A Doubtful Paternity.

I Have Heard That Stiff People Lose Something Of Their Awkwardness Under High Ceilings, And In Spacious Halls. I Think, Sculptureand Painting Have An Effect To Teach Us Manners, And Abolish Hurry.

The Wise Man Always Throws Himself On The Side Of His Assailants. It Is More His Interest Than It Is Theirs To Find His Weak Point.

The First Lesson Of History Is That Evil Is Good.

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.

You May Regret Calamities If You Can Thereby Help The Sufferer, But If You Cannot, Mind Your Own Business.

Mind Your Own Business

Artists Must Be Sacrificed To Their Art.

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

Every Stoic Was A Stoic; But In Christendom Where Is The Christian?

My Life Is Not An Apology, But A Life.

I Find It A Great And Fatal Difference Whether I Court The Muse, Or The Muse Courts Me. That Is The Ugly Disparity Between Age And Youth.

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.

Consideration Is The Soil In Which Wisdom May Be Expected To Grow, And Strength Be Given To Every Up-springing Plant Of Duty.

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

All Inquiry Into Antiquity, All Curiosity Respecting The Pyramids, The Excavated Cities, Stonehenge, The Ohio Circles, Mexico, Memphis,--is The Desire To Do Away This Wild, Savage, And Preposterous There And Then, And Introduce In Its Place The Here And Now.

In Good Company, The Individuals Merge Their Egotism Into A Social Soul Exactly Co-extensive With The Several Consciousnesses There Present.

Government Has Been A Fossil: It Should Be A Plant.

The Method Of Nature: Who Could Ever Analyze It?

A Wise Writer Will Feel That The Ends Of Study And Composition Are Best Answered By Announcing Undiscovered Regions Of Thought, And So Communicating, Through Hope, New Activity To The Torpid Spirit.

A Man Is The Whole Encyclopedia Of Facts.

So In Writing, There Is Always A Right Word, And Every Other Than That Is Wrong. There Is No Beauty In Words Except In Their Collocation. The Effect Of A Fanciful Word Misplaced, Is Like That Of A Horn Of Exquisite Polish Growing On A Human Head.

If There Be Any Man Who Thinks The Ruin Of A Race Of Men A Small Matter, Compared With The Last Decoration And Completions Of Hisown Comfort,--who Would Not So Much As Part With His Ice- Cream, To Save Them From Rapine And Manacles, I Think I Must Not Hesitate To Satisfy That Man That Also His Cream And Vanilla Are Safer And Cheaper By Placing The Negro Nation On A Fair Footing Than By Robbing Them.

Nature Encourages No Looseness; Pardons No Errors.

In A World Of Infinite Choice People Are Struggling To Figure Out What To Do.

Never Utter The Truism But Live It Among Men.

Foolish Consistencies Are The Hobgoblins Of Small Minds!

Natural Science Sharpens The Discrimination. There Is No False Logic In Nature. All Its Properties Are Permanent: The Acids And Metals Never Lie; Their Yea Is Yea, Their Nay, Nay. They Are Newly Discovered But Not New.

The Hero Is A Mind Of Such Balance That No Disturbances Can Shake His Will, But Pleasantly, And, As It Were, Merrily, He Advancesto His Own Music, Alike In Frightful Alarms And In The Tipsy Mirth Of Universal Dissoluteness.

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