Background Image

...

I Hate This Shallow Americanism Which Hopes To Get Rich By Credit, To Get Knowledge By Raps On Midnight Tables, To Learn The Economy Of The Mind By Phrenology, Or Skill Without Study, Or Mastery Without Apprenticeship.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I Hate This Shallow

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

I Hate This Shallow Americanism Which Hopes To Get Rich By Credit, To Get Knowledge By Raps On Midnight Tables, To Learn The Economy Of The Mind By Phrenology, Or Skill Without Study, Or Mastery Without Apprenticeship.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

All Great Successes Are The Triumph Of Persistence.

A Great Man Stands On God. A Small Man On A Great Man.

Man Is The Broken Giant, And In All His Weakness Both His Body And His Mind Are Invigorated By Habits Of Conversation With Nature.

As We Are, So We Do; And As We Do, So Is It Done To Us; We Are The Builders Of Our Fortunes.

Commerce Is A Game Of Skill Which Everyone Cannot Play And Few Can Play Well.

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

I Wish The Days To Be As Centuries, Loaded, Fragrant. Now We Reckon Them As Bank-days, By Some Debt Which Is To Be Paid Us, Or Which We Are To Pay, Or Some Pleasure We Are To Taste.

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.

Some Will Always Be Above Others.

As A Man Thinketh, So Is He, And As A Man Chooseth, So Is He.

Few People Know How To Take A Walk. The Qualifications Are Endurance, Plain Clothes, Old Shoes, An Eye For Nature, Good Humor, Vast Curiosity, Good Speech, Good Silence And Nothing Too Much.

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 Faith That Stands On Authority Is Not Faith.

Everything Teaches Transition, Transference, Metamorphosis: Therein Is Human Power, In Transference, Not In Creation; & Therein Is Human Destiny, Not In Longevity But In Removal. We Dive & Reappear In New Places.

A Scholar Is A Candle Which The Love And Desire Of All Men Will Light.

Sitting Back In The Evening, Stargazing And Stroking Your Dog, Is An Infallible Remedy.

When We Attempt To Define And Describe God, Both Language And Thought Desert Us, And We Are As Helpless As Fools And Savages.

'well,' Said Red Jacket [to Someone Complaining That He Had Not Enough Time], 'i Suppose You Have All There Is.'

Every Man Is Entitled To Be Valued By His Best Moment.

When The Literary Class Betray A Destitution Of Faith, It Is Not Strange That Society Should Be Disheartened And Sensualized By Unbelief.

We Are Shut Up In School And College Recitation Rooms For Ten To Fifteen Years, And Come Out At Last With A Bellyful Of Words And Do Not Know A Thing. We Cannot Use Our Hands, Or Our Legs, Or Our Eyes, Or Our Arms. We Do Not Know An Edible Root In The Woods. We Cannot Tell Our Course By The Stars, Nor The Hour Of Day By The Sun. It Is Well If We Can Swim And Skate. We Are Afraid Of A Horse Or A Cow, Of A Dog, Of A Cat, Of A Spider. Far Better Was The Roman Rule To Teach A Boy Nothing That He Could Not Learn Standing.

We Aim Above The Mark To Hit The Mark.

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

Solitary Converse With Nature; For Thence Are Ejaculated Sweet And Dreadful Words Never Uttered In Libraries. Ah! The Spring Days, The Summer Dawns, And October Woods!

Love Not The Flower They Pluck And Know It Not, And All Their Botany Is Latin Names.

The Subject Is Said To Have The Property Of Making Dull Men Eloquent.

The Soul Is Not Born; It Does Not Die; It Was Not Produced From Anyone Unborn, Eternal, It Is Not Slain, Though The Body Is Slain.

Do Not Speak Of God Much. After A Very Little Conversation On The Highest Nature, Thought Deserts Us And We Run Into Formalism.

Nature May Be As Selfishly Studied As Trade. Astronomy To The Selfish Becomes Astrology; Psychology, Mesmerism (with Intent To Show Where Aour Spoons Are Gone); And Anatomy And Physiology Become Phrenology And Palmistry.

A Right Rule For A Club Would Be, Admit No Man Whose Presence Excludes Any One Topic. It Requires People Who Are Not Surprised Andshocked, Who Do And Let Do, And Let Be, Who Sink Trifles, And Know Solid Values, And Who Take A Great Deal For Granted.

Self-command Is The Main Elegance.

By God, I Will Not Obey This Filthy Enactment!

The Age Of Puberty Is A Crisis In The Age Of Man Worth Studying. It Is The Passage From The Unconscious To The Conscious; From Thesleep Of Passions To Their Rage.

Each Philosopher, Each Bard, Each Actor Has Only Done For Me, As By A Delegate, What One Day I Can Do For Myself.

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

Every Man Believes He Has A Greater Possibility.

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.

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

The Roman Rule Was, To Teach A Boy Nothing That He Could Not Learn Standing. The Old English Rule Was, "all Summer In The Field, And All Winter In The Study." And It Seems As If A Man Should Learn To Plant, Or To Fish, Or To Hunt, That He Might Secure His Subsistence At All Events, And Not Be Painful To His Friends And Fellow Men.

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 Measure Of Mental Health Is The Disposition To Find Good Everywhere.

Fear, Craft And Avarice Cannot Rear A State.

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

Science Does Not Know Its Debt To Imagination. Goethe Did Not Believe That A Great Naturalist Could Exist Without This Faculty.

The Key To The Age May Be This, Or That, Or The Other, As The Young Orators Describe; The Key To All Ages Is - Imbecility; Imbecility In The Vast Majority Of Men, At All Times, And, Even In Heroes, In All But Certain Eminent Moments; Victims Of Gravity

Every Great Achievement Is The Victory Of A Flaming Heart.

Do Your Work, But Do Your Thing.

Funny Basketball

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

Law Of Attraction

Society Is The Stage On Which Manners Are Shown; Novels Are The Literature. Novels Are The Journal Or Record Of Manners; And The New Importance Of These Books Derives From The Fact, That The Novelist Begins To Penetrate The Surface, And Treat This Part Of Life More Worthily.

Every Man Is A Channel Through Which Heaven Floweth.

Drive Out Nature With A Fork, She Comes Running Back.

The Years Teach Much Which The Days Never Know.

A Sturdy Lad From New Hampshire Or Vermont Who In Turn Tries All The Professions, Who Teams It, Farms It, Peddles, Keeps A School,preaches, Edits A Newspaper, Goes To Congress, Buys A Township, And So Forth, In Successive Years, And Always Like A Cat Falls On His Feet, Is Worth A Hundred Of These City Dolls. He Walks Abreast With His Days And Feels No Shame In Not "studying A Profession," For He Does Not Postpone His Life, But Lives Already.

Each Of Us Sees In Others What We Carry In Our Own Hearts.

Self Trust Is The Essence Of Heroism.

The Crowning Fortune Of A Man Is To Be Born To Some Pursuit Which Finds Him Employment And Happiness, Whether It Be To Make Baskets, Or Broadswords, Or Canals, Or Statues, Or Songs.

The Yankee Is One Who, If He Once Gets His Teeth Set On A Thing, All Creation Can't Make Him Let Go.

Outside Among Your Fellows, Among Strangers, You Must Preserve Appearances, A Hundred Things You Cannot Do; But Inside, The Terrible Freedom.

The Most Tedious Of All Discourses Are On The Subject Of The Supreme Being.

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.

God Evidently Does Not Intend Us All To Be Rich, Or Powerful Or Great, But He Does Intend Us All To Be Friends.

I Wish To Write Such Rhymes As Shall Not Suggest A Restraint, But Contrariwise The Wildest Freedom.

I Like Man, But Not Men.

People Who Wash Much Have A High Mind About It, And Talk Down To Those Who Wash Little.

If We Meet No Gods, It Is Because We Harbor None.

The Power Of A Man Increases Steadily By Continuance In One Direction. He Becomes Acquainted With The Resistances And With His Own Tools; Increases His Skill And Strength And Learns The Favorable Moments And Favorable Accidents.

We Judge Others By Their Actions But We Judge Ourselves By Our Intensions.

All Mankind Love A Lover.

But Your Isolation Must Not Be Mechanical, But Spiritual, That Is, Must Be Elevation.

Times Of Heroism Are Generally Times Of Terror, But The Day Never Shines In Which This Element May Not Work.

The Crystal Sphere Of Thought Is As Concentrical As The Geological Structure Of The Globe. As Our Soils And Rocks Lie In Strata, Concentric Strata, So Do All Men's Thinkings Run Laterally, Never Vertically.

After Thirty, A Man Wakes Up Sad Every Morning, Excepting Perhaps Five Or Six, Until The Day Of His Death.

War, To Sane Men At The Present Day, Begins To Look Like An Epidemic Insanity, Breaking Out Here And There Like The Cholera Or Influenza, Infecting Men's Brains Instead Of Their Bowels.

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.

Women Have A Less Accurate Measure Of Time Than Men; There Is A Clock In Adam, None In Eve.

My Evening Visitors, If They Cannot See The Clock Should Find The Time In My Face.

Each Religious Sect Has Its Own Physiognomy. The Methodists Have Acquired A Face; The Quakers, A Face; The Nuns, A Face. An Englishman Will Pick Out A Dissenter By His Manners.

A Man In Debt Is So Far A Slave.

Each Man Has His Own Vocation. The Talent Is The Call. There Is One Direction In Which All Space Is Open To Him. He Has Faculties Silently Inviting Him Thither To Endless Exertion. He Is Like A Ship In The River; He Runs Against Obstructions On Every Side But One; On That Side All Obstruction Is Taken Away, And He Sweeps Serenely Over A Deepening Channel Into An Infinite Sea.

The Powers Of The Soul Are Commensurate With Its Needs.

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.

Success To The Strongest, Who Are Always, At Last, The Wisest And Best.

To Educate The Wise Man, The State Exists; And With The Appearance Of The Wise Man, The State Expires. The Appearance Of Charactermakes The State Unnecessary. The Wise Man Is The State.

To Be Gret Is To Be Misunderstood.

It Depends Little On The Object, Much On The Mood, In Art.

Women Stand Related To Beautiful Nature Around Us, And The Enamoured Youth Mixes Their Form With Moon And Stars, With Woods And Waters, And The Pomp Of Summer. They Heal Us Of Awkwardness By Their Words And Looks. We Observe Their Intellectual Influence On The Most Serious Student. They Refine And Clear His Mind: Teach Him To Put A Pleasing Method Into What Is Dry And Difficult.

The Wings Of Time Are Black And White, Pied With Morning And With Night.

Black And White

Dreams And Beasts Are Two Keys By Which We Find Out The Keys Of Our Own Nature.

Life Is A Search After Power.

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.

A Divine Person Is The Prophecy Of The Mind; A Friend Is The Hope Of The Heart.

I Think All Men Know Better Than They Do; Know That The Institutions We So Volubly Commend Are Go-carts And Baubles; But They Darenot Trust Their Presentiments.

It Is The Duty Of Men To Judge Men Only By Their Actions. Our Faculties Furnish Us With No Means Of Arriving At The Motive, The Character, The Secret Self. We Call The Tree Good From Its Fruits, And The Man, From His Works.

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.

Thought And Knowledge Are Natures In Which Apparatus And Pretension Avail Nothing. Gowns, And Pecuniary Foundations, Though Of Towns Of Gold, Can Never Countervail The Least Sentence Or Syllable Of Wit. Forget This, And Out American Colleges Will Recede In Their Public Importance Whilst They Grow Richer Every Year.

Nature Is Made To Conspire With Spirit To Emancipate Us.

The Affirmative Class Monopolize The Homage Of Mankind. They Originate And Execute All The Great Feats. What A Force Was Coiled Upin The Skull Of Napoleon!

The Imitator Dooms Himself To Hopeless Mediocrity.

To Finish The Moment, To Find The Journey's End In Every Step Of The Road, To Live The Greatest Number Of Good Hours, Is Wisdom. It Is Not The Part Of Men, But Of Fanatics, Or Of Mathematicians, If You Will, To Say, That, The Shortness Of Life Considered, It Is Not Worth Caring Whether For So Short A Duration We Were Sprawling In Want, Or Sitting High. Since Our Office Is With Moments, Let Us Husband Them.

Friends Should Be Like Books, Easy To Find When You Need Them, But Seldom Used.

Our Health Is Our Sound Relation To External Objects; Our Sympathy With External Being.

Good Thoughts Are No Better Than Good Dreams If You Don't Follow Through.

There Is One Other Reason For Dressing Well, Namely That Dogs Respect It, And Will Not Attack You In Good Clothes.

Every Particular In Nature, A Leaf, A Drop, A Crystal, A Moment Of Time Is Related To The Whole, And Partakes Of The Perfection Of The Whole.

Tell Them Dear, That If Eyes Were Made For Seeing, Then Beauty Is Its Own Excuse For Being: Why Thou Wert There, O Rival Of The Rose! I Never Sought To Ask, I Never Knew: But, In My Simple Ignorance Suppose The Selfsame Power That Brought Me There Brought You.

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

The Years In Your Life Are Less Important Than The Life In Your Years.

General Ideas Are Essences. They Are Our Gods: They Round And Ennoble The Most Partial And Sordid Way Of Living.

Hence, Instead Of Man Thinking, We Have The Bookworm. Hence, The Book-learned Class, Who Value Books, As Such; Not As Related To Nature And The Human Constitution, But As Making A Sort Of Third Estate With The World And The Soul. Hence, The Restorers Of Readings, The Emendators, The Bibliomaniacs Of All Degrees.

All Violence, All That Is Dreary And Repels, Is Not Power, But The Absence Of Power.

Character Is That Which Can Do Without Success.

Talent Alone Cannot Make A Writer. There Must Be A Man Behind The Book.

Wisdom Will Never Let Us Stand With Any Man On An Unfriendly Footing. We Refuse Sympathy And Intimacy With People, As If We Waited For Some Better Sympathy Or Intimacy To Come. But Whence And When: Tomorrow Will Be Like Today. Life Wastes Itself While We Are Preparing To Live.

Speech Is Better Than Silence; Silence Is Better Than Speech.

The Consciousness In Each Man Is A Sliding Scale, Which Identifies Him Now With The First Cause, And Now With The Flesh Of His Body; Life Above Life, In Infinite Degrees.

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

A Man Makes Inferiors His Superiors By Heat; Self-control Is The Rule.

My Gentleman Gives The Law Where He Is; He Will Outpray Saints In Chapel, Outgeneral Veterans In The Field, And Outshine All Courtesy In The Hall. He Is Good Company For Pirates, And Good With Academicians; So That It Is Useless To Fortify Yourself Against Him; He Has The Private Entrance To All Minds, And I Could As Easily Exclude Myself, As Him.

Government Exists To Defend The Weak And The Poor And The Injured Party; The Rich And The Strong Can Better Take Care Of Themselves.

Fame Is Proof That The People Are Gullible.

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.

Overhead The Sanctities Of The Stars Shine Forever-more... Pouring Satire On The Pompous Business Of The Day Which They Close, And Making The Generations Of Men Show Slight And Evanescent.

Our Prejudices Are Our Robbers, They Rob Us Valuable Things In Life. People Only See What They Are Prepared To See.

With The Past, I Have Nothing To Do; Nor With The Future. I Live Now.

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

Not From A Vain Or Shallow Thought His Awful Jove Young Phidias Brought.

A Man Becomes What He Thinks About Most Of The Time

Money Often Costs Too Much, And Power And Pleasure Are Not Cheap.

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.

Headwinds Are Sore Vexations And The More Passengers The Sorer.

Every Genuine Work Of Art Has As Much Reason For Being As The Earth And The Sun.

Open The Doors Of Opportunity To Talent And Virtue And They Will Do Themselves Justice, And Property Will Not Be In Bad Hands.

It Sometimes Occurs That Memory Has A Personality Of Its Own And Volunteers Or Refuses Its Information At Its Will, Not At Mine.

Always Scorn Appearances And You Always May.

Say Thank You! I Want To Hear You Say It Now. Out Loud. 'thank You.' You're Saying Thank You Because Your Faith Is So Strong That You Don't Doubt That Whatever The Problem, You'll Get Through It. You're Saying Thank You Because You Know That Even In The Eye Of The Storm, God Has Put A Rainbow In The Clouds. You're Saying Thank You Because You Know There's No Problem Created That Can Compare To The Creator Of All Things. Say Thank You!

Character Wants Room; Must Not Be Crowded On By Persons, Nor Be Judged From Glimpses Got In The Press Of Affairs, Or On Few Occasions. It Needs Perspective, As A Great Building.

Insist On Yourself. Never Imitate.

Conservatism Is Affluent And Openhanded, But There Is A Cunning Juggle In Riches. I Observe That They Take Somewhat For Everythingthey Give. I Look Bigger, But Am Less; I Have More Clothes, But Am Nit So Warm; More Armor, But Less Courage; More Books, But Less Wit.

We May Climb Into The Thin And Cold Realm Of Pure Geometry And Lifeless Science, Or Sink Into That Of Sensation. Between These Extremes Is The Equator Of Life, Of Thought, Or Spirit, Or Poetry,--a Narrow Belt.

All Science Is Transcendental Or Else Passes Away.

A Man Must Consider What A Rich Realm He Abdicates When He Becomes A Conformist.

Being Different

Add Energy, Inspire Hope, And Blow The Coals Into A Useful Flame.

When There Is Sympathy, There Needs But One Wise Man In A Company And All Are Wise,--so, A Blockhead Makes A Blockhead Of His Companion. Wonderful Power To Benumb Possesses This Brother.

Society Is Infested By Persons Who, Seeing That The Sentiments Please, Counterfeit The Expression Of Them. These We Call Sentimentalists - Talkers Who Mistake The Description For The Thing, Saying For Having.

The Permanence Of All Books Is Fixed By No Effort Friendly Or Hostile, But By Their Own Specific Gravity, Or The Intrinsic Importance Of Their Contents To The Constant Mind Of Man.

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.

In The Matter Of Religion, People Eagerly Fasten Their Eyes On The Difference Between Their Own Creed And Yours; Whilst The Charm Of The Study Is In Finding The Agreements And Identities In All The Religions Of Humanity.

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

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

When It Is Dark Enough, Men See The Stars.

Nothing In Nature Is Exhausted In Its First Use...in God, Every End Is Converted Into A New Means.

I Hear Therefore With Joy Whatever Is Beginning To Be Said Of The Dignity And Necessity Of Labor To Every Citizen. There Is Virtue Yet In The Hoe And The Spade, For Learned As Well As For Unlearned Hands. And Labor Is Everywhere Welcome; Always We Are Invited To Work; Only Be This Limitation Observed, That A Man Shall Not For The Sake Of Wider Activity Sacrifice Any Opinion To The Popular Judgments And Modes Of Action.

Ne Te Quaesiveris Extra." (do Not Seek For Things Outside Of Yourself)

No Man Ever Prayed Heartily Without Learning Something.

We Love It Because It Is Self Dependent, Self Derived, And Therefore Of An Old Immaculate Pedigree, Even If Shown In A Young Person.

There Is No Den In The Wide World To Hide A Rogue. Commit A Crime, And The Earth Is Made Of Glass. Commit A Crime, And It Seems As If A Coat Of Snow Fell On The Ground, Such As Reveals In The Woods The Track Of Every Partridge And Fox And Squirrel And Mole.

Genius Detects Through The Fly, Through The Caterpillar, Through The Grub, Through The Egg, The Constant Individual; Through Countless Individuals The Fixed Species; Through Many Species The Genus; Through All Genera The Steadfast Type; Through All The Kingdoms Of Organized Life The Eternal Unity. Nature Is A Mutable Cloud Which Is Always And Never The Same.

In Skating Over Thin Ice Our Safety Is In Our Speed.

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

It Is Said, No Man Can Write But One Book; And If A Man Have A Defect, It Is Apt To Leave Its Impression On All His Performances.

In My Utter Impotence To Test The Authenticity Of The Report Of My Senses, To Know Whether The Impressions They Make On Me Correspond With Outlying Objects, What Difference Does It Make, Whether Orion Is Up There In Heaven, Or Some God Paints The Image In The Firmament Of The Soul?

Character Teaches Above Our Wills.

Coal Is A Portable Climate.

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.

A New Degree Of Intellectual Power Seems Cheap At Any Price.

Do Not Say Things. What You Are Stands Over You The While, And Thunders, So That I Cannot Hear What You Say To The Contrary.

You Think That Your Silence On Certain Topics, Perhaps In The Face Of Injustice, Or Unkindness, Or Mean-spiritedness, Causes Others To Reserve Judgement Of You. Far Otherwise; Your Silence Utters Very Loud: You Have No Oracle To Speak, No Wisdom To Offer, And Your Fellow Men Have Learned That You Cannot Help Them. Doth Not Wisdom Cry, And Understanding Put Forth Her Voice? We Would Be Well To Do Likewise.

Envy Is The Tax Which All Distinction Must Pay.

The Trail Of The Serpent Reaches Into All The Lucrative Professions And Practices Of Man. Each Has Its Own Wrongs. Each Finds A Tender And Very Intelligent Conscience A Disqualification For Success. Each Requires Of The Practitioner A Certain Shutting Of The Eyes, A Certain Dapperness And Compliance, An Acceptance Of Customs, A Sequestration From The Sentiments Of Generosity And Love, A Compromise Of Private Opinion And Lofty Integrity.

It Is A Tie Between Men To Have Read The Same Book.

Be A Gift And A Benediction.

Our Debt To Tradition Through Reading And Conversation Is So Massive, Our Protest So Rare And Insignificant-and This Commonly On The Ground Of Other Reading And Hearing-that In Large Sense, One Would Say There Is No Pure Originality. All Minds Quote. Old And New Make The Warp And Woof Of Every Moment. There Is No Thread That Is Not A Twist Of These Two Strands. By Necessity, By Proclivity, And By Delight, We All Quote. It Is As Difficult To Appropriate The Thoughts Of Others As It Is To Invent.

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

The Eye Of Prudence May Never Shut.

Every Man Is Actually Weak, And Apparently Strong. To Himself, He Seems Weak; To Others, Formidable.

Valor Consists In The Power Of Self Recovery.

The Gentleman Is A Man Of Truth, Lord Of His Own Actions, And Expressing That Lordship In His Behavior, Not In Any Manner Dependent And Servile Either On Persons, Or Opinions, Or Possessions.

Women See Better Than Men. Men See Lazily, If They Do Not Expect To Act. Women See Quite Without Any Wish To Act.

Belief Consists In Accepting The Affirmations Of The Soul; Unbelief In Denying Them.

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

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

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

Self Confidence

There Is A Relation Between The Hours Of Our Life And The Centuries Of Time. As The Air I Breathe Is Drawn From The Great Repositories Of Nature, As The Light On My Book Is Yielded By A Star A Hundred Millions Of Miles Distant, As The Poise Of My Body Depends On The Equilibrium Of Centrifugal And Centripetal Forces, So The Hours Should Be Instructed By The Ages And The Ages Explained By The Hours.

If The Individuals Who Compose The Purest Circles Of Aristocracy In Europe, The Guarded Blood Of Centuries, Should Pass In Review,in Such Manner As That We Could, At Leisure, And Critically Inspect Their Behavior, We Might Find No Gentleman, And No Lady; For, Although Excellent Specimens Of Courtesy And High-breeding Would Gratify Us In The Assemblage, In The Particulars, We Should Detect Offence. Because, Elegance Comes Of No Breeding, But Of Birth.

Let A Man Then Know His Worth And Keep Things Under His Feet.

The Forest Waves, The Morning Breaks, The Pastures Sleep, Ripple The Lakes, Leaves Twinkle, Flowers Like Persons Be And Life Pulsates In Rock Or Tree.

Every Great Man Is A Unique. The Scipionism Of Scipio Is Precisely That Part He Could Not Borrow.

If Eyes Were Made For Seeing, Then Beauty Is Its Own Excuse For Being.

The Frenchman Invented The Ruffle; The Englishman Added The Shirt.

No Love Can Be Bound By Oath Or Covenant To Secure It Against A Higher Love.

If I Should Go Out Of Church Whenever I Hear A False Statement I Could Never Stay There Five Minutes. But Why Come Out? The Streetis As False As The Church, And When I Get To My House, Or To My Manners, Or To My Speech, I Have Not Got Away From The Lie.

Each Work Of Art Excludes The World, Concentrates Attention On Itself. For The Time It Is The Only Thing Worth Doing -to Do Just That; Be It A Sonnet, A Statue, A Landscape, An Outline Head Of Caesar, Or An Oration. Presently We Return To The Sight Of Another That Globes Itself Into A Whole As Did The First, For Example, A Beautiful Garden; And Nothing Seems Worth Doing In Life But Laying Out A Garden.

Women, As Most Susceptible, Are The Best Index Of The Coming Hour.

We Are Not Free To Use Today, Or To Promise Tomorrow, Because We Are Already Mortgaged To Yesterday.

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

The Poisons Are Our Principal Medicines, Which Kill The Disease And Save The Life.

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

A Man Is The Prisoner Of His Power. A Topical Memory Makes Him An Almanac; A Talent For Debate, Disputant; Skill To Get Money Makes Him A Miser, That Is, A Beggar. Culture Reduces These Inflammations By Invoking The Aid Of Other Powers Against The Dominant Talent, And By Appealing To The Rank Of Powers. It Watches Success.

All My Hurts My Garden Spade Can Heal.

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.

Trending Author

Richard Carlson

Category