Background Image

...

I See The Spectacle Of Morning From The Hilltop Over Against My House, From Daybreak To Sunrise, With Emotions Which An Angel Might Share. The Long Slender Bars Of Cloud Float Like Fishes In The Sea Of Crimson Light. From The Earth, As A Shore, I Look Out Into That Silent Sea. I Seem To Partake Its Rapid Transformations; The Active Enchantment Reaches My Dust, And I Dilate And Conspire With The Morning Wind.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I See The Spectacle

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

I See The Spectacle Of Morning From The Hilltop Over Against My House, From Daybreak To Sunrise, With Emotions Which An Angel Might Share. The Long Slender Bars Of Cloud Float Like Fishes In The Sea Of Crimson Light. From The Earth, As A Shore, I Look Out Into That Silent Sea. I Seem To Partake Its Rapid Transformations; The Active Enchantment Reaches My Dust, And I Dilate And Conspire With The Morning Wind.

Views: 5

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

I Read The Other Day Some Verses Written By An Eminent Painter Which Were Original And Not Conventional.

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.

The Believing We Do Something When We Do Nothing Is The First Illusion Of Tobacco.

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.

It Is A Luxury To Be Understood.

Music Takes Us Out Of The Actual And Whispers To Us Dim Secrets That Startles Out Wonder As To Who We Are, And For What, Whence, And Whereto.

There Are Other Measures Of Self-respect For A Man, Than The Number Of Clean Shirts He Puts On Every Day.

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

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

Walking Has The Best Value As Gymnastics Of The Mind.

The Vocabulary Of An Omniscient Man Would Embrace Words And Images Excluded From Polite Conversation. What Would Be Base, Or Even Obscene, To The Obscene, Becomes Illustrious, Spoken In A New Connexion Of Thought.

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

There Is Simply The Rose; It Is Perfect In Every Moment Of Its Existence.

Nature Will Not Be Buddhist: She Resents Generalizing, And Insults The Philosopher In Every Moment With A Million Fresh Particulars.

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

The Virtue You Would Like To Have, Assume It Is Already Yours, Appropriate It, Enter Into The Part And Live The Character Just As The Great Actor Is Absorbed In... The Part He Plays.

Nature Is A Language And Every New Fact One Learns Is A New Word; But It Is Not A Language Taken To Pieces And Dead In The Dictionary, But The Language Put Together Into A Most Significant And Universal Sense. I Wish To Learn This Language - Not That I May Know A New Grammar, But That I May Read The Great Book Which Is Written In That Tongue.

Crime And Punishment Grow Out Of One Stem. Punishment Is A Fruit That Unsuspected Ripens Within The Flower Of The Pleasure Which Concealed It.

Aristotle And Plato Are Reckoned The Respective Heads Of Two Schools. A Wise Man Will See That Aristotle Platonizes.

Read Proudly--put The Duty Of Being Read Invariably On The Author. If He Is Not Read, Whose Fault Is It? I Am Quite Ready To Be Charmed, But I Shall Not Make-believe I Am Charmed.

Our Age Is Retrospective. It Builds The Sepulchres Of The Fathers. It Writes Biographies, Histories And Criticism.

Do What You Know And Perception Is Converted Into Character.

A Just Thinker Will Allow Full Swing To His Scepticism. I Dip My Pen In The Blackest Ink, Because I Am Not Afraid Of Falling Into My Inkpot.... We Are Of Different Opinions At Different Hours, But We Always May Be Said To Be At Heart On The Side Of Truth.

He Is Rich Who Owns The Day, And No One Owns The Day Who Allows It To Be Invaded With Fret And Anxiety.

The Course Of Everything Goes To Teach Us Faith.

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.

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

Books And Reading

Shallow Men Believe In Luck. Strong Men Believe In Cause And Effect.

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.

All Successful Men Have Agreed In One Thing -- They Were Causationists. They Believed That Things Went Not By Luck, But By Law; That There Was Not A Weak Or A Cracked Link In The Chain That Joins The First And Last Of Things.

The Nonchalance Of Boys Who Are Sure Of A Dinner, And Would Disdain As Much As A Lord To Do Or Say Aught To Conciliate One, Is The Healthy Attitude Of Human Nature.

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

Do Your Thing, And I Shall Know You.

There Is No Den In The Wide World To Hide A Rogue.

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

Nothing Can Be Preserved That Is Not Good.

Beauty Is The Mark God Sets On Virtue. Every Natural Action Is Graceful; Every Heroic Act Is Also Decent, And Causes The Place And The Bystanders To Shine.

The Value Of A Dollar Is To Buy Just Things; A Dollar Goes On Increasing In Value With All The Genius And All The Virtue Of The World. A Dollar In A University Is Worth More Than A Dollar In A Jail; In A Temperate, Schooled, Law-abiding Community Than In Some Sink Of Crime, Where Dice, Knives, And Arsenic Are In Constant Play.

We Have Feudal Governments In A Commercial Age. It Would Be But An Easy Extension Of Our Commercial System, To Pay A Private Emperor A Fee For Services, As We Pay An Architect, An Engineer, Or A Lawyer. If Any Man Has Talent For Righting Wrong, For Administering Difficult Affairs, For Counselling Poor Farmers How To Turn Their Estates To Good Husbandry, For Combining A Hundred Private Enterprises To A General Benefit, Let Him In The County- Town, Or In Court-street, Put Up His Sign-board, Mr. Smith, Governor, Mr. Johnson, Working King.

I Have Come To Believe That The Whole World Is An Enigma, A Harmless Enigma That Is Made Terrible By Our Own Mad Attempt To Interpret It As Though It Had An Underlying Truth. If Two Or Three Persons Should Come With A High Spiritual Aim And With Great Powers, The World Would Fall Into Their Hands Like A Ripe Peach.

Sport Is The Bloom And Glow Of A Perfect Health. The Great Will Not Condescend To Take Anything Seriously; All Must Be As Gay As The Song Of A Canary, Though It Were The Building Of Cities, Or The Eradication Of Old And Foolish Churches And Nations, Which Have Cumbered The Earth Long Thousands Of Years.

God Had Infinite Time To Give Us.... He Cut It Up Into A Near Succession Of New Mornings, And, With Each, Therefore, A New Idea, New Inventions, And New Applications.

The Best Conversation Is Rare. Society Seems To Have Agreed To Treat Fictions As Realities, And Realities As Fictions; And The Simple Lover Of Truth, Especially If On Very High Grounds, As A Religious Or Intellectual Seeker, Finds Himself A Stranger And Alien.

Only That Is Poetry Which Cleanses And Mans Me.

One Of The Illusions Of Life Is That The Present Hour Is Not The Critical Decisive Hour. Write It On Your Heart That Every Day Is The Best Day Of The Year. He Only Is Right Who Owns The Day, And No One Owns The Day Who Allows It To Be Invaded By Worry, Fret And Anxiety. Finish Every Day, And Be Done With It. You Have Done What You Could.

If The Single Man Plant Himself Indomitably On His Instincts, And There Abide, The Huge World Will Come Round To Him.

Live In The Sunshine.

Our People Are Slow To Learn The Wisdom Of Sending Character Instead Of Talent To Congress. Again And Again They Have Sent A Man Of Great Acuteness, A Fine Scholar, A Fine Forensic Orator, And Some Master Of The Brawls Has Crunched Him Up In His Hands Like A Bit Of Paper.

No Man Can Have Society Upon His Own Terms.

It Is Not An Arbitrary "decree Of God," But In The Nature Of Man, That A Veil Shuts Down On The Facts Of To-morrow; For The Soul Will Not Have Us Read Any Other Cipher Than That Of Cause And Effect. By This Veil, Which Curtains Events, It Instructs The Children Of Men To Live In To-day.

The Great Majority Of Men Grow Up And Grow Old In Seeming And Following.

Experience Is The Only Teacher, And We Get His Lesson Indifferently In Any School.

The Human Heart Concerns Us More Than The Poring Into Microscopes, And Is Larger Than Can Be Measured By The Pompous Figures Of The Astronomer.

A Painter Told Me That Nobody Could Draw A Tree Without In Some Sort Becoming A Tree.

Dear To Us Are Those Who Love Us... But Dearer Are Those Who Reject Us As Unworthy, For They Add Another Life; They Build A Heaven Before Us Whereof We Had Not Dreamed, And Thereby Supply To Us New Powers Out Of The Recesses Of The Spirit, And Urge Us To New And Unattempted Performances.

The Masters Painted For Joy, And Knew Not That Virtue Had Gone Out Of Them. They Could Not Paint The Like In Cold Blood. The Masters Of English Lyric Wrote Their Songs So. It Was A Fine Efflorescence Of Fine Powers.

Never Self-possessed, Or Prudent, Love Is All Abandonment.

We But Half Express Ourselves, And Are Ashamed Of That Divine Idea Which Each Of Us Represents. It May Be Safely Trusted As Proportionate And Of Good Issues, So It Be Faithfully Imparted, But God Will Not Have His Work Made Manifest By Cowards.

There Are Only Ten Minutes In The Life Of A Pear When It Is Perfect To Eat.

When It Is Darkest, We Can See The Stars.

Suicide Inspirational

I Am Not Engaged To Christianity By Decent Forms, Or Saving Ordinances; It Is Not Usage, It Is Not What I Do Not Understand, That Binds Me To It -- Let These Be The Sandy Foundations Of Falsehoods. What I Revere And Obey In It Is Its Reality, Its Boundless Charity, Its Deep Interior Life, The Rest It Gives To My Mind, The Echo It Returns To My Thoughts, The Perfect Accord It Makes With My Reason Through All Its Representation Of God And His Providence; And The Persuasion And Courage That Come Out Thence To Lead Me Upward And Onward.

Action Is With The Scholar Subordinate, But It Is Essential. Without It, He Is Not Yet Man. Without It, Thought Can Never Ripen Into Truth.

When I Walk Up The Piazza Of Santa Croce I Feel As If It Were Not A Florentine Nor An European Church But A Church Built By And For The Human Race.

Nature Magically Suits A Man To His Fortunes, By Making Them The Fruit Of His Character.

A Rush Of Thoughts Is The Only Conceivable Prosperity That Can Come To Us.

You've Got To Be Taught, To Hate And Fear, You've Got To Be Taught, From Year To Year, It's Got To Be Drummed In Your Dear Little Ear, You've Got To Be Carefully Taught.

The Jews Believed Jerusalem To Be The Centre. I Have Seen A Kratometric Chart Designed To Show That The City Of Philadelphia Was In The Same Thermic Belt, And, By Inference, In The Same Belt Of Empire, As The Cities Of Athens, Rome, And London. It Was Drawn By A Patriotic Philadelphian, And Was Examined With Pleasure, Under His Showing, By The Inhabitants Of Chestnut Street. But, When Carried To Charleston, To New Orleans, And To Boston, It Somehow Failed To Convince The Ingenious Scholars Of All Those Capitals.

The History Of Reform Is Always Identical; It Is The Comparison Of The Idea With The Fact. Our Modes Of Living Are Not Agreeable To Our Imagination. We Suspect They Are Unworthy. We Arraign Our Daily Employments.

Friendship Should Be Surrounded With Ceremonies And Respects, And Not Crushed Into Corners.

No Facts To Me Are Sacred; None Are Profane.

I Read Your Piece On Plato. Holmes, When You Strike At A King, You Must Kill Him.

How Much Of Human Life Is Lost In Waiting.

As Soon As A Child Has Left The Room His Strewn Toys Become Affecting.

When He Has Seen, That It Is Not His, Nor Any Man's, But It Is The Soul Which Made The World, And That It Is All Accessible To Him, He Will Know That He, As Its Minister, May Rightfully Hold All Things Subordinate And Answerable To It.

Nature Is Sanative, Refining, Elevating. How Cunningly She Hides Every Wrinkle Of Her Inconceivable Antiquity Under Roses, And Violets, And Morning Dew! Every Inch Of The Mountains Is Scarred By Unimaginable Convulsions, Yet The New Day Is Purple With The Bloom Of Youth And Love.

Our Housekeeping Is Mendicant, Our Arts, Our Occupations, Our Marriages, Our Religion We Have Not Chosen But Society Has Chosen For Us.

Love And You Shall Be Loved. All Love Is Mathematically Just, As Much As Two Sides Of An Algebraic Equation.

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.

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.

The Prayer Of The Farmer Kneeling In His Field To Weed It, The Prayer Of The Rower Kneeling With The Stroke Of His Oar, Are True Prayers Heard Throughout Nature.

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.

The Time Will Come When The Evil Forms We Have Known Can No More Be Organized. Man's Culture Can Spare Nothing, Wants All Material. He Is To Convert All Impediments Into Instruments, All Enemies Into Power.

All Forms Of Government Symbolize An Immortal Government, Common To All Dynasties And Independent Of Numbers, Perfect Where Two Men Exist, Perfect Where There Is Only One Man.

The Secret Of Fortune Is Joy In Our Hands.

Let Me Admonish You, First Of All, To Go Alone; To Refuse The Good Models, Even Those Which Are Sacred In The Imagination Of Men, And Dare To Love God Without Mediator Or Veil.

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.

I Like People Who Can Do Things

It Is For Want Of Self-culture That The Superstition Of Travelling, Whose Idols Are Italy, England, Egypt, Retains Its Fascinationfor All Educated Americans.

A Strong Person Makes The Law And Custom Null Before His Own Will.

An Action Is The Perfection And Publication Of Thought. A Right Action Seems To Fill The Eye, And To Be Related To All Nature.

The Orator Is Thereby An Orator That Keeps His Feet Ever On A Fact.

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.

Men Should Take Their Knowledge From The Sun, The Moon And The Stars.

No Matter How Often Defeated, You Are Born To Victory.

If A Man Knew Anything, He Would Sit In A Corner And Be Modest; But He Is Such An Ignorant Peacock, That He Goes Bustling Up And Down, And Hits On Extraordinary Discoveries.

All The World Loves A Lover.

Men Have Sometimes Exchanged Names With Their Friends, As If They Would Signify That In Their Friend Each Loved His Own Soul.

There Is No Way To Success In Art But To Take Off Your Coat, Grind Paint, And Work Like A Digger On The Railroad, All Day And Every Day.

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

A Fly Is As Untamable As A Hyena.

God Will Not Have His Work Made Manifest By Cowards. Always, Always, Always, Always, Always Do What You Are Afraid To Do. Do The Thing You Fear And The Death Of Fear Is Certain.

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

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

The Things Taught In Schools & Colleges Are Not An Education But The Means Of Education.

Astrology Is Astronomy Brought Down To Earth And Applied Toward The Affairs Of Men.

Be Brave Enough To Do The Loving Thing.

Some People Are Born Very Far From Home.

The Poet Knows That He Speaks Adequately, Then, Only When He Speaks Somewhat Wildly.

A Great Man Will Find A Great Subject, Or Which Is The Same Thing, Make Any Subject Great.

We Are Like Travellers Using The Cinders Of A Volcano To Roast Their Eggs. Whilst We See That It Always Stands Ready To Clothe What We Would Say, We Cannot Avoid The Question Whether The Characters Are Not Significant Of Themselves.

In Our Mechanics' Fair, There Must Be Not Only Bridges, Ploughs, Carpenter's Planes, And Baking Troughs, But Also Some Few Finer Instruments,--rain-gauges, Thermometers, And Telescopes; And In Society, Besides Farmers, Sailors, And Weavers, There Must Be A Few Persons Of Purer Fire Kept Specially As Gauges And Meters Of Character; Persons Of A Fine, Detecting Instinct, Who Note The Smallest Accumulations Of Wit And Feeling In The Bystander.

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

Action Is The Process Whereby What Is Not Fully Formed Passes Into Expressive Consciousness.

Whatever Events In Progress Shall Disgust Men With Cities, And Infuse Into Them The Passion For Country Life, And Country Pleasures, Will Render A Service To The Whole Face Of This Continent, And Will Further The Most Poetic Of All The Occupations Of Real Life, The Bringing Out By Art The Native But Hidden Graces Of The Landscape.

The Life Of Labor Does Not Make Men, But Drudges.

The Height, The Deity Of Man Is To Be Self-sustained, To Need No Gift, No Foreign Force. Society Is Good When It Does Not Violate Me, But Best When It Is Likest To Solitude.

There Is A Tendency In Things To Right Themselves, And The War Or Revolution Or Bankruptcy That Shatters Rotten System, Allows Things To Take A New And Natural Order.

The World Is Nothing, The Man Is All; In Yourself Is The Law Of All Nature, And You Know Not Yet How A Globule Of Sap Ascends; In Yourself Slumbers The Whole Of Reason; It Is For You To Know All, It Is For You To Dare All.

Man Is Made Of The Same Atoms The World Is, He Shares The Same Impressions, Predispositions, And Destiny. When His Mind Is Illuminated, When His Heart Is Kind, He Throws Himself Joyfully Into The Sublime Order, And Does, With Knowledge, What The Stones Do By Structure.

Society Everywhere Is In Conspiracy Against The Manhood Of Every One Of Its Members.

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.

A Man's Power To Connect His Thought With Its Proper Symbol, And So To Utter It, Depends On The Simplicity Of His Character, That Is, Upon His Love Of Truth, And His Desire To Communicate It Without Loss.

We Walk Alone In The World.

Thefts Never Enrich; Alms Never Impoverish; Murder Will Speak Out Of Stone Walls. The Least Admixture Of A Lie-for Example, The Taint Of Vanity, The Least Attempt To Make A Good Impression, A Favorable Appearance-will Instantly Vitiate The Effect.

So Far As A Person Thinks; They Are Free.

There Was Never A Child So Lovely But His Mother Was Glad To Get Him To Sleep.

Don't Waste Life In Doubts And Fears; Spend Yourself On The Work Before You, Well Assured That The Right Performance Of This Hour's Duties Will Be The Best Preparation For The Hours And Ages That Will Follow It.

The Poet Alone Knows Astronomy, Chemistry, Vegetation, And Animation, For He Does Not Stop At These Facts, But Employs Them As Signs. He Knows Why The Plain, Or Meadow Of Space, Was Strown With These Flowers We Call Suns, And Moons, And Stars; Why The Deep Is Adorned With Animals, With Men, And Gods; For, In Every Word He Speaks He Rides On Them As The Horses Of Thought.

What New Thoughts Are Suggested By Seeing A Face Of Country Quite Familiar, In The Rapid Movement Of The Rail-road Car!

The Dogma Of The Mystic Offices Of Christ Being Dropped, And He Standing On His Genius As A Moral Teacher, 'tis Impossible To Maintain The Old Emphasis Of His Personality; And It Recedes, As All Persons Must, Before The Sublimity Of The Moral Laws.

It Is Long Ere We Discover How Rich We Are. Our History, We Are Sure, Is Quite Tame: We Have Nothing To Write, Nothing To Infer. But Our Wiser Years Still Run Back To The Despised Recollections Of Childhood, And Always We Are Fishing Up Some Wonderful Article Out Of That Pond; Until, By And By, We Begin To Suspect That The Biography Of The One Foolish Person We Know Is, In Reality, Nothing Less Than The Miniature Paraphrase Of The Hundred Volumes Of The Universal History.

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.

Solitude Is Impractical, And Society Fatal. We Must Keep Our Head In The One And Our Hands In The Other. The Conditions Are Met, If We Keep Our Independence, Yet Do Not Lose Our Sympathy.

To Fill The Hour; That Is Happiness To Fill The Hour, And Leave No Crevice For A Repentance Or An Approval.

Thought Makes Everything Fit For Use.

Wise Men Are Not Wise At All Times.

The Action Of The Soul Is Oftener In That Which Is Felt And Left Unsaid Than In That Which Is Said In Any Conversation. It Broods Over Every Society, And Men Unconsciously Seek For It In Each Other.

The Sun Shines Today Also.

We, As We Read, Must Become Greeks, Romans, Turks, Priest And King, Martyr And Executioner; Must Fasten These Images To Some Reality In Our Secret Experience, Or We Shall Learn Nothing Rightly.

Nature Is Too Thin A Screen; The Glory Of The Omnipresent God Bursts Through Everywhere

Greek Architecture Is The Flowering Of Geometry.

I Believe That Our Own Experience Instructs Us That The Secret Of Education Lies In Respecting The Pupil. It Is Not For You To Choose What He Shall Know, What He Shall Do. It Is Chosen And Foreordained, And He Only Holds The Key To His Own Secret. By Your Tampering And Thwarting And Too Much Governing He May Be Hindered From His End And Kept Out Of His Own. Respect The Child. Wait And See The New Product Of Nature. Nature Loves Analogies, But Not Repetitions. Respect The Child. Be Not Too Much His Parent. Trespass Not On His Solitude.

Doing Well Is The Result Of Doing Good. That's What Capitalism Is All About.

And Truly It Demands Something God Like In Him Who Has Cast Off The Common Motives Of Humanity, And Has Ventured To Trust Himself For A Taskmaster. High Be His Heart, Faithful His Will, Clear His Sight, That He May In Good Earnest Be Doctrine, Society, Law, To Himself, That A Simple Purpose May Be To Him As Strong As Iron Necessity Is To Others!

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

Genius Is Saying What Is In Your Heart, Because It's In Everyone's Heart.

The History Of Persecution Is A History Of Endeavors To Cheat Nature, To Make Water Run Up Hill, To Twist A Rope Of Sand.

What A Man Does, That He Has. What Has He To Do With Hope Or Fear? In Himself Is His Might. Let Him Regard No Good As Solid But That Which Is In His Nature, And Which Must Grow Out Of Him As Long As He Exists. The Goods Of Fortune May Come And Go Like Summer Leaves; Let Him Scatter Them On Every Wind As The Momentary Signs Of His Infinite Productiveness.

Many A Reformer Perishes In His Removal Of Rubbish,--and That Makes The Offensiveness Of The Class. They Are Partial; They Are Notequal To The Work They Pretend. They Lose Their Way; In The Assault On The Kingdom Of Darkness, They Expend All Their Energy On Some Accidental Evil, And Lose Their Sanity And Power Of Benefit.

I See My Trees Repair Their Boughs.

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.

Be Not The Slave Of Your Own Past - Plunge Into The Sublime Seas, Dive Deep, And Swim Far.

Each Man Has An Aptitude Born With Him. Do Your Work.

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

All Power Is Of One Kind, A Sharing Of The Nature Of The World. The Mind That Is Parallel With The Laws Of Nature Will Be In The Current Of Events, And Strong With Their Strength.

Earth Laughs In Flowers.

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

For, Truly Speaking, Whoever Provokes Me To A Good Act Or Thought Has Given Me A Pledge Of His Fidelity To Virtue,--he Has Come Under The Bonds To Adhere To That Cause To Which We Are Jointly Attached.

The Finest People Marry The Two Sexes In Their Own Person.

A Great Man Scarcely Knows How He Dines, How He Dresses; But Without Railing Or Precision, His Living Is Natural And Poetic.

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

We Do Not Yet Trust The Unknown Power Of Thoughts.

Power Of Thought

But Genius Is Religious. It Is A Larger Imbibing Of The Common Heart.

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.

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

The City Is Recruited From The Country.

I Find The Englishman To Be Him Of All Men Who Stands Firmest In His Shoes. They Have In Themselves What They Value In Their Horses, Mettle And Bottom.

The Eyes Of Men Converse As Much As Their Tongues, With The Advantage That The Ocular Dialect Needs No Dictionary, But Is Understood All The World Over.

No Law Can Be Sacred To Me But That Of My Nature. Good And Bad Are But Names Very Readily Transferable To That Or This; The Only Right Is What Is After My Constitution; The Only Wrong Is What Is Against It.

We Talk Of Choosing Our Friends, But Friends Are Self-elected.

The World Belongs To The Energetic.

Sooner Or Later That Which Is Now Life Shall Be Poetry, And Every Fair And Manly Trait Shall Add A Richer Strain To The Song.

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

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.

Whenever A True Theory Appears, It Will Be Its Own Evidence. Its Test Is, That It Will Explain All Phenomena.

There Is Ever A Slight Suspicion Of The Burlesque About Earnest Good Men.

A Good Deal Of Our Politics Is Physiological.

A Good Symbol Is The Best Argument, And Is A Missionary To Persuade Thousands.

Men Wish To Be Saved From The Mischiefs Of Their Vices, But Not From Their Vices.

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

When I Behold A Rich Landscape, It Is Less To My Purpose To Recite Correctly The Order And Superposition Of The Strata, Than To Know Why All Thought Of Multitude Is Lost In A Tranquil Sense Of Unity.

Whenever The Average Intellect Of The Clergy Declines In The Balance With The Average Intellect Of The People The Churches Will Be Shut Up And A New Order Of Things [will] Begin.

Next To The Originator Of A Good Sentence Is The First Quoter Of It.

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

God Made Yeast, As Well As Dough, And Loves Fermentation Just As Dearly As He Loves Vegetation.

Peace Cannot Be Achieved Through Violence, It Can Only Be Attained Through Understanding.

The Student Is To Read History Actively And Not Passively.

Every Day, The Sun; And, After Sunset, Night And Her Stars. Ever The Winds Blow; Ever The Grass Grows. Every Day, Men And Women, Conversing, Beholding And Beholden. The Scholar Is He Of All Men Whom This Spectacle Most Engages. He Must Settle Its Value In His Mind. What Is Nature To Him?

The Great Majority Of Men Are Bundles Of Beginnings

When A Man Does Not Write His Poetry, It Escapes By Other Vents Through Him.

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

[on Thoreau:] For Not A Particle Of Respect Had He To The Opinions Of Any Man Or Body Of Men, But Homage Solely To Truth Itself.

All Our Progress Is An Unfolding, Like The Vegetable Bud. You Have First An Instinct, Then An Opinion, Then A Knowledge, As The Plant Has Root, Bud, And Fruit. Trust The Instinct To The End, Though You Can Render No Reason. It Is Vain To Hurry It. By Trusting It To The End It Shall Ripen Into Truth, And You Shall Know Why You Believe.

You See, It's All Clear, We Were Meant To Be Here From The Beginning.

Were Meant To Be

Always Pay; For First Or Last You Must Pay Your Entire Debt.

Nature Does Not Cocker Us: We Are Children, Not Pets: She Is Not Fond: Everything Is Dealt To Us Without Fear Or Favor, After Severe Universal Laws.

Out Of Love And Hatred, Out Of Earnings And Borrowings And Leadings And Losses; Out Of Sickness And Pain; Out Of Wooing And Worshipping; Out Of Traveling And Voting And Watching And Caring; Out Of Disgrace And Contempt, Comes Our Tuition In The Serene And Beautiful Laws.

Empirical Science Is Apt To Cloud The Sight, And, By The Very Knowledge Of Functions And Processes, To Bereave The Student Of Themanly Contemplation Of The Whole.

The Arts And Inventions Of Each Period Are Only Its Costume, And Do Not Invigorate Men.

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

Trending Author

Carlos Castaneda

Category