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If I Have Renounced The Search Of Truth, If I Have Come Into The Port Of Some Pretending Dogmatism, Some New Church, Some Schelling Or Cousin, I Have Died To All Use Of These New Events That Are Born Out Of Prolific Time Into Multitude Of Life Every Hour. I Am As Bankrupt To Whom Brilliant Opportunities Offer In Vain. He Has Just Foreclosed His Freedom, Tied His Hands, Locked Himself Up And Given The Key To Another To Keep.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If I Have Renounced

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If I Have Renounced The Search Of Truth, If I Have Come Into The Port Of Some Pretending Dogmatism, Some New Church, Some Schelling Or Cousin, I Have Died To All Use Of These New Events That Are Born Out Of Prolific Time Into Multitude Of Life Every Hour. I Am As Bankrupt To Whom Brilliant Opportunities Offer In Vain. He Has Just Foreclosed His Freedom, Tied His Hands, Locked Himself Up And Given The Key To Another To Keep.

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To Different Minds, The Same World Is A Hell, And A Heaven.

A State Of War Or Anarchy, In Which Law Has Little Force, Is So Far Valuable, That It Puts Every Man On Trial. The Man Of Principle Is Known As Such, And Even In The Fury Of Faction Is Respected.

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.

The Universe Does Not Jest With Us, But Is In Earnest.

But Dare Rather To Quit The Platform, Plunge Into The Sublime Seas, Dive Deep, & Swim Far, So Shall You Come Back With Self-respect, With New Power, With An Advanced Experience, That Shall Explain & Overlook The Old. Trust Your Emotion.

What Is Man Born For But To Be A Reformer, A Remaker Of What Man Has Made? A Renouncer Of Lies; A Restorer Of Truth And Good? Imitating That Great Nature Which Embossoms Us All, And Which Sleeps No Moment On An Old Past, But Every Hour Repairs Herself, Yielding Us Every Morning A New Day, With Every Breath A New Life?

Happy Is The House That Shelters A Friend.

There Is Something Servile In The Habit Of Seeking After A Law Which We Must Obey.

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.

Would We Codify The Laws That Should Reign In Households, And Whose Daily Transgression Annoys And Mortifies Us, And Degrades Our Household Life, We Must Adorn Every Day With Sacrifices. Good Manners Are Made Up Of Petty Sacrifices.

Tis The Good Reader That Makes The Good Book; A Good Head Cannot Read Amiss: In Every Book He Finds Passages Which Seem Confidences Or Asides Hidden From All Else And Unmistakeably Meant For His Ear.

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

Consider What You Have In The Smallest Well-chosen Library-a Company Of The Wisest And Wittiest Men Which Can Be Plucked Out Of All Civilized Countries In A Thousand Years. The Men Themselves Were Then Hidden And Inaccessible. They Were Solitary, Impatient Of Interruption, And Fenced By Etiquette. But Now They Are Immortal, And The Thought They Did Not Reveal, Even To Their Bosom Friends, Is Here Written Out In Transparent Words Of Light To Us, Who Are Strangers Of Another Age.

The Reality Is More Excellent Than The Report.

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.

God Hid The Whole World In Thy Heart.

Conversation Is An Art In Which A Man Has All Mankind For His Competitors, For It Is That Which All Are Practising Every Day While They Live.

Is It So Bad, Then, To Be Misunderstood? Pythagoras Was Misunderstood, And Socrates, And Jesus, And Luther, And Copernicus, And Galileo, And Newton, And Every Pure And Wise Spirit That Ever Took Flesh. To Be Great Is To Be Misunderstood.

Deal In Our Privacy With The Last Honesty And Truth.

Every Individual Man Has A Bias Which He Must Obey, And...it Is Only As He Feels And Obeys This That He Rightly Develops And Attains His Legitimate Power In The World. It Is His Magnetic Needle, Which Points Always In One Direction To His Proper Path.... He Is Never Happy Nor Strong Until He Finds It, Keeps It.

The Day Is Always His, Who Works In It With Serenity And Great Aims.

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

Its The Not The Destination, It's The Journey.

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. We Quote Not Only Books And Proverbs, But Arts, Sciences, Religion, Customs, And Laws; Nay, We Quote Temples And Houses, Tables And Chairs, By Imitation.

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 God- Like Ease And Power.

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

Nature Is Thoroughly Mediate. It Is Made To Serve. It Receives The Dominion Of Man As Meekly As The Ass On Which The Saviour Rode.it Offers All Its Kingdoms To Man As The Raw Material Which He May Mould Into What Is Useful. Man Is Never Weary Of Working It Up.

A Woman Should Always Challenge Our Respect, And Never Move Our Compassion.

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.

Law Of Contrariness: Our Chief Want In Life Is Somebody Who Shall Make Us Do What We Can. Having Found Them, We Shall Then Hate Them For It.

Goodness That Preaches Undoes Itself.

It Is One Of The Most Beautiful Compensations Of This Life That No Person Can Sincerely Try To Help Another Without Helping Him Or Herself. Serve And You Shall Be Served. If You Love And Serve People, You Cannot, By Any Hiding Or Stratagem, Escape The Remuneration.

The One Prudence In Life Is Concentration; The One Evil Is Dissipation: And It Makes No Difference Whether Our Dissipations Are Coarse Or Fine; Property And Its Cares, Friends And A Social Habit, Or Politics, Or Music, Or Feasting. Everything Is Good Which Takes Away One Plaything And Delusion More, And Drives Us Home To Add One Stroke Of Faithful Work.

Headwinds Are Sore Vexations And The More Passengers The Sorer.

The Frost Which Kills The Harvest Of A Year Saves The Harvest Of A Century, By Destroying The Weevil Or The Locust.

They Have Seen But Half The Universe Who Never Have Been Shown The House Of Pain.

Conversation Is The Laboratory And Workshop Of The Student.

We Do Not Quite Forgive A Giver. The Hand That Feeds Us Is In Some Danger Of Being Bitten.

Quotation Confesses Inferiority.

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

The Course Of Everything Goes To Teach Us Faith.

Character Teaches Above Our Wills.

Being Perfectly Well-dressed Gives A Feeling Of Tranquillity That Religion Is Powerless To Bestow.

Great Is Paint; Nay, God Is The Painter; And We Rightly Accuse The Critic Who Destroys Too Many Illusions. Society Does Not Love Its Unmaskers.

But Every Jet Of Chaos Which Threatens To Exterminate Us Is Convertible By Intellect Into Wholesome Force. Fate Is Unpenetrated Causes.

Accuracy Is Essential To Beauty.

Higher Than The Question Of Our Duration Is The Question Of Our Deserving. Immortality Will Come To Such As Are Fit For It, And He Would Be A Great Soul In Future Must Be A Great Soul Now.

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

Men Succeed When They Realize That Their Failures Are The Preparation For Their Victories.

Duty Grows Everywhere--like Children, Like Grass.

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

As Long As Any Man Exists, There Is Some Need Of Him.

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.

The Only Thing Grief Has Taught Me Is To Know How Shallow It Is.

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.

If The Tongue Had Not Been Framed For Articulation, Man Would Still Be A Beast In The Forest.

Where The Heart Is, There The Muses, There The Gods Sojourn, And Not In Any Geography Of Fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, And Boston Bay, You Think Paltry Places, And The Ear Loves Names Of Foreign And Classic Topography. But Here We Are; And, If We Tarry A Little, We May Come To Learn That Here Is Best. See To It, Only, That Thyself Is Here;--and Art And Nature, Hope And Fate, Friends, Angels, And The Supreme Being, Shall Not Absent From The Chamber Where Thou Sittest.

The Cold, Inconsiderate Of Persons, Tingles Your Blood, Benumbs Your Feet, Freezes A Man Like An Apple.

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

I Confess Myself Utterly At A Loss In Suggesting Particular Reforms In Our Ways Of Teaching. No Discretion That Can Be Lodged With A School-committee, With The Overseers Or Visitors Of An Academy, Of A College, Can At All Avail To Reach These Difficulties And Perplexities, But They Solve Themselves When We Leave Institutions And Address Individuals.

A Beautiful Woman Is A Practical Poet, Taming Her Savage Mate, Planting Tenderness, Hope And Eloquence In All Whom She Approaches.

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.

All Great Masters Are Chiefly Distinguished By The Power Of Adding A Second, A Third, And Perhaps A Fourth Step In A Continuous Line. Many A Man Has Taken The First Step. With Every Additional Step You Enhance Immensely The Value Of Your First.

In The Moment When You Make The Least Petition To God, Though It Be But A Silent Wish That He May Approve You, Or Add One Moment To Your Life,--do You Not, In The Very Act, Necessarily Exclude All Other Beings From Your Thought? In That Act, The Soul Stands Alone With God, And Jesus Is No More Present To Your Mind Than Your Brother Or Your Child.

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.

Plato Says That The Punishment Which The Wise Suffer Who Refuse To Take Part In The Government, Is, To Live Under The Government Of Worse Men; And The Like Regret Is Suggested To All The Auditors, As The Penalty Of Abstaining To Speak,--that They Shall Hear Worse Orators Than Themselves.

Columbus Discovered No Isle Or Key So Lonely As Himself.

A Foolish Consistency Is The Hobgoblin Of Little Minds, Adored By Little Statesmen And Philosophers And Divines. With Consistency A Great Soul Has Simply Nothing To Do. He May As Well Concern Himself With His Shadow On The Wall. Speak What You Think Now In Hard Words And To-morrow Speak What To-morrow Thinks In Hard Words Again, Though It Contradict Every Thing You Said To-day.

Murder In The Murderer Is No Such Ruinous Thought As Poets And Romancers Will Have It; It Does Not Unsettle Him, Or Fright Him From His Ordinary Notice Of Trifles; It Is An Act Quite Easy To Be Contemplated.

For The Existing World Is Not A Dream, And Cannot With Impunity Be Treated As A Dream; Neither Is It A Disease; But It Is The Ground On Which You Stand, It Is The Mother Of Whom You Were Born.

The State Is Our Neighbors; Our Neighbors Are The State.

Up And Away For Life! Be Fleet!- The Frost-king Ties My Fumbling Feet, Sings In My Ears, My Hands Are Stones, Curdles The Blood To The Marble Bones, Tugs At The Heart-strings, Numbs The Sense, And Hems In Life With Narrowing Fence. Well, In This Broad Bed Lie And Sleep,- The Punctual Stars Will Vigil Keep,- Embalmed By Purifying Cold; The Winds Shall Sing Their Dead-march Old, The Snow Is No Ignoble Shroud, The Moon Thy Mourner, And The Cloud.

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

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

We Owe To Genius Always The Same Debt, Of Lifting The Curtain From The Common, And Showing Us That Divinities Are Sitting Disguised In The Seeming Gang Of Gypsies And Peddlars.

In This Our Talking America, We Are Ruined By Our Good Nature And Listening On All Sides. This Compliance Takes Away The Power Ofbeing Greatly Useful.

That Which Dominates Our Imagination And Our Thoughts Will Determine Our Life And Character.

No Matter How Much Faculty Of Idle Seeing A Man Has, The Step From Knowing To Doing Is Rarely Taken.

The World Is All Outside, It Has No Inside.

Genius Borrows Nobly.

But The Nomads Were The Terror Of All Those Whom The Soil Or The Advantages Of The Market Had Induced To Build Towns. Agriculture Therefore Was A Religious Injunction, Because Of The Perils Of The State From Nomadism.

Of All The Ways To Lose A Person, Death Is The Kindest

When A Man Lives With God, His Voice Shall Be As Sweet As The Murmur Of The Brook And Rustle Of The Corn.

We Believe That The Defects Of So Many Perverse And So Many Frivolous People, Who Make Up Society, Are Organic, And Society Is A Hospital Of Incurables.

It Is Very Odd That Nature Should Be So Unscrupulous. She Is No Saint . . .

Men Are Conservatives When They Are Least Vigorous Or When They Are Most Luxurious-they Are Conservatives After Dinner.

We Dress Our Garden, Eat Our Dinners, Discuss The Household With Our Wives, And These Things Make No Impression, Are Forgotten Next Week; But In The Solitude To Which Every Man Is Always Returning, He Has A Sanity And Revelations, Which In His Passage Into New Worlds He Will Carry With Him. Never Mind The Ridicule, Never Mind The Defeat: Up Again, Old Heart! — It Seems To Say, — There Is Victory Yet For All Justice; And The True Romance Which The World Exists To Realize, Will Be The Transformation Of Genius Into Practical Power.

We Cannot Forgive Another For Not Being Ourselves.

Work And Acquire, And Thou Hast Chained The Wheel Of Chance.

Good Bye, Proud World! I'm Going Home; Thou Art Not My Friend, And I'm Not Thine

Great Men Are Sincere.

Perpetual Modernness Is The Measure Of Merit, In Every Work Of Art; Since The Author Of It Was Not Misled By Anything Short- Livedor Local, But Abode By Real And Abiding Traits.

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.

War Educates The Senses, Calls Into Action The Will, Perfects The Physical Constitution, Brings Men Into Such Swift And Close Collision In Critical Moments That Man Measures Man.

Saving Private Ryan

Heaven Often Protects Valuable Souls Charged With Great Secrets, Great Ideas, By Long Shutting Them Up With Their Own Thoughts.

In Our Fine Arts, Not Imitation, But Creation Is The Aim... The Details, The Prose Of Nature, He Should Omit, And Give Us Only The Spirit And Splendour.

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.

Though I Am Weak, Yet God, When Prayed, Cannot Withhold His Conquering Aid.

We Know More From Nature Than We Can At Will Communicate.

I Have No Expectation That Any Man Will Read History Aright Who Thinks That What Was Done In A Remote Age, By Men Whose Names Have Resounded Far, Has Any Deeper Sense Than What He Is Doing Today.

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

The Beautiful Is Never Plentiful.

The Writer, Like A Priest, Must Be Exempted From Secular Labor. His Work Needs A Frolic Health; He Must Be At The Top Of His Condition.

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

Postpone Not Your Life.

Procrastination

Our Eyes Are Holden That We Cannot See Things That Stare Us In The Face, Until The Hour Arrives When The Mind Is Ripened; Then We Behold Them, And The Time When We Saw Them Not Is Like A Dream.

Speak The Affirmative; Emphasize Your Choice By Utter Ignoring Of All That You Reject.

If Man Has Good Corn, Or Wood, Or Boards, Or Pigs To Sell, Or Can Make Better Chairs Or Knives, Crucibles, Or Church Organs, Than Anybody Else, You Will Find A Broad, Hard-beaten Road To His House, Though It Be In The Woods.

Every Natural Power Exhilarates; A True Talent Delights The Possessor First.

Win As If You Were Used To It, Lose As If You Enjoyed It For A Change.

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

The Eloquent Man Is He Who Is No Beautiful Speaker, But Who Is Inwardly And Desperately Drunk With A Certain Belief.

It Is With A Good Book As It Is With Good Company.

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.

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. The Knapsack Of Custom Falls Off His Back With The First Step He Makes Into These Precincts. Here Is Sanctity Which Shames Our Religions, And Reality Which Discredits Our Heroes. Here We Find Nature To Be The Circumstance Which Dwarfs Every Other Circumstance, And Judges Like A God All Men That Come To Her.

I Know Nothing Which Life Has To Offer So Satisfying As The Profound Good Understanding, Which Can Subsist, After Much Exchange Ofgood Offices, Between Two Virtuous Men, Each Of Whom Is Sure Of Himself, And Sure Of His Friend. It Is A Happiness Which Postpones All Other Gratifications, And Makes Politics, And Commerce, And Churches, Cheap.

Let A Man Learn To Look For The Permanent In The Mutable And Fleeting; Let Him Learn To Bear The Disappearance Of Things He Was Wont To Reverence; Without Losing His Reverence; Let Him Learn That He Is Here, Not To Work, But To Be Worked Upon; And That, Though Abyss Open Under Abyss, And Opinion Displace Opinion, All Are At Last Contained In The Eternal Cause.

Every Man Is Eloquent Once In His Life.

Public Speaking

Do Not Tell Me Of My Obligation To Put All Poor Men In Good Situations. Are They My Poor? I Tell Thee, Thou Foolish Philanthropist, That I Grudge The Dollar, The Dime, The Cent, I Give To Such Men As Do Not Belong To Me And To Whom I Do Not Belong

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

Solitude, The Safeguard Of Mediocrity, Is To Genius, The Stern Friend, The Cold, Obscure Shelter Where Moult The Wings Which Will Bear It Farther Than Suns And Stars.

All Men Are Poets At Heart.

There Is No Planet, Sun, Or Star Could Hold You If You But Knew What You Are.

Must We Always Talk For Victory, And Never Once For Truth, For Comfort, And Joy?

Comfort And Joy

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.

How Much Finer Things Are In Composition Than Alone.

It Is An Esoteric Doctrine Of Society, That A Little Wickedness Is Good To Make Muscle; As If Conscience Were Not Good For Hands And Legs.

The Right Eloquence Needs No Bell To Call The People Together, And No Constable To Keep Them.

The Universe Is The Externisation Of The Soul. Wherever The Life Is, That Bursts Into Appearance Around It. Our Science Is Sensual, And Therefore Superficial. The Earth, And The Heavenly Bodies, Physics, And Chemistry, We Sensually Treat, As If They Were Self-existent; But These Are The Retinue Of That Being We Have.

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

Self Confidence

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.

As The Traveler Who Has Lost His Way, Throws His Reins On His Horse's Neck, And Trusts To The Instinct Of The Animal To Find His Road, So Must We Do With The Divine Animal Who Carries Us Through This World

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.

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.

My Life Is Not An Apology, But A Life.

The Betrothed And Accepted Lover Has Lost The Wildest Charms Of His Maiden By Her Acceptance. She Was Heaven While He Pursued Her, But She Cannot Be Heaven If She Stoops To One Such As He!

Real Action Is In Silent Moments.

We Over-estimate The Conscience Of Our Friend. His Goodness Seems Better Than Our Goodness, His Nature Finer, His Temptations Less. Everything That Is His,--his Name, His Form, His Dress, Books, And Instruments,--fancy Enhances. Our Own Thought Sounds New And Larger From His Mouth.

The Noblest Ministry Of Nature Is To Stand As The Apparition Of God.

Every Man's Condition Is A Solution In Hieroglyph To Those Inquiries He Would Put. He Acts It As Life Before He Apprehends It As Truth.

We Honor The Rich Because They Have Externally The Freedom, Power, And Grace Which We Feel To Be Proper To Man, Proper To Us.

To Aim To Convert A Man By Miracles Is A Profanation Of The Soul. A True Conversion, A True Christ, Is Now, As Always, To Be Madeby The Reception Of Beautiful Sentiments.

We Are Not Very Much To Blame For Our Bad Marriages. We Live Amid Hallucinations, And Especial Trap Is Laid To Trip Up Our Feet With, And All Are Tripped Up First Or Last. But The Mighty Mother, Who Had Been So Sly With Us, As If She Felt She Owed Us Some Indemnity, Insinuates Into The Pandora Box Of Marriage Some Deep And Serious Benefits, And Some Great Joys.

It Is Said That When Manners Are Licentious, A Revolution Is Always Near: The Virtue Of Woman Being The Main Girth And Bandage Ofsociety; Because A Man Will Not Lay Up An Estate For Children Any Longer Than Whilst He Believes Them To Be His Own.

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

That Which We Persist In Doing Becomes Easier To Do, Not That The Nature Of The Thing Has Changed But That Our Power To Do Has Increased.

The Happiest Man Is He Who Learns From Nature The Lesson Of Worship

Anger Is That Powerful Internal Force That Blows Out The Light Of Reason.

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.

Bad Times Have A Scientific Value. These Are Occasions A Good Learner Would Not Miss.

Success In Your Work, The Finding A Better Method, The Better Understanding That Insures The Better Performing Is Hat And Coat, Is Food And Wine, Is Fire And Horse And Health And Holiday. At Least, I Find That Any Success In My Work Has The Effect On My Spirits Of All These.

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.

Proportion Is Almost Impossible To Human Beings. There Is No One Who Does Not Exaggerate.

Five Great Enemies Of Peace Inhabit Us: Avarice, Ambition, Envy, Anger And Pride.

All The Facts Of Nature Are Nouns Of The Intellect, And Make The Grammar Of The Eternal Language. Every Word Has A Double, Trebleor Centuple Use And Meaning.

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

That Man Is Idle Who Can Do Something Better.

Hitch Your Wagon To A Star.

Converse With A Mind That Is Grandly Simple, And Literature Looks Like Word-catching. The Simplest Utterances Are Worthiest To Bewritten, Yet Are They So Cheap, And So Things Of Course, That, In The Infinite Riches Of The Soul, It Is Like Gathering A Few Pebbles Off The Ground, Or Bottling A Little Air In A Phial, When The Whole Earth And The Whole Atmosphere Are Ours.

The Same, The Same: Friend And Foe Are Of One Stuff; The Ploughman, The Plough, And The Furrow, Are Of One Stuff; And The Stuff Is Such, And So Much, That The Variations Of Form Are Unimportant.

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

The Secret Of The Illusoriness Is In The Necessity Of A Succession Of Moods Or Objects. Gladly We Would Anchor, But The Anchorageis Quicksand.

Only That Mind Draws Me Which I Cannot Read.

How Can He [today's Writer] Be Honored, When He Does Not Honor Himself; When He Loses Himself In The Crowd; When He Is No Longer The Lawgiver, But The Sycophant, Ducking To The Giddy Opinion Of A Reckless Public.

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.

Men Consort In Camp And Town But The Poet Dwells Alone.

And What Fastens Attention, In The Intercourse Of Life, Like Any Passage Betraying Affection Between Two Parties? Perhaps We Never Saw Them Before, And Never Shall Meet Them Again. But We See Them Exchange A Glance, Or Betray A Deep Emotion, And We Are No Longer Strangers. We Understand Them, And Take The Warmest Interest In The Development Of The Romance. All Mankind Love A Lover.

All That Adam Had, All That Caesar Could, You Have And Can Do.... Build, Therefore, Your Own World.

Without Looking, Then, To Those Extraordinary Social Influences Which Are Now Acting In Precisely This Direction, But Only At Whatis Inevitably Doing Around Us, I Think We Must Regard The Land As A Commanding And Increasing Power On The Citizen, The Sanative And Americanizing Influence, Which Promises To Disclose New Virtues For Ages To Come.

Culture Is The Suggestion, From Certain Best Thoughts, That A Man Has A Range Of Affinities Through Which He Can Modulate The Violence Of Any Master-tones That Have A Droning Preponderance In His Scale, And Succor Him Against Himself. Culture Redresses This Imbalance, Puts Him Among Equals And Superiors, Revives The Delicious Sense Of Sympathy, And Warns Him Of The Dangers Of Solitude And Repulsion.

No Member Of A Crew Is Praised For The Rugged Individuality Of His Rowing.

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

If The Aristocrat Is Only Valid In Fashionable Circles, And Not With Truckmen, He Will Never Be A Leader In Fashion; And If The Man Of The People Cannot Speak On Equal Terms With The Gentleman, So That The Gentleman Shall Perceive That He Is Already Really Of His Own Order, He Is Not To Be Feared.

The Moral Sense Reappears Today With The Same Morning Newness That Has Been From Of Old The Fountain Of Beauty And Strength. You Say There Is No Religion Now. 'tis Like Saying In Rainy Weather, There Is No Sun, When At That Moment We Are Witnessing One Of Its Superlative Effects.

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.

The Charm Of Fine Manners Is Music And Sculpture And Picture To Many Who Do Not Pretend To Appreciation Of These Arts.

It Is Said That The World Is In A State Of Bankruptcy, That The World Owes The World More Than The World Can Pay.

Gold And Iron Are Good To Buy Iron And Gold.

The Compensations Of Calamity Are Made Apparent To The Understanding Also, After Long Intervals Of Time. A Fever, A Mutilation, A Cruel Disappointment, A Loss Of Wealth, A Loss Of Friends, Seems At The Moment Unpaid Loss, And Unpayable. But The Sure Years Reveal The Deep Remedial Force That Underlies All Facts.

We Flee Away From Cities, But We Bring The Best Of Cities, These Learned Classifiers, Men Knowing What They Seek, Armed Eyes Of Experts.

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.

We Cannot Let Our Angels Go; We Do Not See That They Only Go Out That Archangels May Come In.

Live Well, Learn Plenty, Laugh Often, Love Much.

The German Intellect Wants The French Sprightliness, The Fine Practical Understanding Of The English, And The American Adventure; But It Has A Certain Probity, Which Never Rests In A Superficial Performance, But Asks Steadily, To What End? A German Public Asks For A Controlling Sincerity.

Every Ship That Comes To America Got Its Chart From Columbus.

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.

A Great Part Of Courage Is The Courage Of Having Done The Thing Before.

I Can Believe A Miracle Because I Can Raise My Own Arm. I Can Believe A Miracle Because I Can Remember. I Can Believe It Because I Can Speak And Be Understood By You.

Commit A Crime, And The Earth Is Made Of Glass.

The Soul Is The Perceiver And Revealer Of Truth. We Know Truth When We See It, Let Skeptic And Scoffer Say What They Choose.

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

The Book Of Nature Is The Book Of Fate. She Turns The Gigantic Pages, Leaf After Leaf Never Returning One.

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.

Whenever A Mind Is Simple And Receives An Old Wisdom, Old Things Pass Away,--means, Teachers, Texts, Temples Fall; It Lives Now, And Absorbs Past And Future Into Present Hour. All Things Are Made Sacred By Relation To It,--one As Much As Another.

A Chief Event Of Life Is The Day In Which We Have Encountered A Mind That Startled Us.

The World Is Upheld By The Veracity Of Good Men: They Make The Earth Wholesome.

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

Who Looks Upon A River In A Meditative Hour And Is Not Reminded Of The Flux Of All Things?

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

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.

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