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If Speculation Tends Thus To A Terrific Unity, In Which All Things Are Absorbed, Action Tends Directly Back To Diversity. The First Is The Course Or Gravitation Of Mind; The Second Is The Power Of Nature. Nature Is Manifold. The Unity Absorbs, And Melts Or Reduces. Nature Opens And Creates. These Two Principles Reappear And Interpenetrate All Things, All Thought; The One, The Many.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If Speculation Tends Thus

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If Speculation Tends Thus To A Terrific Unity, In Which All Things Are Absorbed, Action Tends Directly Back To Diversity. The First Is The Course Or Gravitation Of Mind; The Second Is The Power Of Nature. Nature Is Manifold. The Unity Absorbs, And Melts Or Reduces. Nature Opens And Creates. These Two Principles Reappear And Interpenetrate All Things, All Thought; The One, The Many.

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We Are Symbols, And Inhabit Symbols.

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

The Whole World Is An Omen And A Sign. Why Look So Wistfully In A Corner? Man Is The Image Of God. Why Run After A Ghost Or A Dream? The Voice Of Divination Resounds Everywhere And Runs To Waste Unheard, Unregarded, As The Mountains Echo With The Bleatings Of Cattle.

This Valley Is The Only Place That Comes Up To The Brag About It, And Exceeds It.

You Need Someone Who Can Inspire You To Be What You Know You Can Be

A Garden Is Like Those Pernicious Machineries Which Catch A Man's Coat-skirt Or His Hand, And Draw In His Arm, His Leg , And His Whole Body To Irresistible Destruction.

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

But I Cannot Recite, Even Thus Rudely, Laws Of The Intellect, Without Remembering That Lofty And Sequestered Class Of Men Who Have Been Its Prophets And Oracles, The High-priesthood Of The Pure Reason, The Trismegisti, The Expounders Of The Principles Of Thought From Age To Age.

The Student Is To Read History Actively And Not Passively.

The Unique Impression Of Jesus Upon Mankind - Whose Name Is Not So Much Written As Ploughed Into The History Of The World - Is Proof Of The Subtle Virtue Of This Infusion. Jesus Belonged To The Race Of Prophets. He Saw With Open Eyes The Mystery Of The Soul. One Man Was True To What Is In You And Me. He, As I Think, Is The Only Soul In History Who Has Appreciated The Worth Of Man.

Tobacco, Coffee, Alcohol, Hashish, Prussic Acid, Strychnine, Are Weak Dilutions; The Surest Poison Is Time. This Cup Which Nature Puts To Our Lips, Has A Wonderful Virtue, Surpassing That Of Any Other Draught. It Opens The Senses, Adds Power, Fills Us With Exalted Dreams, Which We Call Hope, Love, Ambition, Science; Especially It Creates A Craving For Larger Draughts Of Itself.

I Cannot Marry The Facts Of William Shakespeare To His Verse: Other Men Had Led Lives In Some Sort Of Keeping With Their Thought, But This Man Is In Wide Contrast.

Heaven Sometimes Hedges A Rare Character About With Ungainliness And Odium, As The Burr That Protects The Fruit.

Men Grind And Grind In The Mill Of A Truism, And Nothing Comes Out But What Was Put In. But The Moment They Desert The Tradition For A Spontaneous Thought, Then Poetry, Wit, Hope, Virtue, Learning, Anecdote, And All Flock To Their Aid.

The Finished Man Of The World Must Eat Of Every Apple At Once. He Must Hold His Hatreds Also At Arm's Length, And Not Remember Spite. He Has Neither Friends Nor Enemies, But Values Men Only As Channels Of Power.

The Genius Of The Platonists, Is Intoxicating To The Student, Yet How Few Particulars Of It Can I Detach From All Their Books.

Nature, As We Know Her, Is No Saint.... She Comes Eating And Drinking And Sinning.

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.

There Is Nothing Settled In Manners, But The Laws Of Behavior Yield To The Energy Of The Individual.

The Refining Influence Is The Study Of Art, Which Is The Science Of Beauty; And I Find That Every Man Values Every Scrap Of Knowledge In Art, Every Observation Of His Own In It, Every Hint He Has Caught From Another. For The Laws Of Beauty Are The Beauty Of Beauty, And Give The Mind The Same Or A Higher Joy Than The Sight Of It Gives The Senses. The Study Of Art Is Of High Value To The Growth Of The Intellect.

Progress Is The Activity Of Today And The Assurance Of Tomorrow

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

The Vulgar Call Good Fortune That Which Really Is Produced By The Calculations Of Genius.

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.

All The Thoughts Of A Turtle Are Turtle

When A Man Thinks Happily, He Finds No Foot-track In The Field He Traverses. All Spontaneous Thought Is Irrespective Of All Else.

Physical Force Has No Value, Where There Is Nothing Else. Snow In Snow-banks, Fire In Volcanoes And Solfataras Is Cheap. The Luxury Of Ice Is In Tropical Countries, And Midsummer Days. The Luxury Of Fire Is, To Have A Little On Our Hearth; And Of Electricity, Not The Volleys Of The Charged Cloud, But The Manageable Stream On The Battery-wires. So Of Spirit, Or Energy; The Rests Or Remains Of It In The Civil And Moral Man, Are Worth All The Cannibals In The Pacific.

In Old Egypt, It Was Established Law, That The Vote Of A Prophet Be Reckoned Equal To A Hundred Hands. I Think It Was Much Under-estimated.

Insist On Yourself; Never Imitate. Your Own Gift You Can Offer With The Cumulative Force Of A Whole Life's Cultivation, But Of The Adopted Talent Of Another, You Have Only An Extemporaneous, Half Possession.

Immitation Is Suicide.

A Man Is The Whole Encyclopedia Of Facts. The Creation Of A Thousand Forests Is In One Acorn, And Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, Lie Folded Already In The First Man.

To The Men Of This World, To The Animal Strength And Spirits, To The Men Of Practical Power, Whilst Immersed In It, The Man Of Ideas Appears Out Of His Reason. They Alone Gave Reason.

When I Go Into The Garden With A Spade And Dig A Bed I Feel Such An Exhilaration And Health That I Discover That I Have Been Defrauding Myself All This Time In Letting Others Do For Me What I Should Have Done With My Own Hands.

Every Man Is Not So Much A Workman In The World As He Is A Suggestion Of That He Should Be. Men Walk As Prophecies Of The Next Age.

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

The Mind Will Quote Whether The Tongue Does Or Not.

Truth Has Already Ceased To Be Itself If Polemically Said.

Do The Thing And You Will Have The Power.

As Soon As There Is Life There Is Danger.

Envy Is The Tax Which All Distinction Must Pay.

Hast Thou Named All The Birds Without A Gun?

All Science Has One Aim, Namely, To Find A Theory Of Nature.

Every Word Was Once A Poem. Every New Relation Is A New Word.

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!

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

The Lover Of Letters Loves Power Too.

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

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

Pines A Thousand Years Old. Every Year They Must Go Farther For Them: They Recede, Like Beavers And Indians, Before The White Man.

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Life Has No Memory. That Which Proceeds In Succession Might Be Remembered, But That Which Is Coexistent, Or Ejaculated From A Deeper Cause, As Yet Far From Being Conscious, Knows Not Its Own Tendency.

Knowledge Is The Only Elegance.

Natural Religion Supplies Still All The Facts Which Are Disguised Under The Dogma Of Popular Creeds. The Progress Of Religion Is Steadily To Its Identity With Morals.

I Am A Willow Of The Wilderness, Loving The Wind That Bent Me.

All Vigor Is Contagious.

The Machine Unmakes The Man. Now That The Machine Is So Perfect, The Engineer Is Nobody.

When The Man Is At Home, His Standing In Society Is Well Known And Quietly Taken; But When He Is Abroad, It Is Problematical, And Is Dependent On The Success Of His Manners.

We Prize Books, And They Prize Them Most Who Are Themselves Wise.

Life Is Comic Or Pitiful As Soon As The High Ends Of Being Fade Out Of Sight, And Man Becomes Near-sighted, And Can Only Attend Towhat Addresses The Senses.

Bare Lists Of Words Are Found Suggestive To An Imaginative And Excited Mind.

Blame Is Safer Than Praise

All History Is A Record Of The Power Of Minorities, And Of Minorities Of One.

The Finest Poems Of The World Have Been Expedients To Get Bread.

Give All To Love: Obey Thy Heart; Friends, Kindred, Days, Estate, Good Fame, Plans, Credit, And The Muse,- Nothing Refuse.

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

Life Is Unnecessarily Long. Moments Of Insight, Of Fine Personal Relation, A Smile, A Glance,--what Ample Borrowers Of Eternity They Are!

A System-grinder Hates The Truth.

You Must Let Go Of A Thing For A New One To Come To You.

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.

I Have Heard With Admiring Submission The Experience Of The Lady Who Declared That The Sense Of Being Well Dressed Gives A Feeling Of Inward Tranquility Which Religion Is Powerless To Bestow.

True Friends Are Two People Who Are Comfortable Sharing Silence Together.

To Get Up Each Morning With The Resolve To Be Happy Is To Set Your Own Conditions To The Events Of Each Day. To Do This Is To Condition Circumstances Instead Of Being Conditioned By Them.

Reality Is A Sliding Door.

Every Sentence Spoken By Napoleon, And Every Line Of His Writing, Deserves Reading, As It Is The Sense Of France.

Whom God Has Put Asunder, Why Should Man Put Together?

I Am Primarily Engaged To Myself To Be A Public Servant Of All The Gods, To Demonstrate To All Men That There Is Intelligence Andgood Will At The Heart Of All Things, And Even Higher And Yet Higher Leadings. These Are My Engagements; How Can Your Law Further Or Hinder Me In What I Shall Do To Men?

The Charming Landscape Which I Saw This Morning Is Indubitably Made Up Of Some Twenty Or Thirty Farms. Miller Owns This Field, Locke That, And Manning The Woodland Beyond. But None Of Them Owns The Landscape. There Is Property In The Horizon Which No Man Has But He Whose Eye Can Integrate All Parts, That Is, The Poet. This Is The Best Part Of These Men's Farms, Yet To This Their Warranty-deeds Give No Title.

As Long As A Man Stands In His Own Way, Everything Seems To Be In His Way.

Alas For The Unhappy Man That Is Called To Stand In The Pulpit, And Not Give The Bread Of Life.

The Stars Awaken A Certain Reverence, Because Though Always Present, They Are Inaccessible; But All Natural Objects Make A Kindred Impression, When The Mind Is Open To Their Influence. Nature Never Wears A Mean Appearance.

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.

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

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

Coffee Is Good For Talent, But Genius Wants Prayer.

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

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

We Learn That God Is; That He Is In Me; And That All Things Are Shadows Of Him.

No Nation Has Produced Anything Like His Equal. There Is No Quality In The Human Mind, There Is No Class Of Topics, There Is No Region Of Thought, In Which He Has Not Soared Or Descended, And None In Which He Has Not Said The Commanding Word.

The Virtues Of Society Are The Vices Of The Saints.

Fate Is Nothing But The Deeds Committed In A Prior State Of Existence.

All Men Are Poets At Heart. They Serve Nature For Bread, But Her Loveliness Overcomes Them Sometimes.

Use What Language You Will, You Can Never Say Anything But What You Are.

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

O Friend, Never Strike Sail To A Fear!

Most Of The Great Results Of History Are Brought About By Discreditable Means.

And Last Of All, High Over Thought, In The World Of Morals, Fate Appears As Vindicator, Levelling The High, Lifting The Low, Requiring Justice In Man, And Always Striking Soon Or Late When Justice Is Not Done. What Is Useful Will Last, What Is Hurtful Will Sink.

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

If I Quake, What Matters It What I Quake At? Our Proper Vice Takes Form In One Or Another Shape, According To The Sex, Age, Or Temperament Of The Person, And, If We Are Capable Of Fear, Will Readily Find Terrors.

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

Something Is Wanting To Science Until It Has Been Humanised.

Others Can Get In Your Way Temporarily, But Only You Can Get Out Of Your Way Permanently. Our Best Thoughts Come From Others.

The World Leaves No Track In Space, And The Greatest Action Of Man No Mark In The Vast Idea.

It Is One Soul Which Animates All Men.

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.

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.

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

The Poet A Moody Child And Wildly Wise Pursued The Game With Joyful Eyes, Which Chose, Like Meteors, Their Way, And Rived The Dark With Private Ray: They Overleapt The Horizon's Edge, Searched With Apollo's Privilege; Through Man, And Woman, And Sea, And Star, Saw The Dance Of Nature Forward Far; Through Worlds, And Races, And Terms, And Times, Saw Musical Order, And Pairing Rhymes. Olympian Bards Who Sung Divine Ideas Below, Which Always Find Us Young, And Always Keep Us So.

Can Rules Or Tutors Educate The Semigod Whom We Await? He Must Be Musical, Tremulous, Impressional, Alive To Gentle Influence Of Landscape And Of Sky And Tender To The Spirit-touch Of Man's Or Maiden's Eye.

Strange Is This Alien Despotism Of Sleep Which Takes Two Persons Lying In Each Other's Arms & Separates Them Leagues, Continents,asunder.

The Love Of Novels Is The Preference Of Sentiment To The Senses.

There Is Some Awe Mixed With The Joy Of Our Surprise, When This Poet, Who Lived In Some Past World, Two Or Three Hundred Years Ago, Says That Which Lies Close To My Own Soul, That Which I Also Had Wellnigh Thought And Said.

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

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

Poverty Demoralizes. A Man In Debt Is So Far A Slave; And Wall-street Thinks It Easy For A Millionaire To Be A Man Of His Word, Aman Of Honor, But, That, In Failing Circumstances, No Man Can Be Relied On To Keep His Integrity.

We Walk Alone In The World.

It Is Bad Enough That Our Geniuses Cannot Do Anything Useful, But It Is Worse That No Man Is Fit For Society Who Has Fine Traits.he Is Admired At A Distance, But He Cannot Come Near Without Appearing A Cripple.

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

Some Men's Words I Remember So Well That I Must Often Use Them To Express My Thought. Yes, Because I Perceive That We Have Heard The Same Truth, But They Have Heard It Better.

Nature Never Wears A Mean Appearance. Neither Does The Wisest Man Extort Her Secret, And Lose His Curiosity By Finding Out All Her Perfection.

Tomorrow Is A New Day; Begin It Well And Serenely And With Too High A Spirit To Be Encumbered With Your Old Nonsense.

Positive Thinking

There Are Men Whose Manners Have The Same Essential Splendor As The Simple And Awful Sculpture On The Friezes Of The Parthenon, And The Remains Of The Earliest Greek Art.

Knowledge Is The Antidote To Fear

Life Is A Search After Power.

The Young Man Reveres Men Of Genius, Because, To Speak Truly, They Are More Himself Than He Is.

Had I But Written As Many Odes In Praise Of Muhammad And Ali As I Have Composed For King Mahmud, They Would Have Showered A Hundred Blessings On Me.

The Best University That Can Be Recommended To A Man Of Ideas Is The Gauntlet Of The Mob.

There Is No Great And No Small To The Soul That Maketh All.

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

When It's Dark Enough Men See Stars.

The Maker Of A Sentence Launches Out Into The Infinite.

Creative Writing

Make Yourself Necessary To The World, And Mankind Will Give You Bread.

Once You Make A Decision, The Universe Conspires To Make It Happen.

The Sinew And Heart Of Man Seem To Be Drawn Out, And We Are Become Timorous Desponding Whimperers. We Are Afraid Of Truth, Afraid Of Fortune, Afraid Of Death, And Afraid Of Each Other.

He Who Knows What Sweets And Virtues Are In The Ground, The Plants, The Waters, The Heavens, And How To Come At These Enchantments - Is The Rich And Royal Man.

Astronomy Is A Cold, Desert Science, With All Its Pompous Figures,-depends A Little Too Much On The Glass-grinder, Too Little On The Mind. 't Is Of No Use To Show Us More Planets And Systems. We Know Already What Matter Is, And More Or Less Of It Does Not Signify.

The Conscious Utterance Of Thought, By Speech Or Action, To Any End, Is Art.

The Person Who Screams, Or Uses The Superlative Degree, Or Converses With Heat Puts Whole Drawing-rooms To Flight. If You Wish To Be Loved, Love Measure.

When Life Has Been Well Spent, Age Is A Loss Of What It Can Well Spare,--muscular Strength, Organic Instincts, Gross Bulk, And Works That Belong To These. But The Central Wisdom, Which Was Old In Infancy, Is Young In Fourscore Years, And Dropping Off Obstructions, Leaves In Happy Subjects The Mind Purified And Wise.

My Good Hoe As It Bites The Ground Revenges My Wrongs, And I Have Less Lust To Bite My Enemies. In The Smoothing The Rough Hillocks, I Smooth My Temper.

Literature Is Eavesdropping.

All Natural Objects Make A Kindred Impression, When The Mind Is Open To Their Influence.

Fear Is Cruel And Mean.

To Help The Young Soul, To Add Energy, Inspire Hope, And Blow The Coals Into A Useful Flame; To Redeem Defeat By New Thought And Firm Action, This, Though Not Easy, Is The Work Of Divine Men.

When The Vain Speaker Has Sat Down, And The People Say 'what A Good Speech,' It Still Takes An Ounce To Balance An Ounce.

Self-love Is, In Almost All Men, Such An Over-weight That They Are Incredulous Of A Man's Habitual Preference Of The General Good To His Own; But When They See It Proved By Sacrifices Of Ease, Wealth, Rank, And Of Life Itself, There Is No Limit To Their Admiration.

The Spirit Of The World, The Great Calm Presence Of The Creator, Comes Not Forth To The Sorceries Of Opium Or Of Wine.

The Power Of Love, As The Basis Of A State, Has Never Been Tried.

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.

There Is No Architect Can Build As The Muse Can; She Is Skilful To Select Materials For Her Plan.

For Each Thorn, There's A Rosebud... For Each Twilight - A Dawn... For Each Trial - The Strength To Carry On, For Each Storm Cloud - A Rainbow... For Each Shadow - The Sun... For Each Parting - Sweet Memories When Sorrow Is Done.

If You Want A Friend You Need To Be A Friend.

The Idealism Of Berkeley Is Only A Crude Statement Of The Idealism Of Jesus, And That Again Is A Crude Statement Of The Fact Thatall Nature Is The Rapid Efflux Of Goodness Executing And Organizing Itself.

But Whoso Is Heroic Must Find Crises To Try His Edge. Human Virtue Demands Her Champions And Martyrs, And The Trial Of Persecution Always Proceeds.

We Do Not Live An Equal Life, But One Of Contrasts And Patchwork; Now A Little Joy, Then A Sorrow, Now A Sin, Then A Generous Or Brave Action.

Shallow Men Believe In Luck, Believe In Circumstances: It Was Somebody's Name, Or He Happened To Be There At Right Time, Or It Was So Then, And Another Day It Would Have Been Otherwise. Strong Men Believe In Cause And Effect.

Let The River Roll Which Way It Will, Cities Will Rise On Its Banks.

The Vanishing, Volatile Froth Of The Present Which Any Shadow Will Alter, Any Thought Blow Away, Any Event Annihilate, Is Every Moment Converted Into The Adamantine.

Immortality. I Notice That As Soon As Writers Broach This Question They Begin To Quote. I Hate Quotation. Tell Me What You Know.

Every Man Who Would Do Anything Well, Must Come To It From A Higher Ground.

The Reason Why The World Lacks Unity, And Lies Broken And In Heaps, Is, Because Man Is Disunited With Himself.

Every Natural Fact Is A Symbol Of Some Spiritual Fact.

With Most Men, Scarce A Link Of Memory Holds Yesterday And To-day Together.

When At Last In A Race A New Principle Appears, An Idea--that Conserves It; Ideas Only Save Races.

The Scholar Is That Man Who Must Take Up Into Himself All The Ability Of The Time, All The Contributions Of The Past, All The Hopes Of The Future. He Must Be An University Of Knowledges.

When A Thought Of Plato Becomes A Thought To Me,--when A Truth That Fired The Soul Of Pindar Fires Mine, Time Is No More. When I Feel That We Two Meet In A Perception, That Our Two Souls Are Tinged With The Same Hue, And Do As It Were Run Into One, Why Should I Measure Degrees Of Latitude, Why Should I Count Egyptian Years?

One Single Idea May Have Greater Weight Than All The Men, Animals, And Machines For A Century.

The Perception Of The Comic Is A Tie Of Sympathy With Other Men, A Pledge Of Sanity, And A Protection From Those Perverse Tendencies And Gloomy Insanities In Which Fine Intellects Sometimes Lose Themselves. A Rogue Alive To The Ludicrous Is Still Convertible. If That Sense Is Lost, His Fellow-men Can Do Little For Him.

Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without Enthusiasm.

Sunday Is The Core Of Our Civilization, Dedicated To Thought And Reverence.

Nothing External To You Has Any Power Over You.

He In Whom The Love Of Truth Predominates . . . Submits To The Inconvenience Of Suspense And Imperfect Opinion; But He Is A Candidate For Truth . . . And Respects The Highest Law Of His Being.

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

Live, Let Live, And Help Live

Let The Bird Sing Without Deciphering The Song.

The Glance Is Natural Magic. The Mysterious Communication Established Across A House Between Two Entire Strangers, Moves All The Springs Of Wonder. The Communication By The Glance Is In The Greatest Part Not Subject To The Control Of The Will. It Is The Bodily Symbol Of Identity With Nature. We Look Into The Eyes To Know If This Other Form Is Another Self, And The Eyes Will Not Lie, But Make A Faithful Confession What Inhabitant Is There.

The Chief Value Of The New Fact Is To Enhance The Great And Constant Fact Of Life.

The Household Is A School Of Power. There, Within The Door, Learn The Tragi-comedy Of Human Life.

The Essence Of Friendship Is Entireness, A Total Magnanimity And Trust. It Must Not Surmise Or Provide For Infirmity. It Treats Its Object As A God, That It Might Deify Both.

Nature Is Upheld By Antagonism.

Insist Upon Yourself. Be Original.

Funny Basketball

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

We Are Adapted To Infinity. We Are Hard To Please, And Love Nothing Which Ends: And In Nature Is No End; But Every Thing, At The End Of One Use, Is Lifted Into A Superior, And The Ascent Of These Things Climbs Into Daemonic And Celestial Natures.

In The Highest Civilization The Book Is Still The Highest Delight.

Nature Hates Monopolies And Exceptions.

Let There Be Worse Cotton And Better Men.

There Are People Who Have An Appetite For Grief; Pleasure Is Not Strong Enough And They Crave Pain. They Have Mithridatic Stomachs Which Must Be Fed On Poisoned Bread, Natures So Doomed That No Prosperity Can Sooth Their Ragged And Dishevelled Desolation.

Such Is The Active Power Of Good Temperament! Great Sweetness Of Temper Neutralizes Such Vast Amounts Of Acid.

The Reliance On Authority Measures The Decline Of Religion, The Withdrawal Of The Soul.

Let Me Never Fall Into The Vulgar Mistake Of Dreaming That I Am Persecuted Whenever I Am Contradicted.

Let The Stoics Say What They Please, We Do Not Eat For The Good Of Living, But Because The Meat Is Savory And The Appetite Is Keen.

Each Man Is A Hero And An Oracle To Somebody.

What You Are Shouts At Me So Loudly That I Can't Hear A Word You Say.

Proverbs, Words, And Grammar Inflections Convey The Public Sense With More Purity And Precision, Than The Wisest Individual.

Only To Youth Will Spring Be Spring.

Why Should I Cumber Myself With Regrets That The Receiver Is Not Capacious? It Never Troubles The Sun That Some Of His Rays Fall Wide And Vain Into Ungrateful Space, And Only A Small Part On The Reflecting Planet. Let Your Greatness Educate The Crude And Cold Companion.

The Artists Must Be Sacrificed To Their Art. Like The Bees, They Must Put Their Lives Into The Sting They Give.

We Take Care Of Our Health; We Lay Up Money; We Make Our Roof Tight, And Our Clothing Sufficient; But Who Provides Wisely That He Shall Not Be Wanting In The Best Property Of All, -friends?

There Are No Fixtures In Nature. The Universe Is Fluid And Volatile. Permanence Is But A Word Of Degrees.

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

A Work Of Art Is An Abstract Or Epitome Of The World. It Is The Result Or Expression Of Nature, In Miniature. For, Although The Works Of Nature Are Innumerable And All Different, The Result Or The Expression Of Them All Is Similar And Single.

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