Background Image

...

If There Is Any Period One Would Desire To Be Born In, Is It Not The Age Of Revolution; When The Old And The New Stand Side By Side, And Admit Of Being Compared; When The Energies Of All Men Are Searched By Fear And By Hope; When The Historic Glories Of The Old Can Be Compensated By The Rich Possibilities Of The New Era?

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

If There Is Any

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

If There Is Any Period One Would Desire To Be Born In, Is It Not The Age Of Revolution; When The Old And The New Stand Side By Side, And Admit Of Being Compared; When The Energies Of All Men Are Searched By Fear And By Hope; When The Historic Glories Of The Old Can Be Compensated By The Rich Possibilities Of The New Era?

Views: 5

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thanks To The Morning Light, Thanks To The Foaming Sea, To The Uplands Of New Hampshire, To The Green-haired Forest Free.

Eloquence Must Be Grounded On The Plainest Narrative. Afterwards, It May Warm Itself Until It Exhales Symbols Of Every Kind And Color, Speaks Only Through The Most Poetic Forms; But First And Last, It Must Still Be At Bottom A Biblical Statement Of Fact.

Happy Is The Hearing Man; Unhappy The Speaking Man.

The Exercise Of All The Senses Is As Intense Pleasure, As Anyone Will Find, Who Recovers The Use Of One After Being Deprived Of It.

Ever The Words Of The Gods Resound; But The Porches Of Man's Ear Seldom In This Low Life's Round Are Unsealed, That He May Hear.

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

Revolutions Go Not Backward.

Our Poets Are Men Of Talents Who Sing, And Not The Children Of Music.

Beauty Is The Pilot Of The Young Soul.

The People Know That They Need In Their Representative Much More Than Talent, Namely, The Power To Make His Talent Trusted.

There Are Two Classes Of Poets - The Poets By Education And Practice, These We Respect; And Poets By Nature, These We Love.

There Are No Days In Life So Memorable As Those Which Vibrate To Some Stroke Of The Imagination.

Vivacity, Leadership, Must Be Had, And We Are Not Allowed To Be Nice In Choosing. We Must Fetch The Pump With Dirty Water, If Clean Cannot Be Had.

How We Hate This Solemn Ego That Accompanies The Learned, Like A Double, Wherever He Goes.

Wild Liberty Breeds Iron Conscience; Natures With Great Impulses Have Great Resources, And Return From Far.

Gold And Iron Are Good To Buy Iron And Gold.

Blame Is Safer Than Praise

Cities Force Growth And Make Men Talkative And Entertaining, But They Make Them Artificial. What Possesses Interest For Us Is Thenatural Of Each, His Constitutional Excellence. This Is Forever A Surprise, Engaging And Lovely; We Cannot Be Satiated With Knowing It, And About It; And It Is This Which The Conversation With Nature Cherishes And Guards.

The Heroic Soul Does Not Sell Its Justice And Its Nobleness. It Does Not Ask To Dine Nicely And To Sleep Warm. The Essence Of Greatness Is The Perception That Virtue Is Enough. Poverty Is Its Ornament. It Does Not Need Plenty, And Can Very Well Abide Its Loss.

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

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.

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

In Youth, We Clothe Ourselves With Rainbows, With Hope & Love, & Go As Brave As The Zodiack. In Age We Put Out Another Sort Of Perspiration; Gout, Fever, Rheumatism, Caprice, Doubt, Fretting, And Avarice.

For The Resolute And Determined, There Is Time And Opportunity.

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

The Cure For False Theology Is Motherwit. Forget Your Books And Traditions, And Obey Your Moral Perceptions At This Hour.

We Live In Succession, In Division, In Parts And Particles. Meantime, Within Man, Is The Soul Of The Whole; The Wise Silence; The Universal Beauty To Which Every Part And Particle Is Equally Related; The Eternal One.

A Man Must Consider What A Blindman's-buff Is This Game Of Conformity.

Oh, Be My Friend, And Teach Me To Be Thine!

Meek Young Men Grow Up In Libraries, Believing It Their Duty To Accept The Views Which Cicero, Which Locke, Which Bacon, Have Given, Forgetful That Cicero, Locke, And Bacon Were Only Young Men In Libraries, When They Wrote These Books.

All Goes To Show That The Soul In Man Is Not An Organ, But Animates And Exercises All The Organs; Is Not A Function, Like The Power Of Memory, Of Calculation, Of Comparison, But Uses These As Hands And Feet; Is Not A Faculty, But A Light, Is Not The Intellect Or The Will, But The Master Of The Intellect And The Will; Is The Background Of Our Being, In Which They Lie,--an Immensity Not Possessed And That Cannot Be Possessed.

Nor Count Compartments Of The Floors, But Mount To Paradise By The Stairway Of Surprise.

Shakespeare Will Never Be Made By The Study Of Shakespeare.

The Stupidity Of Men Always Invites The Insolence Of Power.

A Child Is A Curly, Dimpled Lunatic.

If You Criticize A Fine Genius, The Odds Are That You Are Out Of Your Reckoning, And, Instead Of The Poet, Are Censuring Your Owncaricature Of Him.

The True Scholar Grudges Every Opportunity Of Action Passed, By, As A Loss Of Power.

Flowers So Strictly Belong To Youth, That We Adult Men Soon Come To Feel, That Their Beautiful Generations Concern Not Us: We Havehad Our Day; Now Let The Children Have Theirs. The Flowers Jilt Us, And We Are Old Bachelors With Our Ridiculous Tenderness.

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

That Which We Do Not Believe, We Cannot Adequately Say; Even Though We May Repeat The Words Ever So Often.

This Very Certain That Each Man Carries In His Eye The Exact Indication Of His Rank In The Immense Scale Of Men, And We Are Always Learning To Read It. A Complete Man Should Need No Auxiliaries To His Personal Presence.

I Like To Have A Person's Knowledge Comprehend More Than One Class Of Topics, One Row Of Shelves. I Like A Person Who Likes To See A Fine Barn As Well As A Good Tragedy.

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

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!

The Constructive Intellect [genius] Produces Thoughts, Sentences, Poems, Plans, Designs, Systems. It Is The Generation Of The Mind, The Marriage Of Thought With Nature.

In The History Of The Individual Is Always An Account Of His Condition, And He Knows Himself To Be A Party To His Present Estate.

The Glory Of The Farmer Is That, In The Division Of Labors, It Is His Part To Create. All Trade Rests At Last On His Primitive Activity. He Stands Close To Nature; He Obtains From The Earth The Bread And The Meat. The Food Which Was Not, He Causes To Be.

Division Of Labor

The Solitary Knows The Essence Of The Thought, The Scholar In Society Only Its Fair Face.

Nor Knowest Thou What Argument Thy Life To Thy Neighbor's Creed Has Lent. All Are Needed By Each One; Nothing Is Fair Or Good Alone.

An Ounce Of Action Is Worth A Ton Of Theory.

It Is The Fine Souls Who Serve Us, And Not What Is Called Fine Society. Fine Society Is Only A Self-protection Against The Vulgarities Of The Street And The Tavern.

Moller, In His Essay On Architecture, Taught That The Building Which Was Fitted Accurately To Answer Its End Would Turn Out To Be Beautiful, Though Beauty Had Not Been Intended. I Find The Like Unity In Human Structures Rather Virulent And Pervasive.

We Seek Our Friend Not Sacredly, But With An Adulterate Passion Which Would Appropriate Him To Ourselves.

To Fill The Hour──that Is Happiness.

Time Management

When The Boys Come Into My Yard For Leave To Gather Horse-chestnuts, I Own I Enter Into Nature's Game, And Affect To Grant The Permission Reluctantly, Fearing That Any Moment They Will Find Out The Imposture Of That Showy Chaff. But This Tenderness Is Quite Unnecessary; The Enchantments Are Laid On Very Thick. Their Young Life Is Thatched With Them. Bare And Grim To Tears Is The Lot Of The Children In The Hovel I Saw Yesterday; Yet Not The Less They Hang It Round With Frippery Romance, Like The Children Of The Happiest Fortune.

Fear Is Cruel And Mean.

If The Gatherer Gathers Too-much, Nature Takes Out Of The Man What She Puts Into His Chest; Swells The Estate, But Kills The Owner. Nature Hates, Monopolies And Exceptions.

Successful Is The Person Who Has Lived Well, Laughed Often And Loved Much, Who Has Gained The Respect Of Children, Who Leaves The World Better Than They Found It, Who Has Never Lacked Appreciation For The Earth's Beauty, Who Never Fails To Look For The Best In Others Or Give The Best Of Themselves.

I Suppose You Could Never Explain To The Most Ingenous Molusk That Such A Creature As A Whale Existed.

If, At Any Time, It Comes Into My Head, That A Present Is Due From Me To Somebody, I Am Puzzled What To Give, Until The Opportunity Is Gone.

We All Need Someone Who Can Help Us Do What We Already Can.

Every Man Takes Care That His Neighbor Shall Not Cheat Him. But A Day Comes When He Begins To Care That He Does Not Cheat His Neighbor. Then All Goes Well. He Has Changed His Market Cart Into A Chariot Of The Sun.

Is The Parent Better Than The Child Into Whom He Has Cast His Ripened Being? Whence, Then, This Worship Of The Past?

The Less Government We Have The Better.

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

Fear Always Springs From Ignorance.

Drudgery, Calamity, Exasperation, Want, Are Instructors In Eloquence And Wisdom.

No Man Ever Came To An Experience Which Was Satiating, But His Good Is Tidings Of A Better. Onward And Onward!

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

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

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

Neither You Nor The World Knows What You Can Do Until You Have Tried.

We Denote This Primary Wisdom As Intuition, Whilst All Later Teachings Are Tuitions.

It Seems To Be A Rule Of Wisdom Never To Rely On Your Memory Alone, Scarcely Even In Acts Of Pure Memory, But To Bring The Past For Judgment Into The Thousand-eyed Present, And Live Ever In A New Day.

Accuracy Is Essential To Beauty.

The Hues Of The Opal, The Light Of The Diamond, Are Not To Be Seen If The Eye Is Too Near.

Always Do What You Are Afraid To Do.

Man Is Priest, And Scholar, And Statesman, And Producer, And Soldier. In The Divided Or Social State These Functions Are Parcelled Out To Individuals, Each Of Whom Aims To Do His Stint Of The Joint Work, Whilst Each Other Performs His.

Those Who Are Esteemed Umpires Of Taste, Are Often Persons Who Have Acquired Some Knowledge Of Admired Pictures Or Sculptures, Andhave An Inclination For Whatever Is Elegant; But If You Inquire Whether They Are Beautiful Souls, And Whether Their Own Acts Are Like Fair Pictures, You Learn That They Are Selfish And Sensual. Their Cultivation Is Local, As If You Should Rub A Log Of Dry Wood In One Spot To Produce Fire, All The Rest Remaining Cold.

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.

A Human Being Should Beware How He Laughs, For Then He Shows All His Faults.

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.

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

The Land Is The Appointed Remedy For Whatever Is False And Fantastic In Our Culture...food For Our Mind, As Well As Our Body.

We Acquire The Strength We Have Overcome.

If You Would Know What Nobody Knows, Read What Everybody Reads, Just One Year Afterwards.

Some Men Love Only To Talk Where They Are Masters. They Like To Go To School-girls, Or To Boys, Or Into The Shops Where The Sauntering People Gladly Lend An Ear.

In Talking With Scholars, I Observe That They Lost On Ruder Companions Those Years Of Boyhood Which Alone Could Give Imaginative Literature A Religious And Infinite Quality In Their Esteem.

There Is Always Room For A Person Of Force And They Make Room For Many.

Science Always Goes Abreast With The Just Elevation Of The Man, Keeping Step With Religion And Metaphysics; Or, The State Of Science Is An Index Of Our Self-knowledge.

We First Share The Life By Which Things Exist, And Afterwards See Them As Appearances In Nature, And Forget That We Have Shared Their Cause.

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.

Life Is To Be Lived, Not Controlled.

Foolish Consistencies Are The Hobgoblins Of Small Minds!

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.

The Greatest Meliorator Of The World Is Selfish, Huckstering Trade.

We Are Shut Up In Schools And College Recitation Rooms For Ten Or Fifteen Years, And Come Out At Last With A Bellyful Of Words And Do Not Know A Thing.

Poverty, Frost, Famine, Rain, Disease, Are The Beadles And Guardsmen That Hold Us To Common Sense.

The Good Lawyer Is Not The Man Who Has An Eye To Every Side And Angle Of Contingency, And Qualifies All His Qualifications, But Who Throws Himself On Your Part So Heartily, That He Can Get You Out Of A Scrape.

It Does Not Need That A Poem Should Be Long. Every Word Was Once A Poem.

Flowers Are The Earth Laughing.

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.

Unless You Try To Do Something Beyond What You Have Already Mastered, You Will Never Grow.

I Think Sometimes Could I Only Have Music On My Own Terms, Could I Live In A Great City, And Know Where I Could Go Whenever I Wished The Ablution And Inundation Of Musical Waves, That Were A Bath And A Medicine.

If The King Is In The Palace, Nobody Looks At The Walls. It Is When He Is Gone, And The House Is Filled With Grooms And Gazers, That We Turn From The People, To Find Relief In The Majestic Men That Are Suggested By The Pictures And The Architecture.

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.

It Is Contended That Those Who Have Been Bred At Eton, Harrow, Rugby, And Westminster, That The Public Sentiment Within Each Of Those Schools Is High-toned And Manly; That, In Their Playgrounds, Courage Is Universally Admired, Meanness Despised, Manly Feelings And Generous Conduct Are Encouraged: That An Unwritten Code Of Honor Deals To The Spoiled Child Of Rank, And To The Child Of Upstart Wealth An Even-handed Justice, Purges Their Nonsense Out Of Both, And Does All That Can Be Done To Make Them Gentlemen.

There Is An Intimate Interdependence Of Intellect And Morals.

Tis The Old Secret Of The Gods That They Come In Low Disguises.

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. He Has Not One Chance, But A Hundred Chances.

So Each Man, Like Each Plant, Has His Parasites. A Strong, Astringent, Bilious Nature Has More Truculent Enemies Than The Slugs And Moths That Fret My Leaves. Such A One Has Curculios, Borers, Knife-worms; A Swindler Ate Him First, Then A Client, Then A Quack, Then Smooth, Plausible Gentlemen, Bitter And Selfish As Moloch.

The Eye Is The Painter And The Ear The Singer.

In The Hands Of The Discoverer, Medicine Becomes A Heroic Art . . Wherever Life Is Dear He Is A Demigod.

The Civility Of No Race Can Be Perfect Whilst Another Race Is Degraded.

There Is No Event Greater In Life Than The Appearance Of New Persons About Our Hearth, Except It Be The Progress Of The Characterwhich Draws Them.

It Is The Privilege Of Any Human Work Which Is Well Done To Invest The Doer With A Certain Haughtiness. He Can Well Afford Not To Conciliate, Whose Faithful Work Will Answer For Him.

We Sell The Thrones Of Angels For A Short And Turbulent Pleasure.

For Every Benefit You Receive A Tax Is Levied.

The French Woman Says, 'i Am A Woman And A Parisienne, And Nothing Foreign To Me Appears Altogether Human.'

Character Is Higher Than Intellect. Thinking Is The Function; Living Is The Functionary.

Every Great And Commanding Movement In The Annals Of The World Is Due To The Triumph Of Enthusiasm. Nothing Great Was Ever Achieved Without It

Enthusiasm For Life

Nature Always Wears The Colors Of The Spirit. To A Man Laboring Under Calamity The Heat Of His Own Fire Hath Sadness In It. Then There Is A Kind Of Contempt Of The Landscape Felt By Him Who Has Just Lost By Death A Dear Friend. The Sky Is Less Grand As It Shuts Down Over Less Worth In The Population.

I Like The Silent Church Before The Service Begins, Better Than Any Preaching. How Far Off, How Cool, How Chaste The Persons Look,begirt Each One With A Precinct Or Sanctuary!

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

Most People, Who Have Quit Smoking, Have Had At Least One Unsuccessful Try In The Past. It Is Not Important How Many Times You Try To Quit. The Only Important Thing Is, That Eventually You Stay Quit

Neither Is Life Long Enough For Friendship. That Is A Serious And Majestic Affair.

Talent Alone Cannot Make A Writer. There Must Be A Man Behind The Book; A Personality Which, By Birth And Quality, Is Pledged To The Doctrines There Set Forth, And Which Exists To See And State Things So, And Not Otherwise.

Great Believers Are Always Reckoned Infidels, Impracticable, Fantastic, Atheistic, And Really Men Of No Account. The Spiritualist Finds Himself Driven To Express His Faith By A Series Of Skepticisms.

Little Thinks, In The Field, Yon Red-cloaked Clown, Of Thee, From The Hill-top Looking Down; And The Heifer, That Lows In The Upland Farm, Far-heard, Lows Not Thine Ear To Charm; The Sexton Tolling The Bell At Noon, Dreams Not That Great Napoleon Sto

If The Black Man Is Feeble And Not Important To The Existing Races, Not On A Parity With The Best Race, The Black Man Must Serve,and Be Exterminated. But If The Black Man Carries In His Bosom An Indispensable Element Of A New And Coming Civilization; For The Sake Of That Element, No Wrong Nor Strength Nor Circumstance Can Hurt Him: He Will Survive And Play His Part. So Now, The Arrival In The World Of Such Men As Toussaint, And The Haytian Heroes, Or Of The Leaders Of Their Race In Barbadoes And Jamaica, Outweighs In Good Omen All The English And American Humanity.

We Must Leave Our Pets At Home, When We Go Into The Street, And Meet Men On Broad Grounds Of Good Meaning And Good Sense.

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.

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

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

Things Have Their Laws As Well As Men, And Things Refuse To Be Trifled With.

I Cannot Find Language Of Sufficient Energy To Convey My Sense Of The Sacredness Of Private Integrity. All Men, All Things, The State, The Church, Yea The Friends Of The Heart Are Phantasms And Unreal Beside The Sanctuary Of The Heart. With So Much Awe, With So Much Fear, Let It Be Respected.

Everything Runs To Excess; Every Good Quality Is Noxious If Unmixed.

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.

The Relations Of The Soul To The Divine Spirit Are So Pure, That It Is Profane To Seek To Interpose Helps.

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.

Our Admiration Of The Antique Is Not Admiration Of The Old, But Of The Natural.

Every Man Finds A Sanction For His Simplest Claims And Deeds, In Decisions Of His Own Mind, Which He Calls Truth And Holiness.

Life Itself Is ... A Sleep Within A Sleep.

Philosophically Considered, The Universe Is Composed Of Nature And The Soul.

In The Learned Journal, In The Influential Newspaper, I Discern No Form; Only Some Irresponsible Shadow; Oftener Some Monied Corporation, Or Some Dangler, Who Hopes, In The Mask And Robes Of His Paragraph, To Pass For Somebody. But Through Every Clause And Part Of Speech Of The Right Book I Meet The Eyes Of The Most Determined Men; His Force And Terror Inundate Every Word: The Commas And Dashes Are Alive; So That The Writing Is Athletic And Nimble,--can Go Far And Live Long.

All Sensible People Are Selfish, And Nature Is Tugging At Every Contract To Make The Terms Of It Fair.

Everything Good Is On The Highway.

Herein Is The Explanation Of The Analogies, Which Exist In All The Arts. They Are The Re-appearance Of One Mind, Working In Many Materials To Many Temporary Ends. Raphael Paints Wisdom, Handel Sings It, Phidias Carves It, Shakspeare Writes It, Wren Builds It, Columbus Sails It, Luther Preaches It, Washington Arms It, Watt Mechanizes It. Painting Was Called "silent Poetry," And Poetry "speaking Painting." The Laws Of Each Art Are Convertible Into The Laws Of Every Other.

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

I Knew A Witty Physician Who Found Theology In The Biliary Duct, And Used To Affirm That If There Was A Disease In The Liver, The Man Became A Calvinist, And If That Organ Was Sound, He Became A Unitarian.

The Service A Man Renders His Friend Is Trivial And Selfish, Compared With The Service He Knows His Friend Stood In Readiness To Yield Him, Alike Before He Had Begun To Serve His Friend, And Now Also. Compared With That Good-will I Bear My Friend, The Benefit It Is In My Power To Render Him Seems Small.

Foolish, Whenever You Take The Meanness And Formality Of That Thing You Do, Instead Of Converting It Into The Obedient Spiracle Ofyour Character And Aims.

So . . . I Feel In Regard To This Aged England . . . Pressed Upon By Transitions Of Trade And . . . Competing Populations,-i See Her Not Dispirited, Not Weak, But Well Remembering That She Has Seen Dark Days Before;-indeed, With A Kind Of Instinct That She Sees A Little Better In A Cloudy Day, And That, In Storm Of Battle And Calamity, She Has A Secret Vigor And A Pulse Like A Cannon.

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

Passion Rebuilds The World For The Youth. It Makes All Things Alive And Significant.

Great Causes Are Never Tried On Their Merits; But The Cause Is Reduced To Particulars To Suit The Size Of The Partizans, And The Contention Is Ever Hottest On Minor Matters.

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.

Men Are What Their Mothers Made Them. You May As Well Ask A Loom Which Weaves Huckabuck Why It Does Not Make Cashmere As To Expect Poetry From This Engineer Or A Chemical Discovery From That Jobber.

I Take This Evanescence And Lubricity Of All Objects, Which Lets Them Slip Through Our Fingers Then When We Clutch Hardest, To Be The Most Unhandsome Part Of Our Condition.

A Man Is A Beggar Who Only Lives To The Useful, And, However He May Serve As A Pin Or Rivet In The Social Machine, Cannot Be Saidto Have Arrived At Self-possession.

Love Should Make Joy; But Our Benevolence Is Unhappy. Our Sunday-schools, And Churches, And Pauper-societies Are Yokes To The Neck. We Pain Ourselves To Please Nobody.

I Should As Soon Think Of Swimming Across Charles River, When I Wish To Go To Boston, As Of Reading All My Books In Originals, When I Have Them Rendered For Me In My Mother Tongue.

But What Help From These Fineries Or Pedantries? What Help From Thought? Life Is Not Dialectics. We, I Think, In These Times, Have Had Lessons Enough Of The Futility Of Criticism.

In The Woods, Too, A Man Casts Off His Years, As The Snake His Slough, And At What Period Soever Of Life, Is Always A Child. In The Woods Is Perpetual Youth. Within These Plantations Of God A Decorum And Sanctity Reign, A Perennial Festival Is Dressed, And The Guest Sees Not How He Should Tire Of Them In A Thousand Years. In The Woods We Return To Reason And Faith.

What We Do Not Call Education Is More Precious Than That Which We Call So. We Form No Guess, At The Time Of Receiving A Thought, Of Its Comparative Value. And Education Often Wastes Its Effort In Attempts To Thwart And Balk This Natural Magnetism, Which Is Sure To Select What Belongs To It.

A Friend May Well Be Reckoned The Masterpiece Of Nature.

An Eminent Teacher Of Girls Said, "the Idea Of A Girl's Education, Is, Whatever Qualifies Them For Going To Europe.

We Judge Of Man's Wisdom By His Hope.

Every Friend Whom Not Thy Fantastic Will But The Great And Tender Heart In Thee Craveth, Shall Lock Thee In His Embrace. And This Because The Heart In Thee Is The Heart Of All; Not A Valve, Not A Wall, Not An Intersection Is There Anywhere In Nature, But One Blood Rolls Uninterruptedly In Endless Circulation Through All Men, As The Water Of The Globe Is All One Sea, And, Truly Seen, Its Tide Is One.

Every Promise Of The Soul Has Innumerable Fulfillments; Each Of Its Joys Ripens Into A New Want.

As Long As Our People Quote English Standards They Dwarf Their Own Proportions.

Success Goes Thus Invariably With A Certain Plus Or Positive Power: An Ounce Of Power Must Balance An Ounce Of Weight.

Life Is Girt All Round With A Zodiac Of Sciences, The Contributions Of Men Who Have Perished To Add Their Point Of Light To Our Sky. ... These Road-makers On Every Hand Enrich Us. We Must Extend The Area Of Life And Multiply Our Relations. We Are As Much Gainers By Finding A Property In The Old Earth As By Acquiring A New Planet.

Of Cheerfulness, Or A Good Temper - The More It Is Spent, The More Of It Remains.

Astronomy Taught Us Our Insignificance In Nature.

To The Attentive Eye, Each Moment Of The Year Has Its Own Beauty, And In The Same Fields, It Beholds, Every Hour, A Picture Which Was Never Seen Before, And Which Shall Never Be Seen Again.

The Inmost In Due Time Becomes The Outmost.

Don't Be Pushed By Your Problems. Be Led By Your Dreams.

Traveling Is A Fool's Paradise. Our First Journeys Discover To Us The Indifference Of Places.

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.

I Cannot Forgive A Scholar His Homeless Despondency.

It Does Not To Dwell On Dreams And Forget To Live, But It Is Equally Foolish To Ignore The Past – Never Forget.

A Man's Growth Is Seen In The Successive Choirs Of His Friends.

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

Of All Debts, Men Are Least Willing To Pay Their Taxes; What A Satire This Is On Government.

Is It Not Manifest That Our Academic Institutions Should Have A Wider Scope; That They Should Not Be Timid And Keep The Ruts Of The Last Generation, But That Wise Men Thinking For Themselves And Heartily Seeking The Good Of Mankind, And Counting The Cost Of Innovation, Should Dare To Arouse The Young To A Just And Heroic Life; That The Moral Nature Should Be Addressed In The School-room, And Children Should Be Treated As The High-born Candidates Of Truth And Virtue?

I Think The Vice Of Our Housekeeping Is That It Does Not Hold Man Sacred. The Vice Of Government, The Vice Of Education, The Viceof Religion, Is One With That Of The Private Life.

The Rich Mind Lies In The Sun And Sleeps, And Is Nature.

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

These Times Of Ours Are Series And Full Of Calamity, But All Times Are Essentially Alike. As Soon As There Is Life There Is Danger.

To Laugh Often And Love Much; To Win The Respect Of Intelligent Persons And The Affection Of Children; To Earn The Approbation Of Honest Critics And Endure The Betrayal Of False Friends; To Appreciate Beauty.

Courage Of The Soldier Awakes The Courage Of Woman.

Genius Is The Power To Labor Better And More Availably. Deserve Thy Genius: Exalt It.

Our Life Is An Apprenticeship To The Truth That Around Every Circle Another Can Be Drawn; That There Is No End In Nature, But Every End Is A Beginning, And Under Every Deep A Lower Deep Opens.

Nor Sequent Centuries Could Hitorbit And Sum Of Shakespeare's Wit.

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

Talent May Frolic And Juggle; Genius Realizes And Adds.

I Dream Of A Better Tomorrow, Where Chickens Can Cross The Road And Not Be Questioned About Their Motives.

Have Mountains, And Waves, And Skies, No Significance But What We Consciously Give Them, When We Employ Them As Emblems Of Our Thoughts?

Trending Author

David Hackworth

Frances Perkins

Category