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If You Maintain A Dead Church, Contribute To A Dead Bible-society, Vote With A Great Party Either For The Government Or Against It, Spread Your Table Like Base Housekeepers, - Under All These Screens I Have Diffuculty To Detect The Precise Man You Are: And Of Course So Much Force Is Withdrawn From Your Proper Life. But Do Your Work And I Shall Know You. Do Your Work, And You Shall Reinforce Yourself. A Man Must Consider What A Blind-man's Bluff Is This Game Of Conformity. If I Know Your Sect I Anticipate Your Argument.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If You Maintain A

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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If You Maintain A Dead Church, Contribute To A Dead Bible-society, Vote With A Great Party Either For The Government Or Against It, Spread Your Table Like Base Housekeepers, - Under All These Screens I Have Diffuculty To Detect The Precise Man You Are: And Of Course So Much Force Is Withdrawn From Your Proper Life. But Do Your Work And I Shall Know You. Do Your Work, And You Shall Reinforce Yourself. A Man Must Consider What A Blind-man's Bluff Is This Game Of Conformity. If I Know Your Sect I Anticipate Your Argument.

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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.

Democracy Is Morose, And Runs To Anarchy, But In The State, And In The Schools, It Is Indispensable To Resist The Consolidation Ofall Men Into A Few Men.

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

All My Best Thoughts Were Stolen By The Ancients.

Men Are Conservatives When They Are Least Vigorous, Or When They Are Most Luxurious. They Are Conservatives After Dinner, Or Before Taking Their Rest; When They Are Sick Or Aged. In The Morning, Or When Their Intellect Or Their Conscience Has Been Aroused, When They Hear Music, Or When They Read Poetry, They Are Radicals.

Work And Thou Canst Escape The Reward; Whether The Work Be Fine Or Course, Planting Corn Or Writing Epics, So Only It Be Honest Work, Done To Thine Own Approbation, It Shall Earn A Reward To The Senses As Well As To The Thought.

Good Poetry Could Not Have Been Otherwise Written Than It Is. The First Time You Hear It, It Sounds Rather As If Copied Out Of Some Invisible Tablet In The Eternal Mind Than As If Arbitrarily Composed By The Poet.

Most Of The Shadows Of This Life Are Caused By Standing In One's Own Sunshine.

The Question Is Whether [suicide] Is The Way Out, Or The Way In.

When We Are Exalted By Ideas, We Do Not Owe This To Plato, But To The Idea, To Which Also Plato Was Debtor.

The Horseman Serves The Horse, The Neat-herd Serves The Neat, The Merchant Serves The Purse, The Eater Serves His Meat; 'tis The Day Of The Chattel, Web To Weave, And Corn To Grind, Things Are In The Saddle, And Ride Mankind.

You Cannot Do A Kindness Too Soon.

Some Men Are Born To Own, And Can Animate All Their Possessions. Others Cannot: Their Owning Is Not Graceful; Seems To Be A Compromise Of Their Character: They Seem To Steal Their Own Dividends.

Beware Of Too Much Good Staying In Your Hand. It Will Fast Corrupt And Worm Worms. Pay It Away Quickly In Some Sort.

Go, Speed The Stars Of Thought On To Their Shining Goals; - The Sower Scatters Broad His Seed, The Wheat Thou Strew'st Be Souls.

A Friend Is A Person With Whom I May Be Sincere. Before Him I May Think Aloud.

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.

There Are Dull And Bright, Sacred And Profane, Coarse And Fine Egotists. It Is A Disease That, Like Influenza, Falls On All Constitutions. In The Distemper Known To Physicians As Chorea, The Patient Sometimes Turns Round, And Continues To Spin Slowly In One Spot. Is Egotism A Metaphysical Varioloid Of This Malady?

A Forte Always Makes A Foible.

The Peril Of Every Fine Faculty Is The Delight Of Playing With It For Pride. Talent Is Commonly Developed At The Expense Of Character, And The Greater It Grows, The More Is The Mischief. Talent Is Mistaken For Genius, A Dogma Or System For Truth, Ambition For Greatness, Ingenuity For Poetry, Sensuality For Art.

In Dreams We Are True Poets; We Create The Persons Of The Drama; We Give Them Appropriate Figures Faces, Costumes; They Are Perfect In Their Organs, Attitudes, Manners; Moreover They Speak After Their Own Characters, Not Ours; And We Listen With Surprise To What They Say.

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.

I See It Only That Thyself Is Here, And Art And Nature, Hope And Fate, Friends, Angels And The Supreme Being Shall Not Be Absent From The Chamber Where Thou Sittest.

Art, In The Artist, Is Proportion, Or, A Habitual Respect To The Whole By An Eye Loving Beauty In Details. And The Wonder And Charm Of It Is The Sanity In Insanity Which It Denotes.

Be An Opener Of Doors

Then, Though I Prize My Friends, I Cannot Afford To Talk With Them And Study Their Visions, Lest I Lose My Own. It Would Indeed Give Me A Certain Household Joy To Quit This Lofty Seeking, This Spiritual Astronomy, Or Search Of Stars, And Come Down To Warm Sympathies With You; But Then I Know Well I Shall Mourn Always The Vanishing Of My Mighty Gods.

The Whole Of What We Know Is A System Of Compensation. Every Defect In One Manner Is Made Up In Another. Every Suffering Is Rewarded; Every Sacrifice Is Made Up; Every Debt Is Paid.

The Case Wouldn't Be Overweight If You Didn't Have So Many Shoes. How Many Do You Really Need? This Pair, For Example, I Swear You Never Even Wore Them.

It Is Rare To Find A Man Who Believes In His Own Thoughts Or Speaks That Which He Is Created To Say. As Nothing Astonishes Men So Much As Common Sense And Plain Dealing, So Nothing Is More Rare In Any Man Than An Act Of His Own...feel Yourself, And Be Not Daunted By Things...the Light By Which We See This World Comes Out From The Soul Of The Observer.

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

Every Man Is A Channel Through Which Heaven Floweth.

Much Of The Wisdom Of The World Is Not Wisdom, And The Most Illuminated Class Of Men Are No Doubt Superior To Literary Fame, And Are Not Writers.

Beauty Is The Virtue Of The Body As Virtue Is The Beauty Of The Soul

It Is The Essence Of Poetry To Spring, Like The Rainbow Daughter Of Wonder, From The Invisible, To Abolish The Past, And Refuse All History.

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

Reality Is A Sliding Door.

Conversation Is Our Account Of Ourselves...conversation Is The Vent Of Character As Well As Thoughts...it Is The Laboratory Of The Student.

A Man Often Pays Dear For A Small Frugality.

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

The Riddle Of The Age Has For Each A Private Solution.

The Poet, The Painter, The Sculptor, The Musican, The Architect, Seek Each To Concentrate This Radiance Of The World On One Point, And Each In His Several Work To Satisfy The Love Of Beauty Which Stimulates Him To Produce.

Ah Fate, Cannot A Man Be Wise Without A Beard? East, West, From Beer To Dan, Say, Was It Never Heard That Wisdom Might In Youth Be Gotten, Or Wit Be Ripe Before 't Was Rotten?

It Now Appears That The Negro Race Is, More Than Any Other, Susceptible Of Rapid Civilization. The Emancipation Is Observed, In The Islands, To Have Wrought For The Negro A Benefit As Sudden As When A Thermometer Is Brought Out Of The Shade Into The Sun. It Has Given Him Eyes And Ears.

To Believe Your Own Thought, To Believe That What Is True For You In Your Private Heart, Is True For All Men - That Is Genius... Whoso Would Be A Man Must Be A Nonconformist... What I Must Do, Is All That Concerns Me; Not What The People Think... Nothing Can Bring You Peace But Yourself; Nothing, But The Triumph Of Principles.

If A Man Is At Heart Just, Then In So Far Is He God; The Safety Of God, The Immortality Of God, The Majesty Of God Do Enter Into That Man With Justice.

Slavery Is An Institution For Converting Men Into Monkeys.

When Friendships Are Real, They Are Not Glass Threads Or Frost-work , But The Solidest Thing We Know.

When It's Dark Enough Men See Stars.

Each Man Reserves To Himself Alone The Right Of Being Tedious.

Without Ambition One Starts Nothing. Without Work One Finishes Nothing. The Prize Will Not Be Sent To You. You Have To Win It.

A Man Should Carry Nature In His Head.

Every Book Is Good To Read Which Sets The Reader In A Working Mood.

Poetry Makes Its Own Pertinence, And A Single Stanza Outweighs A Book Of Prose.

The Lover Is Made Happier By His Love Than The Object Of His Affection.

We Hear Eagerly Every Thought And Word Quoted From An Intellectual Man. But In His Presence Our Own Mind Is Roused To Activity, And We Forget Very Fast What He Says.

And, In Fine, The Ancient Precept, "know Thyself," And The Modern Precept, "study Nature," Become At Last One Maxim.

Death Comes To All, But Great Achievements Build A Monument Which Shall Endure Until The Sun Grows Cold.

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.

We Shun The Rugged Battle Of Fate Where Strength Is Born.

There Is No Eloquence Without A Man Behind It.

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

But Only That Soul Can Be My Friend Which I Encounter On The Line Of My Own March, That Soul To Which I Do Not Decline, And Which Does Not Decline Me, But, Native Of The Same Celestial Latitude, Repeats In Its Own All My Experience.

Behind Us, As We Go, All Things Assume Pleasing Forms, As Clouds Do Far Off. Not Only Things Familiar And Stale, But Even The Tragic And Terrible, Are Comely, As They Take Their Place In The Pictures Of Memory.

The Secret Is The Answer To All That Has Been, All That Is, And All That Will Ever Be.

Law Of Attraction

Power Obeys Reality, And Not Appearances; Power Is According To Quality, And Not Quantity.

Tobacco And Opium Have Broad Backs, And Will Cheerfully Carry The Load Of Armies, If You Choose To Make Them Pay High For Such Joy As They Give And Such Harm As They Do.

Silent Rushes The Swift Lord Through Ruined Systems Still Restored, Broadsowing, Bleak And Void To Bless, Plants With Worlds The Wilderness; Waters With Tears Of Ancient Sorrow Apples Of Eden Ripe To-morrow. House And Tenant Go To Ground, Lost In God, In Godhead Found.

Every Heroic Act Measures Itself By Its Contempt Of Some External Good. But It Finds Its Own Success At Last, And Then The Prudent Also Extol.

Wisdom Is Not Found With Those Who Dwell At Their Ease; Rather Nature, When She Adds Brain, Adds Difficulty.

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

Out Of Sleeping A Waking, Out Of Waking A Sleep.

Nothing Is Secure But Life, Transition, The Energizing Spirit.

The State Of Society Is One In Which The Members Have Suffered Amputation From The Trunk, And Strut About So Many Walking Monsters,—a Good Finger, A Neck, A Stomach, An Elbow, But Never A Man.

A Man Must Be In Sympathy With Society Around Him, Or Else, Not Wish To Be In Sympathy With It. If Neither Of These Two, He Must Be Wretched.

Wherever A Man Comes, There Comes Revolution. The Old Is For Slaves.

...man Is An Analogist, And Studies Relations In All Objects. He Is Placed In The Center Of Beings, And A Ray Of Relation Passes From Every Other Being To Him. And Neither Can Man Be Understood Without These Objects, Nor These Objects Without Man.

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

It Is In Rugged Crises, In Unbearable Endurance, And In Aims Which Put Sympathy Out Of The Question, That The Angel Is Shown.

The Good Husband Finds Method As Efficient In The Packing Of Fire-wood In A Shed, Or In The Harvesting Of Fruits In The Cellar, As In Peninsular Campaigns Or The Files Of The Department Of State.

Truth Is The Summit Of Being; Justice Is The Application Of It To Affairs.

Self Trust Is The Essence Of Heroism.

All Are Needed By Each One; Nothing Is Fair Or Good Alone.

Research Is Not Seeing What Others Do Not See, It Is Seeing The Same Thing As Other People And Thinking What They Do Not.

I Shun Father And Mother And Wife And Brother, When My Genius Calls Me.

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

I Suffer Whenever I See That Common Sight Of A Parent Or Senior Imposing His Opinion And Way Of Thinking And Being On A Young Soul To Which They Are Totally Unfit. Cannot We Let People Be Themselves, And Enjoy Life In Their Own Way? You Are Trying To Make That Man Another You. One's Enough.

When Summer Opens, I See How Fast It Matures, And Fear It Will Be Short; But After The Heats Of July And August, I Am Reconciled, Like One Who Has Had His Swing, To The Cool Of Autumn.

Beauty Is The Pilot Of The Young Soul.

God Said, I Am Tired Of Kings, I Suffer Them No More; Up To My Ear This Morning Brings The Outrage Of The Poor.

As Men's Prayers Are A Disease Of The Will, So Are Their Creeds A Disease Of The Intellect.

Pride Can Go Without Domestics, Without Fine Clothes, Can Live In A House With Two Rooms, Can Eat Potato, Purslain, Beans, Lyed Corn, Can Work On The Soil, Can Travel Afoot, Can Talk With Poor Men, Or Sit Silent Well Contented With Fine Saloons. But Vanity Costs Money, Labor, Horses, Men, Women, Health And Peace, And Is Still Nothing At Last; A Long Way Leading Nowhere.--only One Drawback; Proud People Are Intolerably Selfish, And The Vain Are Gentle And Giving.

Nor Has Science Sufficient Humanity, So Long As The Naturalist Overlooks The Wonderful Congruity Which Subsists Between Man And The World; Of Which He Is Lord, Not Because He Is The Most Subtile Inhabitant, But Because He Is Its Head And Heart, And Finds Something Of Himself In Every Great And Small Thing, In Every Mountain Stratum, In Every New Law Of Color, Fact Of Astronomy, Or Atmospheric Influence Which Observation Or Analysis Lay Open.

The Interminable Forests Should Become Graceful Parks, For Use And Delight.

Every Spirit Builds Itself A House; And Beyond Its House A World; And Beyond Its World, A Heaven. Know Then, That The World Exists For You. For You Is The Phenomenon Perfect. What We Are, That Only Can We See. All That Adam Had, All That Caesar Could, You Have And Can Do. Adam Called His House, Heaven And Earth; Caesar Called His House, Rome; You Perhaps Call Yours, A Cobler's Trade; A Hundred Acres Of Ploughed Land; Or A Scholar's Garret. Yet Line For Line And Point For Point, Your Dominion Is As Great As Theirs, Though Without Fine Names. Build, Therefore, Your Own World.

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.

I Will No Longer Confer, Differ, Refer, Defer, Prefer, Or Suffer. I Renounce The Whole Tribe Of Fero. I Embrace Absolute Life.

Character Is Higher Than Intellect... A Great Soul Will Be Strong To Live, As Well As Strong To Think.

It Is A Fact Often Observed, That Men Have Written Good Verses Under The Inspiration Of Passion, Who Cannot Write Well Under Other Circumstances.

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.

Daughter Of Time, The Hypocrite Days, Muffled And Dumb Like Barefoot Dervishes, And Marching Single In An Endless File, Bring Diadems And Fagots In Their Hands; To Each They Offer Gifts After His Will, Bread, Kingdom, Stars, And Sky That Holds Them All; I, In My Pleached Garden Watched The Pomp Forgot My Morning Wishes, Hastily Took A Few Herbs And Apples, And The Day Turned And Departed Silent. I Too Late Under Her Solemn Fillet Saw The Scorn.

Every Moment Instructs, And Every Object; For Wisdom Is Infused Into Every Form. It Has Been Poured Into Us As Blood; It Convulsed Us As Pain; It Slid Into Us As Pleasure; It Enveloped Us In Dull, Melancholy Days, Or In Days Of Cheerful Labor; We Did Not Guess Its Essence Until After Long Time.

I Do Not Wonder At A Snowflake, A Shell, A Summer Landscape, Or The Glory Of The Stars; But At The Necessity Of Beauty Under Which The Universe Lies.

There Is One Mind Common To All Individual Men. Every Man Is An Inlet To The Same And To All Of The Same.

Whoever Fights, Whoever Falls, Justice Conquers Evermore

Good Writing Is A Kind Of Skating Which Carries Off The Performer Where He Would Not Go, And Is Only Right Admirable When To All Its Beauty And Speed A Subserviency To The Will, Like That Of Walking, Is Added.

Plant Your Dreams And Miracles Will Grow.

The Influence Of The Senses Have In Men Overpowered The Thought To The Degree That The Walls Of Time And Space Have Come To Look Solid, Real And Insurmountable. .. Yet Time And Space Are But Inverse Measures Of The Power Of The Mind. Man Is Capable Of Abolishing Them Both.

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.

We Are All Wise For Other People, None For Himself.

What Is A Weed? A Plant Whose Virtues Have Never Been Discovered.

How Casually And Unobservedly We Make All Our Most Valued Acquaintances.

What King Has He Not Taught State, As Talma Taught Napoleon? What Maiden Has Not Found Him Finer Than Her Delicacy? What Lover Has He Not Outloved? What Sage Has He Not Outseen? What Gentleman Has He Not Instructed In The Rudeness Of His Behavior?

...most Men Have Bound Their Eyes With One Or Another Handkerchief, And Attached Themselves To Some One Of These Communities Of Opinion. This Conformity Makes Them Not False In A Few Particulars, Authors Of A Few Lies, But False In All Particulars. Their Every Truth Is Not Quite True. Their Two Is Not The Real Two, Their Four Not The Real Four; So That Every Word They Say Chagrins Us, And We Know Not Where To Begin To Set Them Right.

Great Men Are More Distinguished By Range And Extent Than By Originality.

Insist Upon Yourself. Be Original.

Funny Basketball

The Terrors Of The Child Are Quite Reasonable, And Add To His Loveliness; For His Utter Ignorance And Weakness, And His Enchanting Indignation On Such A Small Basis Of Capital Compel Every Bystander To Take His Part.

We Know That Madness Belongs To Love,--what Power To Paint A Vile Object In Hues Of Heaven.

By Virtue Of The Deity Thought Renews Itself Inexhaustibly Every Day And The Thing Whereon It Shines, Though It Were Dust And Sand, Is A New Subject With Countless Relations.

The Judge Weighs The Arguments And Puts A Brave Face On The Matter, And Since There Must Be A Decision, Decides As He Can, And Hopes He Has Done Justice And Given Satisfaction To The Community

Why Should We Grope Among The Dry Bones Of The Past, Or Put The Living Generation Into Masquerade Out Of Its Faded Wardrobe?

The Passages Of Shakespeare That We Most Prize Were Never Quoted Until Within This Century.

Nature And Books Belong To The Eyes That See Them.

Wisdom Is Like Electricity. There Is No Permanently Wise Man, But Men Capable Of Wisdom, Who, Being Put Into Certain Company, Or Other Favorable Conditions, Become Wise For A Short Time, As Glasses Rubbed Acquire Electric Power For A While.

Nothing External To You Has Any Power Over You.

If The Race Is Good, So Is The Place.

And So The Reliance On Property, Including The Reliance On Governments Which Protect It, Is The Want Of Self-reliance.

The Effect Of The Indulgence Of Human Affection Is A Certain Cordial Exhilaration.

Englands Genius Filled All Measureof Heart And Soul, Of Strength And Pleasure,gave To The Mind Its Emperor,and Life Was Larger Than Before:nor Sequent Centuries Could Hitorbit And Sum Of Shakespeares Wit. The Men Who Lived With Him Becamepoets, For The Air Was Fame.

It Is One Of The Biggest Blessing That You Can Be Stupid With Your True Friends And Behave Like You Shame To Do Elsewhere

Heaven Is Large, And Affords Space For All Modes Of Love And Fortitude.

There Are Men Whose Language Is Strong And Defying Enough, Yet Their Eyes And Their Actions Ask Leave Of Other Men To Live.

What Potent Blood Hath Modest May.

There Is One Topic Peremptorily Forbidden To All Well-bred, To All Rational Mortals, Namely, Their Distempers.

God Never Jests With Us, And Will Not Compromise The End Of Nature, By Permitting Any Inconsequence In Its Procession.

Nature Is Methodical, And Doeth Her Work Well. Time Is Never To Be Hurried.

The True Ship Is The Ship Builder.

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

The Less A Man Thinks Or Knows About His Virtues, The Better We Like Him.

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

Words Are Finite Organs Of The Infinite Mind. They Cannot Cover The Dimensions Of What Is In Truth. They Break, Chop, And Impoverish It.

Whatever Is Old Corrupts, And The Past Turns To Snakes.

A Man Becomes What He Thinks About Most Of The Time

Build, Therefore, Your Own World. As Fast As You Conform Your Life To The Pure Idea In Your Mind, That Will Unfold It's Great Proportions.

Passion, Though A Bad Regulator, Is A Powerful Spring.

Commonsense Is The Wick Of The Candle.

Every Hero Becomes A Bore At Last.

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.

Solitude, The Safeguard Of Mediocrity, Is To Genius The Stern Friend

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

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.

Life Only Avails, Not The Having Lived.

In Every Situation Do The Thing You Fear. If You Do The Thing You Fear, The Death Of Fear Is Certain.

The World Makes Way For The Man Who Knows Where He Is Going

I Wish To Speak With All Respect Of Persons, But Sometimes I Must Pinch Myself To Keep Awake, And Preserve The Due Decorum. They Melt So Fast Into Each Other, That They Are Like Grass And Trees, And It Needs An Effort To Treat Them As Individuals.

For It Is Only The Finite That Has Wrought And Suffered; The Infinite Lies Stretched In Smiling Repose.

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.

No Great Man Ever Complains Of Want Of Opportunity.

When There Is No Vision, People Perish.

There Is No Prosperity, Trade, Art, City, Or Great Material Wealth Of Any Kind, But If You Trace It Home, You Will Find It Rooted In A Thought Of Some Individual Man.

Wisdom Has Its Root In Goodness, Not Goodness Its Root In Wisdom.

We Are Made Aware That Magnitude Of Material Things Is Relative, And All Objects Shrink And Expand To Serve The Passion Of The Poet. Thus, In His Sonnets, The Lays Of Birds, The Scents And Dyes Of Flowers, He Finds To Be The Shadow Of His Beloved; Time, Which Keeps Her From Him, Is His Chest; The Suspicion She Has Awakened, Is Her Ornament

Who Shall Forbid A Wise Skepticism, Seeing That There Is No Practical Question On Which Anything More Than An Approximate Solution Can Be Had?

If The Stars Should Appear One Night In A Thousand Years, How Would Men Believe And Adore; And Preserve For Many Generations The Remembrance Of The City Of God Which Had Been Shown! But Every Night Come Out These Envoys Of Beauty, And Light The Universe With Their Admonishing Smile.

A Life In Harmony With Nature, The Love Of Truth And Virtue, Will Purge The Eyes To Understanding Her Text.

An Ounce Of Action Is Worth A Ton Of Theory.

The Solid, Solid Universe Is Pervious To Love; With Bandaged Eyes He Never Errs, Around, Below, Above. His Blinding Light He Flingeth White On God's And Satan's Brood, And Reconciles By Mystic Wiles The Evil And The Good.

We Pass For What We Are.

We Are All Inventors, Each Sailing Out On A Voyage Of Discovery, Guided Each By A Private Chart, Of Which There Is No Duplicate. The World Is All Gates, All Opportunities.

There Are Men Who, By Their Sympathetic Attractions, Carry Nations With Them, And Lead The Activity Of The Human Race.

Chiefly The Sea-shore Has Been The Point Of Departure To Knowledge, As To Commerce. The Most Advanced Nations Are Always Those Who Navigate The Most.

We Legislate Against Forestalling And Monopoly; We Would Have A Common Granary For The Poor; But The Selfishness Which Hoards Thecorn For High Prices, Is The Preventative Of Famine; And The Law Of Self-preservation Is Surer Policy Than Any Legislation Can Be.

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

Truth Gathers Itself Spotless And Unhurt After All Our Surrenders And Concealments And Partisanship; Never Hurt By The Treachery Or Ruin Of Its Best Defenders, Whether Luther, Or William Penn, Or St. Paul.

Nature Abhors The Old.

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

Philanthropic And Religious Bodies Do Not Commonly Make Their Executive Officers Out Of Saints.

The Most Advanced Nations Are Always Those Who Navigate The Most.

Life Is A Festival Only To The Wise.

Do What You Know And Perception Is Converted Into Character.

Good And Bad Are But Names Very Readily Transferable To That Or This.

His Heart Was As Great As The World, But There Was No Room In It To Hold The Memory Of A Wrong.

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

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 Ancestor Of Every Action Is Thought; When We Understand That We Begin To Comprehend That Our World Is Governed By Thought And That Everything Without Had Its Counterpart Originally Within The Mind.

So Shall We Come To Look At The World With New Eyes.

I Hate Quotations. Tell Me What You Know.

The Days Are Made On A Loom Whereof The Warp And Woof Are Past And Future Time. They Are Majestically Dressed, As If Every God Brought A Thread To The Skyey Web.

The Book, The College, The School Of Art, The Institution Of Any Kind, Stop With Some Past Utterance Of Genius. . . . They Look Backward And Not Forward. But Genius Looks Forward: The Eyes Of Man Are Set In His Forehead, Not In His Hindhead: Man Hopes: Genius Creates. Whatever Talents May Be, If The Man Create Not, The Pure Efflux Of The Deity Is Not His; - Cinders And Smoke There May Be, But Not Yet Flame.

The Rule For Hospitality And Irish "help," Is, To Have The Same Dinner Every Day Throughout The Year. At Last, Mrs. O'shaughnessylearns To Cook It To A Nicety, The Host Learns To Carve It, And The Guests Are Well Served.

People Disparage Knowing And The Intellectual Life, And Urge Doing. I Am Content With Knowing, If Only I Could Know.

If You Act, You Show Character; If You Sit Still, You Show It; If You Sleep You Show It.

Life Is In Short Cycles Or Periods; We Are Quickly Tired, But We Have Rapid Rallies. A Man Is Spent By His Work, Starved, Prostrate; He Will Not Lift His Hand To Save His Life; He Can Never Think More. He Sinks Into Deep Sleep And Wakes With Renewed Youth, With Hope, Courage, Fertile In Resources, And Keen For Daring Adventure.

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

I Like A Man Who Likes To See A Fine Barn As Well As A Good Tragedy.

And Yet--it Is Not Beauty That Inspires The Deepest Passion. Beauty Without Grace Is The Hook Without The Bait. Beauty, Without Expression, Tires.

The Great Man, That Is, The Man Most Imbued With The Spirit Of The Time, Is The Impressionable Man.

There Is A Property In The Horizon Which No Man Has, But He Whose Eyes Can Integrate All The Parts,--that Is, The Poet.

Civilization Depends On Morality.

All Is A Riddle, And The Key To A Riddle...is Another Riddle.

I Am Constrained Every Moment To Acknowledge A Higher Origin For Events Than The Will I Call Mine.

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Terry Pratchett

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