Background Image

...

If You Would Learn To Write, It Is In The Street You Must Learn It. Both For The Vehicle And For The Aims Of Fine Arts, You Must Frequent The Public Square. The People, And Not The College, Is The Writer's Home. A Scholar Is A Candle Which The Love And Desire Of All Men Will Light.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

If You Would Learn

Ralph Waldo Emerson

...

If You Would Learn To Write, It Is In The Street You Must Learn It. Both For The Vehicle And For The Aims Of Fine Arts, You Must Frequent The Public Square. The People, And Not The College, Is The Writer's Home. A Scholar Is A Candle Which The Love And Desire Of All Men Will Light.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Ralph Waldo Emerson

You Never Know How You Look Through Other People's Eyes.

That You Are Fair Or Wise Is Vain, Or Strong, Or Rich, Or Generous; You Must Have Also The Untaught Strain That Sheds Beauty On The Rose.

There Are Many Eyes That Can Detect And Honor The Prudent And Household Virtues; There Are Many That Can Discern Genius On His Starry Track, Though The Mob Is Incapable; But When That Love Which Is All-suffering, All-abstaining, All-aspiring, Which Has Vowed To Itself, That It Will Be A Wretch And Also A Fool In This World, Sooner Than Soil Its White Hands By Any Compliances, Comes Into Our Streets And Houses,--only The Pure And Aspiring Can Know Its Face, And The Only Compliment They Can Pay It, Is To Own It.

So Use All That Is Called Fortune. Most Men Gamble With Her, And Gain All, And Lose All, As Her Wheel Rolls. But Do Thou Leave As Unlawful These Winnings, And Deal With Cause And Effect, The Chancellors Of God.

The First Steps In Agriculture, Astronomy, Zoology, (those First Steps Which The Farmer, The Hunter, And The Sailor Take,) Teach That Nature's Dice Are Always Loaded; That In Her Heaps And Rubbish Are Concealed Sure And Useful Results.

I Am The Owner Of The Sphere, Of The Seven Stars And The Solar Year, Of Caesar's Hand, And Plato's Brain, Of Lord Christ's Heart, And Shakespeare's Strain.

In The Presence Of Nature, A Wild Delight Runs Through The Man, In Spite Of Real Sorrows.

The Creation Of A Thousand Forests Is In One Acorn.

Self Sacrifice Is The Real Miracle Out Of Which All The Reported Miracles Grow.

I Like People Who Can Do Things

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

If I Cannot Brag Of Knowing Something, Then I Brag Of Not Knowing It; At Any Rate, Brag.

Shakespeare Possesses The Power Of Subordinating Nature For The Purposes Of Expression, Beyond All Poets. His Imperial Muse Tosses The Creation Like A Bauble From Hand To Hand, And Uses It To Embody Any Caprice Of Thought That Is Uppermost In His Mind. The Remotest Spaces Of Nature Are Visited, And The Farthest Sundered Things Are Brought Together, By Subtle Spiritual Connection. We Are Made Aware That Magnitude Of Material Things Is Relative, And All Objects Shrink And Expand To Serve The Passion Of The Poet.

To Me, However, The Question Of The Times Resolved Itself Into A Practical Question Of The Conduct Of Life. How Shall I Live? We Are Incompetent To Solve The Times. Our Geometry Cannot Span The Huge Orbits Of The Prevailing Ideas, Behold Their Return, And Reconcile Their Opposition. We Can Only Obey Our Own Polarity.

The The Illuminated Mind The Whole World Sparkles With Light.

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

Every Man Is The Inlet And May Become The Outlet Of All There Is In God.

It Is Easy To See That A Greater Self-reliance Must Work A Revolution In All The Offices And Relations Of Men; In Their Religion; In Their Education; In Their Pursuits; Their Modes Of Living; Their Association; In Their Property; In Their Speculative Views.

Great Thoughts Ensure Musical Expression.

Musical Expression

He That Despiseth Small Things Will Perish By Little And Little.

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

In The First Place, All Books That Get Fairly Into The Vital Air Of The World Were Written By The Successful Class, By The Affirming And Advancing Class, Who Utter What Tens Of Thousands Feel Though They Cannot Say.

It Is So Wonderful To Our Neurologists That A Man Can See Without His Eyes, That It Does Not Occur To Them That Is Just As Wonderful That He Should See With Them; And That Is Ever The Difference Between The Wise And The Unwise: The Latter Wonders At What Is Unusual, The Wise Man Wonders At The Usual.

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

Be Sure Then To Read No Mean Books. Shun The Spawn Of The Press On The Gossip Of The Hour. Do Not Read What You Shall Learn, Without Asking, In The Street And The Train.

As Picture Teaches The Colouring, So Sculpture The Anatomy Of Form.

An Action Is The Perfection And Publication Of Thought.

Solitude Is Naught And Society Is Naught. Alternate Them And The Good Of Each Is Seen.

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

Be Lord Of A Day, Through Wisdom And Justice, And You Can Put Up Your History Books.

Dreams Have A Poetic Integrity And Truth. This Limbo And Dust-hole Of Thought Is Presided Over By A Certain Reason, Too.

The Secret Of Success Lies Never In The Amount Of Money, But In The Relation Of Income To Outgo.

Each Mind Has Its Own Method. A True Man Never Acquires After College Rules.

All Necessary Truth Is Its Own Evidence.

But It Is A Cold, Lifeless Business When You Go To The Shops To Buy Something, Which Does Not Represent Your Life And Talent, But A Goldsmith's.

Calmness Is Always Godlike.

Sincerity Is The Highest Complement You Can Pay

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. Man Is Thus Metamorphosed Into A Thing, Into Many Things. The Planter, Who Is Man Sent Out Into The Field To Gather Food, Is Seldom Cheered By Any Idea Of The True Dignity Of His Ministry. He Sees His Bushel And His Cart, And Nothing Beyond, And Sinks Into The Farmer, Instead Of Man On The Farm.

God Will Have Life To Be Real; We Will Be Damned, But It Shall Be Theatrical.

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.

Generalization Is Always A New Influx Of Divinity Into The Mind. Hence The Thrill That Attends It.

Sympathy Is A Supporting Atmosphere, And In It We Unfold Easily And Well.

Let A Man Behave In His Own House As A Guest.

It The Proof Of High Culture To Say The Greatest Matters In The Simplest Way.

Yet These Uneasy Pleasures And Fine Pains Are For Curiosity, And Not For Life.

Nothing Is Quite Beautiful Alone; Nothing But Is Beautiful In The Whole. A Single Object Is Only So Far Beautiful As It Suggests This Universal Grace.

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.

Meek Young Men Grow Up In Colleges And Believe It Is Their Duty To Accept The Views Which Books Have Given, And Grow Up Slaves.

God Knows That All Sorts Of Gentlemen Knock At The Door; But Whenever Used In Strictness And With Any Emphasis, The Name Will Be Found To Point At Original Energy.

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

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

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

One Must Be An Inventor To Read Well.

Creative Writers

To Speak Truly, Few Adult Persons Can See Nature. Most Persons Do Not See The Sun.

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.

America Is Not Civil, Whilst Africa Is Barbarous.

A Walk In The Woods Is Only An Exalted Dream.

Go Cherish Your Soul; Express Companions; Set Your Habits To A Life Of Solitude; Then Will The Faculties Rise Fair And Full Within.

All My Hurts My Garden Spade Can Heal.

Ten Percent Of People Can Think, Another Ten Percent Of People Think That They Think, And Eighty Percent Of People Would Rather Die Than Be Made To Think.

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 Men Who Carry Their Points Do Not Need To Inquire Of Their Constituents What They Should Say, But Are Themselves The Country Which They Represent: Nowhere Are Its Emotions Or Opinions So Instant And So True As In Them; Nowhere So Pure From A Selfish Infusion.

The Most Advanced Nations Are Always Those Who Navigate The Most. The Power Which The Sea Requires In The Sailor Makes A Man Of Him Very Fast, And The Change Of Shores And Population Clears His Head Of Much Nonsense Of His Wigwam.

We Love It Because It Is Self Dependent, Self Derived, And Therefore Of An Old Immaculate Pedigree, Even If Shown In A Young Person.

Say, What Other Metre Is It Than The Meeting Of The Eyes? Nature Poureth Into Nature Through The Channels Of That Feature Riding On The Ray Of Sight, Fleeter Far Than Whirlwinds Go, Or For Service, Or Delight, Hearts To Hearts Their Meaning Show.

The Days Come And Go But They Say Nothing, And If We Do Not Use The Gifts They Bring, They Carry Them As Silently Away.

We See The World Piece By Piece, As The Sun, The Moon, The Animal, The Tree; But The Whole, Of Which These Are Shining Parts, Is The Soul.

Every Man Has A Vocation. The Talent Is The Call.

The Secrets Of Life Are Not Shown Except To Sympathy And Likeness.

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

The Torments Of Martyrdom Are Probably Most Keenly Felt By The Bystanders.

Man Carries The World In His Head, The Whole Astronomy And Chemistry Suspended In A Thought. Because The History Of Nature Is Charactered In His Brain, Therefore He Is The Prophet And Discoverer Of Her Secrets. Every Known Fact In Natural Science Was Divined By The Presentiment Of Somebody, Before It Was Actually Verified.

Sometimes We Receive The Power To Say Yes To Life. Then Peace Enters Us And Makes Us Whole.

Many Eyes Go Through The Meadow, But Few See The Flowers In It

Live In The Fields, And God Will Give You Lectures On Natural Philosophy Every Day.

One Lesson We Learn Early, That In Spite Of Seeming Difference, Men Are All Of One Pattern. We Readily Assume This With Our Mates, And Are Disappointed And Angry If We Find That We Are Premature, And That Their Watches Are Slower Than Ours. In Fact, The Only Sin Which We Never Forgive In Each Other Is Difference Of Opinion.

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

Spurious Prudence, Making The Senses Final, Is The God Of Sots And Cowards, And Is The Subject Of All Comedy. It Is Nature's Joke, And Therefore Literature's. True Prudence Limits This Sensualism By Admitting The Knowledge Of An Internal And Real World.

Law Rules Throughout Existence, A Law Which Is Not Intelligent, But Intelligence.

The Glance Is Natural Magic. The Mysterious Communication Established Across A House Between Two Entire Strangers, Moves All The Springs Of Wonder.

Can Anything Be So Elegant As To Have Few Wants, And To Serve Them One's Self?

Do Your Work, But Do Your Thing.

Funny Basketball

I Am Ashamed To Think How Easily We Capitulate To Badges And Names, To Large Societies And Dead Institutions.

We Resent All Criticism Which Denies Us Anything That Lies In Our Line Of Advance.

We Sometimes Meet An Original Gentleman, Who, If Manners Had Not Existed, Would Have Invented Them.

Coal Lay In Ledges Under The Ground Since The Flood, Until A Laborer With Pick And Windlass Brings It To The Surface. We May Well Call It Black Diamonds. Every Basket Is Power And Civilization. For Coal Is A Portable Climate.

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

If We Will Not Interfere With Our Thought, But Will Act Entirely, Or See How The Thing Stands In God, We Know The Particular Thing, And Every Thing, And Every Man.

In Old Persons, When Thus Fully Expressed, We Often Observe A Fair, Plump, Perennial Waxen Complexion, Which Indicates That All The Ferment Of Earlier Days Has Subsided Into Serenity Of Thought And Behavior.

Great Men Do Not Content Us. It Is Their Solitude, Not Their Force, That Makes Them Conspicuous.

The Population Of The World Is A Conditional Population; These Are Not The Best, But The Best That Could Live In The Existing State Of Soils, Gases, Animals, And Morals: The Best That Could Yet Live; There Shall Be A Better, Please God.

The Perception Of The Comic Is A Tie Of Sympathy With Other Men.

The Student Is To Read History Actively And Not Passively; To Esteem His Own Life The Text, And Books The Commentary. Thus Compelled, The Muse Of History Will Utter Oracles As Never To Those Who Do Not Respect Themselves.

Good Manners Are Made Up Of Petty Sacrifices.

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

Give No Bounties: Make Equal Laws: Secure Life And Prosperity And You Need Not Give Alms.

The Selfish Man Suffers More From His Selfishness Than He From Whom That Selfishness Withholds Some Important Benefit.

Religion Is To Do Right. It Is To Love, It Is To Serve, It Is To Think, It Is To Be Humble.

If A Man Will Kick A Fact Out Of The Window, When He Comes Back He Finds It Again In The Chimney Corner.

The Imagination And The Senses Cannot Be Gratified At The Same Time.

Time Is Indeed The Theater And Seat Of Illusions; Nothing Is So Ductile And Elastic. The Mind Stretches An Hour To A Century, And Dwarfs An Age To An Hour.

There Is Never A Beginning, There Is Never An End, To The Inexplicable Continuity Of This Web Of God, But Always Circular Power Returning Into Itself.

Our Health Is Our Sound Relation To External Objects; Our Sympathy With External Being.

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

The Instinct Of The People Is Right.

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

The Cheapness Of Man Is Every Day's Tragedy. It Is As Real A Loss That Others Should Be Low, As That We Should Be Low; For We Musthave A Society.

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

Conversation Is A Game Of Circles.

The Escape From All False Ties; Courage To Be What We Are; And Love Of What Is Simple And Beautiful; Independence, And Cheerful Relation, These Are The Essentials.

My Companion Assumes To Know My Mood And Habit Of Thought, And We Go On From Explanation To Explanation, Until All Is Said That Words Can, And We Leave Matters Just As They Were At First, Because Of That Vicious Assumption.

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

And What Greater Calamity Can Fall Upon A Nation Than The Loss Of Worship.

No Institution Will Be Better Than The Institutor.

If It Costs Ten Years, And Ten To Recover The General Prosperity, The Destruction Of The South Is Worth So Much.

As The Gardener, By Severe Pruning, Forces The Sap Of The Tree Into One Or Two Vigorous Limbs, So Should You Stop Off Your Miscellaneous Activity And Concentrate Your Force On One Or A Few Points.

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

Man Is The End Of Nature; Nothing So Easily Organizes Itself In Every Part Of The Universe As He; No Moss, No Lichen Is So Easilyborn; And He Takes Along With Him And Puts Out From Himself The Whole Apparatus Of Society And Condition Extempore, As An Army Encamps In A Desert, And Where All Was Just Now Blowing Sand, Creates A White City In An Hour, A Government, A Market, A Place For Feasting, For Conversation, And For Love.

My Life Is Superficial, Takes No Root In The Deep World; I Ask, When Shall I Die, And Be Relieved Of The Responsibility Of Seeinga Universe Which I Do Not Use? I Wish To Exchange This Flash-of-lightning Faith For Continuous Daylight, This Fever-glow For A Benign Climate.

Books Are For Nothing But To Inspire

Teach Me Your Mood, O Patient Stars. Who Climb Each Night, The Ancient Sky. Leaving On Space No Shade, No Scars, No Trace Of Age, No Fear To Die.

The Heroic Cannot Be The Common, Nor The Common The Heroic.

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

A Woman's Strength Is The Unresistible Might Of Weakness.

The Populace Drags Down The Gods To Their Own Level.

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

Silence Is A Solvent That Destroys Personality, And Gives Us Leave To Be Great And Universal.

It Is About Your Outlook Towards Life. You Can Either Regret Or Rejoice.

There Is Nothing In History To Parallel The Influence Of Jesus Christ.

What Is Well Done, I Feel As If I Did; What Is Ill-done, I Reck Not Of.

Self Esteem::"it Is Very Easy In The World To Live By The Opinion Of The World. It Is Very Easy In Solitude To Be Self-centered. But The Finished Man Is He Who In The Midst Of The Crowd Keeps With Perfect Sweetness The Independence Of Solitude. I Knew A Man Of Simple Habits And Earnest Character Who Never Put Out His Hands Nor Opened His Lips To Court The Public, And Having Survived Several Rotten Reputations Of Younger Men, Honor Came At Last And Sat Down With Him Upon His Private Bench From Which He Had Never Stirred."

On The Other Side, The Conservative Party, Composed Of The Most Moderate, Able, And Cultivated Part Of The Population, Is Timid, And Merely Defensive Of Property. It Vindicates No Right, It Aspires To No Real Good, It Brands No Crime, It Proposes No Generous Policy, It Does Not Build, Nor Write, Nor Cherish The Arts, Nor Foster Religion, Nor Establish Schools, Nor Encourage Science, Nor Emancipate The Slave, Nor Befriend The Poor, Or The Indian, Or The Immigrant.

Judge Of Your Natural Character By What You Do In Your Dreams.

Tis The Privilege Of Art Thus To Play Its Cheerful Part, Man On Earth To Acclimate And Bend The Exile To His Fate.

Every Man Is Grave Alone.

I Like The Church, I Like A Cowl, I Love A Prophet Of The Soul; And On My Heart Monastic Aisles Fall Like Sweet Strains Or Pensive Smiles; Yet Not For All His Faith Can See, Would I That Cowled Churchman Be.

History Is The Action And Reaction Of These Two, Nature And Thought.

The Compensations Of Calamity Are Made Apparent To The Understanding Also, After Long Intervals Of Time.

Life Is Not So Short But That There Is Always Time Enough For Courtesy.

O, When I Am Safe In My Sylvan Home, I Mock At The Pride Of Greece And Rome; And When I Am Stretch'd Beneath The Pines When The Evening Star So Holy Shines, I Laugh At The Lore And Pride Of Man, At The Sophist's Schools, And The Learned Clan; For What Are They All In Their High Conceit, When Man In The Bush With God May Meet?

Only By Obedience To His Genius; Only By The Freest Activity In The Way Constitutional To Him, Does An Angel Seem To Arise Beforea Man, And Lead Him By The Hand Out Of All The Wards Of The Prison.

Keep Your Friendships In Repair.

The Simplicity Of The Universe Is Very Different From The Simplicity Of A Machine. The Simplicity Of Nature Is Not That Which May Be Easily Read But Is Inexhaustible. The Last Analysis Can No Wise Be Made.

Nature Is Full Of Freaks, And Now Puts An Old Head On Young Shoulders, And Then Takes A Young Heart Heating Under Fourscore Winters.

Whoever Is Open, Loyal, True; Of Humane And Affable Demeanour; Honourable Himself, And In His Judgement Of Others; Faithful To His Word As To Law, And Faithful Alike To God And Man....such A Man Is A True Gentleman.

If You Will Not Lend Me The Money, How Can I Pay You?

Too Busy With The Crowded Hour To Fear To Live Or Die.

The Trail Of The Serpent Reaches Into All The Lucrative Professions And Practices Of Man. Each Has Its Own Wrongs. Each Finds A Tender And Very Intelligent Conscience A Disqualification For Success. Each Requires Of The Practitioner A Certain Shutting Of The Eyes, A Certain Dapperness And Compliance, An Acceptance Of Customs, A Sequestration From The Sentiments Of Generosity And Love, A Compromise Of Private Opinion And Lofty Integrity.

It Never Was In The Power Of Any Man Or Any Community To Call The Arts Into Being. They Come To Serve His Actual Wants, Never To Please His Fancy.

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

Excite The Soul, And The Weather And The Town And Your Condition In The World All Disappear; The World Itself Loses Its Solidity, Nothing Remains But The Soul And The Divine Presence In Which It Lives.

Every Man Is Wanted, And No Man Is Wanted Much.

But In Every Constitution Some Large Degree Of Animal Vigor Is Necessary As Material Foundation For The Higher Qualities Of The Art.

I Like Man, But Not Men.

The True Artist Has The Planet For His Pedestal; The Adventurer, After Years Of Strife, Has Nothing Broader Than His Shoes.

Deal In Our Privacy With The Last Honesty And Truth.

Daughter Of Heaven And Earth, Coy Spring, With Sudden Passion Languishing, Teaching Barren Moors To Smile, Painting Pictures Mile On Mile, Holds A Cup Of Cowslip Wreaths Whence A Smokeless Incense Breathes.

He Who Travels In Search Of Something Which He Has Not Got, Travels Away From Himself And Grows Old Even In Youth Among Old Things.

Earth Endures; Stars Abide.

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.

The Efforts Which We Make To Escape From Our Destiny Only Serve To Lead Us Into It.

Enthusiasm Is One Of The Most Powerful Engines Of Success. When You Do A Thing, Do It With All Your Might.

Enthusiasm For Life

Character Wants Room; Must Not Be Crowded On By Persons, Nor Be Judged From Glimpses Got In The Press Of Affairs, Or On Few Occasions. It Needs Perspective, As A Great Building.

The Difference Between The Actual And The Ideal Force Of Man Is Happily Figured In By The Schoolmen, In Saying, That The Knowledgeof Man Is An Evening Knowledge, Vespertina Cognitio, But That Of God Is A Morning Knowledge, Matutina Cognitio.

In Imitation Is A Bit Suicide.

Civilization Depends On Morality.

Our Reliance On The Physician Is A Kind Of Despair Of Ourselves.

If You Would Lift Me Up, You've Got To Be On Higher Ground.

We Are Rich Only Through What We Give, And Poor Only Through What We Refuse.

For Splendor, There Must Somewhere Be Rigid Economy. That The Head Of The House May Go Brave, The Members Must Be Plainly Clad, And The Town Must Save That The State May Spend.

The Buddhist, Who Thanks No Man, Who Says "do Not Flatter Your Benefactors," But Who, In His Conviction That Every Good Deed Can By No Possibility Escape Its Reward, Will Not Deceive The Benefactor By Pretending That He Has Done More Than He Should, Is A Transcendentalist.

Great Hearts Steadily Send Forth The Secret Forces That Incessantly Draw Great Events.

Law Of Attraction

It Is A Mischievous Notion That We Are Come Late Into Nature; That The World Was Finished A Long Time Ago. As The World Was Plastic And Fluid In The Hands Of God, So It Is Ever To So Much Of His Attributes As We Bring To It. To Ignorance And Sin, It Is Flint. They Adapt To Themselves To It As They May; But In Proportion As A Man Has Anything In Him Divine, The Firmament Flows Before Him And Takes His Signet And Form.

A Good Form Strikes All Eyes Pleasantly, Long Before They Have Any Science On The Subject; And A Beautiful Face Sets Twenty Hearts In Palpitation, Prior To All Consideration Of The Mechanical Proportions Of The Features And Head.

My Son, A Perfect Little Boy Of Five Years And Three Months, Had Ended His Earthly Life. You Can Never Sympathize With Me; You Can Never Know How Much Of Me Such A Young Child Can Take Away. A Few Weeks Ago I Accounted Myself A Very Rich Man, And Now The Poorest Of All.

Of Course You Will Insist On Modesty In The Children, And Respect To Their Teachers, But If The Boy Stops You In Your Speech, Cries Out That You Are Wrong And Sets You Right, Hug Him!

All I Have Seen Teaches Me To Trust The Creator For All I Have Not Seen.

It Is One Of The Beautiful Compensations In This Life That No One Can Sincerely Try To Help Another Without Helping Himself.

Pride Ruined The Angels, Their Shame Them Restores; And The Joy That Is Sweetest Lurks In Stings Of Remorse.

I See My Trees Repair Their Boughs.

Sleep Takes Off The Costume Of Circumstance, Arms Us With Terrible Freedom, So That Every Will Rushes To A Deed.

Music Is The Poor Man's Parnassus.

Some Of Your Griefs You Have Cured, And The Sharpest You Still Have Survived, But What Torments Of Grief You've Endured From Evils That Never Arrived.

For No Man Can Write Anything Who Does Not Think That What He Writes Is, For The Time, The History Of The World.

I Hate The Prostitution Of The Name Of Friendship To Signify Modish And Worldly Alliances.

Fear Is Cruel And Mean. The Political Reigns Of Terror Have Been Reigns Of Madness And Malignity,--a Total Perversion Of Opinion;society Is Upside Down, And Its Best Men Are Thought Too Bad To Live.

What A New Face Courage Puts On Everything!

In Every Landscape, The Point Of Astonishment Is The Meeting Of The Sky And The Earth, And That Is Seen From The First Hillock Aswell As From The Top Of The Alleghanies. The Stars At Night Stoop Down Over The Brownest, Homeliest Common, With All The Spiritual Magnificence Which They Shed On The Campagna, Or On The Marble Deserts Of Egypt.

Nothing Great Ever Happened Without Enthusiasm.

Circumstance Does Not Make The Man. Circumstance Reveals Man To Himself.

The True Preacher Can Be Known By This, That He Deals Out To The People His Life,--life Passed Through The Fire Of Thought.

Let Us Take Our Bloated Nothingness Out Of The Path Of The Divine Circuits.

A Man's Action Is Only A Poicture Book Of His Creed.

Instead Of Feeling A Poverty When We Encounter A Great Man, Let Us Treat The New Comer Like A Travelling Geologist, Who Passes Through Our Estate, And Shows Us Good Slate, Or Limestone, Or Anthracite, In Our Brush Pasture.

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.

Throb Thine With Nature's Throbbing Breast.

The Great Poet Makes Us Feel Our Own Wealth, And Then We Think Less Of His Compositions. His Best Communication To Our Mind Is To Teach Us To Despise All He Has Done.

Men Cease To Interest Us When We Find Their Limitations

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

The House Praises The Carpenter.

Trending Author

Raymond Chandler

Genevieve Gorder

Category